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New York City 
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| Notebook
By Nathan Bierma • Back
To Notebook Front
06.10.01
Spent the morning – no less than two and half hours – at Broadway Presbyterian Church for a long service and a short lunch. The inside of the church – occupied sparsely by mostly isolated congregants – reflected its cramped city surroundings, with the woodwork and organ pipes closing in from the sides on the benches below. Took the subway down to Greenwich Village to begin my trek to the World Trade Center. I was surprised by how much the area showed its age – it was more run-down and Detroit-ish than Midtown was. But then as I got closer to the World Trade towers themselves, downtown gradually became neater and cleaner – more Chicago-esque. Indeed, downtown is the shiniest part of New York City – newer architecture and prettier parks. It even has a classic colonial center at City Hall and City Hall Park, complete with a statue to Ben Franklin, which made me feel for a second that I was back in Colonial Williamsburg. That’s one of the few things I like about New York over my favorite city, Chicago – the Revolutionary War-era history. As for the World Trade Center, its stunning altitude did little good for my sore neck – I couldn’t keep my eyes off it. The two silver boxes rise like refrigerators over the harbor – certainly plainer than the masterful Sears Tower in Chicago, but with their own simple elegance. Then I hiked down to Battery Park and got my first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty – inspiring, even for a cynic like me. After a long subway ride the length of Manhattan
to Columbia, a meal of Hamburger Helper that seemed like a delicacy after
a week of sandwiches, and I watched the Sixers fall apart in Game 3.
06.08.01
I woke up early and tried to find my way to the New York Observer offices on the East Side on 64th, which proved more difficult than I had hoped thanks to a maze of subway tracks at 59th Street. After a couple of disorienting transfers I came to the Observer’s townhouse on East 64th and tried to see an editor. No luck, but I did get an e-mail later saying they don’t except op-ed submissions (mine was on the Jenna Bush coverage). Work was slow, save for a voice recording I did for a new basketball game on the SIKids website. I had to brainstorm and record some insults to play when a player misses a shot – this, clearly, is the big time in journalism. At night we watched Game 2 of the Finals back in the 2nd floor lounge – there seemed to be more Lakers fans in the room there this time, and, as if responding accordingly, the Lakers did much better. It’s funny, I learned in my classes at Calvin to
bemoan the homogeneity and superficiality of television, but in this place,
where everything is strange and much is drab and old, I felt a sick sense
of comfort by the gleaming brightness of the world as seen through television
commercials – the spotless kitchens and forest roadways new cars enjoy.
I’d forgotten how striking it was, having been away from television for
almost a week now – except for the big screens in Times Square – just how
much the TV does exist to soothe us and show us the world we wished we
lived in. I’ll still bemoan that, but like I said, there was a part of
it that made me feel at home tonight. Only in America, I guess.
06.06.01
Peeked in the Today Show studio this morning
on my way to work. Matt was
After work, where a series of crashes led
me to rethink my assumption that Macs are more stable than PCS, I walked
down Times Square. Ate at the Sbarro’s – 10 bucks flat for a slice of pizza,
fruit cup, and bottle of juice (I’m still not used to these prices) – and
delayed my getting up, I was so weary from the noise, smells, and pace
of the city. Finally got to my feet and took a loop around the essential
Times Square – where the ball drops New Year’s Eve on 42nd street – stopping
at the ESPN Zone, Warner Brothers store, and MTV store. The past few weeks
I made a point to watch Tom Brokaw’s signoff on the NBC Nightly News; as
he says goodnight they briefly cut to a shot of the giant NBC screen on
42nd . For the sake of going full circle I sat down and watched the signoff
on the big screen. Then took another crowded, smelly rush hour subway ride
home, still bent over from weariness and weakness from eating less. Crashed
in the lounge watching the opening game of the NBA Finals, which turned
out to be a shocker as the underdog Sixers beat the Lakers thanks to Allen
Iverson’s 48 points.
