After returning from Europe in mid-August 1983, I spent about 10 days in New York City, a kind of coda to the longer trip. Expenses were low, since I was house sitting – apartment (co-op?) sitting in Greenwich Village – for Deb, a woman I’d met in Germany, while she was on the Jersey shore with her parents. A place New Yorkers went in August, Deb said, because their analysts were out of town. I think she was only half-joking.

If I were a different person, I would have spent late nights at the likes of CBGB, the Palladium, Danceteria, or the Peppermint Lounge (or the Village Vanguard or the Bitter End, for that matter), staggered back to Deb’s apartment, and slept most of the day. That would have been quite the time and place for that kind of activity. But no: I didn’t take a stronger interest in live music in small venues until I lived in Nashville for a few years, and I never did latch on to the alcohol or cocaine components of those kinds of nights. So any stories I’d tell about the NYC club scene 40 years ago would be necessarily made up.

I did a lot of walking. Mostly Manhattan, but one day I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and spent some time in that borough. I also made it up the Bronx.

The zoo was a little run down in those days, but nothing like the south Bronx territory I saw from the #5 IRT. The zoo guide above, looking at it now, is a model of compact information, unfolding to offer a good map of the zoo’s 265 acres on one side, and on the other side, other information about the zoo, and the various trails in the facility one could follow to see different kinds of animals: the Wild Asia Trail, Africa Trail, Reptiles and Apes, Bird Valley Trail, etc.

I see that elephant and llama rides were available for an extra fee in those days. I wonder if that’s still the case.

Back in Manhattan, there was always Art to see.

Note the adult admission price: $3. Or the equivalent of about $10 these days. And what is the adult rate as of 2024? $30. That’s just gouging, MoMA. You have no excuse.

Vistas. I don’t remember what I paid, but the ESB price now is absurd. I’m glad I’ve already been there. 

I went to the top of the Empire State Building at night, and marveled at the glow of the city, but also at just how many vehicles on the street below were yellow cabs. I was at the World Trade Center observation deck during the day; a lost view.