My 'Real' New York Experience

Managing Editor

   A homeless man lying in the street. An illegal store in a subway station. Meeting Terrance Howard and Phylicia Rashad. I experienced all of these within 24 hours. This is my “real” New York experience and how it changed me.

Homeless and Helpless

   The Village. A part of Manhattan full of bars, tattoo parlors and store fronts advertising sex toys. 

   As Latoya and I walk down the bumpy, cracked sidewalk, a man appeared out of the shadows.

   “You want some weed? Fake I.D.s? I got fake I.D.s. Any state.”

   The man, who smelled like he’d never purchased a bar of soap before, hurried off to find his next victim after we let him know we weren’t interested.

   At an intersection up ahead, we noticed a line of impatient taxis trying to move around an object lying in the middle of the road.

   The object was a human, a homeless man. He just lay there, barely moving. There were two men on the side of the road with cell phones who said they called the police. It struck me as odd that no one else helped the man. People walked by as if nothing was wrong. I couldn’t stop staring at the homeless man.

   If there were a homeless man lying in the middle of the road in Monticello, every policeman on duty – city and sheriff officers and state troopers – would be at the scene.

   Even when we walked back by 15 minutes later, the man was still lying there and no one had even helped him up.

Adventures in Chinatown and the Subway

  On the Journalism Club’s last day in New York for the College Media Adviser’s convention, Latoya and I decided to revisit Chinatown. I was itching to find myself a Tiffany’s and Co necklace and a designer purse for my future sister-in-law.

   After navigating New York’s complicated subway system, a huge accomplishment, Latoya and I started searching for my necklace. A little man in a dirty blue cap and dingy overalls approached us and shoved a sheet of paper in our faces.

   “Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Prada, Coach?” the little man asked in a near whisper.

   Latoya and I exchanged hesitant looks. These street vendors have “underground” shops of stolen designer handbags. We just did not realize how true the term “underground” was.

   “You come my store!”

   The little man darted through the crowd, looking around nervously. Latoya and I reluctantly followed him. He looked over his shoulder to make sure we were following.

   “You come my store!”

   After dodging crazy taxi drivers at an intersection, the little man started to lead us down the stairs into a subway station. If the stolen handbags weren’t a red flag, this definitely was.

   Latoya and I practically fell on top of each other trying to stop. The little man was halfway down the stairs by then.

   “What are you doing? You come my store!” the little man yelled up the stairs.

   After Latoya and I exchanged a knowing glance, I yelled back at the little man “No, that’s OK.”  As we turned to join the crowd back on the sidewalk, the outraged little man kept yelling at us.

   “No, you come my store! Jus’ little further. Come my store!”

   Latoya and I couldn’t stop laughing.  Latoya looked at me and mouthed, “Do you wanna go down there?”

   “Um, I guess if you want to.”

   “You come my store! It right here, right here,” the little man yelled.  

   “Hurry! Hurry!” the little man yelled over his shoulder as he pulled open a metal door.

   Latoya and I picked up on his fear of the police catching him. The vendors look out for each other in Chinatown. They hire gruff-looking men to walk the streets, checking for police. When they see an officer coming, they walk around alerting everyone. We passed many shops that closed for 10 minutes when a police officer came near.

   We walked through the metal door and into a dank, dark and nasty hallway. I couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of me. The room smelled like feet. The little man trotted excitedly to a wooden door and pulled it open for us.

   We stepped up into the illegal wooden store the little man built to hide his inventory. A little woman stood in the empty store by the purses, anticipating a potential customer’s arrival.

   Latoya and I looked around the tiny room at all the different purses. Just like the little man promised, they had Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Prada and Coach bags.

   I looked at a Chanel bag I had coveted for years. I wanted that bag. 

   “How much for this one,” I asked the little woman, hoping I had enough cash on me to purchase it.

   “Forty dollar. Only offer,” was not the answer I wanted.

   As Latoya and I tried to haggle with the little woman, the little man brought a fresh batch of customers. 10 women flooded the room, leaving little space to move. There were purses flying and women yelling over each other and fighting over which purse they wanted.

   The noise got so loud I couldn’t hear myself think. Forget thinking, there wasn’t enough air in the tiny room to support the lung capacity of three people, let alone 10 plus. When I started to feel like the walls of the tiny wooden room were closing in, Latoya and I decided to leave.

   A man who looked exactly like a character out of “The Godfather” blocked our only means of escape from the little wooden cell.

   “Yous wanna purse? She’ll make yous a good offer,” he said in reference to the little woman.

   I thought to myself, “No, I would really rather make it out of here alive."

   “Seriously, we just want to leave,” Latoya firmly told the "Godfather" man.

   He finally stepped aside to let us pass. Now we were back in the dank room that smelled like feet. Other women were waiting until the little man pronounced it safe to leave the room. By now, I’m hot and sweaty, wondering why the hell I’m in a “store” (if you can even call it that) in a subway and thinking about how I’m going to break down the door if the little man doesn’t open it soon.

