I wrote this in the 1980s. I know the city has improved since then. I hope you find my observations amusing, or maybe you were there then and agree with them.
IMPRESSIONS OF NEW YORK
‘New York, New York, it’s a cow of a town.’
That’s not how the song goes, but it’s how I hear it. Some call it the ‘Big Apple’ but I find it more like a smelly cabbage—those fumes seeping up from the underground railway system, like an evil mist rising from Hades. Three or four times I’ve flown to the city. With each touch-down I hope that this time I’ll experience the excitement—the magic—that others rave about.
My impressions of New York are dominated by yellow taxis – dirty, rusty, yellow cabs with horns blaring non-stop, day and night—and their angry drivers, who look and sound as though they’ve just arrived from Ethiopia, or somewhere equally unlikely to have provided any training for this occupation. At every traffic light they scream to a halt, then roar away on burning rubber as if their tails are on fire, to stop again at the next red-lit corner, fifty yards away.
purples, lemons and whites burst forth outside my windows. I have to grab the camera and snap away, almost as if I fear that they will disappear if I don’t capture their beauty immediately.
display comes from the bulbs that I almost tossed in the bin. Last year they produced so few flowers that I thought they were past their use by date and I did discard most of them. Then I found these, in a cardboard box in the garage – stored through the heat of summer, with no protection, surely useless, I thought. This bed, in front of my lounge room, needed something to fill the space where I removed a few straggly shrubs, so, rather than toss them in the bin, I tossed them in the ground.
From Fra Angelico we walked to the Museo del Opera del Duomo. According to my calculations we still had at least three hours to closing time for the museum which houses the most valuable works of art from the Duomo. But, again we were faced with ‘Florentine time.’ That museum was closed for maintenance. We couldn’t find anyone official to ask, but a wandering priest assured us that it would be open again tomorrow. There was no point in dallying, so we headed for the Duomo.
The convent of San Marco was founded in the 13th century, and thanks to Cosimo il Vecchio was enlarged and rebuilt in 1437. He reserved two of the cells for his own peace and spiritual sustenance.