Day 6: Walking and Williamsburg

I'm having a day of resting in my apartment today. I have a blister the size of a marble on one foot, and a smaller one on the other foot. I'll get to the cause of these in a moment. Today is spent watching as much Parks and Recreation as possible. I'm a relative newcomer to the series, and I have access to American Netflix here, so the moons have aligned.

Yesterday was a day of exploring, mostly on foot, a small portion of the city. I left my apartment at 11am and took a slightly elongated route through the neighbourhood that I'm living in towards the subway station to catch the J train towards Manhattan.

The J train runs on an elevated train track from Jamaica Centre to Manhattan, taking around 35 minutes from my stop (Crescent St) to my work stop (Fulton St). From my bedroom window, I can see the silver, usually graffiti'd, trains making their way above the roof tops of the neighbourhood. The tracks run along, and 40foot above, the main road roads of their routes, on rusty iron supports. When you are sitting next to a window as the train takes a sharp turn, it is very much like being on a Wild Mouse roller coaster ride.

Trains are usually busy, due to the route being one of the main ways to get from JFK Airport to Manhattan. The areas that I see as I travel to work, excluding Manhattan, range from beatdown to, well, not-so beat down. The fun fact regarding the J train (and the express Z) is that the rapper JayZ took his name from them because he grew up near Marcy Avenue. This is the second last stop before crossing the Williamsburg bridge in to Manhattan.

My original plan was to get off at Marcy and walk up to the Williamsburg bridge then over in to Manhattan, get food and then the train back to Williamsburg for a drink in the evening. I must have been travelling on auto-pilot because I, as I do when going to work, switched from the J train to the A train at Broadway Junction. This is a time saver I use when commuting because the A train is, mostly, an express service. I left the subway at the Hoyt station, checked a map and found that I was miles south of where I wanted to be, so, I started walking north.

I passed through Livingston Street, filled with shoppers and many recognisable shops (Gap, Starbucks, Macys) and several cheaper shops selling hats, shoes and toys. It could really have been any metropolitan street in any city around the world, such is globalisation. As I kept walking, I passed the NYC College of Technology and found myself at a small park at the entrance to the Manhattan Bridge. Checking my map, I gave up any hope of being able to walk to Williamsburg, and decided to change my plans for the day.

Manhattan bridge is a very long bridge, perhaps equalling that of the Erskine Bridge back in Scotland. There are all modes of transport using the bridge. There is a foot andcycle path either side of the central section which has sections for cars and other motor vehicles, and the J/Z subway line. It's a very noisy walk, filled with car horns, engines, police sirens, and subway trains clacketing away slowly.  When I was half way across the bridge, paramedics were dealing with a motorcyclist who had been hit by a taxi. It didn't look good for the guy, and the taxi driver had an ashen face as he stood by his vehicle alone.

It took me around 20 minutes to walk the length of the bridge, arriving in the China Town area of Manhattan on the east side. By this time it was getting to 1pm and the temperatures were reaching their peaks. My choice of flatcap and checked shirt over a t-shirt was starting to be a bit silly, but truth be told, I thought I was going to Williamsburg and wanted to fit in. Nonetheless, I decided to walk north along Bowery with a view to getting to the Willamsburg Bridge to cross back in to Brooklyn.

I was distracted by the sheer crazyness of the city on a Saturday and missed Delaney St, which passes over the bridge. I ended up in the Lower East Side, in parkland next to the East river. The bridge towered above me, kids were playing softball and the pathway was filled with joggers and cyclists. I sat on a bench for a moment, sweat pouring out of me and hunger starting to call for lunch. I had walked past a few Diners on my route, including the world famous Katz's Deli from When Harry Met Sally, and so, I decided to walk back over that area to get something to eat.

East Houston St has a large number of diners and deli's on offer. Katz deli is a run down, sixties building, crowded by 40 year old Nora Ephron fans and tourists. Knowing that this wouldn't be my scene,  I wandered to the next block and found a classical looking American diner. I was eating on my own, so the waitress gave me a seat at the counter and poured me a glass of water. After checking the large options on offer in the menu, I ordered a coke, and a burger with blue cheese and mushrooms.

I had two american men sitting either side of me, one chatting away loudly on his mobile phone, then other chatting up the waitress. The general noise and decor of the diner added to the all American experience. I don't think I've heard the phrase "Thank You VERY Much" as often as I did in the hour I spent in this diner. After leaving the diner, with a very full stomach due to huge portion sizes, I decided to wander around the Lower East Side for a while.

The Lower east side is quite similar to the West Village, but with a lower class, more friendly feel to it. There are many more dive bars and ale houses (including one called McSorely's), gig venues and food places here. It's definitely an area that I'll start to return to after work for a beer and something to eat.  I guess it has very strong parallels with Camden in London, but also reminded me quite a bit of Byres Road and Partick in Glasgow.

My feet were starting to really hurt by this time, and with it approaching four o'clock, I decided to get the Subway back to the apartment to rest for a few hours. My evening plans was to go to a bar on Lorimer St in Williamsburg to see an old friend, Robert Sarazin Blake, play a gig in Pete's Candy Store. This turns out to be a bar, and not a candy store venue hybrid.

There's a Lorimer St station on the J line, which made me think that this would be an easy enough trip to the bar and back. Arriving at Lorimer St, the first thing I notice is that it is set amongst some New York City housing association high rises, and that it's getting dark. Pete's is at 709 Lorimer St, so I start walking. And walking. The subway that I got off at is roughly 200 Lorimer St. As I walk up the street, I pass a few 7Elevens and a couple of bars. All in all it is a very quite and run down street with few people hanging around. Until I see, down one of the side streets, a proper NYC block party in full swing.

There was a proper stage, lighting rig, loud PA rig and perhaps 500 people enjoying themselves to a backdrop of heavy rap music. Rather than impressing them with my dancing, I continued up Lorimer St and found another Lorimer St Subway station, for the L line. It's starting to make sense now, and I find the bar on the next block.

On arriving at the bar, there is an acoustic gig going on in the back room with a small audience of around 30 people. I pull up a seat at the bar, order a Brooklyn Lager (very nice) and chat with the barman. It turns out Blake is playing on Monday rather than Saturday, I'll return for that. I got chatting with a guy at the bar who was from Philadelphia but staying in Brooklyn for work, and who was a fan of Franz Nicolay and sure that he'd encountered Mischief Brew.

This was most definitely a hipster bar in Williamsburg. The guy's all wore thick rimmed glasses, checked shirts, cut-off jeans, sensible shoes and discussed the merits of Weezers early albums compared with the careers of various members of the Smiths. On my other side at the bar, there was a girl trying to write into a leather note book. She was a writer (although she works in an office during the day) for various blogs and also freelances for a few reputable newspapers. I think I had found the Brooklyn equivalent of one of my close friends back home, and that helped.

Once I had finished my daily budget, I walked out in to the night and caught the L train to the J train back to my apartment and collapsed, with sore feet and blisters, in to my bed.

Right, back to Parks and Recreation.