I’m not sure what starting me thinking about New York City again, but yesterday, somewhat impulsively–but with a little planning–I decided to visit. By myself. Cheaply. Without a concrete plan, I did a lot and spent just a little over $100.
I’ve been to NYC about half a dozen times. As a freshman at MIT, I took the train down from Boston, stayed at the West Side YMCA, did a quick sightseeing tour and hopped the train back the next day. A couple of years later, I followed the Gary Hart campaign to New York and camped out on someone’s floor in a Central Park apartment for a week while we rode the subway trains gathering petition signatures. I think that experience imprinted on me not just the “grit factor” of doing a crazy thankless task but also the geography of the city–enough so I feel “comfortable” in the immensity of it all. In 1992, I spent a week in the city with the Democratic National Convention–commuting back to a friend’s house in Staten Island every night.
Perhaps this trip began by watching one too many episodes of Louis C.K. Maybe it was cabin fever after my family went up to Lake Champlain while I started work on a new contract project and continued my job search. I thought I would bike and run every morning–but then it rained for 3 days. As the weather cleared I decided it was time to do more than just another bike ride or 6-mile run.