Day 1 – London to Boston MA
Began well and got better. The 1st class lounge at Terminal 5 confounds the view that airports are places to withstand, evils to pass through in a coma. This lounge has all a sybarite needs – single malts, cut glass, newspapers from around the globe and hot bacon sandwiches.
Arrived at the Hotel Buckminster in Boston mid-afternoon. It’s at the top end of Commonwealth Avenue, a typically elegant drive with a long park down the middle. The elegant Brahmins of New England know how to live in style and Boston reflects their learning and their history. This was the cradle of a revolution which has lasted much longer than the one in Russia in 1917 and, not even arguably, has had a far greater worldwide effect. It truly was “a shot heard around the world”.
The hotel was across the road from the Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox and they were playing that night. They beat the Texas Rangers (The Sox are obviously no longer afflicted by the infamous “curse of the Bambino”) and the area resounded to the Irish marching drums and my hotel windows flashed with the reflection of the flames of the supporters’ pyrotechnics. Boston clearly isn’t just for the Brahmins, at least not at night after a Red Sox victory.
Day 2 – Boston MA
We checked out central Boston, around the historic Boston Common. It’s wealthy, cleaner than other American cities, but clearly still in shock from the appalling terrorist attack on their world famous marathon. A bartender in the Mandarin Hotel draws a link between Boston’s attack and the recent outrage in Woolwich, London and we both shake our heads in incomprehension (there’s almost something of the “special relationship” in opposition to terrorism). Boston has come up with a response to the attack; simply, “Boston Strong”. It works.
Took the “T” to Harvard, across the Charles river and into one of the most hallowed institutions in the world. It’s similar to Oxford’s college area and almost totally unlike anywhere else I’ve been in the USA. (I don’t think Vegas is going to come up with a ¾ size version of the Harvard Library and insist its croupiers wear Abercrombie and Fitch, but with Vegas, who knows?)
Found a bar with a witty barman who understood English humour. (As his shift ended I told him I was sorry he was leaving, he looked at me and said “Well, I’m certainly not”)
Day 3 – Boston MA to Plymouth MA
Took a tour on the Charles in a huge amphibious truck. We were the only non-Americans on the tour and cringed as the other 50 adults all made quacking sounds on the instruction of the tour leader. This is one of the many things English people don’t get about Americans. We mind looking stupid; Americans don’t care. Who’s right? Who’s really stupid?
Picked up a car and drove to Plymouth, about an hour through green, wooded land. It’s on the coast, south of Boston. A Radisson hotel with those huge rooms Americans obviously expect.
Plymouth Rock was where the Pilgrims landed. Today it’s not much of a sight, but if you have any sense of history, if you want to see one of the acorns, there it is. Soon as not you’ll see the mighty tree.
The mighty Atlantic is never more than a few miles away, the great ocean into which America’s eastern rivers pour out, and the ocean which bore in the great wave of humanity from the old world to help make The United States of America.
Overlooking that mighty ocean, we eat salmon and mash. The match on TV is ice hockey, big here, Boston Bruins versus the Pittsburg Penguins. The Bruins win and it’s a good job otherwise things may have got nasty and our ice cream may have had to be been cancelled.
Day 4 – Plymouth MA to Newhaven CT
Went to Chatham Bar Inns, an exclusive country club overlooking the Atlantic. A kind of Great Gatsby with a huge carpark, and its own private golf course. I went to the rest room and passed at least 4 liveried attendants, all so helpful, I tried not to be liverish and found my destination.
I sat on the immaculate terrace, drank a beer and read the latest volume of Caro’s inert,endless biography of LBJ – has anyone ever worked so hard at making a president boring? And LBJ was president during some of the most turbulent times in USA history.
Drove from Cape Cod down to Newport, Rhode Island. It’s quaint and if you want a period costume drama this is the place for you – the BBC will probably be here before you. I had a large Knob Creek (a drink, not a Massachusetts’ river) with plenty of ice.
Called in at Chanler’s Hotel, a folly where Poe could have written his finest.
Spent the evening in Newhaven, Connecticut. As we approached the reception, the receptionist, immersed in a phone call, held the phone as we said who we were and then said “guess you are” and then continued with her call. 10 minutes later we got our keys.
