This week I visited an IKEA store in the USA. Well, I visited a blue and yellow warehouse type place with the name IKEA on the front and furniture with odd Scandinavian names inside, but there the resemblance to the IKEA I love ended.
The visit was to a store in New Jersey, right by Newark Airport, at a place called Elizabeth. This area constituted a new benchmark for me for the term industrial wasteland. It seems the whole of this part of the state consists only of motorways, railroads, swamps and factories.
I was already a bit stressed, the visit coming half way through a day of picking up bits of furniture in a van from most of the New York City boroughs as well as New Jersey. But I wasn’t ready for what happened inside my blessed IKEA.
The physical layout was familiar, though the car park was vast, uncovered and bleak, and the inside seemed tired, even the restaurant. But the real problem was the service.
First, the store did not have a single catalogue inside. That is a bit like a pub with no beer, as the catalogue is at the heart of the business model. The staff were blasé about it. Seemingly, a new one was just coming out next week. But really, how can it be acceptable ever to run out of catalogues?
Then, the place seemed understaffed, and the staff that were there just didn’t have motivation or knowledge. Only three checkout lines were open, with long queues, though the people manning them seemed happy talking among themselves some of the time. After establishing upstairs that the storage units I wanted did not get supported upstairs (why?), I found the warehouse, and some computer screens which got me tantalisingly close to the information I needed to go and fetch my components. But only close. Some pictures didn’t come up well on screen, and the menus were not good enough. I just needed a catalogue! Or even the IKEA website would have sufficed. But neither were available.
Instead I asked for help. The first guy was offhand and pointed me to another guy behind a desk. Who was rude, ignorant and useless. In the end I had to guess what I needed I still don’t know if I guessed well or not.
The other thing that struck me was the absence of joy in the whole place. The staff were just going through the motions, and no managers were in sight. The customers were grim faced. Many were confused and unhappy, and more than one was handing out abuse to anyone who would listen, shouting “this place stinks” or things like that.
All in all, after a long hour and a half, I was very happy to get back to the van and drive off into the industrial wasteland, fortified only by the good meat balls, but otherwise in a foul mood. And I suspect many other customers left the same way, and some of those would not return.
When I got home, I tried to work out what had happened and why. Many European retailers struggle in the USA, and IKEA has had a mixed experience here. Does my experience this week offer any clues as to why?
When I thought about it, many of the direct aspects of the experience were similar to Europe. IKEA is nearly always in something close to an industrial wasteland, and parking is never fun there. Choosing items from the warehouse is always a fraught experience, and often leads to mistakes and follow up visits. There are frequent queues at check outs. Staff often seem to be absent from where you need them and not to quite the knowledge needed.
So the European experience is not a bundle of laughs either. Yet somehow there is something about it which makes me feel good. Something plainly missing from the experience in the USA.
I thought back to my first visits to IKEA in Europe. These had been tough too. It took time to build belief in the business model and faith in myself to make it work for me. I remember long queues in Croydon as well, and the misery of having to take loads of stuff back due to my errors. Yet I came back, and became a fan.
I think there were two reasons. One is the end product. I managed to persevere long enough with IKEA to get benefits, and to believe that I would continue to get benefits. The products are great, and wonderful value, and brilliantly designed, and even I can put them up. If I keep my head down through the difficult parts of the experience, I would emerge at the far end with a good outcome. I came to believe it was worth it.
The second reason is that IKEA did everything they could to make the experience bearable, with positive aspects mitigating the inherent bad bits. The catalogue is clear. If my mood is light enough, I can marvel at all the great products. The restaurant is a miracle. I can take myself out of the experience itself and intellectualise how superb the business model is. The staff do their very best to help. And somehow a combination of all this means that lots of other people, with their kids, are in a light, positive mood around me in the store, which keeps my own mood lifted.
So in Europe the two factors build a strong brand. The positive parts of the experience are just enough to get you through the inevitable negatives, until the great outcome kicks in, from when your mood on visiting is so good you stop noticing the negatives.
Obviously what was missing in Elizabeth was the positive aspect of the experience. Far from happy kids and great staff, this place was just miserable, and we were all dragged into the void, even long-time fans like me. And this came down to basic operations. Not enough staff. Management not caring enough (or bothering to find out) about a lack of catalogues. Undertrained, under-motivated staff.
