Heading into my trip last month, I knew that two days would never be enough time to see everything I wanted to see and eat everything I wanted to eat. Aside from the car ride to and from JFK International Airport, we never even ventured beyond the lower half of Manhattan. New York City is richly dense in culture and history, effectively acting as the boiling pot that characterizes the American dream.
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. And they came in droves. You have your Jewish community. You have your Irish community. You have your Italians, your Chinese, your Persians and everything in between. And through this, the American dream was somehow born.
You may have already seen my video walkthrough of the Four Points Sheraton in Chelsea and my blog post on Shake Shack in Madison Square Park, but I did manage to take several more photos during my brief time in New York. You might recognize some of these locations from the Western Digital My Cloud video we shot for MEGATechNews.
No, 48 hours is nowhere near enough time to see and appreciate a world class city like New York. I’ll have to return to eat a bagel, sit in the Colbert audience, catch a Broadway show, and so much more.
Some great photos Michael.
I would like to point out that while NYC was where the masses came to America in the early part of the countries development, it really no longer is what America is. It is a major industrial city that does not represent what is happening with the vast majority of the rest of the country.
The communities that you describe are very different than what you find in communities throughout the rest of rural America. Those are localized to the extremely large metropolitan area’s of NYC, LA, Chicago, SF. They are extremely segregated and with easy to see cultural borders. All other places in the country are less segregated and more homogenized. Orlando has a great Asian community on E. Colonial Dr., but it is merged into the other cultures with no real borders. If you were driving through the only way you would know is that there are a more than normal amount of Asian stores and restaurants intermixed with the Publix, Walgreens, Walmarts and gas stations.
If you want to know what America is about visit a smaller city or rural area.
I don’t feel there is such a thing as the “real” America. When you are geographically and culturally so vast, you are going to have major differences.
But NYC is what people think America is and that can’t be further from the truth. As you point out in your reply, we have such a cultural diversity that you really can’t get America from one city.
That is exactly my point from my original comment. NYC is a very different city, very divided by cultural boundaries that are every much more blurred in the rest of the country as a whole.
Another country that can’t be described by one city is Italy. Since you were just there you know it is broken into many diverse regions that are extremely varied.
My perception of America is somewhat shaped by images and stories as told by Hollywood movies. I know it is a very shallow and truncated view.
So which smaller city or rural area would you recommend if I want to know the real America?
Memphis TN., Mystic Conn., Kansas City or St. Louis, any town in the Appalachians of PA. Avoid anywhere in California, and NYC. Come visit Sarasota and I will show you some of the area’s in Fl. that are true older America since we are the Senior capital of the country, except Miami.