Creative Synergy

Departing school on a coach to go on an educational visit is a mundane somewhat unexciting experience especially for a group of Sixth Formers who have experienced seven years of school trips. This trip was different however, possibly because our destination was not Lewes or even Pevensey Bay but New York, USA.
Whilst we waited to check-in to the flight desk at the airport Charles nearly kicked a sniffer dog because he thought it was “pick-pocketing” him. Mr Gould and Mrs Lowe then somehow managed to raise suspicion during the security checks and were subsequently taken away for baggage inspection, surprisingly they turned out not to be terrorists and we were allowed to board the flight.
On the plane before take-off we played musical chairs without the music as we scrambled to sit next to or away from our respective friends. The seven hour flight was passed by gorging on American TV programmes rather than the in-flight food and being students we made the most of the complimentary drinks being served. Mrs Fernandez also kept us supplied with taxing media quizzes throughout the trip. The Atlantic was a vast expanse of nothingness until the nether regions of the icy Canadian coast came into view; the formations of ice and rock were spectacular. Civilisation slowly materialised as we descended across the Canadian border and into Newark where we touched down. Newark airport was the complete antithesis of Gatwick, clean, quiet and spacious, which was lucky because they needed all the extra space to make room for the long queue of people waiting for immigration checks.
We eventually found the coach and departed for the Big Apple. Mr Gould was impressed with the emerging New York skyline until it was pointed out to him that he was looking at New Jersey City and that the famous Manhattan skyline appeared behind that, which he found even more impressive. After travelling through the famous Lincoln Tunnel we surfaced in Hell’s kitchen (after all as the song says New York is a hell of a town). Just soaking up the sights of Manhattan from the coach was incredible. Manhattan is a forest of imposing glass and metal buildings organised into square blocks. Just as we seemed to travel down the most inconspicuous road we turned the corner and emerged into a hectic Times Square, only the closest place to the centre of the western world.
Our hotel was just off Times Square and you could even see the tip of the square from our hotel room window. The Hotel Edison had a retro romantic New York art-deco urban chic style that looked like a film location, which it had been in some little known film called “The Godfather”. Everything in our hotel room was more powerful, the air conditioning, the toilets, even the power shower seemed turbo charged but despite this only had two settings, boiling hot or freezing cold.
We ended the day by having a big American dinner in a nearby deli. American food is awesome because of the bold flavours, super sized portions and amazing choice. Between us we ate everything from Mexican, to Italian, to German, to Chinese just in this one restaurant which stays open 24 hours a day. We walked back to take in Times Square at night, the neon lights create a false daylight in an area where no blank space is left unexploited by advertising. The road is filled with yellow NY taxis, stretched Hummer’s and limos which are constantly beeping at each other. It was a sensory overload and after 24 waking hours we all crashed in the hotel room.
4.30, the next morning we were pleasantly awoken by an impatient truck driver’s horn in the city that never sleeps. To pass the few hours before breakfast we watched ABC’s “Good Morning America” news which was high on sensationalism, low on fact, patriotic and yet patronising. To stop our brains from turning to sludge we escaped from the T.V. and walked out onto Times Square where we watched the news we had just been watching on TV being filmed live from ABC’s Times Square studio, which was slightly surreal.
Post-breakfast we walked through New York, taking in the sights with strained necks caused by constantly looking up at the domineering skyscrapers, none more impressive than the Empire State Building which was our subsequent destination. Inside we navigated the seemingly endless maze of rope barriers before arriving at more security checks and finally the lift to the viewing deck. I soon found that a rich big breakfast of pancakes with lashings of maple syrup was not the best preparation for a trip on the “elevator” of the Empire State Building. We emerged from the lift excited at the prospect of witnessing one of the most famous views in the world. Unfortunately the view was largely obscured by the Manhattan mist however it did make the city seem all the more mystical. Looking down on the incredibly tall skyscrapers that we had just been looking up at from the street is exhilarating. The famous outlines of the Chrysler building and Rockefeller centre were still recognisable through the gloom and even Downtown briefly emerged before being swallowed again by the fog. Having been subjected to a mixture of snow, sleet and rain or “wintry mix” as the Americans call it, we descended through the bowels of the building again. Jess was then attacked by King Kong inside the ground floor art deco lobby but managed to make her heroic escape from the man dressed in the novelty gorilla suit.
We crossed the few short blocks to Grand Central Station where we sheltered from the damp conditions. Grand is a very fitting adjective to describe the main hall of the station with its majestic marble flights of stairs and dim romantic glow. Grand Central Station is the epicentre of cosmopolitan New York with people of different cultures and classes departing and arriving in the city. The suited commuters walk past the tramps going through the bins scavenging for food. There are over a hundred platforms emanating from the station excluding the subway platforms which we then scurried down to on our way to Chinatown. The subway is full of juggernauts of square metal rattling along the tracks at an unsettling speed. The large square tunnels drip with dirty water and everything seemed a bit more run down as we walked up the steps of the Subway station and into Chinatown.
Chinatown in contrast to where we had been previously was more dilapidated and urbanised. The Chinese road signs, oriental dialogue, exotic spicy smells and the fact that everyone there is Chinese made it feel like Beijing, it was only the shop keepers selling I Love NY t-shirts with American pop music blaring out from their shops that reminded me that we were still in New York. The “wintry mix” by this time had turned into plain rain. We then turned off Chinatown to find ourselves in Italy, well Little Italy where we escaped the rain and went into a little Italian restaurant fitted with Italian décor and stereotypical Old Italian owner. Little Italy is a village within a city being very quiet and European compared to the hussel and bussel of Chinatown.
