I Heart NYC

NY was outstanding! I travelled a lot, saw many things, and met up with a couple of friends from Yale. I was in fact living on the

Yale campus

and travelled to NYC by Metro-North 3 hours a day to and fro. I don't want to just list what I did, even though I think that'd be a good idea considering my forgetfulness, but I'd just like to say that I visited a couple of museums -

the Met,

MoMA

and the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, visited a couple of buildings -

Chrysler (my favourite),

the Empire State Building,

the Flatiron (my other favourite),

Grand Central Terminal,

Rockefeller Centre,


St. Patrick's Church,

the Public Library of New York

and went to Central Park, WTC site, Wall Street and saw

the Statue of Liberty and


Ellis Island.

Too bad I didn't see John Lennon's grave because I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT IT!!!!!! Balls! What sort of Beatles fan am I?

I think my stay in New Haven complemented my New York experience. While New York has buildings packed close to each other, and these buildings are built up,
and up and UP and UP,

New Haven is built s p r a w l e d across the land, so you can really see the noticeable landmarks like Harkness Tower. And while the buildings in NYC are of all sorts conceivable, Yale in New Haven achieves architectural unity with its Gothic and Georgian buildings so you know where Yale ends, and where the rest of New Haven begins.

Also, New York has this toughness and grittiness which has acquired mythic proportions. I thought that was all bullshit, but when I was walking in NYC, I felt it. It exudes out of the New Yorkers, exudes out of the city and the buildings. It feels a little Singaporean, actually. We're different from New Yorkers, but we're the same (even though I have to say something about my generation of Singaporeans, myself not excluded of course); I suppose that's what happens when you have immigrant workers who need to protect their interests.

But lest you think New York is all about killing a rat by looking at it, you have got to go and see the Statue of Liberty. I was a cheap tourist so I didn't take the ferry across to Liberty Island; I just saw the statue from the opposite bank, and on that bank, there was a copy of the famous poem which has "Give me your huddled masses" carved in stone, and I felt that that was what NYC was about. The legendary New York toughness is what most people see, but they fail to see what New York really stands for, or what the Statue of Liberty symbolises. I think the way people look at the Statue of Liberty is that it's an icon which represents New York City and America to the world, but it doesn't represent what New York means.

I love NYC. I love NYC because of its buildings. I love NYC because of its museums and sites. I love NYC because of the sense of history its buildings convey. I love NYC because it reminds me of my friends in New Haven who helped make my trip there hassle-free. I love NYC because of its legendary toughness. I love NYC because it is the capital of the world. I love NYC for what it is supposed to represent. I love NYC because I learnt about myself.