The USA is strange when it comes to staff. I receive some wonderful service every day, from people who lift my mood. I used to think the famous “Have a nice day” cliché was a false thing forced on people by training and coercive management, but I learn that usually it isn’t. When this wow factor exists it is powerful. But I also frequently experience the opposite. Just now, having arrived, I meet a lot of government departments, and they are notorious, not just in the USA. The Department of Motor Vehicles has scarred me already, and just from one visit.
I suspect the main problem European retailers have is in creating this wow factor among the local managers and staff. This certainly seems to be the case with IKEA. Which suggests that US staff respond to a different combination of stimuli. The package of pay, teamwork, training, job security, incentive and other things needs to be different here.
I’ll observe more and develop some theories. One possibility here is that the freshness fades more quickly, so managers have to find new ways to keep people motivated more often. That would correlate with the focus on marketing and continuous renewal here.
Whatever the secret, IKEA in Elizabeth do not have it, or if they once had it, they lost it. IKEA global managers should be ashamed of that store, at least based on that one visit. I will be going to the one in Brooklyn this week, with some trepidation. Can my icon recover?
Monday, July 30, 2012
Thursday, July 19, 2012
An aural Assault
Life in New York City is certainly fast-paced. It is no wonder that I frequently look into eyes that seem very, very tired, and also into eyes that appear utterly defeated. This is no place for anyone lacking spirit.
I have come to realise that one symptom of the intensity of life here is that all my senses seem to under fire all of the time. It is nice in a way, life is spicy that way.
Touch is more frequent than elsewhere. Despite the frequent warnings in the subway about sexual assault, it is impossible to live here without touching more human beings than in other places. The subway is just crowded. So are the buses, and so are the pavements (should I say sidewalks?). Anyone over sensitive to being touched will have a miserable time here.
Taste is assaulted mainly in a good way. Food and drink are a big part of life, with little and often being the metier. I have never seen so many cafes and restaurants and street stalls, and the variety of their wares is stunning. Whereas we have been rather shocked by the cost of many things here, casual eating and drinking is quite cheap. And the variety is wonderful, so the taste buds get used to many flavours. You have to be careful to avoid things with added sugar, as much of the diet seems unhealthy. It is no wonder so many Americans have become obese, even here with its built in exercise regime.
This is a city of many smells. Human flesh is a large part of it. In the heat and the crowds, it would be good to be able to shower many times a day, but of course that is not what people can do. So odour is a part of the human diversity here. Add in smells of food, and of various forms of pollution, and there is plenty to smell.
There is always something to see, anywhere in the world that is not dark or confined. But what sights there are in New York! Nothing is petite. I was looking at some building today, very majestic architecture, somewhere in Gramercy. I have no idea what is was, but it struck me that the building would have been the centrepiece of almost any town, but here it was almost mundane. We can be snobbish about our history in Europe, but there is majesty a plenty here. Add in the human diversity, which surprises me every single day in some way, and even our eyes get life full on.
All the senses get battered, but it is the ears which bear the brunt. I remember an Indian once telling me that it was the silence in Europe that he never got used to, since there was no such thing as silence in an Indian city. It is the same here. So far, the only thing I miss of Europe is the absence of noise. I expect that would be common, it is the absence of something that we don’t appreciate so long as we have it, but miss when we lose it.
Noise here is everywhere. Start with the background noises. Air conditioning machines or power generators are never far away, with their tell-tale hum. To sleep at night in summer either requires great tolerance for heat or tolerance for noise. Open windows let in the world. Air conditioners are just noisy. When we watch television with the aircon off, we set the volume to about 16. When the machine is on, we need to set it at 40 to hear properly. Imagine what that is doing to our ears.
At home we can keep the windows closed, but what about when we are outside? There is always a steady hum of traffic, often punctuated by loud heavy motors and sirens. The subway trains are brilliant, but wow do they make a racket.
New Yorkers almost all respond to this by employing ipods, and I have come to do the same. But I wonder if that is so smart. Firstly, I cannot listen to anything with loud and soft bits, as either I am deafened in the forte or the piano is absent. Hooray for Bach and renaissance music! But even when listening to something of a steady volume, I find I need the volume set very high. These ears seem destined to be assaulted one way or another.
