The Music Box(Radio) 2015.12.19 #89 “Travel to NYC 1999”
Free Download

I visited New York City in 1999. It was warm winter or I just felt that it’s warmer than Canada. Actually I had stayed in Toronto for 6 weeks at the end of 1998, after that I went to the city by Greyhound bus, an intercity bus service famous for a song of Billy Joel, sitting side by side with a black American wearing red clothes whole body(red sweatshirt and red sweatpants).

The youth hostel I reserved from Canada was very simple. There are some bunk beds in the basement. That’s all. But its breakfast system was a little bit complexible for me and guests never can use except flashing paer in its bathroom. So I decided to go everywhere to New York and just use the hotel for taking short sleep. But it was just good for me that I could talk to a girl came from Mexico or somewhere in the hotel. She said she wanted to be a dancer in this city.

The first day, I arrived to New York late, so I just checked in the youth hostel and went to bed soon, I was very tired of traveling long distance. It took 10 hours Toronto to New York through Buffalo.

The Second day, I found that this Hotel located near Times Square in the morning. I went there. And after that, I stayed 3-4 days in New York, but I don’t remember where I visited in detail.

I went to…
Broadway
Battery Park (I watched Statue of Liberty there. no visit Staten Island or Liberty Island)
Wall Street
Walked through Brooklyn Bridge to Brooklyn
Subway
Madison Square Garden
Rockefeller Center
Village Vanguard
Sweet Basil
Burger King
5th Avenue
Central Park
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Strawberry Fields
The Dakota Apartments
The City Collage of New York
Harlem River
125th St
Apollo Theater
Tribeca, Club Vinyl “Body and Soul”
Barneys New York
…

I remember a man who was in a bus going Harlem to 5th Avenue. He was listening to music, like Japanese traditional Biwa music with his tape recorder. Temporarily the bus was filled with the silent strange music played through its speaker. I thought he was a gay person. He had distinctive atmosphere.

Basically, why I went to New York because I wanted to meet Ryuichi Sakamoto there. I heard that he lives in New York, and he always went to a cafe in Barneys New York when his Japanese friends came to New York.

Of course, I couldn’t meet him.
But it was a good place.

Anyway, my trip to New York is a good memory for me.
But now I don’t want to go any cities.
Maybe because I found that every big cities have many people and good smell of trashes.
And I felt that Capitalism containing mass consumption and
mass transit will be finished.

Next
#90 “Stardust Memory”
upload 26th.December,2015

by

by