My First Visit to New York

The first time I went to New York, in 1985, I had to get a visa from the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square in London. I turned up in Manhattan without anywhere to stay and walked around a bit and found a little place that rented rooms in Chelsea (that's around where the Empire State Building and the Chelsea Hotel are). The owner was a middle-aged guy called Art who was a bit eccentric (sorry Art). He was involved in a local cable television channel, and I did see a bit of one programme that was a discussion, but I don't remember what it was about, and I don't remember watching anything else. He had a set-top decoder that allowed him to receive loads of channels, but when I tried to look at some of the programmes he got mad because I left it set wrong. Art let me do a couple of odd jobs in return for free rent. I painted his shopfront and rearranged a big load of books for him, but I'm sure I didn't do a very good job. Art had a good heart, but he was a little paranoid - he thought people in a garage next door were trying to get rid of him in order to expand their property; he said he's found a gas cannister on his roof and he took this as a threat or a sign that they could blow him up. They had offered him money for his house at some point but he'd refused and now he thought they wanted to get rid of him by other means. He put a sign up in his window with some kind of demand or accusation that I'm sure no one would understand (probably not even the people in the garage). His place was decrepit and the rooms were tiny, but I stayed there for several weeks and walked around Manhattan (my idea of New York was Manhattan). I walked south to the World Trade Centre and Battery Park and Fort Tryon Park in the north. I saw free dance at the Lincoln Centre and I walked around the Metropolitan Museum several times, not forgetting the Museum of Modern Art, the Frick Collection and the Guggenheim Museum. At the Met I thought the Persian miniatures were lovely and I was blown away by the tribal carvings of the pre-Columbian section, particularly the fertility totems and canoes with wonderful carvings on the prows. I don't remember what I saw at the Guggenheim, the building itself is what makes the impression. The Frick Collection is a smaller gallery based on a private collection of old masters. It had some masterpieces that floored me.