We luckily found a haven of peace last Sunday at the episcopal cathedral, with a lovely recital by a Cambridge college choir of all things. But even then the silence was less than I was used to. Once the conductor had to give a tone in competition with a mysterious noise emanating from somewhere. And there was also the audience. To be fair, people were quiet during the singing, but not immediately before. Two New York ladies behind us had plenty to discuss, and did not seem to mind who heard it.
Which brings me to the last source of noise, the people. Wow, are they loud, and in your face. Actually, I rather like it. A bus journey is never dull, there is always someone telling their life story or moaning about a New York sports team. In restaurants, everyone talks all the time. In Europe, I had already got used to choosing places which muffled sound better, and sitting with my good ear facing my companions. Here, even those precautions will often not be enough.
As someone whose hearing is already a little impaired, I worry what effect New York will have. I would like to see some studies on the subject. I have blogged about hearing before, and I feel this is still an under-researched area, compered for example with the science of vision. There are occasionally (rather contradictory) studies about what electronic mobile phones might be doing to our brains, but I also wonder if we are destined to be a generation of half-deaf people, especially those of us living in the biggest cities. I only hope the science of hearing aids develops quickly, for I am sure to need them before too long.
Is any relief at hand for our suffering ears? Well, I hope so. First, it will not stay mid-summer for ever, and the air-conditioning can be turned off for much of the year (though I am told that the steam heating common here makes a racket too). And we have rented a house with central air conditioning and heating, so hopefully that impediment to sleep can be removed.
Secondly, we will be living in Forest Hills, which is not anything like Manhattan, or Roosevelt Island where we are temporarily. The background noise will be less there, especially since we seem to be a good distance from railways and motorways. I am already wondering if people will speak more softly as a result.
Finally, I think we have to look to ourselves. All lives need balance. I have written about simplicity, and here we will need to seek simplicity of sound. We can seek out places of silence, and reflect more on silence when we find it. We can coach each other to speak more softly and to listen more carefully. Meditation may play a role. I wonder if the Church here might turn out to have subtly different benefits here compared with in Europe.
New York has many wonderful things to offer, and most of the surprises so far have been positive ones. But I sense that we will need to utilise our ingenuity to negate the assault on our ears that New York might be.
I have come to realise that one symptom of the intensity of life here is that all my senses seem to under fire all of the time. It is nice in a way, life is spicy that way.
Touch is more frequent than elsewhere. Despite the frequent warnings in the subway about sexual assault, it is impossible to live here without touching more human beings than in other places. The subway is just crowded. So are the buses, and so are the pavements (should I say sidewalks?). Anyone over sensitive to being touched will have a miserable time here.
Taste is assaulted mainly in a good way. Food and drink are a big part of life, with little and often being the metier. I have never seen so many cafes and restaurants and street stalls, and the variety of their wares is stunning. Whereas we have been rather shocked by the cost of many things here, casual eating and drinking is quite cheap. And the variety is wonderful, so the taste buds get used to many flavours. You have to be careful to avoid things with added sugar, as much of the diet seems unhealthy. It is no wonder so many Americans have become obese, even here with its built in exercise regime.
This is a city of many smells. Human flesh is a large part of it. In the heat and the crowds, it would be good to be able to shower many times a day, but of course that is not what people can do. So odour is a part of the human diversity here. Add in smells of food, and of various forms of pollution, and there is plenty to smell.
There is always something to see, anywhere in the world that is not dark or confined. But what sights there are in New York! Nothing is petite. I was looking at some building today, very majestic architecture, somewhere in Gramercy. I have no idea what is was, but it struck me that the building would have been the centrepiece of almost any town, but here it was almost mundane. We can be snobbish about our history in Europe, but there is majesty a plenty here. Add in the human diversity, which surprises me every single day in some way, and even our eyes get life full on.
All the senses get battered, but it is the ears which bear the brunt. I remember an Indian once telling me that it was the silence in Europe that he never got used to, since there was no such thing as silence in an Indian city. It is the same here. So far, the only thing I miss of Europe is the absence of noise. I expect that would be common, it is the absence of something that we don’t appreciate so long as we have it, but miss when we lose it.
Noise here is everywhere. Start with the background noises. Air conditioning machines or power generators are never far away, with their tell-tale hum. To sleep at night in summer either requires great tolerance for heat or tolerance for noise. Open windows let in the world. Air conditioners are just noisy. When we watch television with the aircon off, we set the volume to about 16. When the machine is on, we need to set it at 40 to hear properly. Imagine what that is doing to our ears.
