Travel A spell in New York
I BELIEVE in magic!” They’re not necessarily the words you first think of when waking up in New York. But then, New York hasn’t been the same lately, what with all manner of creatures prowling the streets.
Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, the latest story to tumble from the imagination of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, is set in the Big Apple.
And since the movie opened, the city is enjoying a new spell of success.
The film follows English magizoologist and former Hufflepuff, Newt Scamander (played by Eddie Redmayne), author of one of Harry Potter’s text books, who arrives at Ellis Island in 1926.
He is accompanied by a magical, Mary Poppins-like trunk, filled with fantastical creatures, some of whom manage to claw their way out of the case.
On screen, the movie ripples with iconic New York landmarks – from Central Park Zoo, where Scamander cavorts lustily with an enchanted rhino, to the intricately corniced Woolworth building, whose golden doors reveal the headquarters of the Magical Congress of the United States of America.
In reality, it is a magic trick. Fantastic Beasts wasn’t actually filmed on location. However, director David Yates and scriptwriter Rowling did explore New York for inspiration, hence why I’m here.
Stationed at the Conrad New York in downtown Manhattan, we’re seconds from the 9/11 Memorial and minutes from Battery Park, where you can catch a boat to Ellis Island – the former gateway for TheTenement Museum
millions of immigrants looking for a new life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
It’s now in the grip of regeneration. Where the Twin Towers once stood are now huge, cascading infinity pools, pulling water eternally down into the earth in glittering sheets, the sound of it thundering through your body as you reflect over the names of the dead.
But it’s not morbid, no more so than the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side. In a tangled neighbourhood of streets bursting with Chinese supermarkets, where walls are scrawled with street art and blocks are overgrown with metal fire escapes, the museum is a relic from the early 1900s.
It’s proof that 1920s New York was not glitz, jazz and flapper dresses for everyone – a fact Fantastic Beasts doesn’t shy from.
Our enigmatic tour guide, Jon Pace, tells us how director David Yates scouted out the museum – which, in 1988, was discovered virtually intact, having been disused since the 1930s – as a blueprint for the apartment of No-Maj muggle Jacob, Newt’s accidentally acquired sidekick.
The musty, cramped tenement is typical of the type that became home to thousands of German immigrants, in a neighbourhood that was locally named Kleindeutschland (‘Little Germany’).
The dark, dingy rooms peel snake-like, shedding layers and layers of wallpaper and lino, signs of the numerous families that lived here from 1863 until 1935, when fire safety laws were passed.
When updating the building to code proved too expensive, residents were evicted and their homes left to fossilize.
Floors of hemmed-in apartments are stacked atop each other, complete with original interior windows, which at the time were thought wrongly to help stop the spread of tuberculosis in buildings where sprawling families lived crammed together.
In this building alone, more than 100 people shared just seven toilets between them. “Think of the traffic,” says Jon, as we trudge up the stairs.
Newt faces America’s border interrogators at Ellis Island, an outsider bringing with him magical ‘aliens’ and different ideas of how we can Eddie Redmayne as Newt And Scamander in Fantastic Beasts WhereTo FIndThem live harmoniously – ideas that flout US wizarding laws.
Today, Ellis Island – the former stately holding pen and entryway for millions fleeing poverty and persecution in their home countries – is a grand and fascinating museum just one island over, and a short and breezy boat ride from the teal beauty of the Statue of Liberty.
From it, you can see the whole of the New York skyline, columns of glittering metal punching up from the watery edges of Manhattan, and you can’t help but imagine how devastating it must have been for those who got this close, only to be sent home again as immigration laws became increasingly stringent throughout the Twenties.
On our final night, we sip bitter orange cocktails at Fowler & Wells at The Beekman Hotel, a decadent, moodily lit bar that aspires to speakeasy credentials.
There is real-life magic to be
ELLA WALKER was a guest at the Conrad New York where double roomsfound here. start from $399 per night. See conradnewyork.com.
She flew with Virgin Atlantic, who fly six times daily from London Heathrow to New York, with direct flights from Manchester to JFK beginning May 2017. Return fares start from £393 per person – see virginatlantic.com
To learn more about the New York City seen in Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, visit nycgo.com/fantastic-new-yorkcity. The New York CityPASS costs $114 and provides free (and often priority) entry to six of the city’s most iconic attractions and museums including Ellis Island. For more information, visit citypass.com/new-york/ The lobby at The Conrad