Up Up and Away

Some of the best views to be seen in this city are above your head. Most people know this, but most people don't think about what that actually translates to, which is this: when you see a blonde girl stumbling around with her head tilted up on a 75° angle, you should probably do the same, even though the natural instinct is to point and snigger. Doing so should show you something different from the everyday. The part of the city that's hidden, but in plain view. The bit that's up.

If you happen to be around Midtown East, in the low 40s, and you see this happen, you should definitely definitely look up, and then quickly find the nearest staircase, and follow your head up, and cross your fingers and hope with all your heart that you've got on the right staircase, and that you're standing in Tudor City, and not in a hotel, or an office block, or any of the other random places you could end up if you just walk up any staircase with disregard for where you're walking to. You'll soon know the difference. Tudor City = amazing. Anything else = less amazing. It's a simple equation.

Tudor City is an elevated couple of blocks just north of where I live. I had seen the signs before, and the Gothic, pointy towers jutting up above the East River, with the old school red sign, somehow neon and faded at the same time, that advertises the Hotel Tudor. I had seen the staircases rising mysteriously off the street, and the strange street arrangement in that part of town, which makes it impossible to get onto 41st Street directly from First Avenue. But I had never put it all together and come up with an elevated city, because who would?

H1 discovered it properly, accidentally ending up there on one otherwise standard walk home from work. As soon as he told me about it, I worked out exactly where it was and what he was talking about, and demanded an outing there forthwith, resulting in us walking the few short blocks one chilly, bright Sunday afternoon before making our way up the mysterious stairs.

Tudor City is only a short distance above First Avenue, maybe two or three stories high, but as soon as you're up there, all the noise off the avenue and FDR Drive suddenly drops away. The air is still, and the streets, which boast such un-Midtown names such as Tudor City Place, are quiet. There is a park and a playground, both of which lay carpeted under a thick, undisturbed settling of snow, and all around you trees rise high into the sky, their spiky branches devoid of leaves. All the buildings are moderately tall, built of a dark brown brick. A couple have ornate rooves, while the rest are plain, but no less imposing and dramatic for that.

The effect should be eerie, but it wasn't. Rather, it was strangely peaceful, in a way borne of transience. On any day other than Sunday, people must fill those streets, walking in that quick, nervy New York stride. In any weather other than calm, the wind must rush through the thin gaps created by the neatly lined up buildings and the narrow streets, whining all the time. In any season other than mid-winter, children must fill the park and the playground, and the leaves on the trees must rustle proudly.

That day, however, it stood alone and solitary, ours for the taking. We walked through it and back down to the street, instantly enveloped in the happenings that constantly happen in New York, and moved on. We kept talking about it though - about what it is, and why it's there, and whether it was built to be raised, or whether it takes advantage of a natural land formation. We speculated, even though all it would take was one of us to look it up on our phone to know. And since that day, despite being in almost constant contact with a computer, despite being a librarian's daughter, who knows how to research, and despite having the power of Google right there, in case I have forgotten, I have kept speculating. Like the Wizard, Tudor City may well be a better mystery than not. I'm happy to leave it that way.

The Dangers of Renovation

I'm none too fond of unnecessary change, and I place the blame for this one firmly at the feet of my mother, or to be more precise, her renovating tendencies. These led to the common phenomenon of things in our house changing suddenly and without warning, and when I look back at my childhood, I marvel at the fact that I never lived in a fully 'finished' house. It seemed that as soon as one thing was done, my mother would rest for all of - ooh, about five seconds - before she was holding paint swatches and fabric samples up in another room. Add to this the fact that both my mother and father are, like all good Kiwis, total DIY-ers, and your result is a sad image of me and my brothers walking around the house in bewilderment and a slight state of tension after each day at school, trying to work out what was different.

Now I'm an adult, and have power over these decisions, I decorate once, then sit back and enjoy the results. I can, because I have the relaxation gene (and probably also because I've never owned a house, and since moving out of home, the longest I've managed to live in any one abode is just under two years). But mainly relaxation. And fear. I know I'm not great with too much change, and although I can appreciate that I'm one of the lucky ones, and that coming home to a different coloured bathroom is nowhere near the level of house-moving, family-shifting, friend-losing type of dramatic change many kids have to go through, I still tend to remember it with a nervous sigh, a little giggle, and a quick glance around my flat to ensure everything's still where it belongs, and how it belongs, and the right colour.

So you can imagine my reaction when the notice went out that they were going to redecorate the hallways of our building.

Joy and excitement.

Oh yes, that's right. Go back to the beginning. Read it carefully. Unnecessary change. You know what's not unnecessary change? Re-doing the hallways of our building so they no longer bear such a frightening resemblance to a pay-by-the-hour motel that's seen better days.

I'm really looking forward to the end result...but really not enjoying the process. The notice told us that they would be starting on the top floor, and working their way down. That's fine, makes sense. What they didn't say is that they would be doing a little bit on the top floor, then doing that little bit the whole way down. Then going back up to the top, and doing a little bit more, before repeating on every other floor. And so on, ad infinitum. And while they're doing all these little bits of work, which may one day add up to a whole, they are treating every hallway like a construction zone.

The best way to describe our hallway at the moment is 'Dextered'. I've never even seen Dexter, but I've seen enough of it when H1 is watching to know I don't like it, and I certainly don't want to live it. But I am, with my hallway carpet covered in plastic (as if it were leftovers, wrapped in many rolls of giant cling film) and my walls covered in plaster and unidentifiable marks, and my 'refuse room' housing large, eerie looking pieces of sharp steel. It's creepy to hear people crunching down the plastic hall, and it's creepy to hear the workers drilling and sawing things just outside my door, and it's really creepy when I innocently make my pyjama'd way out of our flat to take some rubbish down to the 'refuse room', only to be confronted by a man dressed completely in black, with just his eyes showing, standing in the middle of what is currently the murder hallway. I like an orderly, tidy house, but I'm not prepared to die for it.

You may have guessed I didn't (turns out he was a delivery man, rugged up warm against the cold outside. Winter, ha ha!) I gasped, grabbed hold of the plastered wall, then saw the bag of food and realised that he came for good, not evil. Smiled sheepishly and made my way to the refuse room, then came back, smiling way too much, just in case he was still there, and was hurt and upset by my assumptions.

He was gone, but the memory lives on. The memory of how I nearly died in the murder hallway one winter night, thanks to renovations. Yeah. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that nobody can disagree that I'm more than justified in my dislike.