New York, New York - Fellow Traveller

0-9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

Directory Menu

All Categories

Add Category

New Listings

Directory Stats

There are 304 listing and 112 categories in our website

New York, New York

Travel

Thursday, 27 November 2008

Photo by S M King

Helen Razer takes a rather large bite out of the Big Apple.

For every graffito in New York City, there’s at least one commemorative plaque to match it. Sometimes, the city’s street art is far more striking than its serious bronze signs. And sometimes, it’s not.

Sometimes, you can look beyond the wall art and straight at the little plaques. They can give you a road map for the great burg’s jumbled history.

On Park, between 17th and 18th streets, here stood legendary punk hub Max’s Kansas City. On Seventh Avenue at the former site of the Stonewall Inn, here lie the big gay hearts of our fallen heroes. And then, there’s that famous tablet at the base of the big green lady.

Give me your tired and your poor, she implores. Give me your huddled masses.

The first time I travelled to New York in the nineties, I actually made the trek to Liberty Island and read this little poem.

It wasn’t the optimal day for paying respects to American democracy. After a night on the tiles at the long gone and legendary Meow Mix (yes. The same club featured in that classic of Lesbian Deprogramming cinema, Chasing Amy), I had the worst hangover in five boroughs and was sick into the East River. And my friend Gay Michael, yet to climb out of the K Hole he’d encountered at a place called Club USA, was even more unsteady. The ferry didn’t do either of us much good. And we both experienced critical discomfort when we saw the word “huddled”.

“I’ve been here before,” said Gay Michael, as many people are wont to do after a dose of vet tranquiliser.

“I’m going to be sick again,” I said at Liberty’s feet and vowed never to remember the verse about huddled masses again.

This is far easier said than effected. In New York City, the masses tend to huddle.

And nowhere quite so much as at a girls’ night out called Eden.

Here in Australia, the missus and I tend not to visit dyke bars. Being somewhat over 25, we feel far too wrinkly in some. In others, we feel far too sane. We do not enjoy the company of women who eat tempeh and knit sweaters from alternative fibres. Such as cat hair. What we’re probably looking for in our occasional lesbian leisure, if I’m honest, is The Planet. And, despite the fact that it’s on the wrong coast and Kit is nowhere to be found, Eden fits the bill.

New York magazine suggested something about The L Word come to life. As it turned out, this recommendation wasn’t the result of lazy copy-writing. The chicks are hot; they come in at least seventeen different colours and the multi-coloured mass is huddled to the point of climax. If you don’t score with one of Eden’s Eve’s, clearly you’re not trying.

They should put a plaque outside the little place just off Union Square to commemorate a record number of Sapphic unions on a school night.

If you cannot wait until Wednesday, every night of the week femmes prowl at Brooklyn’s Cattyshack. Meow Mix founder Brooke Webster put her paw print directly into the middle of Park Slope, or Dyke Slope as it is affectionately known by residents. Frankly, the missus and I could well do without the Rhianna megamixes at either establishment. But the prevailing atmosphere of genuine, curious Queer made us tip barmaids on and off the island.

But don’t pay any attention to me. Unlike Miss Liberty, I refuse to take responsibility for your good time. While her poem promises to lift a lamp beside the golden door of New York, I will make no such guarantee. Remember: this is a city that must reveal itself from the dark. It is best illuminated by your own voyage of discovery.

Anyhow, it’s been weeks since I was last in New York and for all I know the girl scene has changed and moved to Queens.

There are, however, a few institutions in New York that do not change. Some things are immutable: the poor quality of hotdogs (except at Nathan’s, Coney Island); the absurd cost of drinks and one or two of its great hotels.

The best beds are all midtown. Don’t let anyone tell you any different. The “boutique” and “bohemian” hotels of the Lower East Side are entirely staffed by rude little pricks paying their way through Drama at The New School. Go midtown for luxe. Or directly to 55th and Fifth for a grand dame to beat all. As Madame and I live well beyond our means, we took a temporary residence at The Peninsula. Hospitality, room service and linens here are all nonpareil.

The $800 a night price tag hardly hurt at all. First, we reasoned that our high thread count sex was worth at least twice that. Second, we spent the remainder of our time in New York at Brooklyn’s Greenpoint YMCA. It’s thirty bucks. There’s no cable or turn down. But nor are there bed bugs.

And the disparity made us feel like New Yorkers. We ate chef Joel Robuchon’s small plates at the extraordinary L’Atelier. And we enjoyed our Nathan’s hot dog every bit as much. We drank cocktails from plastic skulls at a Tiki bar called Otto’s Shrunken Head. And then, still fuzzy, we took a tour of the American Folk Art Museum. We shopped for biodynamic fungi at the Union Square Green Market. And then, we bought a mac’n’cheese side to go with our chicken fried steak at Sylvia’s in Harlem. We stuffed notes into the sequined thongs of go-go dancers at Cattyshack. With the leftover bills, we bought Serious Texts at St Mark's Bookshop.

Every time I visit, no matter the exchange rate, I heart New York. And I want to leave a brass plaque in all of the divergent places I stopped.

Lady Razer’s Laminated List

American Folk Art Museum

45 West 53rd Street, New York, NY

+1 212 265 1040

www.folkartmuseum.org

Cattyshack

249 4th Avenue, Brooklyn, NY

+ 718 230 5740

www.cattyshackbklyn.com

Eden

Wednesdays at Union Square Lounge