I visited Ground Zero, the former site of the World Trade Center, during my trip to New York this past weekend. Had I gone there more recently after the 9/11 terrorist attacks had happened, I’m sure my experience would have been entirely different. The experience I did have, however, mostly lacked emotional impact. There was a small memorial near the site, but mainly what I saw was a construction site. I don’t really think this is a bad thing since it shows that progress is being made in moving forward. Still, I feel like I was supposed to feel more than what I actually felt. I almost feel as if I should feel guilty about that, but I don’t really.

At the time when the terrorist attack occurred, I was woefully ignorant of anything having to do with New York. I had heard of the World Trade Center, but I had no idea what it was. I didn’t know that it consisted of a pair of the tallest buildings in New York City. I was even unfamiliar with the New York skyline so that when I saw pictures of what the buildings had looked like and of the destruction inflicted upon them I didn’t recognize them. When I heard of the attacks, I had no TV so I saw no pictures (at least in the immediate few days after the event), and after a few hours of listening to the radio I got tired of hearing about it so much that I just turned it off. I had a vague sense that something had changed in the mood of the nation and I felt moved by the stories of the victims, but I didn’t really get it; I was too caught up in drama going on in my personal life at the time. Also, New York was all the way on the east coast so I felt disconnected from what happened there like what went on there may as well have been going on in London. I better understood the significance of the event as more time passed (as well as feeling more connected to what happens elsewhere in the world), but I think I lack the depth of appreciation for the event that many others have.

Anyway, it was interesting to see where the most important event (in terms of political ramifications) in recent times had occurred, and being at the site and walking in the city around it I really did get a better sense of the magnitude of an attack that could take down buildings of such size.

I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge last Saturday when I was in New York starting from the Manhattan side and ending up (but not staying) in Brooklyn. It took about half an hour (if that) each way. It was sunny, hot and crowded as this is apparently a very popular thing to do among tourists. The walkway over the bridge is segmented in sections for pedestrians and bicyclists. Most of the pedestrians seemed to be tourists while most of the bicyclers seemed to be locals who got annoyed with all the tourists stepping into their lane to get good pictures. The view of the Manhattan skyline is quite impressive. Interestingly, the first thing you see on the Brooklyn side are some buildings belonging to the Jehovah’s Witnesses conspicuously advertising a religious message.

Like most everybody else, when I got to the Brooklyn side I just turned around and walked back. I don’t know; maybe I should have stayed and explored Brooklyn some… After all, I understand (I could be wrong) that it is the most populous of the five boroughs of New York City… Well, maybe next time…

I took my brother to New York over the weekend, and since he is studying theater we obviously had to go see some Broadway plays during our trip. I know there are some places near Time Square where you could buy theater tickets at a discount, and in fact the hotel we stayed at was next to one of those places. When we saw how long the lines were, however, even hours and hours in advance of any show time, we decided getting discount tickets was not for us. So, we just browsed through one of the Time Out guides to see what was playing and walked around to the theater box offices to see what was available at the cheapest prices. We got tickets to “Young Frankenstein”, the Mel Brooks play for Saturday night for $47 a piece and tickets to “Rent” for Sunday night at $55 a piece. Although our seats were way, way at back of the theater since we got the cheapest, our view and ability to enjoy the performances was actually quite excellent.

We were a little wary about “Young Frankenstein” since although it had won some awards the review we read called it “bloated” and “unfunny” and the word of mouth was also rather mixed. I thoroughly enjoyed it, however, as did my brother, and I thought it was quite funny. I will admit that the ending seemed contrived. My brother told me that this is a weakness of many of Mel Brooks’ works because he focused so intricately on the buildup of the plot that the endings are often rushed. I don’t know any better myself so I’ll reserve judgment until I become better acquainted with more Mel Brooks plays.

I had already seen a small, local production of “Rent” a few years ago, but my brother hadn’t seen it yet, and this was the play he was most dying to see since it was going to be ending its run in New York this September 7th after 12 years. So, we had to go. Compared to my first experience seeing “Rent”, the Broadway production had better acting and a more impressive set. It was definitely worth seeing again. My only real complaint about “Rent” is that sometimes the message gets lost because everything is being sung and the music is so loud it’s hard to discern what’s being said.

Monday, August 18

1) The view from the observation deck on the 86th floor of the Empire State Building…

2) Introducing my brother to Turkish food…

3) Hours of direct TV on my JetBlue flight back to LA from New York… I saw all or fragments of episodes of “Seinfeld”, “Friends”, “The Hebrew Hammer”, “Law and Order”, “Futurama”, “South Park” and some cable political shows… I don’t ordinarily watch so much TV at home…

Sunday, August 17

1) Going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Central Park…

2) Seeing “Rent” on Broadway during its last few weeks in New York….

3) Discussing the politics and the Olympics with my brother…

Saturday, August 16

1) Standing at the base of the Statue of Liberty…

2) Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge…

3) Seeing “Young Frankenstein” on Broadway…

Friday, August 15

1) Standing at the entrance of the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations (as part of a tour though it was kind of fun to daydream about being there on official business)...

2) My brother and I came out of a subway stop confused looking at our map not quite sure if we were going the right direction to Central Park, when a guy (an older guy wearing beads and a tie-dyed t-shirt who had this sort of zen, hippy-like attitude) kindly offered us help with directions without us having to ask and told us where to find Strawberry Fields (the Central Park memorial to John Lennon)... Who said New Yorkers aren’t nice?!

3) Being part of the massive crowd wandering around Time Square at night in the intermittent rain…