View from our hotel room |
Upon waking up, we had a quick, standard American breakfast
of Egg McMuffins from the corner McDonald’s. I used to have a measure to tell
how expensive a city was, which I called the Big Mac Economic Indicator (BMEI).
In Tbilisi, the local economic school ISET uses a similar measure which they call the
Khachapuri Index, to judge the relative economic changes in the various regions
of Georgia. The cost of basic, cheap foodstuffs are usually fairly good ways to
measure what you’re going to spend. By my international BMEI system, you can see about how much of your wallet
will go missing by the end of your trip by the price of a Big Mac meal deal.
This proved accurate in New York, given that the Big Mac meal deal came in
above 10 dollars - en par with a city like Copenhagen.
While we were stuffing down our McDonald’s Egg McMuffin’s,
which indeed are the only things of value to eat at McDonald’s and are now
available 24 hours a day in the US – and in Georgia they don’t even have McDonald’s
breakfast! – my wife noticed something profound:
“Why are there only black people working at McDonald’s? And,
everywhere we look in service, it’s always black people.”
“Because there is a fairly large, entrenched racial divide
here,” I said. “It’s funny that a lot of people from the US don’t even notice
it, and you pick it up immediately. But the reasons are longer and more complex
than I can mention over a meal in a fast food restaurant.” We always keep are
conversations light over meals.
The Statue of Liberty and the Jersey skyline |
After our nourishing grease soaked breakfast, we were off to
see the Statue of Liberty. There are roughly two ways to see our vigilant
maiden, and that’s from a crazy expensive tour agency which will take you
straight to the island and let you see up her skirt – there’s no entry into the
Statue herself, she is a maiden after all – or via the free Staten Island
Ferry, which takes you on a path right alongside the Statue and then on to
Staten Island.
When we emerged from the metro station, we were immediately
accosted by touts. “Did you reserve your place?”
“Do you need a place to sit?”
The flow of people suddenly ebbed to a stop, being blockaded by all the rip-off
“information helpers” that abounded along the port, skimming up lost tourists
as the pool man skims up lost frogs and spiders. “No man, thanks.”
“Don’t worry, I’m an official guide,” the man said, showing
his “official” badge. Of course, all scamming tourist touts are “official
guides”.
“So you have reservations already?” the man blocking us
asked.
“No, we don’t. Reservations?” I asked.
“You need reservations to ride. They’re 60 dollars, straight
to the island and you can walk around.”
“I can do that for free.”
“No you can’t,” he said.
“Yes, I can, it’s always been free. Last time I was here it
was free.”
“Oh, wait, where are you going?”
“Staten Island,” I said.
“Oh, that’s that way.”
View from the State Island ferry |
From the metro, you take an immediate right and avoid the
hustlers. Then through the big doors labeled Staten Island and wait a few
minutes for the next ferry (generally every 30 minutes and 24 hours a day). We
got on, immediately got to the starboard deck to get a good and long view of
the Statue. Then for inexplicable reasons, we had to get off the boat. I
figured that that was because otherwise you could find a place to sleep there
and use the place as a hotel, which many members of the homeless community
seemed to be doing – though interrupted every thirty minutes to get off and
back on. Life on a yacht, not bad.
Landing back on Manhattan, we immediately headed to the Bull
statue, which was decked out in Christmas wreaths and lights. Who says
stockbrokers can’t have a bit of Christmas spirit while they’re busy embezzling
your money in offshore accounts? There’s a similar and smaller statue in
Frankfurt, which is partly why Frankfurt is called the “New York of Europe”.
Everywhere must have its somewhere of anywhere else.
From the Bull statue, it’s only two blocks to Wall Street,
which is an incredibly short street and ends, with no irony, in a graveyard.
Also on Wall Street is the site of the second City Hall of New York and first Capitol building of the United States, built in the 1700s, where Jefferson himself
once helped pen the Constitution. It's now called the Federal Hall Memorial Museum, and is unfortunately not the original building, the latest building having been built in 1842. The interior is modeled after the Pantheon and serves as a memorial to the democracy of the Greeks - think, a vote for ever single white male!
Inside St. Paul's Chapel |
There is also the infamous New York Stock
Exchange, which dictates the waning and waxing of economic power across the
globe. If money is the root of all evil, then that building must be where the 7th seal is located, and when it cracks, there cometh the great beast, rearing its seven heads. From Wall Street, we made our way up to St. Paul’s Chapel, where George
Washington regularly attended mass. It’s more recent claim to fame was as a
headquarters for humanitarian workers helping the injured and maimed from the
terrorist attack of 9/11. From there, it’s only a spit to Freedom Tower, which
even after 14 years, it’s still impressively under construction, as if we’re
telling the terrorists, “We will build freedom forever!”
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