Date: 2011-06-17
From: (81) Bear Mountain Bridge / Hudson River

To: (82) New York City
Miles today: 0.0

In the morning Bud Heavy and his friend drove me to the Amtrak station in Peekskill where I would take a train into the city (I brought most of my gear along because I was still in trail mode). They helped me out a ton because I did not know how public transportation worked, having grown up in an area where there isn¢t any.During my train ride I say beside a guy my age who was heading to his court hearing. He got so distracted asking me about the trail and telling me how he had gotten in trouble with the law that he missed his stop and was going to be late! I felt so bad that I let him use my cell phone to call his attorney and tell him.I got off in NYC in Grand Central Station. It was so huge and full of people busily walking around that it made me dizzy. After acquiring a city map from a kiosk, I escaped outside for some air. Unable to find the sun amidst the skyscrapers, I oriented my map off of the street names and headed down Park Avenue towards Ground Zero, where they are building the new Freedom Towers in honor of 9/11. I had no intention of paying for public transportation, as I was already used to walking all day and wanted to immerse myself in what the city had to offer. I soon discovered that walking through the city had some similarities to walking through the woods. Instead of passing a pattern of trees, I passed buildings, with only the occasional sight or view that set any one area apart from another. Instead of streams I found water fountains, and when it started to rain I put on my pack cover and then sought shelter inside of a McDonalds. In this way, survival in the city was much the same (Bathroom breaks aside, these required the use of designated areas segregated by sex, waiting in line for a stall, toilet paper dispensers, and hand washing with soap, followed by the drying of one¢s hands¢¦ people really know how to complicate a simple thing).I found Ground Zero and admired its construction (it was a big hole in the ground and a partially built silver tower) and then it began to rain again. I took shelter in a nearby church, sitting beside my gear and dripping water onto the floor, and then I walked onward through China Town to the coast and caught sights of the Statue of Liberty from Battery Park. From there I went up into Wall Street, then back through Little Italy and China Town (Walking down the sidewalks of China Town was like trying to bushwhack; there were Asian people everywhere and the going was slow). I passed Trinity church and followed Broadway for a ways up the city, and then I decided to go into an AT&T shop. For the past two weeks or so my phone had been turning on and off sporadically whenever I used it (texting girls of course), causing the battery to die very quickly. The AT&T people (after realizing I wasn¢t homeless) told me that they did not supply the kind of battery I needed, and from there sent me to another shop, and then another, until I had made a giant triangle through the city on my quest to find the appropriate battery. In the end I used my upgrade and bought a new phone (Android Atrix, it had the longest battery life of the smart phones then).By this time it was getting dark, so I walked nearly the length of the city again along the coast and the West Side Highway until I hit the Chelsea Piers area where there were supposed to be cheap hotels. I found one hotel for 100 dollars a night and asked if they knew anybody cheaper. They did, and so I walked a ways to that hotel and asked if they knew anyone cheaper, and they did, and so did the one after and so on. Around 10pm I had unearthed the cheapest place yet, an international hostel for 70$ a night. This was still too much money (I could survive for weeks off of this kind of dough), so I decided to go sleep for free at the homeless shelter on 83rd that I had found using the internet on my phone. I made towards central park, and hit up a beautifully lit times square along the way, packed with people and street performers despite how late it was getting. I went into Central Park, and was going to sleep there despite how creepy it was (strange people walking slowly through a thick fog that began the second I passed entered), but further investigation on my new phone revealed a 1am curfew for the park. Not wanting to get on the wrong side of the law, I walked on towards 83rd, but it was too far. I had done a ¢big day¢ through the city, a distance that I estimated (based on time and flat terrain) to have been about 30 miles on hard pavement. My feet hurt and I was tired, so I lied down between two homeless people on the outer wall of Central Park. I used my ugly Tyvek ground cover as a blanket instead of my sleeping bag so that I blended in with the homeless; kind of a self defense against robbery that complimented my beard and ragged clothes. (I had no misgivings towards the homeless themselves, but rather the sounds of road traffic, neon lights, and the occasional drunk stumbling by). I fell asleep. I was awoken 2 hours later by some police officers who were making their rounds (they walk around telling the homeless to move on, I assume to prevent the eventual conglomeration of people and building of tent cities). One of the officers asked me if I was homeless, and I told him that I was not and that I was visiting the city while hiking the Appalachian Trial. He rolled his eyes and said ¢Ooooh so you¢re a wanderer huh?¢, and then he walked away, leaving me feeling dumb and confused. I watched as he continued down the street, waking people up and telling them to move on, though the majority ignored him and kept right on sleeping. Being compliant, I walked on, reaching the top left outside corner of Central Park and following it around and then back down the other side (I couldn¢t cut across Central Park because of the curfew, and looking in could see an armored van with spot lights searching for violators) until I reached the building that had been the homeless shelter. I learned from a sign that it was no longer operating, having been recently shut down. It seemed like the city was full of closed doors. Exhausted, I checked my phone and found another homeless shelter a little past the opposite end of Central Park. I started towards it, nursing sore feet as I went. After a ways I sat down on my sleeping pad in the middle of a side walk and ate some food; the street was completely deserted. Tired, I found a place outside of a museum where several other people were sleeping and joined them. It was 3am and I could barely stand; I no longer cared where I slept, and the ground was always open to me. At this point, it was the last place I could turn to. I had thought that sleeping in the streets would not only save me money but also be an experience. I was right. As I lied there waiting for sleep, I wondered if the police would chase me out again, or if one of the people walking by would decide to stomp on my head. I was utterly undefended. To my right was a black man sleeping on a metal bench. He was wearing shorts and shivering; he was young and clean cut, but he did not appear to own any possessions other than a cell phone clipped to his belt. He stirred often. Why was he there? In front of me was an old couple sitting under a blanket while staring out into the street. They huddled for warmth against each other, looking sad as hell. They never went to sleep; they never even lied down to try. What would a new day bring them?There was a certain crappy feeling I got sleeping in the streets among them. I wanted to understand it, and realized that I had discovered rock bottom, that I was surrounded by broken dreams; the loss of everything. I am not sure what lesson this experience has taught me, but I like to think that it has helped me grasp a perspective beyond the reach of those who have never felt the loss of security and comfort, or the disgrace of society. It is not the fun little adventure I had imagined, but rather an unfortunate end. I had hiked into it, and unlike the others around me, I would hike out.