Livin’ in New York City Post 2: One Hell of a Sandwich

I’ve always wanted to go to Katz’s Delicatessen if I ever went to New York City. Lucky for me, I went there during my very first week.

For my latest exploits in New York City, my parents and I decided to venture into the wilds of Manhattan to see some of the sights. We went on a bus tour of New York, specifically lower Manhattan, which I was excited for while simultaneously dreading the experience. On the one hand, I thought it would be a great way to see lower Manhattan as well as learn about the artifacts. However, I wasn’t excited to spend time with tourists. 

Fortunately, this was a marvelous time because I felt like navigating this bustling island was more manageable. The way it worked was that there was this double-decker bus and you were given ear-buds which would plug into a radio next to your seat. This radio would play songs about New York as well as deliver interesting information about the landmarks. However, these recorded “tour guides” were pretty cheesy. Let’s just say that they made after-school specials look like Method Actors trained by Elia Kazan. 

You name a sight in Lower Manhattan, chances are that I saw it: The Empire State Building, The New York Public Library, Chinatown, Hell’s Kitchen, Little Italy. I even saw Times Square and I completely understand why New Yorkers don’t like it. It’s a place where the yuppie, dead-eyed, unimaginative tourists all like to shop. However, all New Yorkers have to pass through it if they want to go to the theater district. 

Everywhere you looked in Times Square was a billboard for a Broadway show and I’ve got to see some of them like “Funny Girl,” “Hamilton” and “Mr. Saturday Night.” “Company” is going to wrap up at the end of the month and I owe it to myself as a fan of Stephen Sondheim to see my favorite one of his musicals. 

The famous “faking it” scene from “When Harry Met Sally” was shot inside the famous Katz’s Delicatessen.

Following the tour, we were able to visit one of my most desired cinematic locations in the whole city: Katz’s Delicatessen. Easily the most famous Jewish deli in the city, the restaurant is best known for its great sandwiches, atmosphere and a famous scene in a little movie called “When Harry Met Sally.” In the deli, Sally Albright (Meg Ryan) loudly fakes an orgasm to prove to Harry Burns (Billy Crystal) that at least a few women have probably faked it with him. After Sally finishes, a patron (Estelle Reiner) tells a waiter, “I’ll have what she’s having.”

After being handed tickets, we ordered some pastrami and corned beef on rye with both sour and half-sour pickles. While eating, I certainly didn’t try to recreate Sally’s “fake performance” but let me tell you, that sandwich was so good, I swear I could have had a real one. As far as I’m concerned, I’m never eating Subway or Jimmy John’s again. They just will never compare to the amazing deli. 

While we didn’t get to sit at the table where Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal sat, we did get to sit near it. In actuality, we were probably sitting where director Rob Reiner was, behind the camera watching his two actors as well as his mother Estelle’s iconic line. 

The next day, we decided to visit the iconic Statue of Liberty along with Ellis Island and it was magnificent. As we approached the statue on a ferry, there was this sense of awe as well as a terrible lack of balance. The former was due to thinking of all of the immigrants who saw that statue when they came to New York. The latter was because of all the people going to one side of the ship to look at Lady Liberty. I thought that the ship was going to capsize until I realized that the builders of these ships anticipated spontaneous changes in weight distribution. 

When we walked around the statue and throughout Ellis Island, all of that history just kept hitting me, particularly the exhibits about resistance to immigration. Even before America’s independence, those who already were living here didn’t want any new people whether it be the Germans, Irish, Jews, Poles, Italians, Chinese, Japanese, etc. I even saw a political cartoon where Uncle Sam felt that immigrants should only get half a vote because they were only half American. 

Then I got to thinking about who the new enemy is in immigration. Who are the groups that people think are going to destroy America? Right now, it looks like Latinos and Muslims are the big target. This kind of discrimiantion has been present throughout our history and, as someone who likes to study history, I’ve come to the logical conclusion that all of the people who have been against immigrants, whether they be legal entries or undocumented, and view new arrivals to our country with no compassion can go fuck themselves. I’m looking at you Stephen Miller with your dead, soulless face that looks like it’s made seven Horcruxes. But I digress. 

When we made it back to Battery Park, a huge downpour descended on Manhattan and lasted for just 30 minutes. We were able to quickly find a cab and made it back to Brooklyn in about 25 minutes. Let me tell you this, cab drivers don’t fuck around. They are fast, aggressive and want to get you to where you need to go. Our driver was also really nice and told me to keep my “torchlight on.” In this case, it was a metaphor for keeping my eyes open since he learned I was new to the city. We took an Uber to Battery Park and a cab from Battery Park. The cab was 10 minutes quicker and was half the cost of the Uber so, from now on, if I need to get to someplace in a big hurry, I’m getting a cab. I don’t care if my driver is Travis Bickle. 

Following that delightful experience, my dad and I got to experience the majesty of the local laundromat because not only did we have a week’s worth of laundry, we had a week’s worth of sweaty laundry from a hot as hell week. However, there wasn’t a whole lot for me to do since I only had my phone and I wanted to limit social media access. Next time, I need to bring a book like “How To Avoid Drowning Obnoxious Tourists In The Hudson River Because The East River Is Too Good For Them.”