I think I probably just googled “Film Festival & horse” and found it - entered PONY - then got asked to submit LIVE BEFORE YOU DIE. Two films in one festival! When I found a return flight to NYC for £300 how could I not go for it? Manchester - Amsterdam - Detroit - NYC.
I'm staying in a 5th floor apartment in East Village just off 1st Avenue. Winston my host has left a key under the doormat but when I arrive about 10:30pm he's on the roof garden having a beer. Winston looks and is dressed like Jon Snow out of Game Of Thrones but is very welcoming. I have a beer then hit the sack.
My body clock is a mess and I wake at 5am. Two hours later I'm still awake so I hit the streets and start walking. Winston had recommended a place to get breakfast but the guy is still only setting out chairs at 7 am and doesn't open till 9 so I head towards Greenwich Village.
After half an hour I have seen 3 Starbucks already but I'm looking for something more local and less global. Round the corner from amazing triptych subway entrance I find a great little cafe which is obviously full of regulars. The guy in the suit and pork pie hat on the next table reminds me of Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy. The coffee is great and I never knew you could eat whipped cream with bacon & eggs but you obviously do here. "Have a nice day".
Before I came I'd read about the High Line - a disused railway above the streets of West Village that's been turned into a municipal park where people stroll amongst trees and look down on the city below. This is where I find Einstein.
By now I realise that if I hang outside Starbucks I can pick up the fee wifi and work out where I am on GoogleMaps. Walking downtown through Tribeca (where there is another international Film Festival) I stumble on this amazing graffiti (below)
There's a constant wail of sirens. Every now and then steam spews out of the ground and the sound of the subway rattles through ventilation shafts on the pavement (sorry - Boardwalk).
Heading down to Wall St. I know it's a cliche but everything is BIG. Cars are big, trucks are massive. This is THE concrete jungle.
Then I realise where I am. Ground Zero. Twin Towers. I'd never seen this before. It's like the Haaj in reverse. It's hard to get a sense of how big this square hole is with fountains of water falling underground. Two of them.
I don't hang around too long, there's a memorial museum but I'm not in the mood (though later that night it was described to me and it sounds a very powerful experience). Instead I plug into Starbucks wifi (still managed not to buy a coffee but stand outside) and find that around the corner is the National Museum of the American Indian which to my surprise is not only free but full of amazing artefacts and jewellery from the whole Americas. I tag along with a group of school kids on a tour and learn a liar more than just reading the labels. I go around it twice.
Chinatown is huge. After I left college I went to London and worked in Soho as a runner and knew all the streets of Chinatown. Chinatown NYC is massive.
It feels like I've walked half of Manhattan now - because I have - so I head back to base with one more stop at the New Museum of Contemporary Art where there an exhibition of work by LA artist Jim Shaw. Some of its surreal and a bit freaky. There's a whole room of paintings he's picked up in thrift stores (charity shops) which is slightly alarming. Then on the top floor is an installation of comic style drawings but massive (had to be - it's New York).
There's a small group of American women who are obviously loaded and are being given a tour by the gallery principal - I keep earwigging her spiel. There's a huge tableau with some protest imagery on it. She says it was inspired by the Paris riots last year but I've seen it a thousand times before. I know it's s rip off of a Banksy.
I take a quick shower and change before the Equus VIP party at the Manhattan Saddlery. This is where the wealthy bankers wives come and kit themselves out. There's a good turn out in the pouring rain. Some filmmakers have travelled longer distances than me from within the USA. It's a friendly bunch of writers, producers and artists.
I get chatting to an economist from the Bush administration. It was all going well till I told him Ground Zero looked like the Haaj in reverse. I get chatting to an interesting journalist who wants to write a story on the dearth of our semi-feral herds of Fell Ponies.
I arrive home after a half hour walk in torrential rain. Downtown Manhattan Island done. I have a shot of brandy I picked up at a liquor store and hit my bed.