New York by Mario Miranda

MAY 1986 RUPEES FO~R ".Y

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New York: vibrant, vertical, enormous, exciting and terribly human.

Walking is the only way to get to know New York. My daily routine was to take the ferry from Staten Island to South Manhattan. The half-hour trip is an experience in itself. The enormous boat is usually filled with a lively crowd of colorful peddlers, musicians, break dancers, shoe-shine boys and Japanese tourists, clicking' merrily away at the Statue of Liberty, which is temporarily enveloped in scaffolding.

The daylight approach to Manhattan is breathtaking, but at night the New York skyline is even more beautiful, something out of fairyland with thousands of lights shining below gray overcast skies.

The marathon walk across downtown Manhattan usually begins at Central Park after a hot dog and a Coke at the nearest stand; a bit of jazz from the roadside musicians and then I'm on my way to explore the Big Apple and get a taste of what it has to offer, worms and all.

The first stop is Broadway, the mecca of all that is great in showbusiness. I used to dream about it when I was a kid, and now that I am here, I am not disappointed. There's the sound of music in the air as the brilliant young black kids dance giddily to the vivacious music blaring from their powerful cassette players.

This in itself is real entertainment and I'm not too disappointed to miss getting in to see Cats or Death of a Salesman with Dustin Hoffman or even A Chorus Line (which has been running for years).

Mario Miranda's people, places and things have been brighteninfi up newspapfJrs. magazines (including SP AN) and books for 25 years.

The marathon continues, and I come to notorious 42nd Street and take a quick peep at all the porno and the peep-shows.

Little India, as they call it, is not far away-nothing like the London Southall really. A few stray restaurants with quaint names like "Curry in a Hurry"; and of course the occasional smell of spices, which announce that the Indians have arrivedto stay.

Little Italy though is really something. It is, above all, entirely Italian, not just the restaurants with names like "Caruso's" or "Antonelli's Spaghetti House," but the inhabitants are the ones who give the whole area a "godfather" look.

Slick gents in silk suits and straw hats, enormous sunglasses and beautifully greased, shiny sideburns (a la Valentino), lounging along the roadside cafes decorated with striped umbrellas advertising Campari and Cinzano-and every now and then the strains of a local tenor, a budding Mario Lanza maybe, belting out his rendition of "0 Sole Mio" or "Santa Lucia."

Greenwich Village is a place to be visited on a Saturday evening. Music, good food, people-an enormous, exotic variety of people: painters, terribly serious-looking psuedointellectuals (the type we see in the avant-garde Bombay cocktail party scene), poets-there is one young poetess who is selling her poems for a dollar each; she will write a special ode in your honor-and of course tourists, the Japanese in particular, moving around to the staccato rhythm of their clicking cameras.

Then Chinatown! Chinese are everywhere, cheerful, chattering and full of smiles, merrily shopping. The smell of fish and fried prawns and lobsters is everywhere. This is the right place for a good meal of fried rice or noodles, or to be photographed telephoning from one of the quaint pagoda-shaped telephone booths painted in garish red, yellow and vivid green. Then onward to the Jewish quarter near East Broadway and Canal Street where I am lucky enough to have as my guide my friend and local resident Israel "Izzy" Ginsberg. Over a fabulous Kosher meal, Izzy tells me sadly that the Jews are moving away from this area toward more prosperous localities, like Scarsdale.

I walk southeast, and come to the South Street Seaport experience, where the old warehouses have been renovated and turned into beautiful shops, restaurants and water-front walks.

It is a great tourist attraction.

A little farther and I come to Wall Street and a different world altogether, a very serious world of serious businessmen in dark suits and furrowed brows, carrying leather briefcases, walking briskly with no time to spare to contemplate the serene beauty of nearby Trinity Church.

Just a few blocks away are the requisite twin towers of the World Trade Center, looking like two sleek silver candles pointing to the sky. From the top, there is a magnificent view of the whole New York panorama.

And then I go back to South Manhattan and the ferry to Staten Island. As the lights of Manhattan fade away my attention turns once again to the music and laughter of the break dancers.

My New York experience has to come to an end. The next morning on the PanAm flight to London, as I make myself comfortable, my heart is full of pleasant memories and my sketchbook overflows.

Types on the Ferry to Staten Island SPAN MA Y 1986

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NEW YORK continued

"The first stop is Broadway, the mecca of all that is great in showbusiness.

I used to dream about it when I was a kid, and now I am here."

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SPAN MAY 1986

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D'NE IL.L

DEATH

Or=-

A SALESMA~

DUSTIN HQEfl1AN

1. Basketball Practice in a Derelict Tenement (36 em x 60 em).

2. TypesatJFK Airport (30 em x 43 em).

3. Portuguese Fado Singer in Newark (36 em x 50 em).

4. Down Broadway After the Late Show (41 em x 64 em).

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