Gotham

Before we go any further I feel I aught to step up to the lectern and try to drop some nuggets of knowledge. Maybe you've put together why I chose this title for my blog, maybe you haven't, but I wanted to talk about names and nicknames.

This will also give me a chance to reference the New York history book I've been reading for the past 3 months: Gotham, by Edwin Burrows. It weights more than a min- statuette of liberty, registering at over 1200 pages and only covers New York's history until the year 1898. Why 1898? I don't know, I made it to year 1830 and had to return it to the library. To get an idea of how complete this book is, ask yourself what you know about New York before the American Revolution? … me neither, but Mr. Burrows wrote a good 200 pages on it! He also explained a lot about names.

Gotham, New York's classier nickname, in some language or another translates to 'goat town', hardly an image that comes to mind when we think of the city today. First applied to the city by Washington Irving in A Short History of New York, the name refers to a funny little town in England, with two conflicting stories about itself. The first, is that everyone who lived in the town was crazy, nutso, off their medication – end of story, which seems a bit odd New Yorkers to accept as a namesake. The other story is that everyone in Gotham was really smart, but acted crazy so that the King wouldn't visit and claim all their beautiful land for his highway. This seems a more appropriate story for any city, let alone one that at times can seem misunderstood.

Over the years, I've heard and even dispensed a stream of disparaging statements about New York: Too dirty, too impersonal, too self centered, too many Yankee fans, too much poverty, just too much (which sounds like a lot of the complaints people have about China, except for that Yankee fan stuff). I'll admit that just 1 year ago I counted New York as a city I had no desire to live in for exactly the reasons enumerated above. Now that I'm here, and finding it quite to my liking I might add, I'm beginning to wonder about the old Gotham story. Maybe New York has convinced scores of kings (and common folk) that to live there you must be crazy, when really it's a pretty nice place.

Devious conspiracies aside, I feel learning the history of the names fills in a nice history to the places. It doesn't take a genius to realize New York is named after York, England, because the King's brother, and Duke of York, was given the charter for the city. More interesting is how the burros were names. In the 1600's Mr. Brock moved his family just across the river from the northern part of Manhattan and set up Bronk's farm, in an area now known as Da' Bronx. Brooklyn was named after something from Holland. And apparently nobody knows for certain how Manhattan got it's name, but my personal favorite is that it's Native American for 'The Drunken Place', due to a surely wild pow-wow between early explorers and footloose natives. I don't care if it's true, I just feel the name fills in a bit of the history.

Street Cart Panic

Panic. Does anyone else feel this when it comes to food? If that just makes me weird, well, that makes me weird, but occasionally I panic when it comes to food. It's almost as though my experiences have repeatedly doomed me to terrible food; time and again I order dishes with chorizo sausage in it, and time and again get overcooked ground beef. Alternatively, there are other times I can't choose between menu offerings. The fish 'n' chips? The burger? The special? Inevitably my knee-jerk reactions, high expectations and ill-informed decision making process far to often leads to heartbreak [See: Fish and Chips / Anywhere in Asia]. Throw in the slightest pressure to decide quickly and I've got bank-run levels of panic.

All of which leads me to my first lunch at work, downtown on a sunny day in the nice part of spring. The Chase Manhattan building abuts Rockefeller Center at 50th and 6th, the sight of a lovely plaza complete with fountain, seating and droves of food carts. On this maiden luncheon, I wandered the stalls, aghast at the selections, giddy at the prospect of eating them every day for lunch. Mexican? Southern BBQ? Korean BBQ? Japanese? Greek? There was even a cart with the sphinx on it... though I had never thought of hot dogs and pretzels as very Egyptian. Lost in the cloudy dreams of gastronomic possibilities, an aggressive man at an empty cart engaged me as I walked past. “What are you having?”

Panic. Instantaneously, I might add. “Chicken Gyro” I blurted back, having been robbed of my faculties which allow me to distinguish good ideas from dog food. Too late to renege my order, I awkwardly stood there, considering how I had just ordered from a cart nobody was at while the short, greasy man prepared my food. Prices weren't listed anywhere, so when I handed him a $5 bill, he stuffed it in a drawer and quickly turned away. All the other gyro carts are $4. I now have no choice but to fear for the worst, yet I hold out hope; how badly can one make a gyro?
Quite badly. I scolded myself for being so foolish. Had it been so long since I'd ventured into the world of street food that I'd forgotten the most basic principles? (1) Go where other people go, (2) Order what other people order. In New York City, it might be the easiest two rules to follow ever. Find the cart with all people in business attire (to be sure they're not ignorant tourists) and order what they're getting. I had no one to blame by myself for this disaster. I panicked and fell prey to a street vendor who honed his marketing and sales skills, while neglecting to cultivate any cooking talent.

Thankfully I've learned from my mistakes. I've done more research; I follow the suits. And if I am going to go off the beaten track, I remember what my years on the run taught me: stay calm, believe in the principles, follow the suits, and avoid the hot dog truck with the Sphinx on it.

A New Begining

It's time to move on. I don't live in Shanghai, megalopolous of Sinitic delights and mystery. I completed my mission in Shanghai, didn't I? Continuing to post there feels like trampling on the peaceful resting place of spirits past. I need to start afresh, but wow do we begin again?

Obviously we need a new place. How about New York City, home of Wall Street, Broadway, Brooklyn and (gulp) the Yankees? Sounds good at first, but then we realize the great advantage I had in Shanghai was most people haven't been there. You had no choice but to take my observations at face value. We've all been to New York, and we all have opinions. Plus, it's not like a New York City blog is unique. Well, all I can do is paraphrase the advertisements around Rockefeller Center – this will be my New York.

I began my last blog asking what better reason to have a blog than living in Shanghai. Now I ask why not New York? My girlfriend Adrienne encouraged me to start blogging about New York, and henceforth I am determined to do so with as much zeal as I can manage. I can't promise it will be informative, insightful or interesting, but I'm going to try my dardnest. New York is about to get Shanghaied!