At home we can keep the windows closed, but what about when we are outside? There is always a steady hum of traffic, often punctuated by loud heavy motors and sirens. The subway trains are brilliant, but wow do they make a racket.
New Yorkers almost all respond to this by employing ipods, and I have come to do the same. But I wonder if that is so smart. Firstly, I cannot listen to anything with loud and soft bits, as either I am deafened in the forte or the piano is absent. Hooray for Bach and renaissance music! But even when listening to something of a steady volume, I find I need the volume set very high. These ears seem destined to be assaulted one way or another.
We luckily found a haven of peace last Sunday at the episcopal cathedral, with a lovely recital by a Cambridge college choir of all things. But even then the silence was less than I was used to. Once the conductor had to give a tone in competition with a mysterious noise emanating from somewhere. And there was also the audience. To be fair, people were quiet during the singing, but not immediately before. Two New York ladies behind us had plenty to discuss, and did not seem to mind who heard it.
Which brings me to the last source of noise, the people. Wow, are they loud, and in your face. Actually, I rather like it. A bus journey is never dull, there is always someone telling their life story or moaning about a New York sports team. In restaurants, everyone talks all the time. In Europe, I had already got used to choosing places which muffled sound better, and sitting with my good ear facing my companions. Here, even those precautions will often not be enough.
As someone whose hearing is already a little impaired, I worry what effect New York will have. I would like to see some studies on the subject. I have blogged about hearing before, and I feel this is still an under-researched area, compered for example with the science of vision. There are occasionally (rather contradictory) studies about what electronic mobile phones might be doing to our brains, but I also wonder if we are destined to be a generation of half-deaf people, especially those of us living in the biggest cities. I only hope the science of hearing aids develops quickly, for I am sure to need them before too long.
Is any relief at hand for our suffering ears? Well, I hope so. First, it will not stay mid-summer for ever, and the air-conditioning can be turned off for much of the year (though I am told that the steam heating common here makes a racket too). And we have rented a house with central air conditioning and heating, so hopefully that impediment to sleep can be removed.
Secondly, we will be living in Forest Hills, which is not anything like Manhattan, or Roosevelt Island where we are temporarily. The background noise will be less there, especially since we seem to be a good distance from railways and motorways. I am already wondering if people will speak more softly as a result.
Finally, I think we have to look to ourselves. All lives need balance. I have written about simplicity, and here we will need to seek simplicity of sound. We can seek out places of silence, and reflect more on silence when we find it. We can coach each other to speak more softly and to listen more carefully. Meditation may play a role. I wonder if the Church here might turn out to have subtly different benefits here compared with in Europe.
New York has many wonderful things to offer, and most of the surprises so far have been positive ones. But I sense that we will need to utilise our ingenuity to negate the assault on our ears that New York might be.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
First Bites of the Big Apple
Today seems the first time in a month that I have been able to draw breath. Some periods of our lives go at turbo speed, with decisions and actions far faster than normal. We get by somehow on adrenaline, supported if possible by good friends and some project management skills. This has been such a period for me, combining my wedding last month with a relocation to New York City on 1st July.
When I look back at what we have managed to achieve this month I am rather proud. Somehow we have enjoyed a milestone celebration in a great way, while emptying a flat, finding new places, and all the million and one other things required to relocate. So far nothing serious has gone wrong, at least nothing with any longer-term consequence. We hope to sign a lease for a permanent apartment here this evening, not bad for nine days after flying in. There is still much to do, but hopefully from now on we can gradually revert to our normal pace of life.
So what of New York? Two clues are in the paragraph above.
First, somehow the place works. I managed to get a working mobile phone on the first day, and a bank account on the second day, with funds transferred into it by day four. I know from bitter experience that would have been much harder in the UK, and in other European countries as well. For all that we Europeans tend to look with scorn at the market-created chaos in the USA, my experience so far is that things work. You can find what you need, unnecessary obstacles are removed, and people are anxious to help. That is a pleasant surprise. At least I expected some problems because of our international backgrounds – after all the UK seems incapable of understanding that some people come from other countries, so I would have expected the same in an even more insular land with even more power and arrogance. But not so – well done USA.
