On the Waterfront

On Thursday we walked via Times Square to Pier 83 on the Hudson for a 1 1/2 hour boat trip down the bay, past the Statue of Liberty and up the East River to the Williamsburg Bridge.

That was far enough. The boat is called The Circle Line and does trips all the way round Manhattan. Believe me, it takes 2 1/2 hours and we saw the best bits yesterday. Our guide, unexpectedly, was excellent. He was strong on architecture and history and threw in enough trivia to keep everyone happy. The skyline has changed a lot since ‘83 both on Manhattan and in Brooklyn and Jersey City. The latter has a lot of high rise offices which I suppose are cheaper than their equivalent on Manhattan.

Poster by Jean Cocteau for the 1911 Ballet Russe season showing Nijinsky in costume for Le Spectre de la rose, Paris.

”The Ballets Russes was an itinerant ballet company begun in Paris which performed between 1909 and 1929 throughout Europe and on tours to North and South America. The company never performed in Russia, where the Revolution disrupted society. After its initial Paris season, the company had no formal ties there.” (Wikipedia)

I like the understatement: “disrupted society”. But I digress. Many Russian émigrés found their way to New York after the revolution including members of the Russian Imperial Ballet, who founded the Russian Tea Room, next to Carnegie Hall in 1926. I had been before and so was not surprised by the 24 carat gold ceiling, red leather baguettes and abundance of Russian art on the walls. The food was good too.

This is a Tesla you will not see in the UK or EU. Like many people in the US it is too heavy (3 1/2 tons) and EU and UK regulations also ban exterior features with sharp edges to protect pedestrians and cyclists. The Cybertruck’s stainless-steel body panels and rigid structure do not meet these safety standards. In my opinion it looks sinister, ugly and doesn’t look like a pickup truck.