Chelsea, the Highline and Broadway

Big day!

I was up early; I don't like spending the morning in bed when I'm in a new city with things to explore. With a visit to the Highline on the cards, I headed down to Chelsea with a few others from the group.

The Sheep Station in Chelsea

Street art in Chelsea

While we may wake early, the city that doesn't sleep sure loves to sleep in, so no galleries were open. Never mind. We stumbled into a parkland by the river. Beautiful. After all the high rises and concrete, it was great to have some open space with few people around, and what felt like grass as far as the eye could see. An oasis.

Back into the streets, as 10am approached we hunted galleries, but we found you didn't need to go inside to see the art. It was on the walls, on the pavement, and even on the pedestrian crossings. Every door you go past seems to be an art gallery, and new, fancy buildings are rising all around. I thought the gentrification was incredibly obvious here. These mostly look like warehouses, you go inside and it's still a concrete floored warehouse, but someone has put up some white walls to hang art on, and on one street, a worn, dirty, old building facade facing a beautiful, expensive looking wall and entry way. The old and new, happily facing off on the streets of Chelsea.

The Highline was interesting. Beyond the urban renewal, it's been embraced by New Yorkers. It was crowded with families out for a walk where the city has made a scratch in the concrete to let nature peek through. But that's not enough for New York. It has to have art. It's in sculptures in the gardens, billboards you walk by, painted on the buildings and roofs, artworks you'll never see from street level. But it has to be there. This is part of New York.

While the rest of the group made their way to PS1, I hopped on the Subway and took off to Broadway.

The Book of Mormon was calling.

I picked up my tickets and joined the queue eager to get inside the warmth. A hawker was selling programs, and I have no doubt that he wants to be treading the boards one day himself, not just standing outside entertaining the crowd and selling overpriced merchandise.

The theatre is different to where I've been before. No real foyer. You go straight into the seating area. No cloak room, and the bars appear to be afterthoughts. I squeezed into my seat in the front row and the friendly ladies next to me in their furs and pearls made conversation. Like most Americans I've met, very friendly people. I was a little concerned when the show started. I knew there'd be some blue language, but this was far more than expected. I peered over at the ladies wondering if they would be offended, but no, they were loving it. Not so prim and proper after all!

I browsed the playbill, and the number of shows on and off Broadway being shown is astounding. I remember playbills back in Australia, they generally only mentioned the show being seen because it WAS the only show in town.

This must be the place to be to get on stage, but then with everyone else coming, it's got to be incredibly hard to break through.