Brighton Beach

Thursday is fast becoming my favourite day of the week, because it is the one school day on which I can go off campus right after classes. It's also the last day of classes for each week, and so there is a special pleasure to finishing the last lesson of the week, and straightaway scooting off into the subway station. I still feel like I don't get off campus nearly enough, what with prodigious amounts of reading and the studying for the various exams this week eating up all my time. Thursdays, then, represent the one day in the week when I feel I am entitled to spend a few hours simply riding the subway, walking around and enjoying the afternoon and evening.

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But before I get into today's little sojourn, just a note about last Saturday, which was my only totally free day of last week. Took the chance to go to the NYPL again, laden with books to study, with the intention of taking long walks around lunchtime and after completing the day's work quota. For lunch, walked a few blocks westward to grab a couple of hotdogs and a banana drink from Gray's Papaya, which serves two frankfurters topped with sauerkraut and a drink in their Recession Special. This simple meal actually tastes remarkably good and wholesome, and Anthony Bourdain swears by the food in this place, so what's not to like? And the store itself too is a sort of social barometer: it attracts all sorts of people, from the homeless to tourists to people working around Midtown. And the price of the Recession Special, too, is portentious: you know the economy is going downhill when the price for this special offer goes up.

After a second bout of studying, took a longer walk to 39th Street and 9th Avenue. That placed me in the midst of Hell's Kitchen, formerly the red light district of Manhattan. It has been considerably cleaned up, and whatever seediness that still lingers there is used to add a certain edgy flair to the weekend flea market that occupies a junction in that area. And this was a real flea market, with racks of used coats, antiques, bric-a-brac and artwork. When I walked into it, it was like walking into a fairytale, because it so closely fit my idealised vision of what a flea market should look like.

The prices must be cheap for antiques, but they are still beyond the reach of a cash-strapped student, so it was with a heavy heart that I forewent a battered typewriter and a working gramophone. There were also tin signs for sale, the kind that you find hanging in diner-themed fast-food restaurants advertising 5-cent Cokes and 25-cent hamburgers. When I get my next stipend, I will consider buying half a dozen of those for my room's walls. All the same, though the next step is clearly to actually try to carry out a transaction rather than just browsing, it was an enjoyable hour spent pottering around old things and the lively characters who were trying to hawk them. And after that, like a bonus, I found the Midtown skyline towards the East totally lit up by the rays of the setting sun. The sight made me feel as if I'd really stumbled upon something secret and wonderful, something that few people know about and can have the privilege of experiencing.

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So, the days passed and two exams were taken. Enough said about that. And at three o'clock, the moment classes ended, I left campus rightaway, not stopping to dump my books in the room. You really feel the confinement, when you spend more than a few days in the same place. It's like being in camp; you look forward to the next day when you can book out and leave. And setting off at a brisk walk out of the campus gates felt especially sweet today, for the sun was shining, the weather was brilliant, I was still on top of things workwise, and I had passed through two exams earlier in the week.

I felt like going somewhere far away this time, somewhere far from the hustle and bustle of Manhattan. Descending into the subway system, I took a line that I'd never been on before, to go to Coney Island and Brighton Beach, holding in mind that I'd better get out there and have a look at the Atlantic coastline of Brooklyn before it got too cold to venture out like that. And so it was that I changed trains at Times Square and hopped on a Q to Brooklyn.

Some of the trains on this line are much newer, and compared to the rickety 1 trains, they are positively space-age, with LED stop indicators and LCD screens. And one additional treat is that this line crosses the East River not through a tunnel but by crossing the Washington Bridge, the one just North of the Brooklyn Bridge. So, after humming and clanking its way through the tunnels of Manhattan, the train suddenly took a turning and burst out into the daylight, and there was a wonderful view of the Financial District beyond the Brooklyn Bridge, with the waters of the East River sparkling in the afternoon sun. The train made its way slowly across the bridge, and in the meantime, gazing at the skyline, tracing the ferries wending their way below, and glimpsing the Statue herself far out in the bay, I was so caught up in the view that I couldn't bring myself to look away, even to grab my camera. Anyway, I'm sure it won't be the last time I cross the Washington Bridge in a subway train, and the next time, I'll be prepared.