The rain started as we went downtown in the Hotel taxi. The centre of town was essentially Yale at play: tasselled loafers, button-down shirts, chinos, north-east accents – a vision and a sound of how America would have been if Lee Harvey Oswald hadn’t climbed those steps to the 6th floor of the Dallas book depository and took aim – so people think.
Day 5 – Newhaven CT to New York City NY
Drove on into New York, the rain continuing and getting harder. We passed the United Nations HQ on FDR Drive, Manhattan – the UN looked rather down on its luck and in need of painting. Perhaps they’re still debating who should pay for the paint. I know who’s paying for the debate.
Returned the car, no one drives in Manhattan, and struck out into the rain. The Waldorf-Astoria was crowded and expensive, no surprise there; almost everywhere in Mid-town is crowded and expensive on this early Friday afternoon when the rain is lashing down, taxis have all been taken and even the bartenders are hard to spot.
With our $5 umbrellas we stroll it to the St Regis and the luxurious King Cole Bar. From his sumptuous tryptic-tapestry the King, his fools and his fiddlers-three cast their beady eyes on the assembled drinkers. If you are looking for a classy place in Manhattan to do a crossword, this is it.
Friday evening Manhattan weather would have been instantly recognisable by Noah, relentless and overpowering the borough’s ability to dispose of the water. Pavements start to open and big leaks come out; roads are inches deep in the water now coming from all directions. It’s now you can remember Manhattan is a small island surrounded by 3 deep rivers and abutting the mighty Atlantic. It’s also a reminder that American weather patterns are unpredictable and subject to extremes rarely seen in England.
Day 6 – New York City
The day dawns and the sun comes out – hot, and with all yesterday’s water still on the streets, it makes for an instant humidity. New Yorkers are out in T-shirts and shorts. Miraculously, taxis are now available and we seize the chance and take one to Columbus Circle for a recce in the Mandarin Oriental. The bar on the 37th floor has coffee-table views of Central Park and Broadway. You can use the in-house telescope to look at the white Bechstein on which John Lennon wrote Imagine, in the Dakota building, and then you can use the in-house defibrillator to recover from the shock of paying $14 for a small bottle of still water (but, whatever you do, don’t forget the tip).
We had the excellent idea of using buses and it worked. Manhattan, with its grid network of streets and avenues, is easy to get around. We bussed it down to Washington Square and Greenwich Village, with its collection of small quirky pubs and shops. It’s not far from Wall St and the downtown Manhattan Mammon but it’s a million miles away in its feel.
The day finishes in one of the many Irish bars on the island. It is quite incredible just how Irish Manhattan feels.
Day 7 – New York City
Cab it over to the Pier 83 on the west side, opposite New Jersey, on the Hudson. We take a boat trip around Manhattan – it’s very possibly the best way to see the island and understand the geography. You get a certain detachment which is really impressive. The Statue of Liberty, the most famous international present in history (in those days the USA and France felt they had something in common) stands as the ultimate symbol of what America offered to the immigrants from Europe. The boat goes under the Brooklyn Bridge and into the East River, running parallel with FDR Drive and to the left of FDR Island – you realise quite how much FDR meant to New York, it was his home state and he was Governor from 1929 to 1932. On March 4th 1933, in his historic inauguration speech as 32nd president he declared “This great nation will endure as it has endured.” The nation endured and so will FDR’s memory in places like Manhattan.
Continue up the East River which then branches left and becomes the Harlem River. The housing projects rise up, but on a sunny Sunday morning don’t seem to conform to the popular stereotype. Harlem is in Manhattan – a walkable distance from Central Park.
Stroll up to Broadway and try one in TGIF – pretty much a replica of every other TGIF in the world (apart from the one in Tijuana, but that’s another story).
It’s Puerto Rica national day and much of the area is closed off to traffic to allow the marching bands and the dancers. We watch the entertainment for a while before retiring to, where else? A Manhattan Irish bar and get ready for Philadelphia tomorrow.
