New York, Nëw York
Tonight we flew into JFK on JetBlue from San Diego. Any way you slice it, that is a full day travel affair. We’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about reengaging with air travel and how we feel about it. While Kim hears all my thoughts on the topic, I don’t want to assume that her thoughts on the subject are the same as mine. I think we all have different relationships with air travel. I recently reviewed my history with flying, so I won’t repeat that here, but let me just summarize that my history, while certainly encompassing lots of leisure and pleasure travel, is heavily dominated, especially internationally, by my business travel experience. In a nutshell, I feel like I travelled enough on business for several lifetimes. There is almost nothing about the air travel experience that either inspires me or puts me off, except for issues of extreme discomfort. The JetBlue Mint Service is generally comfortable with its lie-flat seats, but they leave a lot to be desired for comfort nonetheless. Maybe I’m too fussy, but that damn seat was like lying on a board with a big lump in the middle for my added fidgeting. It was fine for five hours, but I wouldn’t want to fly in it internationally. For now I’m going to assume it was specific to my seat since Kim didn’t feel the same about her seat. Other than that, the rest of the flight, including the meal and entertainment system, was quite nice. But then we landed at the good old JFK Jet Blue terminal. It all felt familiar, but no friendlier than it used to be.
When we used to fly in and out of San Diego when we lived in New York, I used to love both leaving from and arriving into Terminal 2 there with its great design elements and convenient configuration. The departure gate was less than 100 feet from the security and the upscale food court was even in between the two. When we got in, it seemed like we had a two minute walk to a bright and airy atrium exit right outside to the curbside pick-up spot. There were no long walks and inconveniences whatsoever. In fairness, that was Terminal 2 and Jet Blue has gotten moved to the less modern and slightly less accommodative Terminal 1, but a bad terminal in San Diego beats a modern JetBlue terminal at JFK.
After a long walk down one of the three wings, any one of which must be 500 yards long, to the central core of the JFK terminal, you get the pleasure of going down to one of the baggage carousels, which have gotten even bigger than they used to be and that expansion seems to have eliminated any and all benches to sit on while the JFK baggage handlers (not know for their speed of operation) keep you waiting and waiting, despite that little green “Mint” tag they put on the bag. Once bags are in hand and on wheels, the real trek begins. I hear people bragging about how nice and convenient LaGuardia has become since it’s renovations, but in the meantime, JFK has lost lots of ground. That all starts and end with the infamous Skywalk.
You can no longer get ground transportation anywhere close to the terminal. You have to start by traversing the full length of the baggage claim carousel hall to the escalators. You then have to go up two flights to the Skywalk. Now that you’re in the sky, you can begin your walk. A quarter mile later and perhaps five moving sidewalks brings you to one last indignity. There an uphill incline to where you can board a bulk-scale elevator down to the Taxi Queue. As the door opens, we encountered a snaking taxi line that folds back on itself several times. We stand, there and watch confused travelers getting off the elevators that just keep coming as we inch forward. When we finally get to our cab, we are met by the usual deeply accented NYC cab driver that immediately wants us to choose flat-rate or meter with a strong off-the-books preference for the flat rate. Our declaration that we had lived in NYC for thirty to forty-five years did not deter Akbar from trying to convince us that it was further to the Brooklyn Hilton than in to Manhattan. Once I saw the route he took all the way up to the BQE off the Grand Central Parkway and then back down to Brooklyn, I realized Akbar may have been right. Lucky for me, I had opted for the fixed rate to stay onside with Akbar.
As we drove down the BQE over the dramatically-lighted Gowanus Bridge, we got that East Side view of the NYC skyline. While we were in the City in June, we had driven in and coming into NYC from the airport at night is somehow more familiar to me. The skyline looked bigger and more expansive than I remember it. I thought I spotted new buildings all over the place, but I can’t tell if that was my imagination or if the two year absence during the Pandemic could really have seen so many physical changes. The thing that bothered me more than anything was seeing how diminutive the Chrysler Building now looks with all the other newer, bigger buildings have been added around it in Midtown East. That made me feel old and more disconnected from the City than I expected to feel.
Kim commented that she found the City nighttime skyline reassuring and inviting to her. I had a very different reaction to it all. From the JetBlue terminal with its Skywalk, the GCP and BQE and now the Brooklyn views of Manhattan, I felt out of place. This is less about New York, New York than it’s about me. I never intended to spend my life in NYC (not that I know what I did expect for my life). My early years found me settling for New York and making it work. That started to change once I moved into Manhattan after 15 years. The next 30 years had me getting more and more comfortable with the City to the point of liking living there quite a bit. But I now know that’s over for me.
It’s not about my gardening or my hillside. It’s not about the sunshine and warm weather. It’s not about the ocean sunsets or the grotto hot-tub. I think it’s about how much harder I find it to be comfortable in the City at this stage of my life. My state of mind and mood is directly impacted by how hard I find my life. I thrive on the convenience of all the places to sit and write or read or even enjoy video entertainment. I used to say that nowhere had the movie convenience of NYC, but COVID finally put an end to my movie-going. The only thing I’ve done less than fly since the Pandemic is go to the movies. I know my kids and friends, and maybe even Kim, will be disappointed that I’ve moved on from embracing the City, but they shouldn’t be. Everything has its time and place in life. I thoroughly loved living in NYC and I fully appreciate that my kids love it. But I am allowed to move on from New York, New York and I have done so.