Makin ’ tracks
Walks the railway and talks bands in New York
Vertigo sufferers, look away now. My tour of New York needed a head for heights, plus a woolly hat and gloves. But this is a city on another level, as I soon realised on a walk along the High Line. This glorious 1.5 mile-long park began life as an elevated railway track in the 1930s, built so trains could pass through Manhattan without hitting pedestrians.
And they were hitting them – around 540 people were killed by trains, with one stretch known as Death Avenue.
The West Side Elevated Line became obsolete when trucks took over the strain of moving goods, but the community stepped in to save it and now it’s home to hundreds of plants and trees, 30ft up.
And what views you get. To my right was the shimmering Hudson River and the muscular sprawl of Hoboken. To the left the trendy Chelsea neighbourhood, its former factories and tenements now host some of the city’s coolest bars, restaurants and big-name tech brands.
My hands had frozen in the cold, so I warmed up in Chelsea Market – a former biscuit factory now home to coffee shops, delis and independent shops. It’s ideal for defrosting fingers over a coffee and muffin.
Next stop was DUMBO (Down
Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass), a gentrified quarter of old Brooklyn, lined with more restaurants, delis and bars.
I made my way across Washington Street, with its famed view of Brooklyn Bridge from 80s gangster movie Once Upon a Time in America.
The sprawling Manhattan skyline creates a giddy atmosphere among the tourists on the bridge.
This is the city you know from the movies and you half expect Al Pacino to come bounding around the corner eating a hot dog.
The view from my table at trendy Italian Cecconi’s was equally stunning, as the sun bounced off the East River and hit the skyscrapers beyond.
After wood-fired pizza and coffee, it was up, way up, to Summit One Vanderbilt, which offers dizzying experiences at the top of Manhattan’s fourth tallest building, all 1,400ft and 93 floors. Billed as New York’s most thrilling view, you’re actually looking down on skyscrapers such as the Empire State and the Chrysler.
It’s a popular place for showing off on first dates, and popping the question. You can even stand in transparent glass sky-boxes that jut out of the building above Madison Avenue. It was enough to make me almost regret the pizza.
If Brooklyn reminded me of a
Robert De Niro movie, Buddakan NY felt like being in a Bond film.
This giant, lavish, Asian-fusion restaurant in the Meatpacking
District serves up serious glamour.
After being greeted by a 7ft bouncer, I was taken to a table on the back row of a sunken banquet hall for shrimp dim sum, sticky sizzling short rib served with mushrooms and Asian pears on a bed of vegetable fried rice.
After dinner I propped up the bar at East Village Social, a live music venue on St Mark’s Place near Tompkins Square Park, chatting to locals who shared stories about famous bands that used to hang out here. The next day I woke to a flurry of snow and Whatsapp messages about looming flight cancellations.
Due to an imminent major snowstorm, I had to fly back early.
So I had one last shot at NYC, and it had to be Central Park, and the hotel doorman gave me directions: “Turn right and you walk right into it.”
As I walked past Carnegie Hall it came into view. Central Park in the snow was exactly how you expect it to be – dreamy and magnificent.
Despite my trip being cut short, I ended on another high – an Aer Lingus ‘throne seat’ at the front of business class, making me feel more like a co-pilot than a passenger.
And one last look down on New York, a place to make your head spin.
Where to stay
Wrapped in a white robe in my suite at the Conrad New York Midtown, I sipped tea as I looked out of the window down to West 54th Street. It felt like being a shipping tycoon.
Conrad is an upscale brand from the Hilton group and my suite was a suitably high-end affair with a big lounge area and two plasma TVS.
Dinner was off due to Covid, but an expansive breakfast menu was still available including classic American pancakes with syrup and berries, which was the perfect start to a bracing day of sightseeing. And the Conrad is perfect for that too: turn right out of the door then head left for seven minutes and you’re in
Times Square for a fairytale of New York...
If Brooklyn was like a De Niro movie, Buddakan NY was like being in a Bond film