Almanac Travel: Travel Shorts NYC #11

Bronx Zoo and Yankee Stadium

Black Comedian– “SWEEEET CAROLINE!!!” (holds microphone towards the audience)

Audience– BUM!!, BUM!!, BUM!!

Black Comedian– That’s how you get a white man out of the woods!

Black Comedian– So how do you get a black man out of the woods? You don’t! Because a black man doesn’t go into the woods, unless he’s on the run!

– Unknown Comedian in West Village last week-

Friday Sep 5^th10am. Just woke up after an epic day in the Bronx. The subway trip was a long one from Brooklyn to the Bronx under Manhattan and then it appears above ground near Harlem about an hour later.

Once above ground you get hit with the scale of the under-class of New York, similar to Brooklyn when you take the Coney Island train. Public housing skyscrapers as thick as the eye can see and my thoughts immediately go to the people inside them.

Why is it back home that the Great Australian Dream must always be the ¼ acre block and the four bdrm, two bathrooms? I’m sure there are a lot of people in the Bronx tenements that would love that opportunity don’t get me wrong, but we have a culture of encouraging people to go borrow money they can’t afford and push them out into under equipped suburbs in energy sucking “McMansions”.

Meanwhile the government continues to remind us that we need to tighten our belts, whilst allowing banks to continue handing out loans to people who can’t afford the dream, so the banks can continue enjoying $8 billion annual profits! An odd cycle.

The Bronx is genuinely hard. The name says it all. BRONX. There is nothing soft about that name! That’s why the Bronx has never been used in any love song ever written. Did you know that? True story. Check it out for yourself. Here is an example of some of the songs that originally had the Bronx included in them but had it omitted at the last minute, enabling a hit single:

• I Bronx you, I honestly Bronx you, …….. Olivia Newton John
• Bronx me Tender………..Elvis Presley
• Oh myy Bronx, myy darling…..(Unchained Melody, Righteous Brothers)
• You were the Bronx beneath my wings……..Bette Midler
• The Bronx will lift us up where we belong, Where the D Train roams, near the Yankees home… (Jennifer Warnes and Joe Cocker)
• I’m All Out of Bronx, I’m so lost without you….. Air Supply
• Lost in Bronx and I don’t know why…..Air Supply
• I wanna know what Bronx is….Foreigner
• I’ve been waiting for a Bronx like you…Foreigner

Anyway we started at the Bronx Zoo which in a sense is not unlike Central Park’s relationship to NYC in that it’s almost “dream-like”, a tranquil forest and an incredible range of animals. There was hardly anyone there as the holidays were over so we felt like the Griswalds at Wally World and virtually had the place to ourselves.

 Another perfect day in this tropical oasis, knowing that outside the perimeter was one of the toughest boroughs in the world. It was a strange feeling. We saw a polar bear, four grizzly bears and spent a good half hour checking out five adult gorillas and three baby gorillas! Cute as! A cracking couple of hours and then we got kicked out so it was time to head to the Yankees.

Got back on the train to Yankee Stadium and they were jam packed. We managed to squeeze in and I was three inches from the face of a funny local who started up a conversation re the Yankees. I told him I was from Australia and he started answering some of my questions about The Yankees like a human encyclopaedia.

I quickly learned that Mr Steinbrenner, the owner of the Yankees for forty years is a real person and not just George Costanza’s imaginary boss. Anyway we spilled out at the stadium and it is nothing short of magnificent. A cop took our photo out front and the atmosphere was electric. The train line runs alongside the stadium about fifty feet from the perimeter wall and goes right past the cheap seats where we were sitting so every few minutes you can’t hear anything as it passes between Manhattan and The Bronx!

The club itself has a maniacal following similar to Collingwood and has won twenty six championships since 1903. The stadium is only quite new and the old stadium is now a children’s playground. There were 44,000 there last night so it’s probably 55,000 full. The amenities are first class and there is a real sense of pride and community in every announcement and interim donations and presentations that are made throughout the night.

There was twenty mins of cheesy organ music, lots of big screen interactions and games with the crowd and the inevitable hand on hearts national anthem thing. At the end of the 6^th inning everything suddenly came to a halt and on the big screen was an Iraq veteran and his family followed by everyone looking at the flag again and singing God Bless America. We thought we were at a clan rally! Bizarre.

Patriotism is strange and can be dangerous. I’m not proud to be Australian, but I’m eternally grateful. There’s a difference.

Baseball players don’t actually do much and get paid a lot. They play 160 games a season, yes, but they barely have to get changed into their own clothes, so much is the pampering they receive. What they do have to do, which I’m assuming is quite difficult, is to hit a round ball (because they’re round right?) travelling at 160km an hour with a round bat. I’m determined to go to a batting cage and try it myself, and if I hit a few I’m going to try out because most of these blokes are fatter than me!

The game itself was pretty boring but coming down to the bottom of the 9^thinning (the last of the night) the Yankees hit two home runs to beat the Redsox.

It’s a pretty emotional time for the Yankees with their captain Derek Jeter retiring after twenty seasons so the crowd went crazy whenever he appeared. I liked one very Yankees thing that they do at the start of the game.

The Bleacher Creatures who obviously sit in the cheap seats where we were, do a traditional “roll call”. Each player’s name is chanted individually until they acknowledge the crowd. It was a nice touch. The other thing the Yankees do well is merchandise.

Almost everything you bought from the kiosk was massive and you can re-use as a souvenir. For example my soft drink cup with Derek Jeter on it, can now be cleaned and used as a dirty washing basket and my popcorn container can now be turned upside down and become a Yankees coffee table!  A fantastic night and a true sporting highlight for me. Packed trains home and crashed. Have a great weekend lots of love Willow and Lynda.

Comments

1. Smokie says

   May 23, 2025 at 12:09 pm

   Willo,
   It is so difficult to reconcile just how friendly and welcoming the average American person is, versus the barrage of Trump-related headlines that leave one wondering just where that country is headed.
   NYC is one of my favourite cities.