Big Apple Crunch
After breakfast we returned to the hotel and packed up our things. We asked the woman working the front desk if there was a cheaper option than a $45 Uber ride into New York City. She said that there was a bus stop a five-minute walk away that would take us to the Port Authority in Midtown Manhattan. Soon enough, we were on a NJ Transit bus whizzing through the Linconln Tunnel, going up and down ramps and into the bowels of some huge building. The sign showing which stop the bus was approaching appeared to be broken, since it read “Pleasant” when everyone on the bus suddenly got up and headed for the exit. I asked a young woman who was the last to disembark if we were at Port Authority. She said yes, so we grabbed our bags and hurried out the door behind her.
Before leaving the station, we did some research on what our options were for getting back to the Newark Airport and ended up buying tickets for the NJ Transit 107 line. Then we oriented ourselves and found the station exit onto 8th Ave, where we were immediately subsumed in a swirling crush of humanity. There is no other U.S. city that has so many people out on the street at once, almost all of them hustling after their own ends. Natives are no doubt inured to it, but to an out-of-towner – even one from another city – the surge of energy is quite a rush.
The weather was gray and misty, perfect for walking 20+ blocks with bags on our backs to make our way to Chelsea and the High Line elevated railway. It had been renovated and turned into a garden snaking its way through Manhattan’s lower west side several years after the last time either of us had been in the city. We strolled amongst the throngs of tourists, taking pictures and admiring the plants. We worked our way south and got back to street level near Pier 57, where we ate lunch, then walked to the architecturally innovative Little Island Park.
The clock runs faster when you’re enjoying yourself, and we soon had to be headed north back to Port Authority, so we walked along the green strip running along the Hudson River until we got to 34th street, then hung a right back into the bustle. I needed a memory card reader and recalled that B&H Photo was somewhere in Midtown and would have something like that. Colleen had bought a movie camera from the place two decades prior and was curious to see what all the fuss was about. Not only did it live up to the hype of being the best photography store on the planet, the prices were shockingly reasonable, at least for items that I was in need of.
With our gear and baggage in tow, we plunged back into the Port Authority amongst the 5 o’clock rush of people exiting the city. We found a long line of people waiting to get on the 107, but it was only 10 minutes or so before we boarded the bus and careened back though the Lincoln Tunnel and onto the New Jersey Turnpike. We were the only fair-skinned people aboard, but no one really seemed to notice. When we got to the stop where we had to make a connection to an airport shuttle, the driver made eye contact with me in his rearview mirror and gave me the thumbs up. We found ourselves waiting with one other person at a forlorn little bus shelter that seemed like it five miles from anywhere. We’d just sat down wondering how long we’d have to wait when the 37 shuttle squeaked to a halt and threw open its doors. The driver said he stopped at all terminals. Fare was $1.80 per person, and when I tried to put a $5 bill in the machine, the driver waved me off saying I shouldn’t be overpaying. We got off at Terminal C, thanked the driver for his generosity, figured out the status of Colleen’s checked bag, then plunked down in a seat near gate C98 to await boarding our plane to Dubai.
Empire State Building in the fog.
Photobombed. Who says New Yorkers don’t have a sense of humor?
View from the High Line Garden.
Foodtruck on cobblestones, with pigeon.
B&H Photo, literally the Holy Land of the photography world. You’d think I’d look happier to be there.