   “You go, go!” the little man yelled.

   I yanked open the door with the old electrical cord the little man used as a door handle, and Latoya and I ran up the steps and stumbled back out onto the street. We stood and stared at each other for a few minutes, wondering if all of that had really just happened.

Where is the Stage Door?

   After our experience in Chinatown, Latoya and I returned to the hotel to pick up our Broadway tickets for “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” 

   The playbill featured actors Terrance Howard, James Earl Jones and Phylicia Rashad. Latoya and I got excited when we heard two women in line talking about getting to meet the actors after the play at the stage door.

   “Where is the stage door?” I asked Latoya.

   “I don’t know, probably behind the theater.”

   The play exceeded my expectations. I couldn’t stop thinking how cool it was to be sitting so close to Terrance Howard, I could see the sweat beading on his forehead.

   Latoya and I pushed our way through the crowd of people back onto the sidewalk, anxiously looking for the stage door. There was no way to get behind the building, and of course, they don’t label the stage door. We almost gave up when Latoya noticed a fleet of black SUVs with tinted windows.

   “I bet those are the cars for the actors,” Latoya said excitedly, which was a new experience in itself because she rarely gets excited.

   Lines formed on either side of the door. Bodyguards put out barricades to keep us from crowding the door. We all tried to push and shove our way to the front of the barricades like siblings fighting for our mother’s attention, each willing to sacrifice another for five seconds in the limelight.

   Of course they make you wait for the big-time actors to come out.

   First came Terrance Howard. I was so close I could hand him my own playbill. Latoya asked him to take a picture with us after he signed her playbill.

   “Well, I’m not coming back there to take the picture,” he said jokingly. “You’ll have to work your way up to the front.”

   Latoya weaseled her way to the front. By the time she made it there, Terrance had moved on to other screaming fans. I screamed at Terrance Howard like an idiot to try and regain his attention.

   “Terrance, take a picture with us!” was all my brain would let me say, rather loudly, for five minutes. I gave up when he hopped in his SUV and it drove away.

   Next came Phylicia Rashad.

   She is so elegant and graceful, like a swan drifting across a pond without making a ripple. She graciously agreed to take a picture with us, after admonishing Latoya for almost crushing a short girl in the front. She should have moved out of our way. We missed the last photo opportunity with Terrance Howard; we weren’t about to miss out on this one.

   We waited around like dedicated fans for James Earl Jones. And waited, and waited and waited. Finally, the bodyguards took pity on the few of us left and told us the play made Mr. Jones tired, so he had already gone home for the night.

   Oh well, at least we met Terrance and Phylicia.

Changes

   True or False: All New Yorkers are rude.

   False, completely false (minus the rude woman who checked our bags at LaGuardia Airport on our trip home).

   As un-stereotypical as I try to think, I categorized New Yorkers as rude, fast-walking people that would rather run you over than stop and give you directions.  All of my experiences changed that. Anytime Latoya and I weren’t sure where something was located, we just stopped someone on the sidewalk and asked for directions. Every person we asked willingly stopped and helped us.

   Another one of my misperceptions was New York is full of crime, and you will get pick-pocketed and mugged. Wrong again. Sure, crime happens, but (other than being dragged into the subway by the little man in Chinatown) nothing bad happened to us. No one ever tried to take anything from us. I never felt uneasy about someone passing me on the sidewalk at night, worrying they might mug me.

   My thought of a “long distance” completely changed. We were walking to a restaurant with some girls we met in New York. I asked how much further we had to walk to get there.

   “Only 13 more blocks. That’s close.”

   Close? Are you joking? Ten city blocks equals a mile. Thirteen blocks was not close. After doing that for a week, though, your perception of “far” changes. I love that you can walk anywhere in New York to get to your destination. I can’t cross the street from my apartment and grab lunch, or get a pedicure or buy groceries.

   New York changed my perception of culture. There was the blond-haired man in a pinstriped business suit; the woman walking the streets in high-heeled shoes (who is now my hero for walking anywhere in New York in heels); the teenager with a Mohawk wearing neon green pants with neon orange shoes.

   All of these people co-exist without outwardly judging each other. New Yorkers don’t try to conform to a social norm; there’s not one. If someone walked down the sidewalk anywhere in Arkansas wearing neon green pants with neon orange shoes and a Mohawk, he or she would be made fun of at best.

    “Normal” doesn’t exist in New York, and it’s refreshing.

   New York City opened my eyes to a new and very different world from the one I live in. It is an experience I will never forget. It’s cool to do the tourist thing and see sites including Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty and the museums, but New York is so much more than that. It’s about the culture and the people. It’s about experiencing a new way of life.

   That’s my "real" New York experience.

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