Arrival in New York

This is a diary I kept during a working holiday to the United States Backstory >

New York, 8:30am local time. What an experience the last n hours have been! Train to connect Victoria to Gatwick cancelled. Caught the next to arrive in time. Our coach full of BUNACers. Most have no jobs lined up. Lots of queuing and messing about at airport. Oppressive heat.

Eventually boarded the TIA plane, a huge 276 seat DC-8. The first thing that struck us was the American accents from the stewardesses. Phil and I had been put at the very back where the seats do not recline. Took off – deafening rumbling and roaring compared to BAC 1-11. Phil and I moved to seats further up the plane. Stewardesses have permanent stick-on smiles and pretend to giggle at every opportunity. Gave us snacks and free soft drinks. Got a few hours’ sleep and then it was breakfast time. Sausage, yellow plastic foam, tea-ette and crescent roll. Flew over NY at about 4am. God knows what time body wise. Anyway the twinkling amber lights had that familiar toytown look.

More queuing as the immigration dealt with passports. Then we stepped out into the USA. Neither of us could comprehend it. Very warm and sticky. First impression – all the big cars. Climbed into a tatty coach and then this phoney courier from CIEE told us in a roundabout way that they had no rooms for us. Great. We were to sleep on the floor of the ballroom.

I bedded down on a row of chairs. Continual stream of people filing in. About one and a half hours’ sleep. 7.30 was woken by the siren of a police car outside like in Kojak. Decided we would wander round in New York. A lone girl called Nicky joined us. No wonder. Bravest girl I have ever met. She hasn’t even got a job here.

Things were brisk but not crowded outside and very warm even at such an early hour. Lots of people sleeping on park benches. One asked us for a cigarette. Sat in a cafe-bar. Had coffee and I had a stale doughnut. Bloke opposite had ‘eggs over white’. Wandered back through the wide steamy streets unaware of the monsters flanking them. Had a wash in the hotel – very refreshing. Read the New York Times I had bought from a stand. Watched a very good four screen orientation film and got briefed about all the paperwork involved. Phil met some blokes going to Chicago but I met none heading to Euclid. Got moved to a new hotel for some reason. The Mc Alpen or something. My room had TV and AC and bathroom. Smelt of sort of sweet burning rubber. TV had a typical US win a prize show on.

Eventually Phil and acquaintances decided to catch a train to Chicago. I decided to get 10.30 Greyhound. We then wandered around town in the oppressive heat. Got moved off the steps of the PO by a copper. Went to the Underground station and checked in our bags at the left luggage. They had to be X-rayed before they would accept them. With a lighter load walking round was easier.

Eventually we returned to the station and waited for Phil’s train. For the first time the magnitude of my commitment hit me. In a few minutes I would be alone in the largest city in the world. There was no place to turn to no way of getting home. The feeling reminded me of the time in Oxford when I waved goodbye to dad. The memory only reinforced my present situation. This was much more serious. Phil left as his train arrived, announced by a WC Fields impersonator. The station itself was very unlike a station. No trains were visible, it was underground and quite clean. Shops and restaurants all round. The people walking through seemed unmistakably US but I can’t say why.

Picked up my bag (the guy behind the counter offered to buy my leather pouch) and decided to go to hotel and find Nicky. But I didn’t know her second name so that proved fruitless. I wandered around a bit more and found the Empire State Building. Even the lobby was an impressive sight – sort of 20′s style marble only restrained. I bought a $1.70 observatory ticket and zoomed up in the lift to the 84th floor. The lift was so fast that the indicator was marked:

1 2 – 22 23 24 etc

The view from the top was breathtaking. I stood at each side (N, S, E, W) for about 15 minutes just looking at those monster buildings. The warm breeze was refreshing and it was kind of peaceful up there. Down below I could hear the wail of a siren echoing through the streets. A lift operator on his break started chatting about Roxy Music and other English groups. He said he was earning $200 a week just for saying “this way” to all the tourists. I looked around a bit more – killing time – and then went down again. The lift took one minute to plummet 80-odd floors. Started trudging towards the bus station.

By this time it was getting dark I was stopped several times by Jesus freaks trying to convert me. Walking towards the bus depot I started to feel uneasy. Strip clubs and porno movie theatres began to appear. Bright lights like Soho. “Hey man you wanna smoke?” I was asked. I kept on walking. Two guys stood by a policeman and talked about him loudly. He got his truncheon out but didn’t use it. He ignored them. Further down a whore offered me “a good time, smoochy baby”. I came to the Grand Central Terminus and just as I was about enter, a guy stuck his head out of a car window which was crawling past me “You wanna buy some watches? Nice price.” I said no but they continued to follow me.

Finally got inside the terminal. But it was the Amtrak building! (Interesting advertisement: a cigarette carton about 3 ft high a next to a real-life fountain and floodlit foliage and a plastic flower showing alternately the time and the temperature.) Eventually I staggered into the bus terminal and headed straight for the drugstore for a large Coke.

Bought a Greyhound a ticket to Cleveland (cost $36.30) and went to the exit gate to wait for a bus which left at 10:30pm. Was approached by another pusher at the iced water fountain. He tapped me and said “Hey man, what time you got?” without looking at me. Sitting on my sausage bag I met an Indian bloke from BUNAC who was also heading for Euclid to work for Penguin. He was known as DB and had an Irish friend John.

The bus ride went quickly. I slept most of the time, waking occasionally to look around at the misty countryside.