Things to do in New York
The city famous for reinventing itself has evolved yet again with a string of designer hotels and attractions ready to welcome visitors back.
Hugh Jackman and his co-star Sutton Foster take their bows at the end of a performance of The Music Man on Broadway and the applause and cheers are thunderous. Let’s hope the walls of the 111-year-old Winter Garden Theatre are up for this, although in its day the grand place has been home to original productions of West Side Story, Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand, 42nd Street and Cats.
After the show, fans gather at the stage door for one last glimpse of the stars. Fifteen minutes ago, Jackman was in a marching band costume after 2½ half hours as the consummate triple threat (singer, dancer, actor) but now he emerges cucumber cool in all white and is gracious in the time spent with devotees as he edges toward his limo and exits into a hot New York night. Ah, if only a fellow Aussie could bask in reflected glory. Alas not.
The same scene is being played out at Broadway’s 41 theatres. Daniel Craig is leaving after a performance of Macbeth, Billy Crystal after Mr Saturday Night, a musical based on his film. That’s the magic of Broadway.
I am in New York for the first time since the pandemic. It’s unwise to make tall calls, but to the casual observer the Big Apple has emerged as large as ever and is well on its way to being as bold. But it has been an uncertain season with much relying on the return of visitors. I want to experience what’s new in Manhattan and to explore two of NYC’s other boroughs, Brooklyn and Queens.
For my Manhattan leg, I stay at Civilian Hotel on West 48th St, just over 8th Ave, which divides the Broadway district (I can see the Daniel Craig billboard from my window) from Hell’s Kitchen, where tenement grit has given way (but not entirely) to a melting pot of arts and entertainment, and fine dining. With 203 guestrooms and opened late last year, Civilian was created with theatrical flair by architect David Rockwell, responsible for Nobu restaurants worldwide, the Dolby Theatre (Oscar central) in LA and sets for shows including Hairspray, Rocky Horror and Kinky Boots. Decor in the public areas is dramatic, with stripped-back brick walls and red curtains. The lounge, where breakfast is served, has a floor-to-ceiling glass wall with doors opening to a balcony. Stage lighting establishes the mood as do historic photos and posters on the walls and, in a display case, set models for shows such as Moulin Rouge. My guestroom is compact but comfortable with a four-poster bed and blue-velvet bedhead that morphs into an adjacent settee. The bathroom is of good size and, when appearance is everything, there is a full-length mirror before the door.
New York is a city famous for reinventing itself so let’s start at the top. Never baulk at a skyscraper observation deck; it’s the best way to appreciate the skyline sweep, check out the architectural highlights (the Art Deco Chrysler Building is a universal favourite) and see what’s new and what has been lost. The “legacy” decks are atop the Empire State Building (think Sleepless in Seattle and King Kong upstaging all others by scaling the structure with Fay Wray held aloft) and the Rockefeller Center, known as Top of the Rock, where Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly danced their hearts out in On the Town.
I try two new ventures that take the skyline experience to new heights, so to speak. Summit One Vanderbilt is in the heart of midtown next to Grand Central Station. The Chrysler tip is within reach and of note is a clutch of new skyscrapers south of Central Park with mega-expensive apartments, some foreign-owned and rarely occupied. Up here there are several levels of ‘‘sensory immersive spaces” (dazzling mirrors help) and a separate Ascent experience in an all-glass elevator to a height of 370m. But for brave hearts, Edge at Hudson Yards, south of Hell’s Kitchen, offers to go one better than its viewing platform and outdoor terrace with an additional CityClimb, the highest open-air building ascent in the world.
Back on Earth, I continue south on 10th Ave. This used to be dicey territory, notoriously referenced in “doo-de-doo” detail in Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side. The neighbourhood has changed with Hudson Yards, the residential, retail and entertainment precinct built on a vast platform above a working train-marshalling area; the High Line gardens on a disused elevated railway track; and the Meatpacking District, where it is simpler to buy high fashion than a kilo of sausages. New kid on the block is Little Island on the Hudson River built with bold “tulip” pylons over the ruins of Piers 54-55, once home of Cunard White Star Line, but abandoned and then smashed by Hurricane Sandy. The pop-up island is a park with amphitheatre.
