Virtually unchallenged in standing since their founding, the three greatest cities of the United States are Tulsa, San Francisco, and New York. Every day in Portland, I’m reminded of inadequacy. No subway, no world famous bridges, little diversity, no palatable slices of Sbarro, no huge ladies of green patina, little nightlife, few museums, no chowder in bread bowls, low volumes of moody fog, no windiest streets, or phallic towers, or ocean, no Ida Dennis Willis Museum of Miniatures, or concentrations of art deco architecture, or third-largest municipal park, no “mega”, and certainly no “opolis.” Fortunately, my love of flapjacks, plaid shirts, pale skin, and cheap rents keeps me coming back to Ol’ Stumptown.

On Wednesday night I returned from five days in New York. The journey home began around noon, and involved taking an inefficient subway route, J. missing her flight, eating burgers while watching pigeons fly around inside the terminal, my flight being delayed, the return trip taking an hour longer because of head winds, watching 8 episodes of lost and getting offered crackers by a lady on my row who looked moments away from raping me, taking the long train ride from the airport while listening to the ambient soundtrack to Solaris, walking home from the station in freezing, drizzly night. With the time difference, I should have been in bed hours ago. Unlacing my shoes and releasing their steamy fungal gases, I knew that I had a great trip.

Most of the trip involved visiting people J. and I knew, walking around, taking the subway, eating. We were lucky to have mild, clear weather for all but the last day. Just wandering around town is enough of an adventure, as there is so much to see. The amount of people on the street is an amazing sight. All walks of life are going about their days without so much as giving you a second though, at least on the sidewalk. Standing still makes you feel no different from a pole (the Polish immigrants must feel this more acutely). But once leaving the bustle of the street for park or store, people are surprisingly friendly and talkative. And it was nice to see different races again. I don’t think New York can match San Francisco in geography, as it has both less water and less clean water. But this eastern city competes by eeking space out of every corner while still preserving a decent amount for parks. And while it doesn’t have the natural varied topography, it makes it own vistas through architecture and engineering.

Here are some photos, yo:

Baggage claim at JFK.

Caution: this airport is a shit hole.

View out the balcony at A.’s apartment, who we stayed with.

Jewish cemetery.

Old control switches at the docks.

Garbage day.

Farmer’s market at Union Square.

A building designed with a porthole theme.

One of an unlimited amount of beautiful, ornate old buildings. I wish they still built them this way.

Time Square at night.

Night steam stacks in the middle of the street. There were a few discussions about why steam is under the streets, other than to blow up periodically.

Summer is scaffold season. All over town, we had to walk under them.

Walkway up to the Williamsburg Bridge on a tour led by D., an old high school friend.

Manhattan seen from the bridge.

Subway train.

A. and J. discuss the snazzy new blue couch in A.’s apartment.

Sculpture.

A great, but crowded burger and icecream stand in Madison Park. Good custard and shakes with plenty of outdoor seating.

Bryant Park: green grass, tables and chairs, free wifi and immaculate public restrooms. We rested here twice between destinations.

View south from the top of Rockefeller Center. I felt a little uncomfortable being so high. It doesn’t feel like something can (or should) be build this tall. And it’s even stranger when you realize it was done without a computers. Of course, then I start thinking about the complexity of computers…

Panoramic view facing south. Click to open a larger image.

Panoramic view facing north. Click to open a larger image.

MOMA interior.

Some famous painting that’s printed on my credit card.

Some other famous painting. Note: MOMA has many famous painting in addition to these famous paintings.

Lady contemplating a not as famous painting.

View of midtown around lunchtime.

Apple store.

Subway train.

Upper Central Park that we reached unexpectedly by taking an express train that bypassed the park and went into Harlem. It was a long walk back to where we had intended to go.


The old twin towers at sunset. A great backdrop to the lake and it’s lone man on rowboat.

J. and I at the lake.

A shade made of hula hoops at a small triangular park near SOHO.

Me and my friend M. after meeting for lunch.

Grand Central Station.


Walking through town, J. ran into someone she hadn’t seen since 5th grade. This is him.

Shadow art in Brooklyn.

D. and K. I hadn’t talked to D. in person since high school. Actually, I didn’t really even know him back then. But despite this, we got along pretty well. Since he’s been in New York for years, he made an affable and informative host. He was witness to my search for a dried Indian/Asian fruit called Bael. I have looked for it in many towns and on the internet. I was not able to find it in New York, and believe me I tried. It seems like the only way to get it is through eBay, buying it direct from the same market I bought it from in Chiang Mai. This isn’t a cheap option either.

Brooklyn Bridge at night as seen from Brooklyn. Our last night in New York involved a group dinner of unrelated friends in a part of Brooklyn called Dumbo (Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass), some great icecream, and a delightful walk over the Brooklyn Bridge. The pedestrian walkway of the bridge is centered above the roadways. It’s made from spaced wooden planks that allow a great view of the plummeting distance.

Another view while crossing it.

New York is a city that never sleeps.

Though do I.