In Brooklyn, the train runs underground through the downtown district, all the way to Prospect Park, and then the tracks run at grade, before they finally become elevated near the coastline. Along the way, therefore, there was a lot to see: ranch-style houses set on tiny lots abutting the tracks, cinderblock rowhouses and school buildings, streets that are charming in their anonymity (Avenues A through U). And then, the train finally arrived at Brighton Beach. Spent some time exploring the neighbourhood around the station, known as Little Odessa. And it really looks the part, with Russian signs, pedestrians conversing in Russian and the Russian word for vodka displayed prominently in shop windows. Even the fashion of the people on the street is different, with people wearing heavy coats and the fur-lined hats with floppy ears that you see in the movies, so that you feel like they just parachuted in from the freezing wastes of Siberia. Set against this frigid exterior are cafes and restaurants filled with raucous Russians intent over steaming food and drinks, though on this occasion I didn't feel confident (or rich) enough to step in and try to find out what it's like.

Brighton Beach itself is a splendid stretch of sand, somewhat narrower than the Gold Coast beaches in Australia, but pristine and expansive by Singaporean standards. And there is a boardwalk that runs between the residential developments of Brighton Beach and the sands themselves. From this boardwalk, you have an unobstructed view of the beach and the great Atlantic beyond, and it's a great place to simply sit and bask in the sun, while watching various Russians wandering up and down the walk. There was one family with several young children playing in a playground set that had been placed rather oddly in the middle of the beach (it reminded me of Bergman, somehow - it must be due to the incongruous feeling I got from seeing this playground set against the great expanse of the beach that makes for an absurd sandbox). And then there were a couple of girls sitting on the rails of the boardwalk nearby, no more than ten or eleven in age, debating between themselves in American English whether I (I was sitting nearby) was a lady or a man, while their grandmother admonished them gently in Russian. After that episode, I resolved to get a haircut.

The other thing about Brighton Beach is nearby Coney Island, the renowned theme park, home of such ageless wonders as the Cyclone rollercoaster (my guidebook tells me that it's the most imitated coaster in the world) and the Wonder Wheel, which used to be the largest ferris wheel in the world. Now that summer is over, though, the park is closed, and there was a certain pathos in looking at the shuttered stalls, the fenced-up grounds and the great and silent rides. There is a special kind of poignancy in an empty and closed-down fairground, isn't there? Nearby, a lot had been turned into a parking lot for about a hundred bright yellow schoolbuses, and in a hardcourt next to the theme park, two teams of local boys were in football training, running and dribbling and shooting to the staccato commands yelled by their Russian coaches.

By far the biggest attraction, though, was the sunset. Like I said, the boardwalk offers unobstructed views of the Atlantic, and by walking from Little Odessa to Coney Island, I was able to pass enough time to watch the sun setting into the sea. And what a stunning sunset it was, the goldburst creating the most striking silhouettes. It was a great feeling, somehow, to be out in the open, under a clear cloudless sky and on the very brink between afternoon and evening. And as the colours shifted to gold, I increasingly found myself drawn again and again to my camera, as the colours and the light and the shadows interacted to form scenes that positively demanded to be recorded.

I am a sucker for sunsets. But I think part of the appeal also has to do with the openness of the sky and the sea. After a week spent in classrooms, dining hall and dorm room, just being in a wide open space was deeply refreshing. Places like the Washington Bridge Park from two weeks ago, the Hell's Kitchen Flea Market and Brighton Beach are just right antidote for the claustrophobia that creeps up on me after a week of school. And it is a real relief to find that New York itself can actually provide such relief. New York is, after all, so much more than just Manhattan, and even as I am getting to know that small island better and better, there is still the challenge of appreciating the real range of opportunities being offered by the city as a whole.