THE COLOUR OF THE NIGHT IS NOT ONLY GIVEN BY SHINING BILLBOARDS
Beyond Times Square’s renowned blinding lights and crowded streets, New York has a fantastic variety of places to explore at night, and believe it or not some urban spaces can be calming and peaceful.
New York offers from colourful ephemeral interventions, which bring an extra inspiring feeling, to local parks where mainly residents and some lost tourists, such as myself, spend their leisure time seeing amazing sunsets during the summertime and the city’s skyline reflected on the water from instagrammable spots with the sound of the river as a soundtrack.
Temporal installation “From Sea to Shining Sea”
New York City has an amazing variety of natural environments mixed with the best services and goods a city can offer and all of this can be found just some blocks apart. On one of my walks after getting off at a random metro station in Brooklyn, I found myself mesmerized by fireflies hidden in some corners of the Harbor View Land close to the old Pier 1. Those beautiful fireflies brought me memories of my childhood when I lost the sense of time admiring the flashes of light of these small and powerful insects at my grandparents’ house in the countryside in Colombia.
After many random and unplanned walks, I discovered how easy it is to lose the sense of time in New York, especially during the summertime. From my perspective, the urban environments are the best places to engage with the city’s endless offer of activities and get lost between a list of catching places to continue exploring one park more. By enjoying New York as a pedestrian during the night falls, you feel captivated, corner after corner, by gorgeous spots full of colours, textures, shadows and light.
DISCOVERING NYC AT NIGHT
I have to admit, the first time I visited New York I didn’t connect with that general feeling of being in the most exciting city in the world. But the summer of 2022 was different. My time in the city was longer than the first time and my appreciation of New York grew slowly but constantly.
In one of ARUP’s articles about the urban night, I read the concept of “layers of experience” but wasn’t until this trip, that I could get the meaning of this concept. To understand it, you have to vividly feel the urban experience. For me, the “layers of experience” can summarize my time in New York. With each walk and journey through the city at night, I slowly allowed myself to get immersed in the city’s essence through all my senses. I felt connected with that energetic feeling that makes you want more, and New York always gives more.
This summer of 2022, I found in New York a place which aroused my curiosity about the urban night again. After a really long and almost unbearable lockdown, this was my first trip abroad. While I was walking trying to get into New York’s true essence, I rediscovered my essence, that inner impulse which had been minimized by the long periods I was forced to be indoors.
I remember walking at a slower pace…the sound of the river becoming louder than people’s conversations and many buildings quietly disappeared as it got dark, only to allow the most iconic landmarks to shine through.
I have always believed that discovering a city by walking is an intimate journey. The act of walking unveils the city’s core and gives a glance at how its citizens dwell and connect with the world around them. Walking the cities at night gives you a deeper sense of intimacy since you must stop relying just on your sight to connect more with your other senses. I have no clear memories of people’s faces. In my mind, most faces are blurry images mostly covered by shadows, but I remember walking at a slower pace at night than during the day, the sound of the river becoming louder than people’s conversations and many buildings quietly disappeared as it got dark, only to allow the most iconic landmarks to shine through.
As Dolly Parton refers to the feeling she experiences being at stardom “…more than a place, it was a feeling, it was a fantasy, it was a world that lived with inside of my own head and inside my own heart” this is the feeling that the urban night of New York woke up in me. When I walked in urban spaces at dusk, the entire environment, including strangers, became part of the story that I wrote in my mind as I walked.
AN ALWAYS DIVERSE NIGHT
During my night walks in the city, I explored three areas of New York: Manhattan, Brooklyn and Roosevelt Island, each one with its own identity. In Manhattan, I found from colourful spaces such as a temporal installation called “From Sea to Shining Sea” between Pier 16 and 17 to long catwalks parallel to the Hudson River, over an old railway transformed into the High Line Park. Manhattan is a borough that is always full of tourists but a place which still has some intimate spaces to offer, especially at night.
Then in Brooklyn, I found many parks full of locals which gave me a sense of neighborhood life far from the usual sightseeing shown on social media and travel blogs. Although Brooklyn has many tourist attractions, there is still a sense of community. On weekends you can find families having picnics in the late afternoon and people reading books on benches across the waterfront of the East River with Manhattan’s skyline as the backdrop during the sunsets.
Exploratory Labyrinth at Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 3
Also, you can find unusual urban spaces such as the so-called exploratory labyrinth at Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 3. An urban place that invites you to discover small spaces from urban dining rooms to a “room” of mirrors to play with your friends or just entertain yourself with your reflections. Brooklyn is a borough that I would definitely love to return to.
Last but not least, exploring Roosevelt Island was an experience far from what I was expecting to feel in New York. Starting with the Tramway that gives you a panoramic view of the Upper East Side of Manhattan until the quiet streets that surround the Island from where you can have amazing views of the city landscape when the night falls.
One of the places that captivated me was “The Girl Puzzle Monument Honoring Nellie Bly” which is located next to the Roosevelt Island Light House. This is a place where you can challenge your sense of space, try a different perspective and play with reflections. As a young adult that enjoys nighttime, I found New York urban spaces as my favourite playground.
As a young adult that enjoys nighttime, I found New York urban spaces as my favourite playground.
COME BACK
In the end, New York offers a variety of places that you can explore according to your mood and spirit of adventure. It is a city that never sleeps and has as much to bring at night as during the daytime or even more. I am sure I discovered only a few places of all that New York has to offer. For sure, this is a city I want to return to and be able to stay for a longer time just to walk and allow myself to get lost in the city.
I hope this blog finds people with who I can share this continuous search for exploring urban places at night and at some point have a Nighttime Travellers’ community. By now let’s start by sharing, what is your favourite night spot in New York?
Night-time traveller
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