On Gotham

Lesley wanted to see a Chinese friend who is traveling across America and happened to be in New York for the week so we took Friday off work and Thursday evening hightailed for The Big Apple.

We stopped briefly in Rochester, to visit a friend of mine who lives there and had ribs at a local restaurant. Now Rochester is an economically depressed town, has been for years. The problem is Kodak and Xerox never saw the writing on the wall and the arrival of digital imaging brought massive job cuts to two companies who had both planted their corporate headquarters there. The people who live in Rochester are never at a loss to point out the flaws of the United States and given Rochester's liberal political bent the anger directed at Washington and Fox news was, for years and in the case of Faux News still is, palatable.

I made an observation while we were at dinner with several Rochesterians which I am going to repeat because well I am somewhat proud of what is rather obvious. I am a conservative, I believe we need to conserve our environment and natural resources. We need to ensure our governments run sensible budgets so that when times are tough there is money for rainy days. I believe in mixing religion with politics in that we, society, as embodied in Government, look after the least fortunate among us. I like government that is too small to tell a woman what she can and cannot do to her own body, or what two men, or women, who love each other can do in their own home. Yes you heard it here first, I'm a certified Republican... in the school of Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. (For those of a trivia inclination the former Junior Senator of Illinois is of the same school of political thought, which may partially explain why I think so highly of President Obama.)

The evening we arrived we went for a walk down Broadway towards Times Square. I saw a couple paintings in a store window. The one on the bottom had Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Regan and both Bushes gathered around a table playing cards. The one on top had Jackson, Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter and Clinton doing the same thing. With the exception of Lincoln and Roosevelt I wanted to kick the bottom painting, of course in the top painting was missing The President so the store owner was willing to sell it to me for half price but I was not interested.

The next day we went first to Katz's deli on Houston Street. If ever in need of a heart attack in a meal Katz's has the advantage of Montreal deli without the lunatic Montreal snobbery. Yes there is a New York snobbery, but at least here it is justified, this is after all the greatest city in the world! (Sadly Katz's also has New York prices, $15 for a pastrami sandwich, is a far cry from food for the poor, which is what deli is supposed to be.)

I should point out at this time the reason I am slamming Montreal snobbery here is simple. When we got to Katz the waiter upon learning we were from Toronto, told us that the previous day he had served some Montrealers who told him Torontonians don't know how to tip. Now I have to wonder if the waiter said that to extract a better tip, but on the assumption that what was said is the truth, I have to ask, why do all Canadians hate Toronto? I mean I can understand the disgust with Quebecois, including Montrealers, but really, what did Toronto ever do to the rest of Canada? Last I checked we never had a Neverendum, we don't mind paying into equalization when things are good, all we ask is when things are bad we get something back to help us through the tough times, maybe a new subway? Or what about some road resurfacing? Apparently that is too much to ask for.

Anyway after Katz Lesley and I went to the Tenement Museum at 97 Orchard Street in the Lower East Side. The visit to the museum was a chance to see how harsh things really can get. (It was also my second trip to the museum, last time was in 1997.) It is a mind boggling thing to think that only four generations ago as many a family of eight or nine might share a space of 350 square feet, plus some room may have been sublet and dad might run his garment business right out of the bedroom. (Of course this was a step up from the sweatshops.) I would like to say the quality of life has improved thanks to cheap energy, but I fear the sweat shop has simply relocated, not gone away. Even more remarkable to me, although I never had family who lived at 97 Orchard Street, it occurs to me, my grandfather on my father's side grew up in conditions not all that different from the people who once lived in the Lower East Side.

We only had a chance to spend the day in the city but I still managed to see quite a few cyclists, actually hundreds of them. And bikes were parked everywhere. Bikes make a lot of sense in New York City, for one thing, parking is free for a bike, a car might pay as much as $50 per half hour plus a 18.75% city parking tax. Then bikes never need to worry about being caught in the traffic for which the city is so well known. On the other hand, the road surface quality in New York is appalling, it makes Toronto look good and don't even get me started on the miserably incompetent taxi drivers in New York. In a contest for worst cab driver, Toronto and New York loose!