The Oranges

Last night found me staying at Ian and Jem’s apartment in Jackson Heights, which is an area right up at the top end of Queens, near La Guardia airport. It couldn’t have been any better placed for my fight from Pittsburgh, in fact the taxi driver got incredibly angry when I told him the address because, he said, the trip was hardly worth his while.

I’m told Jackson Heights was largely built in the 1950s, specifically as a district of cooperative tenement housing, none of which was allowed to exceed six storeys in height. All the streets are treelined and it’s a very charming area which seems to have attracted a large Latino community.

Ian and Jem’s flat, on the fourth floor, is very lovely. It’s light, it’s got a good flow, it’s airy and incredibly homely. Jem and I cooked pizza and took a twilight stroll around the local neighbourhood, and I slept like the dead in their hugely comfortable bed.

Jem rustled up crushed avocado on toast with an egg this morning. I genuinely don’t know how he does it. He is such a good cook.

It was a dull and grey day today, but a very large dose of sunshine was provided by my very dear friend Sharon, who, these days, lives out in New Jersey. Heading to her house involves taking the New Jersey Transit from Penn Station on Manhattan to the hysterically named South Orange. There’s a West Orange, an Orange and an East Orange (which was actually the name of a gay club in York.) Signs on the freeway advertise “The Oranges,” which is brilliant.

It’s all very leafy and hilly in The Oranges and Sharon’s charming little house is effectively in the middle of a forest. It was so lovely to see her. She’s had a really hard run lately so I hope I brought as much sunshine to her as she brought to me.

We went shopping in a supermarket. She was hugely apologetic about having to take me there, but actually I get incredibly excited about the idea of walking around supermarkets in foreign countries. I could do it for hours. I love looking at all the curiously-named products and seeing how things are all laid out. If I lived in the States I would miss being able to buy halloumi. Every American I speak to is fast to tell me they do have halloumi over here but I suspect they just don’t like the idea of not being the great provider of all food-stuffs. I have never seen it sold in a supermarket in the States. (Cue a rush of Americans telling me it’s sold at every corner shop...)

Sharon and I essentially spent the afternoon doing nothing but chatting. We picked up her son, Edsie from school and then, well, kept on chatting!

The journey back to the train station was quite dramatic. They’ve had a lot of weird weather in the US of late, and we were caught in a traffic jam at one point as a result of a tree falling onto the road. We obviously arrived quite soon after it had happened because the poor guy whose car had been royally crushed by the tree was still standing in the street, scratching his head. I am continually amazed by how much damage a falling tree can do.

I stood at South Orange Station on my way back to Manhattan and the train pulled in, but the doors didn’t open. A cluster of people on the platform shared somewhat confused looks, and waited patiently. After ten minutes, police arrived, and a man was escorted off the train and immediately cuffed. It’s amazing how many big dramas one little day can yield!

I am staying my last four nights in a hotel down in the financial district, which is an area of New York I don’t know at all. I remember walking down here on my first trip to the city, only a year or so after 911. The streets in those parts felt heavy and sad. I may of course have been imagining it, knowing the hell of what had happened here, but, to me, there was a tangible stillness in the area which I found very unnerving.

My hotel sits just underneath the soaring new World Trade Centre, definitely in a spot close enough to have been badly effected by what happened back then. These are the streets which would have been covered in that almost iconic layer of white dust. The panic and pain associated with that event must have cut very deep.

I came into my favourite part of the city this evening, namely the West Village, where I ate pizza on Bleecker and learned that the Americans call what we call Margherita, cheese. They call something else Margherita. What a funny lot! The pizza sauce was a bit sweet for my liking but it was a great spot from which to sit and watch the world going by whilst listening to the Bee Gees and ELO on the radio. They played Telephone Line and I thought of my Mum and Dad.