The warehouses in this area are gone or converted and now it’s all wall-to-wall apartments. The precinct is smarter and safer, but the demographic has altered as high rents have forced out the creative community in search of studios elsewhere. That’s why I’m on the 30-minute subway ride to Brooklyn (think disused shipyard buildings) although I can’t pretend to be slumming it in my digs in Boerum Hill, a neighbourhood of brownstones on tree-lined streets adjacent to elegant Brooklyn Heights. Ace Hotel Brooklyn, with 287 guestrooms, is hip from sneakers to baseball cap worn sideways, but its young staff are welcoming and helpful. The ground level is a work and performance space with lounge, bar and gallery. My Medium Skyline “home” has an industrial, retro feel with floor-to-ceiling windows and locally made and vintage furniture capturing the 1950s.
Some guestrooms have acoustic guitars, but mine sensibly matches my talents and comes with a turntable and thoughtful LP collection tending to Ringo Starr. It has a Smeg fridge and mini-bar stocked with district beers and treats. And there’s the view – a borough panorama. The hotel restaurant, As You Are, taps into the culinary traditions brought to Brooklyn from across the world.
A few blocks away on Atlantic Avenue, an eclectic stretch of shops and cafes, I settle in each morning at Absolute Coffee for an authentic taste of Brooklyn. Cue a lightly toasted bagel with smoked nova salmon, lemon cream cheese, tomato (with taste), onion and capers; and a perfect flat white from an extensive coffee menu.
I am off to Williamsburg, described as the birthplace of 21st-century cool, for a three-hour food, art and history walking tour offered by Like a Local Tours. My guide is Chris Goodrich, born in Nashville, educated in Miami and now seasoned resident of Brooklyn. He is a theatre director but loves this borough and spins yarns of its restaurants as the markers of a diverse immigrant heritage. The earliest European arrivals on First Nations land were Dutch farmers followed by English, Russian Jews, Italians, Poles, Germans, Irish, Swedes, Norwegians, Danes and Finns.
We’re sampling the fare of outlets such as Tacombi Taco, Joe’s Best Pizza, Northside (Polish) Bakery, Mable’s Smokehouse and Ebbs Brewery, where bar staff, when asked their favourite brew, respond, “The one in your hand”. There’s time to admire NYC’s liveliest graffiti, although it’s largely commercially commissioned.
We stop outside a bar with stained-glass windows and a sign for Peter Doelger’s Extra Beer. Brooklyn-born Mae West is said to have lived upstairs. Maybe. The ribald actress never could get her own story straight. Chris tells me if I want to see “cutting-edge” Brooklyn my best bet is the Bedford-Stuyvesant district, and he is right. This is the domain of a future Mark Rothko or Andy Warhol, beavering away on their Non-Fungible Tokens.
On my last day I venture to Jackson Heights in Queens, which excels in Indian, Tibetan, Nepalese and Mexican cuisine. My quest is a food truck, identified by a queue that snakes along Roosevelt Ave. Birria-Landia’s tacos, tostadas, quesadillas and soup are a sensation. In the evening I go to Astoria, which has a Little Egypt and long-standing Greek community. I’m here to view the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Not identical, but close. Hell Gate Bridge over the East River carries trains and opened in 1916, Sydney’s bridge 16 years later. It’s calling me home.
Graham Erbacher was a guest of United Airlines and NYC & Company.
It’s Gallipoli, but not as you know it
The Turkish peninsula is forever etched in the Australian psyche as a tragic and formative World War I battleground. This place, however, has an entirely different story.
The glacier at the end of the world
We are in the waters of Patagonia when suddenly this massive, majestic wall of blue ice shards reveals itself. This, I think to myself, is bucket list cruising.