Heck, even the public transport works. Transport is one of my favourite topics to extol central planning and its benefits. The Dutch are brilliant, the British rubbish, and it really shows. Until now, my assumption had been that only governmental oversight (national or local) could deliver this well. New York proves me wrong. Think of one place in the world where you would expect gridlock, and you might choose Manhattan. It is an island, reliant on bridges, in a land worshipping the car. Now, admittedly it is a holiday season, but somehow the various forces at work seem to have happily conspired to prevent this.
The subway may not be beautiful, but it is mighty extensive and effective. I did not expect to see so many buses, or even local trains. People even walk. And Manhattan has smartly used its reliance on bridges and tunnels as an effective defence mechanism by imposing large tolls. On Saturday, we went to New Jersey. On the way, we used public transport, and paid a flat fare $2,25 for a subway ticket and $4,50 for a bus, altogether travelling quite a distance. London, are you watching? On the way home, we took a lift in a car. The journey took longer, and was punctuated by $20 in tolls, not counting fuel or other costs. To my mind, that is how it should be – and not how I expected it to be in the land of the free and the powerful.
The system is also helped by a plethora of helpful announcements and signs. Some of this might emanate from the litigious nature of US society (“please tread carefully onto escalators”), but much of it simply helps. Each subway train and station has great maps and signs, and they announce things clearly. It also helps a mathematician like me that they use smart systems. The numbered avenue and street grid in Manhattan is well-known, and wow does it help navigation. They have the same in other boroughs, and signs use compass directions very usefully too. House numbers follow the pattern so you can find an address approximately quickly. In Forest Hills, some of the streets have real names, but consecutive streets start with A, B, C and so on. Smart. This is a mathematical navigator’s paradise!
The other clue about first impressions is about the pace of life here in New York City. It is not slow. People walk more quickly and converse more purposefully. Of course I have been ringing and visiting many estate agents this week. I would characterise these encounters by the expression “cut the crap”. No small talk, just down to business. If they haven’t got what I want, they work it out quickly, tell me, and kick me out the door, with a friendly “have a nice day” delivered to my back.
I have to say I like it. No one is unfriendly, but they don’t waste each other’s time either. It is not all about money, but money plays its part. Time is money. Space is money too. I just love the way they use the vertical axis of space here. Car parks use every square inch, and then do more by using cubic inches too, stacking the cars on winches high into the sky. Brilliant. But will life at this speed become tiring? I’ll let you know in the months ahead.
One bonus I have now is that for the first time in sixteen years I’m living in a country where I speak the native language. I’ve got by before, somehow understanding the gist of what is coming on around me, using all my senses and asking for help. But here they speak English! What heaven! I only realise what a handicap it has been for all these years now the handicap has finally been removed. Lucky me.
Mind you, you do hear some strange versions of English. I thought I was living in a diverse society in The Hague, but I was kidding myself, compared with here. True, we had many nationalities in The Hague, and Dutch society is tolerant of lifestyle choices. But here I have had to add extra dimensions. Take affluence. In The Hague we had poorer and richer people living together, but somehow within limits and with some borders. Here the range is wider and the borders less clear. Poor and desperate people, some missing limbs, are living side by side to the most affluent. I have seen some of the shortest and some of the tallest people I’ve ever come across in the last week. Colours blend, and you sense that within a generation or two they will have blended even more. I am amazed at how many Asians are here, and from so many countries. This is all great, in my opinion.
You also see some very tired people, with “lived in” faces. Living at this pace for so long and with some of life’s disadvantages must be tough here, yet many do it, year after year. You see some desperate life stories in the faces on the subway, every day. Many faces betray some cynicism and suspicion as well. This is a tough place to live, if you are not affluent, young or loved. I don’t think this is somewhere we would consider growing old.
I am looking forward to experiencing what New York City has to offer. I feel truly blessed. Each morning I open the blinds to see the might of Manhattan stretching before me across the East river. What a testament to humanity this place is.
When I look back at what we have managed to achieve this month I am rather proud. Somehow we have enjoyed a milestone celebration in a great way, while emptying a flat, finding new places, and all the million and one other things required to relocate. So far nothing serious has gone wrong, at least nothing with any longer-term consequence. We hope to sign a lease for a permanent apartment here this evening, not bad for nine days after flying in. There is still much to do, but hopefully from now on we can gradually revert to our normal pace of life.
So what of New York? Two clues are in the paragraph above.