Having dried off in the hotel we crowded on the subway again to arrive at a beautiful evening time Central Park, to go ice skating on its famous rink, only to find that it had closed due to cold weather. Being British we made the most of this ironical situation by indulging in a massive snowball fight in the dark, near deserted park. Surrounded by dark ominous buildings shimmering with vague light Central Park is a utopia of trees and space sandwiched into a rectangular block by a metropolis of concrete.
The next day was clear and very cold especially when waiting outside in the open for our raison d’etre in New York. It was a Media Conference with “Danny Schechter the News Dissector” at the famous Lincoln Centre. There were various esteemed speakers including Mr Schechter who challenged us to question the role that the media plays within our lives. During the conference we learnt that an incredible 20% of New York’s working population are employed in media related industries. We also learnt why New York is the most used city setting in films, because it epitomises hope and freedom, cultural diversity, the American Dream and post 9/11 defiance. The Lincoln Centre itself is the cultural core of New York and is decorated by majestic stone buildings that house the finest orchestras and operas in the world as well as media conferences.
There were no directions to Ground Zero from the subway station but after walking a few blocks it becomes apparent as a square abyss appears between the skyscrapers. For us it was incomprehensible that two towers which had previously dwarfed every other building in Manhattan had once stood there because it is such a monumental empty space. All that remains there now is a construction site with a solitary cross made from the wreckage of the World Trade Centre. Ground Zero is a solemn, quiet, void in contrast to the rest of the city which is an overly crowded, noisy, busy urban metropolis. There was not a single person in the group who was not moved by it, I think it is impossible not to be after reading the poems and epitaphs written on the walls or seeing the photographs and flowers that adorn the walkways. There was a clear azure sky overhead just like the one on the 11th September; which made it seem all the more real and moving experience. However even this most sombre site has been exploited by people trying to profit from the thousands of deaths by flogging booklets on 9/11 to gullible tourists.
We walked the short distance through the leafless Battery Park to board the Ellis Island Ferry. Before boarding we got caught up in the metal detectors and Mrs Fernandez was detained for daring to have a small pair of scissors in our first aid box. After the potentially lethal scissors had been removed we boarded the boat with clear azure skies and bright sunshine, it would have been idyllic had it not been for the bitter wind but the sight of the Statue of Liberty in front of us and the colossal Manhattan skyline behind more than made up for the cold conditions. The Statue of Liberty was smaller than I thought it would be and seeing it from behind was strange as you only ever see it front on, on TV. We stepped off the boat at Liberty Island only to have Mrs Fernandez shouting at us to get back on, realising that we were already on the last boat off Liberty Island that day.
Ellis Island is dominated by the imposing Immigration building which is now a museum that celebrates the vital role that immigrants have played in making America the country it is today. The history is palpable standing in the Great Hall even though the room is now filled with tourists and not immigrants. Passing through doors that countless millions of people had flooded through before us was spine shivering. The museum allows you to search through the records of the names of the people that travelled through the Immigration Centre, which is fascinating especially as half of all Americans can trace their family roots back to at least one person who passed through the island.
Coming back on the “Express Subway” Chris Stead started some English rapping with beat box et al, much to our amusement and the bemusement of the New Yorkers, some of whom subsequently departed our carriage. In the evening we went to a pizzeria and then onto a cinema which had nearly 20 screens on 5 floors, the screen itself was huge and the large seats reclined. We watched “16 Blocks” on its U.S. opening box office night. The film itself was set in New York and used different locations that we had travelled through during our visit. American audiences are not as restrained as British audiences when watching films, they gasp, clap, cheer and laugh at a film which was clearly not trying to be funny and a film that was undeserving of the applause it received at its formulaic conclusion, from an analytical media studies perspective obviously.
Saturday morning saw us rush to the CNN studios for a tour. Our guide was a one woman machine spewing out pre-remembered facts about CNN on an increasingly patronising tour containing irrelevances such as stone man cave drawings and Larry King’s jacket. Unfortunately we only vaguely knew who Larry King was and so we treated it with nonchalance. We got to see inside the hi-tech studios and were given a chance to present the weather. Being media analysts we started asking difficult questions, questions that our tour guide was not prepared for. Why were CNN’s computers still turned on when the offices were empty? Why were the offices empty if the news never sleeps? Why were there so few women working at CNN? What evidence does CNN have to support its own claims that it is the worlds’ most trusted news source? Obviously this tour was not designed for cynical British media students as we left the studios with a lot of under-answered questions.
We were then given four hours to explore the city in small groups where we found out that Bloomingdales was just a glorified John Lewis, 5th Avenue contained over 100 American flags and that American Coke-Cola contained no sodium. Later in the day we sadly left the Hotel Edison and New York in a beautiful evening dusk.
We departed Newark after completing yet more security checks and caught the late night red-eye flight. We all fell asleep on the plane until being rudely awakened mid-air by turbulence over the Atlantic. Gatwick seemed much more British on returning. Everything back at home seemed small, quaint and very, very quiet. New York was definitely the best school trip that I had ever been on. It’s just a shame I won’t be at school next year to do it all over again Those five days were more than just an educational media trip. It was an unforgettable life experience giving me memories that I will forever cherish of both New York and of this school. Thank you so much Mrs Fernandez for taking us.