I can see clearly now the rain is gone, I can see all obstacles in my way

Today’s forecast was for fine and sunny. Not warm specifically, but not raining either.

We live in hope.

We had a Harlem Gospel Experience walking tour booked for this morning, so we had the opportunity of a sleep in.

The tour didn’t start until 9.00am.

They wanted us there by 8.30 – fair enough as people who are late hold up the tour.

To be honest, there are plenty of times I’ve given people who are habitually late a start time earlier than required in the hope they might be on time.

So we consulted Google Maps … if we need to be in Harlem by 8.30am, what time do we need to leave Brooklyn?

So here is a quick geography lesson. Brooklyn and Harlem are about as far apart as any two places can be in New York. We had to catch a b52 bus, then walk, then catch the 2 train.

So to get to Harlem by 8.30am, we needed to leave our AirBnB by about 7.15am.

Which meant a 6.00am alarm 🙁

Just so you know, 6.00am in NYC in December is very dark, and cold.

7.15am is only marginally less dark. And marginally less cold.

But we made it to the bus stop to play bus ninjas this morning in plenty of time. It wasn’t dark but not fully light either.

Dark enough and cold enough that I wished I was still somewhere else – like in bed.

We took the bus for about 9 stops, then switched to the subway so we could be subway ninjas too.

I’m standing like that because I’m cold, BTW, despite the 3 or 4 layers that I’m wearing.

We got onto the 2 train and there was a man stretched out, fast asleep on the opposite seat, and snoring like a runaway freight train.

There are a lot of homeless people in NYC, and it must be terrible to be homeless in this cold weather. The trains are warm, and once you are inside the train network, you could easily stay on a train all day or night.

While this man didn’t appear to be homeless – his clothes looked too clean and new – he certainly smelled and slept like he might have been.

Maybe he’d had a big Saturday night out and his friends were good enough to put him on the train home …?

We got to the location where our Harlem tour was due to start, and we were there with 25 or so minutes to spare.

The tour lady asked whether we wanted to use a rest room or get coffee before the tour started.

Now she either cannot understand english, or doesn’t appreciate Australian humour. The conversation went like this:

Tour lady: “Do you want to get a coffee before the tour starts?”

Me: “Is the pope Catholic?”

Tour lady: <smile> “Huh?”

Me: “Yes, coffee would be good …”

I’ve actually found something very similar happening every time we go into a shop.

Shopkeeper (after payment has been made): “Would you like a copy of the receipt?”

Me: “If you don’t mind.”

Shopkeeper: “Would you like a copy of the receipt?”

Me: “Yes please.”

Anyhow, we got coffee and used the restrooms as it was a 2 hour tour followed by a 2 hour gospel Harlem church service.

And all of the usual conditions were still in play to meet the requirement for a rest room stop: cold weather, coffee at breakfast, faulty plumbing.

You should actually expect that every time we have a stop to see something, it is accompanied by a rest room stop.

The lady who actually took our tour had a name that she said nobody would remember, and as expected, I’d forgotten it before I’d even finished the coffee. She did say, though, that we could call her “D” – that much I did remember.

So D gave us a really interesting overview of gospel music and how it evolved from slavery. She said that gospel music has 6 fundamental aspects. The ones that I remember are:

• Intonation (singing high and low to indicate happiness and sadness)
• Repetition
• Response
• Dance
• Percussion (clapping, stamping feet)
• and another one that I don’t recall.

She then gave us a bit of a history lesson about different styles of gospel music and how they evolved, such as negro spiritual music, through to jazz, soul, rhythm and blues, etc.

She then took us around the streets and showed us some black gospel churches and other architecture around Harlem.

Just for clarity, it is the congregations that are black, not the church buildings themselves.

D said that much of Harlem was originally an expensive white area, with many of the buildings designed by the same man who designed Grand Central Station, and the Empire State Building.

But after an economic depression in 1873, the rich whites lost all of their wealth and the buildings fell vacant, eventually being sold or used by the blacks – leading to the Harlem that we know and associate today as a black or coloured area.

She went on to say that gentrification is now occurring where wealthy whites are wanting to buy back into the area, and some of these homes are selling for $20M+.

She also took us past some large gospel churches. One in particular – the Abyssinian Baptist Church which has 3,000 to 4,000 people on their membership roll, and regularly get 1,000 turn up for Sunday services.

So here is a puzzle: If they get 1,000 people turn up and you assume that there is an average of 3 people in each car, there are 300+ cars – so where do they all park?

Answer: They double park. In the top photo, the cars with their brake lights on are trying to get through the street, often to drop people off at church.

The cars are parked so close together that you actually cannot walk between them.

D went on to say that the church also gets involved in politics by telling black kids their rights in the event that they are questioned by police.

After the walking tour, we were able to sit in on the Salem United Methodist Church gospel service at 11.00am.

Without trying to be disrespectful, it was very much like you would picture the service to be – music (electronic organ in particular) playing underneath everything that happened, lots of clapping, lots of dancing, lots of spontaneous calling out, lots of colour.

The service went for 2 hours, although I suspect that it was a special Christmas service.

After the service which finished at 1.00pm, MBW and I headed back downtown towards Times Square because we wanted to see a Christmas presentation that we’d heard about.

But we needed to eat.

We agreed that we would eat at the first place we saw – it didn’t matter if it was pizza, McDonalds, Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, whatever.

We were cold and hungry and needed fuel.

So the first place that we saw was a salad bar … and we agreed that salad wasn’t “food” in the context of being cold, hungry and needing comfort food, so we continued our search.

The next place we found was a pizza place, so we stopped there as we had agreed. It was the first place that we found that met our criteria.

MBW had chicken and BBQ, while I had chicken and mushrooms.

We only had one slice each – that was enough.

While we waited for the Christmas presentation to commence at C3.NYC, we had a bit of a browse around.

This building looked like a giant jenga game.

Notice the blue sky and fluffy white clouds? Don’t be deceived – it was still only about 7°C and a very cold wind blowing.

We finally got to the Christmas presentation which commenced about 3.20pm and it was very good, but very, very loud … or I’m getting old and cranky – not sure which.

It was a good day. We only really did a couple of key things today but they were good and we saw some interesting stuff.

Only walked about 11,000 steps today so I feel like I’m slacking off.

Today’s weather felt like it was very cold, with a top of about 8°C. Tomorrow has a forecast top of 3°C with a chance of snow, while Thursday – the day that we fly out of NYC and back to Australia – has a forecast top of -3°C.

Today I think I had on 3 or 4 layers, so tomorrow I’ll probably be wearing everything I have.

We grabbed some dinner on our way home and are ready for another big day in NYC tomorrow – Monday for us.

Tomorrow we see the Rockettes. Woohoo.

Can’t wait to tell you all about it.

Today’s song, and the title of today’s post celebrates the fact that the rain has gone and it was a bright, clear, sunny New York day: I can see clearly now (Jimmy Cliff).

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA2019