Today we spent the least amount of money per diem since we got here. We haven't exactly been parsimonious while we've been here, and one of the very true things about New York City is that it's expensive. To be fair, we haven't exactly TRIED to economize either. I haven't cooked a single meal since we arrived (YEA!!!!!!) The only thing I could say we have done that has been a 'good buy' is to buy a $100 Metrocard (each of us) which is good for unlimited use for all subways and all buses for 30 days. Because these are so readily available and so easy to use, we haven't used a taxi once. That means that our daily transportation cost is about $3.00 each. A single subway ride without the card is $2.50.
So spending $35 for the entire day's entertainment AND food was a real aberration. It happened this way: We started the day at the American Indian Museum which is a Smithsonian Museum and is FREE. (I've heard more than one New Yorker tell me that if it's FREE in New York you should do it because it won't be free for long. ) The museum is housed in the Alexander Hamilton Custom's House built in 1910, and it is a spectacular building in the same architectural style (and time period) as the New York Public Library. We spent half an hour ogling the building before we even thought about the museum.
This museum was everything I've come to expect in a Smithsonian Museum - beautifully lighted, artifacts tastefully displayed, and interesting stuff. Having grown up in Oklahoma, another piece of land that was supposed to belong to the Indians FOREVER, I have a soft spot for Native American artifacts. One of the things that struck me today was how hard it was for the nomadic tribes to hang onto their culture and their art after being confined to reservations.
There was also a very interesting exhibit about the horse (brought by the Spanish to the 'New World' and adopted/stolen by the Indians), and how acquisition of the horse changed the tribal life of the nomadic Indians. Acquisition of horses really improved the lives of Indian women, freeing them from quite a bit of drudgery labor.
This is all in the Battery (which is the southern part of Manhattan Island). We hopped back on the subway and went up to Chinatown. We've been wanting to go here, but it wasn't convenient until today. One of the first things we learned when we arrived here is not to buy 'stuff' anywhere but Chinatown. As the tour guide on the Grayline bus ride explained, all the T-shirts, jewelry, handbags, sunglasses, and New York knickknacks all come from Chinatown. If you buy that stuff anywhere else, you're just paying the middleman. Today based on what I saw, that's absolutely true. You could buy the identical I Love New York T-shirts (where 'love' is the heart) 7 for $12.99 or $2.99 each in Chinatown. Some stuff I've seen sold all over the rest of New York was 50% cheaper in Chinatown. We had out restaurant all picked out to discover that some mysterious problem had closed the restaurant. No worries - there are restaurants every 3 steps. We wound up at a place that we liked the look of, and I liked the name: Shanghai 456. Our meal was $23 - and that included the tip.
My final word on Chinatown is that I thought the rest of New York City was busy and crowded - well triple the busy and the number of people and you have Chinatown. It was actually hard to walk down the sidewalks. The 'stores' were about 10 feet wide and 50 feet long - crammed with merchandise from the floor to the ceiling, one after another with no space between. There were vegetable stalls on the sidewalks and open air fish markets. I resisted the temptation to buy anything except for three collapsible fans at $1.00 each - and if I'd bargained, I probably could have gotten them cheaper!
We hopped on another subway and headed for the Lower East Side - this is the famous tenement area of New York in the late 19th and early 20th century. At that time it was the densest concentration of human beings on the planet. Today it seems to be a spacious, really calm, and very uncrowded area of New York. Surprisingly, it's little served by subways, and we had to take a bus to get to the Abrons Art Center - part of the Henry Settlement House (a charitable organization whose purpose was to help new immigrants integrate into the United States and American culture). When I was looking on the Carnegie Hall website - hoping to find a concert there we could buy tickets for, I discovered the the Carnegie season is over, but that during June they sponsor lots of free neighborhood concerts all over the city. We like chamber music, so we attended a free neighborhood concert in the Lower East Side tonight.
The musicians we saw are called ETHEL (don't know why), but they are the classic chamber group: 2 violins, a viola and a cello. All the musicians were trained at Julliard and have been playing together (paying gigs) for 11 years. They don't play traditional music, but rather play 20th century composers - contemporaries of themselves as well as some compositions they have individually composed. Tonight, a composer of one of the pieces was in the audience. This was very informal, and actually the audience lounged on cushions on the steps of the art center while children played around, and some young girls (5 or 6 years old) actually danced spontaneously to the music. It was very relaxing and very entertaining and it was FREE. This is supported by the Carnegie Foundation, and we were told that over 1000 free concerts had occurred in New York in June.
Coming home tonight on the subway, I figured we used 4 different subway lines today and one bus route both coming and going, and our total expenditure today was under $35. What a day! See it in pictures if you're interested:
https://picasaweb.google.com/jalyss1/NewYorkAmericanIndianMuseumCustomsHouseChinatown?authkey=Gv1sRgCNLghumBoKvOLw#
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