Travel Biography - Week 18.

Travel and Phobias Don't Mix.

Sometimes, travelling on a tight budget means finding yourself in an uncomfortable situation. Such was the case of finding myself in an upstairs room of a seedy hotel in the heart of Manhattan on the first night after landing. Squalid is the best way to describe this hotel room. Although the bed was properly made up and the sheets appeared clean, on the tiled floor beneath the bed, some cockroaches scurried across from one side of the room to the other, as if my presence disturbed them.

Generally speaking, I don't have much of an issue with insects, although a floor populated with Goliath beetles may be enough for me to make a quick exit. But facing a colony of bugs, none of them more than a centimetre in length, I had a choice. Either tolerate their presence or flee from the room. If I had fled, then what? A night spent in the street of an unfamiliar city? Or find a hotel that would dry up all my financial resources even before I step out of the city? Nope. It was neither. Instead, I just have to grin and bear it. And refrain from complaining at reception. At least I had a place to stay.

Night view from my New York hotel window, 1995.

Indeed, if a brochure advertising the hotel was available with the description of - a venue you always dreamed about and remember - hmm. Remember? Yes. But dreaming about it? Perhaps only in a nightmare, after eating cheese immediately before bed. I had to face it. This hotel was one of the worst I have ever stayed in.

Therefore, I pulled myself together and crawled into bed, shutting out the creepers from my mind. This was TRAVEL. Like when some of my friends warned me about rattlesnakes and other dangerous wildlife I might have encountered whilst hiking the Grand Canyon. Or that there was a huge, 4cm cockroach nestling in the washbasin after arriving at Amarillo in Texas, or watching a mouse scurry across the kitchen floor of a backstreet hostel in St Louis, Missouri.

It was like any fear I had to conquer the first time I ever had to climb a ladder on my own to inspect the outside of an upstairs window. No one was below to stand on the lowest rung. Rather, this ladder was an old wooden one I borrowed from the church I regularly attended. And it creaked and groaned as I climbed up.

That was my new job as a self-employed handyman-turned-window cleaner back in August 1980. Along with getting to feel at home up on a ladder, I also had to contend with a community of garden spiders - the type with short legs and a wide abdomen - as part and parcel of my job, along with a variety of bugs. Either that or remain on the dole and go hungry whilst struggling to pay the rent and bills. And believe me, living entirely on meagre benefits paid by the taxpayer was no honour!

Therefore, I remained in the Manhattan hotel room for the whole night whilst outside there seem to be some commotion. If only I felt alert enough to go outside and check for myself. Had I, I would have seen a building on fire with the street blocked with fire engines and red cars, along with a crowd of spectators. And that was what I saw the flowing morning after checking out of the hotel, except that by then the street was deserted.

That was 1978. This wasn't the last I see of the hotel. Rather, in 1995, I was at the same hotel and I believe, in the same room after landing at J. F. Kennedy Airport, and some failed attempts to find a vacant bed in one of the city's backpacking hostels. This time, I only saw a couple of bugs scurrying across the floor, an improvement from 1978. 

A Day in Manhattan.

I left the hotel and walked through a street where fire engines were parked outside a scarred, smoke-blackened building, I arrived at Port Authority Bus Station, the New York terminus of the Greyhound Americruiser reaching to all parts of the States as far as Los Angeles and San Diego. Here, I deposited my suitcase in a left luggage locker and booked an overnight seat on a bus bound westwards using the Ameripass, and after having breakfast at the station cafeteria, I was free for a whole day to check out the city. This was in 1978 but very much the same schedule was repeated seventeen years later in 1995.

This first visit included asking how to get to the Statue of Liberty, New York's most famous landmark and that of the whole of the USA, and known around the world, too. The statue was a gift to the nation made by A. Gustave Eiffel, who was also responsible for the famous Paris monument. I was directed by a subway ticket seller to a fast underground train and alighted at Battery Park, from where ferries sailed for both Statue Island and Staten Island.

Inside the head of the Statue of Liberty, 1978.

In 1978, entry to the inside of the Statue of Liberty was open to visitors all year round. A tight spiral staircase led to the inside of her copper head, which, by this time I was soaked in my own sweat. There was hardly any reward for a view, as the only opening was a grated slot at her headband crossing her forehead. With such restricted ventilation, the interior was a heat trap, and by 1998, when I visited the statue again, the interior was closed to visitors during the summer months, as the trapped heat brought illness, including fainting, to the more vulnerable victims.

