In New York (Part 1)

We arrive, at 4.30 p.m. on Tuesday 20 March 2012, at New York's Kennedy airport; it did not seem real to be in the city we had seen in hundreds of films. For the flight we spent 780 euros with Air France (including cancellation insurance), multiple taxi to the hotel $38, hotel Belleclaire on 77 W st. for 8 nights 1100 euros including taxes, large room, full bathroom, TV (no Italian channels), free wifi, small breakfast, close to Central Park, also listed as a historic building, purchase of unlimited Metrocard $29 for 7 days, free to travel without limits, on all transport, highly recommended.

Then a tour of Broadway av., beside the hotel, which runs the whole length of the city from north to south, one of the longest in the world, shops of every kind, many open 24 hours, restaurants, a touch of home with the Grom ice-cream parlour, then stalls of second-hand books, DVDs, postcards, prints, souvenirs etc., At 9 we have dinner at the restaurant Nice Matin on 79 st., we will return several times. Wednesday 21: Times Square and surroundings, the symbolic place of the city, dazzling lights, giant videos broadcasting adverts, theatres staging musicals, a long queue at the Tkts, the discount ticket office; on one side a red plastic grandstand and chairs and small tables available for free.

We get some material at the tourist office, then Grand Central Station on 42 st., facade in deco style, interesting sculptures at the top, inside an enormous elegant sunken hall with large windows, on the sides balconies with designer restaurants and shops, beautiful the vault with a fresco of a starry sky, the staircases are monumental. Nearby the New York Public Library, one of the richest libraries in the world, also a museum of manuscripts, classical-style facade with Corinthian columns, two large white marble lions at the sides, large reading rooms, vaults with frescoes and decorated coffered ceilings, on the walls large paintings on the subject of reading; we liked the one with Milton (blind) dictating Paradise Lost; the rooms are finely furnished with wooden tables and shelves with large lamps on the tables, it feels like being in the Vatican Library.

On the opposite facade Bryant Park, a tree-lined park with flowers, with metal tables available, where you can have a cheap meal by buying it at the kiosks and relax in the sun if you wish. We lose ourselves in these streets, looking up, full of skyscrapers, we see the Chrysler Building, with its characteristic decorations that look like car parts, the tall and protruding gargoyles are remarkable. In the late afternoon boarding the free ferries to Staten Island and Liberty Island, after a stop at Bowling street for the classic photo in front of the crowded Charging Bull, an enormous bronze bull about to charge, symbol of a rising stock market, not by chance placed in the Wall Street area, then we pass in front of Castle Clinton, a dark red fort from 1800, where the ticket office for Ellis Island is.

Finally we board the ferry (free) that passes close to the Statue of Liberty; even though the sky is gloomy and a light fog surrounds it, it is very striking. Dinner at Eataly on 23st, almost in front of the Flatiron Building. Thursday 22: sunny and warm day, we take the chance to cross the Brooklyn Bridge, which begins at City Hall, the city's town hall, elegant white marble facade, in front a park, with sculptures and tables with a drawn chessboard. We walk on the raised pedestrian walkway of the bridge (80 m), very crowded, tourists, cyclists, the arches are impressive, in neo-Gothic style, from which the steel support cables start, towards Manhattan an unmissable view of the skyscrapers, on the other side the Manhattan Bridge, the panorama towards Brooklyn is less interesting.

Afternoon in Chinatown, we walk down Canal Street, a visit to the Manayama Buddhist temple, a small building with an attached souvenir shop, inside a large golden Buddha, Chinese girls lighting incense. On Canal st. signs almost all in Chinese, goods displayed in the windows and on the pavement stalls, all very colourful, but overall disappointing, a bit better is Mott st., where I especially liked the shops that look like pharmacies (?) very colourful inside, with the characteristic often enormous pill containers, with Chinese labels with signs in English indicating the illnesses; anyway Chinatown did not make a great impression on me. Then Greene St.

in the Soho area, perpendicular to Canal st., to see the cast-iron houses, in vogue in the nineteenth century, buildings with structure and/or facade in cast iron, they were made in series, many look almost identical, large windows, classical-style columns, some have elaborate decorations on the roofs, it seems that the facades were often chosen from a catalogue, very decorative the external fire escapes and balconies. After dinner at Times Square, very crowded, dazzled by the advertising on the big screens, curious the cycle-rickshaws waiting for customers, we enter some big shops including Disney, which takes us back to childhood, then we sit on the red grandstand, exchanging a few travel impressions with curious Americans.

Friday 23: another sunny day, we reach 5th av., the luxury street along with Madison av., big shop windows of designer objects and clothing, skyscrapers, heavy traffic, we walk a long stretch of it, we visit in particular Saint Patrick's Cathedral, the largest in America, squeezed between two skyscrapers, it is very large, in a nineteenth-century neo-Gothic style, interior with stained-glass windows, which had also involved glassmakers who had restored the windows of Notre Dame in Paris, remarkable the side chapels in white marble and the typical rose window, an enormous organ, interesting the bronze portals, Opposite the church the splendid statue of Atlas holding up the world, then a visit to the Trump Tower, a bit kitsch the entrance in pink marble, with the waterfall about 20 metres high on a wall, an internal garden with modern white marble sculptures, finally the nearby church of St

. Thomas (1823), interesting the altar with a large block of white marble with small sculptures (about 60) of bishops and saints. We then enter the vast Rockefeller Center, a complex of buildings, with gardens, a working ice-skating rink dominated by a golden sculpture of Prometheus, then shops, restaurants etc. almost a city within the city. After a snack in a self-service in the centre, we continue the tour; at a certain point towards 4 p.m. we pass in front of a line of people, many sitting on the ground, waiting to enter the MOMA for free (only on Fridays); I get in line, the security staff constantly pass along the queue, if you are not in line you risk being literally trampled. The museum is vast, not only painting but also drawings, photography, prints, cinema halls etc., it starts with the Impressionists and reaches the latest trends of many figurative arts.