Although New York thinks of itself as a five-star city with a reputation for high-class services and superb hospitality, I beg to differ. Just about everything Jenny and I did ran into some unexpected glitch.
* At the Whitney Museum we went through a door marked Exit which set off an ear-splitting security alarm. There was no warning the door was alarmed.
* There was a one-hour queue in scorching heat for the Ellis Island ferry, as it goes via the Statue of Liberty. They don't have a ferry for each island.
* My plane from New York to Chicago touched down 3¼ hours late. This was put down to thunderstorms and air traffic control problems.
* The water only ran hot in our hotel room after 8 am. Before that it was cold. According to the hotel, we weren't running the taps for long enough.
* One pizzeria menu included a personal pie, a regular pie and a large pie. When we asked the waitress what sizes these were, she didn't know and recommended slices instead. It's only my second day, she pleaded.
* Virtually all the museums and galleries were closed on Monday, as opposed to Chicago where most of them opened on Monday.
* The signage to tourist venues was so poor we were forever asking people for directions. Even the Ground Zero Visitors Centre was hard to find.
* The key cards for our hotel room kept failing and we were constantly getting them reprogrammed. The hotel blamed over-sensitive locks and cards.
I could go on, but I think I've made the point. So many things weren't properly thought through, had technical faults, or were badly planned. It seems to me that New Yorkers are too complacent (or easy-going) about their malfunctioning city, and ought to be a lot more assertive and demanding.
Pretending everything is fine and making out we're just nit-picking tourists is an odd attitude to say the least. My answer is, Long Live Chicago!
Photo: The Whitney Museum of American Art