Returning to Midtown, another famed landmark was Times Square, brightly lit up at night by a variety of neon adverts. Not truly a square in a traditional sense but more of a six-pronged star as West 45th Street intersects at right angles with 7th Avenue, and Broadway also intersects at a narrow-angle from 7th Avenue. In 1978, several cinemas were lining Broadway, all advertising XXX movies, and I wondered who would be entertained by such erotic films. However, by 1995, there seem to be far fewer of these theatres, either that or they have modestly been less showy.

Times Square, taken 1995.

Since 1978, I stopped in New York in 1995 and again in 1998. The 1995 visit was basically a replica of my 1978 visit, arriving from London in the evening, and after failing to find a bed at the city's several backpacker hostels, I remembered the hotel I stayed at my first arrival, and I found it without difficulty. As for the hostels, I was surprised at how full they were. It was early September when I arrived, purposely timed just after all the schools in the UK had re-opened after the summer break. But I failed to take into consideration that universities open later in the year, and September is the month when many students have ended their summer work contracts and were free to explore before returning home. So I was told by a hostel staff member.

And so, the first night of the 1995 trip was spent in the same hotel as in 1978. As I looked out of the window over 8th Avenue, across the road and to my right was Goldilocks Deli, a grocery store. I was amused by the name, typical American. Between times of quietness, groups of Afro-Caribbeans sauntered along the street, their Saturday night stint over as they made their way home. However, sometime later, a crowd of them began to amass just outside the hotel and a brawl broke out. I thought this was the right moment to make myself invisible and crawl into bed.

With such drama, who needs to be in a luxury hotel near a Mediterranean beach at the height of summer? This was much more exciting!

Back in 1978, it must have been a late afternoon or early evening when I boarded the night bus bound for Los Angeles, where my next city of call would be St Louis in Missouri. With the help of the departure board, like at any main railway station, I was able to work out my arrival into St Louis was to be by lunchtime on the next day.

On to St Louis, Missouri.

Both the 1978 and 1995 trips to the USA began with a bus journey of nearly a thousand miles or 1,620 kilometres, taking between 20-22 hours to complete. That's approximately a third of the USA from New York. It goes to show how huge the continent really is, especially when compared to the size of Europe. 

The Americruiser's final destination was Los Angeles but I chose to alight at St Louis, not only the first city across the Mississippi River but one with a remarkable monument, a 192-metre-high steel arch whose two stems are also 192 metres apart at its base, hence, the distance between its two "feet" is the same as the height of its apex.

St Louis Courthouse and Gateway Arch, 1995.

But a word on the journey itself from New York. It was the second longest bus journey in North America after the Winnipeg-Toronto route I completed the previous year in 1977. New York to St Louis is almost the same distance as London to Rome, and I recall the early to mid-1970s when travelling by train, along with a ferry crossing the Channel, was an adventure in itself, and indeed, I would use the same train route tomorrow if given the chance - ferry and all, instead of the Eurostar!

The train journey from London to Rome took about 24 hours to complete, give or take. This compares with the journey time on the Americruiser bus. This goes to show that despite the train being faster than the bus, the waiting times involved with the trans-Europe journey, especially when boarding the ferry, the wait before the continental train departing from Boulogne-sur-Mer, along with the two long stops at Paris, and then at Modane, before another at Torino, Genova, and other major cities on the way. 

The terrain east of the Mississippi was not unlike a typical English countryside, as the road passes through cities such as Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Columbus, and either Dayton and Indianapolis in 1978 or via Cincinnati and Louisville in 1995. Therefore, on both trips, I didn't consider exploring cities east of the great river. To me, America - the America that had inspired me - begins after crossing the Mississippi.

View of the Courthouse from the arch viewing gallery, 1995.

During the 1978 trip, I spent just a few hours in St Louis before boarding the evening bus to my next destination, rather similar to Chicago a year earlier in 1977. In 1995, however, I spent three days and two nights in St Louis before heading off. However, on both trips, my attention was centred on the Gateway Arch, the underground museum beneath the arch and the nearby St Louis Courthouse, where an 18th Century negro slave has bidden for his freedom. However, ascending the arch to reach the apex observation gallery was the most unusual means I had ever seen and experienced.

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Next Week: My Experience at St Louis and my approach to the Grand Canyon.