Finally i get to see the heart of Chinatown. With a friend I start exploring it on East Broadway between Manhattan Bridge and City Hall. The street consists of low houses and could be mistaken for the main street in a western movie town, if it was not for all those colourful signs with Chinese characters and the great backdrop of Manhattan Bridge on one side, and skyscrapers on the other. Chinatown is vibrant of Chinese people buying and selling fish, fruits, vegetables, clothes, bags etc.

We have lunch at the Golden Unicorn. I have the best Chinese food of my life. It’s beef, which is incredibly soft. It eases down my throat with great pleasure from my part. The vegetables which go with it, are cooked al dente. They are delicious, too.

On Sunday I go to see a friend who lives in the Wall Street District. There is hardly any space between the houses which makes the place delirious and me dizzy, looking up on those buildings.

What’s up Harald? Enjoying New York?… Come back to Vienna for an evening at Luftbad with
DJane Gaby.

NYC starts to groove, now that I meet more often with friends, who show me special places which i really like.

On Saturday i go to see my friend Martin in Williamsburg. Williamsburg consists of mainly two storey high, wodden houses and is very different from Manhattan. It used to be an area of the Polish and Italian community but has more become a living ground for young people.
Martin shows me Manhattan Ave, a place with a lot of Polish restaurants. We have late lunch in one of those restaurants. The place has a Hirschgeweih (antler) on the wall and paper stripes hanging from the ceiling. It’s nice and has a 70ies touch to it. I have delicious Pirogi. After 5 o’clock lunch I take a walk on Bedford Ave. I pass a big park and a Russian church and get more to the center of the fashionable area with a lot of bars and restaurants. Another nice thing about Williamsburg is the nice view you get of Manhattan.

On Thursday evening i go to the opening at Gagosian Gallery on Madison Ave. The gallery is huge (2 floor levels), very probably very expensive and to the same amount conservative. It looks like a huge dentist’s practice. I get told that there is another Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea.
The place has a terrace (with bamboo shrubs) looking out on Madison Ave, which is probably the most expensive street in NYC.
Coming out of an exhibition room I see Michael Stipe pass. He is quite small (around 170 cm) and skinny and he seems shy. He looks better and healthier in real life than on pictures of REM.

Last tuesday afternoon i walk into a bar on 6th ave (Ave of the Americas) in order to have a pee. On my way out I decide to have a coffee. Next to me on the bar is a bald headed man in his forties. He starts a conversation.

From the way he looks at me I easily can tell that he is into men. He tells me, that back in the Eighties, he used to work for an art gallery selling Chagall and Picasso.
Telling me this his looks go down on me quite often. Some of the art collectors would blow 100,000 us-d per month on buying art and he would earn his 10% share.

He keeps on talking but every now and then there is the occasional glance at my crotch. During our conversation things get heated up for him pretty much, and his eyes get now fixed more often on my private parts. I don’t answer that question what i would be up to in the evening and instead start to talk about my girlfriend.
Finally I say goodbye, shake his hand in a meant-to-be-official way and walk off the scene.

temperatures have dropped by 10° celsius (still can’t figure out fahrenheit). it will allegedely snow on the weekend. woaaaaa, i hate it.

a friend recommended a cuban restaurant to me and i have been there twice. it is a cheap place, u get chicken, pork, fried fish or rice with calamari. as a side dish u always get “arroz con frijoles”, rice with beans. there are 2 variants of each, either white or black beans and white or yellow rice. that makes 4 permutations. that’s not enough for going there everyday. i have to go looking for other places in midtown, too.

while the cockroaches have gained 50% in body size their death toll has also risen to 30. i get all of you, fuckers!

yesterday i visited katz’s delicatessen on houston street (lower east side). katz’s is a jewish self-service restaurant which is very original and 100% new york. the athmosphere is quite seventies, the place is big and loud, chaotic and great! u get huge pastrami sandwiches, sausages with kraut and the like. after waiting 15 minutes for a glass of beer, as they are run out of glasses, i have to force the bartender to give me a beer in a plastic cup. it takes some persuasion, but finally it works.
the walls are full of photographs of movie stars, mostly from the eighties. they show the boss of katz’s with celebrities like tony curtis. woody allen shot “when harry met sally” in this place.

last friday winter left for summer. temperatures jumped from around 0-5° celsius to 20°. there is not a single blossom on the trees but we already start to sweat as air humidity is high.