Day 8 – New York City to Philadephia PA
From a seedy Penn Station the train headed south through New Jersey. Trenton and Newark were post-industrial nightmares: miles of ruined factories, rooves gone and windows empty; piles of rusting machinery in carparks once full of the latest models, belonging to men with hopes of the American Dream; hooded gangs standing at the bottom of high-rises, looking at the boarded up shops and the liquor stores with armed security guards outside. This was part of the USA left behind when the jobs went south and west – to the petrochemicals and the software of Texas and California. And it wasn’t just the jobs, it was the power – most presidents since 1963 have been from the south and west (Johnson, Texas; Nixon, California; Carter, Georgia; Reagan, California; Bush, Texas; Clinton, Arkansas; Bush, Texas). Only Obama has returned the presidency to the north.
The hotel, Penn’s View, stood next to the Delaware river, so famously crossed by George Washington in 1776 on his route to defeat the British and their allies. With the rain still coming down like the clappers, we famously crossed the main street and dived into the nearest bar and, like Washington, considered our options (I have to say none of them included attacking the Hessians before dawn).
A couple of luxury hotels catered for lunch and it became clear as we walked from Rittenhouse Square that Philadelphia just shades Boston for revolutionary history – Independence Hall (has any other document in world history given more employment to lawyers than the USA constitution?), Liberty Bell, Jefferson Square and more relevantly, those steps that Rocky ran up.
Evening in Philadelphia old-town is good atmosphere, lively bars with good food (unlike England, any bar has a decent menu, available to eat at the bar). The crown of lamb was particularly enjoyed, served with the usual trimmings of extra chips and a portion of bread and butter. Then, unable to resist (habits die hard), we entered the quiz and didn’t disgrace ourselves, although we had a bit of help from the quizmistress who clearly admired our “never refuse to guess” attitude. It was a good quiz, we didn’t finish last and we enjoyed ourselves.
Day 9 – Philadelphia PA to Chicago IL
The flight to Chicago was delayed by an hour or so – a most pleasant inconvenience when you have a pass to the first class lounge, a computer to print out the crossword and a chance to reproduce a New Orleans bloody mary.
A rare moment on any flight: an attendant comes and tells me “Sir, I should not have charged you for your two beers, please allow me to return your money. You have a Gold Card. Ever so sorry.” Dickens in mid air.
Took the “El” from O’Hare and it proved a mistake, especially when humping luggage. It wasn’t quick, cheap or any good. So, obviously, we got off and hailed a cab to the hotel.
Chicago’s lakefront is incredible: blocks of opulent apartments stare out at the endless Lake Michigan towards the great wastes of Canada, recumbent cyclists cruise around the waterfront park; lines of well-ordered schoolchildren queue to get into the zoo; in the distance the skyscrapers of downtown look pretty. Here it’s miles from the Southside and the killing floors of the abattoirs where the newly freed blacks from the south found employment in the late 19th century. And quite a way from the convention hall where Mayor Daley’s police in 1968 showed that police brutality was not a southern monopoly and led to the USA voting for Richard Nixon.
Chicago is a big place, it deals in distance, like so much of America. You look at a map and think you’re near the city centre, take a cab and end up with a $25 bill one way. The centre is worth the bill, though. The “Billy Goat”, a bar under an underpass under Trump Tower, is full of characters chewing the fat. One, a pilot, on hearing I’m from the UK says, with that unmistakeably USA humour, “Oh, England, yeah, that shitty little place with a lot of rain – no, seriously, I like it a lot”. And I didn’t mind him.
What you realise in America is that we all think we know America – we’ve seen the television shows (Kojak, Streets of San Francisco, the Wire and so it goes), the films, the holidays (Florida for Disney, New York for a shopping splurge) but the truth of America is in the heartland, places like Oklahoma, Arkansas and Tennessee, places where no tourist goes. So where’s our next trip? Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Tennessee and a few other places where no tourist goes.
At Chicago airport we suffer the opposite of indignity; elation and elevation possibly. We are told that we should not go in the first-class lounge as it’s full of “schmucks” (the burly attendant’s word) and proceed to the VIP lounge, (Gold Card works again!). We couldn’t refuse and a minute later we are surrounded by elegant attendants swooping us with delicious sushi, bloody marys and canapés and more carpaccio than a sane man could eat.