06.04.01
It didn’t occur to me until I boarded how much more crowded the subway would be on Monday than it was on Sunday. I and a half dozen other Time Inc.interns exchanged greetings and small talk all the way to the Time and Life Building, where we convened on the eighth floor. Being in the same room with so many ridiculously overachieving college standouts - a few dozen in all – was an experience, but the orientation program we were there for was unsatisfying – partly because it opened with a rapid-fire video collage of AOL Time Warner products, serving to remind me just how ominous was the beast I was now a part of. SI For Kids was considerably more reserved. I and the two other SIFK interns enjoyed friendly and sincere introductions from all the staff, and settled in among the shiny new cubicles and glassed-in conference room. I quickly met up with the online team which plotted the day’s news, highlighted by Allen Iverson’s 44 last night and Tiger Woods’ third straight win at the Memorial. By the end of the day I was shown the ropes of how to manage the online polls at SIKids.com, shaking the rust off my meager HTML skills. A few staffers I talked to were blithe about the AOL merger. SI For Kids is so comparatively small with the now even more colossal company it risks little gutting or layoffs. (Meanwhile a fellow intern at Time magazine reports the mood there is of terror that Time will be suffocated by budget cuts and decisions only stockholders could love.) Yet the issue was not out of mind – the lunch table was buzzing about an item in today’s Times about AOL-TW’s decision to close the research center in the Time and Life Building. Layoffs here and there are one thing, but the symbolism of removing such resources of history and knowledge out from under Time is alarming. I found a small grocery store near 116th
and Broadway, so it’s time to start living primarily on peanut butter and
jelly. And I skipped supper, so it will taste all the better tomorrow.
06.03.01
I took the subway into Midtown late this morning. I climbed to the surface at 50th and Broadway and, casually glancing to my right, was confronted with the familiar façade of Times Square. Smaller than I pictured it, but as splashy a spectacle as ever. After a turkey-stuffed bagel for lunch at a deli at 51st and Seventh Avenue, I took out my digital camera and saw (deep breath): the Ed Sullivan Theatre, Rockefeller Center, the Citicorp Building, the Chrysler Building, Grand Central Terminal, the Empire State Building, the Flatiron Building, Madison Square Garden, and walked up and down Times Square. I heard a Phillipine festival in East Village, saw the hazy shapes of the World Trade Center in the distance, and smelled the stenches of crowded South Broadway. What a place. What an endless, colorful, international place. The uptown subway was closed, so after
hiking back toward home (which allowed me to see Columbus Circle) and collecting
an armful of weekly newspapers to possibly freelance for I finally caught
the bus for a bumpy ride back. I hooked up with Nick and Beau back at campus
and we went to the West End bar to watch Game 7 of the Bucks and Sixers.
We ended up seeing little of the game, thanks to a political discussion
that consumed us. Beau goes to the liberal bastion Harvard but is conservative,
while I grew up in the stuffy conservatism of West Michigan and feel quite
liberal, so our conversation was animated. At halftime we walked back,
still pontificating, prompting a girl who told us she’s interning at the
United Nations to remark how much she enjoyed our talk of campaign finance
reform and free speech. Before we called it a night Beau and I went back
and forth on global warming. Then we had a short night of sleep to get
ready for our internship.
06.02.01
I awoke to the familiar rhythms of quiet
home routines in disbelief that by the
I watched the ground get smaller from the cramped plane before it hid beneath the clouds altogether. At times the blue mass of Lake Michigan would make an appearance far below. The clouds parted to reveal the dark figures of the Chicago skyline as we glided down toward our destination. It was the first time I’d been to Chicago’s Midway airport, and I seemed to catch the place off guard. It was in the middle of messy renovation, meaning I arrived in the bowling alley-like gates before hiking, during my long layover, to the spotless, spiffy terminal that smelled brand new. Stopping in Chicago was somewhat appropriate for this trip. I follow my New York City internship with one by the Lake in the fall. I remarked before I left that I was almost looking forward to Chicago more than New York. This was partly because I’m familiar with the gem of the Midwest and a Big Apple novice, and also because I’ve heard there are, per block, more smiles, conversations, and even exchanges of eye contact in the Windy City than in loud and cold New York. But I got more of Chicago than I bargained for. My Midway flight was cancelled and we were bussed to O’Hare to catch another one, making my total airport time for the day 12 hours. I forgot the fatigue once I stepped out of the terminal and into a cab. I had never ridden a cab before, so riding into the city felt like I had just woken up in a Spike Lee movie – all the more so as I was taken over the white-lit Triboroughs Bridge and through graffiti-covered Harlem to Columbia. My best glimpse of the city had actually come from the plane, as we flew over the Hudson next to Manhattan and the familiar icons of the World Trade Center, the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building looked like a postcard, their lights glimmering like jewels on the night skyline. Fatigue set back in the minute I got out of the cab on Amsterdam Avenue at Columbia and proceeded to haul well over 100 pounds of luggage through the dark campus with little to no clue where I was going. Then heave said luggage up who knows how many flights of stairs to my dorm room, a small compartment that showed its age. But with the clothes hung up in the closet, a picture of my fiancé set up on my desk and a poster or two on the walls, it already began to feel a little like home. I hit the bed and was seized by sleep. • Back
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Copyright ©
2001
NBierma.com
nbierma@ny.com
