My friend Geoffrey moved to New York in December 2006, so I visited in early March to see how he was settling in. I also coincided the trip with a Scissor Sisters concert at Madison Square Garden. They were fabulous, but sadly I can't say much for the rest of New York's nightlife. With The Roxy now closed, I just didn't get the venues I visited, including Mr Black's, The Cock, and Element at Bank. I did, however, get to snap a photograph of
Katz's Diner, on East Houston Street just near Element, where Meg Ryan simulated an orgasm in When Harry Met Sally!
Having visited New York before, there wasn't much that I wished to see, but I did manage to secure tickets to the tour of the gold depository at the Federal Resreve Bank building in Lower Manhattan. Reputedly the largest depository in the world, more than 5 tonnes of bullion, valued at $90 billion in 2007 prices, is stored here, most of that belonging to foreign countries. The depository itself is 26 metres below street level, in a vault that rests on bedrock. This is the gold depository that is raided by Jeremy Irons in Die Hard 3. For many years Kevin McClory threatened to make a non-official Bond film called Warhead 2000 (a remake of Thunderball, which McClory owned the rights to). The plot of that film also involved the theft of the gold reserves; in that film Blofeld's men were to have tunnelled to the Federal Gold Depository using elaborate drilling machines.
I realised on this trip to New York that I would find it very hard to live there. Mostly it's the fact that in New Yorkers seem so obsessed with status and money. Harkening back to an early comment, I found it so odd to be listening to Junior Vasquez play live at the
gay Element event at Bank, where most of the patrons were wearing blazer jackets. It's really at odds with every other city I've visited, and basically I found it pretentious. Another thing, the winter weather in New York is depressingly bitterly cold. Of course, I also feel that if I were wealthy there's probably no other place I'd rather live... which might account for that New York obsession.
Geoffrey hadn't done a great deal of sightseeing things in New York, so we saw a show (Avenue Q, which was hilarious), rode the Staten Island Ferry (partly because Working Girl is on both our favourite film lists), and visited the recently reopened Top of the Rock observatory, at the Rockefeller Center's GE Building. The view from here is somewhat better than that from the Empire State Building. Top of the Rock is closer to Central Park, and it also allows you to view the Empire State Building itself. If the view looks familiar, it was used for the cover art photograph of the Blur album
Standing on the Shoulder of Giants.
The last thing I did in New York was to catch up with my friend Dan, a fellow film student from my days at Bond. At the time, Dan was working for a Midtown law firm and he shouted me lunch at a French restaurant (where, unusually, we ate hamburgers). Alas Dan has since joined the dark side, and is now studying to be a lawyer. Anyhow a big shout out to Dan, who I know is an occasional read of this blog.
All of my 2007 New York photographs are on Flickr, and can be viewed in a slideshow.
