NYC Days 4 + 5.

Yesterday was... how to describe it?

Coming to New York, I was going to be a tourist. There's no going around it. I'm an outsider who's come to see what it's like being in the big city. But I didn't want to be a typical tourist. I wanted to see things differently, go at it from a different angle. And yesterday was about as untypical a day as I could have had, I think.

It started off normally enough. I did some more of my walking tours, checking out SoHo. I didn't realize what an impact Jane Jacobs had had on downtown Manhattan. Go local team! But it also made me sad. So much of what I was reading in the guidebook was 'This awesome place used to be here, and that awesome place used to be there, until tourists brought in boutique shops and high rents pushed all the cool people away.' SoHo had awesome architecture. More Cast Iron buildings still standing there than anywhere else in the world. But where it was once a neighbourhood for starving artists, it - like pretty much all of Manhattan - is now a playground for the super rich.

After, I did another self guided tour of Greenwich Village. A lot of the names of writers I wasn't familiar with, but one of the items on the tour was the house that Edgar Allen Poe lived in. I was quite to excited to see it, but when I got there, there was a giant boring looking building - an extension of NYU's law school. A reconstructed facade of 'The Poe House was a part of the structure... but inside was just a non-descript white room with some glass cases filled with memorabilia. I was quite upset, and wasn't sure I wanted to do the rest of the tour, if all I was going to see was reconstructions and sites where the actual building had been torn down. The next stop on the tour was 'The Provincetown Playhouse', where the playwright Eugene O'Neill got his start, among many, many others. This place was still up, but with demolition orders on it, and scaffolding surrounding it. On the other side of the street was a group of people protesting the demolition. They handed me a sign, and I joined in, spending the morning chanting chants and hearing speeches about the culture of the city. It was incredible. I think I was the only non-local of the bunch. Reverend Billy, of the Church of No Shopping was there, as well as a bunch of people struggling against the gentrificationi and Disneyfication of the city.

After the protest, I had lunch with Reverend Billy. He's an actor who uses the role of bombastic pentecostal preacher to preach against consumerism. It's something to watch... I haven't seen it myself, but there's a documentary that follows him and his 'choir'. It's called 'What Would Jesus Buy', produced by Morgan Spurlock, of 'Super Size Me'. I told him about Leslieville's fight against Big Box stores, and he wants to come down and help out if there's still a chance of stopping it.

During the evening, I went to an Irish pub that only serves Guinness on draught, nothing else. They have the old 'Guinness is good for you' posters slapped all over the place. A Bluegrass band was jamming together - absolutely fantastic, but no one else was there other than me and the jammers. It was incredible to watch and listen to them teaching and encouraging each other, figuring out how to do new things together. They recommended a bunch of places for me to go to, so all my evenings have now been spoken for till I leave. I'll be going to the Rockwood tonight, the Rodeo on Wednesday, and back to the Irish place on thursday to hear some traditional Irish folk music, with someone who's apparently the best Irish fiddler in the city playing.