This Monday I went away on business. The flight was one of the earliest of the day, requiring me to wake up and catch a taxi at 5 AM. Radio Cab (one of the few companies that service Portland) must hire with a strict friendliness requirement. Without exception, all of the drivers I’ve had have been a talkative and caring bunch. Monday’s grey haired driver seemed genuinely interested in my life, if not for flexing his degrees of separation to connect his life to mine. His narrative yarn covered life in many states, women he had met, jobs he’d had, Portland trivia, cab philosophy, humor. And thankfully, he was a mellow and attentive driver.

Minneapolis was the first stop so that we could present work to Target at their corporate headquarters. It’s a surprisingly big and beautiful city, though pancake flat. Target’s office towers over 30 stories on the edge of downtown. Though unassuming on the outside, obvious care was spent on the crafting a memorable and sleek interior. A large Dale Chihuly blown glass sculpture stands beside a series of escalators that lead to a bright and colorful reception lounge. Obviously, red, white and targets are around, but they are placed with restraint. And though most of the floors are cubicles, there is a positive vibe about the place. Where Coke’s office feels like a desperate and confused land grab, Target is boldly and clearly making a statement. That spirit is infused in the people I met too. Each were positive, smart and friendly. The food was boxed and delicious, the meeting went smoothly, the ride back to airport was taken on a clean, prompt train. Time spent in Minneapolis: 6 hours.




Our next stop was New York. As the project we are working on is very artistic and cultural in nature, we needed to take a short detour to the American mecca of it. It was only my second time in the big city, the gap between visits is almost a decade. And like before, the trip was to be short at only two days.

But this trip became interesting within the first hour. I left my backpack in the trunk of the taxi when we were dropped off at the hotel. I’d assumed that the porter grabbed it as he had done for my partner, but it must have been lost in the shadows. Before I realized what had happened, the cab was gone. I was without camera, clothes, deodorant, and phone (in no order of importance). Of nauseating annoyance was the loss of the camera. I had bought a new pocket-sized camera specifically for the trip, and I’d only had it a day. But there was still a lot to celebrate on arrival. We were booked at one of the more ridiculously stylish and opulent hotels in the city. The Grammercy Park Hotel is old to New York, but had recently been bought and renovated after the original owner committing suicide by jumping off the roof. Apparently, he had a fight with his wife and had tried to time his fall to crush her as she stormed out the front door. Ian Schrager redesigned the place from roof to lobby with the help of Michael Overington, Anda Andrei, and the artist Julian Schnable. The result is a weird, fresh mix of ornate luxury and modern twists. Red velvet, leather and wood are combined with metal, art and bizarre light fixtures. The rooms feel like a tweaked study, somehow simultaneously dark and bright. They are the kind of rooms you can imagine an erotic murder of the elite happening in. I was not necessarily uncomfortable at the place, but it was obviously designed for an echelon of society that I’d never be part of. One obvious indicator: the nightly room rate was the same as my monthly rent. Luckily, the breakfast was still free. And delicious. A single berry was an experience grander than the sum of my entire life. Everything I could hope to achieve was lost in eating it and its brothers.

I literally ran into the actress Sarah Silverman in the elevator. She had gotten off on my floor thinking it was the lobby. I told her that the building was confusing me too.




The staff at the hotel went through great effort to comfort me and track down my bag. This was made more difficult because my taxi receipt had no cab number or contact info. But in less than a day, they had not only tracked down the cab number, but the home phone number of the driver. Theory: the hotel is owned by the mob. Arrangements were made, and the driver came back from Newark on the second night to drop it off. I gave him fare plus a hefty reward. The bad omen was actually a sign that the city wanted me there after all. My faith in humanity was restored.

During the day, my coworker and I visited galleries, shops, and designers around town. Seeing art and artists in person is helpful laying the groundwork for our project. Artists in the know have momentum and connections. Drawing names out of a hat is just a tortilla, this was the whole enchilada.

I saw the biggest domestic cat yet (The picture above is for reference, same breed but not the cat I saw). The breed was Mancoon. It was orange and white, the size of a smallish dog, and affectionate. I will acquire this cat. I will name it Cromer.

As I was without a camera for a day, I didn’t get to take as many photos as I wanted. But the best qualities of New York can’t be captured in photos: it’s scale, bustle, variety of stories on the street. Even as a two day visitor, I can see how this could be endlessly captivating. And if you grew up in such a place, living elsewhere would feel like settling for a plainer life.

Statue of Liberty in the morning fog.

Ground Zero.



Chinatown.



The actual store the Beastie Boys album was named after.

The largest apartment I’ve ever seen. Like a skyscraper turned on its side, it’s and amazing volume of brick filling an entire city block and over 10 stories tall.



Set from the Gondry movie “The Science of Sleep”

The cab driver’s I had in New York were insane in their driving aggressiveness. Most trips were on the razor edge between speed and accident.

It was a great trip, though unfortunately too short to look up anyone I knew. I will go back to visit, and for longer. Maybe to live.

Onward to Seattle.