First, somehow the place works. I managed to get a working mobile phone on the first day, and a bank account on the second day, with funds transferred into it by day four. I know from bitter experience that would have been much harder in the UK, and in other European countries as well. For all that we Europeans tend to look with scorn at the market-created chaos in the USA, my experience so far is that things work. You can find what you need, unnecessary obstacles are removed, and people are anxious to help. That is a pleasant surprise. At least I expected some problems because of our international backgrounds – after all the UK seems incapable of understanding that some people come from other countries, so I would have expected the same in an even more insular land with even more power and arrogance. But not so – well done USA.
Heck, even the public transport works. Transport is one of my favourite topics to extol central planning and its benefits. The Dutch are brilliant, the British rubbish, and it really shows. Until now, my assumption had been that only governmental oversight (national or local) could deliver this well. New York proves me wrong. Think of one place in the world where you would expect gridlock, and you might choose Manhattan. It is an island, reliant on bridges, in a land worshipping the car. Now, admittedly it is a holiday season, but somehow the various forces at work seem to have happily conspired to prevent this.
The subway may not be beautiful, but it is mighty extensive and effective. I did not expect to see so many buses, or even local trains. People even walk. And Manhattan has smartly used its reliance on bridges and tunnels as an effective defence mechanism by imposing large tolls. On Saturday, we went to New Jersey. On the way, we used public transport, and paid a flat fare $2,25 for a subway ticket and $4,50 for a bus, altogether travelling quite a distance. London, are you watching? On the way home, we took a lift in a car. The journey took longer, and was punctuated by $20 in tolls, not counting fuel or other costs. To my mind, that is how it should be – and not how I expected it to be in the land of the free and the powerful.
The system is also helped by a plethora of helpful announcements and signs. Some of this might emanate from the litigious nature of US society (“please tread carefully onto escalators”), but much of it simply helps. Each subway train and station has great maps and signs, and they announce things clearly. It also helps a mathematician like me that they use smart systems. The numbered avenue and street grid in Manhattan is well-known, and wow does it help navigation. They have the same in other boroughs, and signs use compass directions very usefully too. House numbers follow the pattern so you can find an address approximately quickly. In Forest Hills, some of the streets have real names, but consecutive streets start with A, B, C and so on. Smart. This is a mathematical navigator’s paradise!
The other clue about first impressions is about the pace of life here in New York City. It is not slow. People walk more quickly and converse more purposefully. Of course I have been ringing and visiting many estate agents this week. I would characterise these encounters by the expression “cut the crap”. No small talk, just down to business. If they haven’t got what I want, they work it out quickly, tell me, and kick me out the door, with a friendly “have a nice day” delivered to my back.
I have to say I like it. No one is unfriendly, but they don’t waste each other’s time either. It is not all about money, but money plays its part. Time is money. Space is money too. I just love the way they use the vertical axis of space here. Car parks use every square inch, and then do more by using cubic inches too, stacking the cars on winches high into the sky. Brilliant. But will life at this speed become tiring? I’ll let you know in the months ahead.
One bonus I have now is that for the first time in sixteen years I’m living in a country where I speak the native language. I’ve got by before, somehow understanding the gist of what is coming on around me, using all my senses and asking for help. But here they speak English! What heaven! I only realise what a handicap it has been for all these years now the handicap has finally been removed. Lucky me.
Mind you, you do hear some strange versions of English. I thought I was living in a diverse society in The Hague, but I was kidding myself, compared with here. True, we had many nationalities in The Hague, and Dutch society is tolerant of lifestyle choices. But here I have had to add extra dimensions. Take affluence. In The Hague we had poorer and richer people living together, but somehow within limits and with some borders. Here the range is wider and the borders less clear. Poor and desperate people, some missing limbs, are living side by side to the most affluent. I have seen some of the shortest and some of the tallest people I’ve ever come across in the last week. Colours blend, and you sense that within a generation or two they will have blended even more. I am amazed at how many Asians are here, and from so many countries. This is all great, in my opinion.
You also see some very tired people, with “lived in” faces. Living at this pace for so long and with some of life’s disadvantages must be tough here, yet many do it, year after year. You see some desperate life stories in the faces on the subway, every day. Many faces betray some cynicism and suspicion as well. This is a tough place to live, if you are not affluent, young or loved. I don’t think this is somewhere we would consider growing old.
I am looking forward to experiencing what New York City has to offer. I feel truly blessed. Each morning I open the blinds to see the might of Manhattan stretching before me across the East river. What a testament to humanity this place is.
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