In my younger days when I had much more free time, I had a strong interest in the history of Chinese-Americans. Not to say that I have lost interest in the subject, but I just haven't had time for much outside reading, and certainly no time for any research or deep study for many years. I was fortunate that I was in college when the very first Asian American studies courses were just being offered back in the late 1960s. What made it so fortunate was that there was no developed body of works on the topic, which enabled the most inexperienced amateur scholars, e.g., college undergraduates, to pioneer the study of their topic of interest. In my case, it was two topics--the history of Los Angeles Chinatown, and the Chinese exclusion laws passed by the U.S. government starting in the 1880s that particularly attracted my interest. So even though I was an economics, business and law student, I was able to publish a number of articles in ethnic publications having a miniscule circulation, and even appeared on radio, television, and at conferences and other events as an "expert" on the subject. The most laughable instance was a presentation before a program sponsored by the Los Angeles School District on the USC Campus on Asian American studies. Representing the Japanese-American viewpoint, was Dr. Harry Kitano, Professor of Social Welfare at UCLA, author of hundreds of books and articles. Representing the Chinese-Americans was myself, senior tax accountant at Kenneth Leventhal & Company.
On a couple of occasions since then I had actually run into current scholarly works on Chinese American studies that mentioned one of my prior articles in the text and footnotes. However, it wasn't until today that I decided to try to see if there were any other references to items I had authored. With a name as common as mine (there are hundreds of people with my name on Facebook), I had never bothered Googling myself. However, it occurred to me that I could do a focused Google search with my name and part of the title of some of my written works. Imagine my surprise when I did one of the searches and it pulled out an article about Los Angeles Chinatown I had written in the 1980s for the Chinese-American historical society--but described as appearing in "Sino-American Relations (Hwa Kang, Taiwan) 16, no.4 (Win 1990 54-66)". Did somebody in Taiwan appropriate that article without telling me? Is the Internet reference in error? Was it translated to Chinese? I guess I'll never know for sure.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
The Financial Meltdown Should Be Blamed On Bill Clinton
As we slowly dig out from under the subprime crisis and the ensuing financial meltdown I thought it would be interesting to take a look back and point out someone not often connected with these events. For over 20 years I had the privilege of working for two of the greatest minds in real estate finance, Kenneth Leventhal and Stan Ross. Even today, more than a decade after their official retirements, they are revered as pioneers who helped lead the residential construction industry from post-World War II mom and pop builders starting the construction boom for returning veterans into players on Wall Street, and who advised all segments of the real estate industry through decades of development and evolution.
About 20 years ago Messrs. Leventhal and Ross invented something called the multi-builder mortgage backed bond. This enabled small residential builders, who had been required to tie up valuable capital in seller financing for their homebuyers, to access the public capital markets. Publicly issued debt would be secured by these seller financed mortgages of multiple homebuilders, permitting these builders to cash out and move on to their next project. Of course, if you're really smart, you'll realize this was the start of the securitization of real estate debt, so in a way Leventhal and Ross could be considered to be the Godfathers of the financial meltdown. But really, making Wall Street financing available available to small builders was unquestionably a good thing for these builders, and the subsequent subprime crisis merely shows that even the best ideas may be abused and turned into implements of evil.
With this in mind, I asked Kenneth Leventhal where he thought things went wrong. Interestingly, he pointed the finger at President Clinton. He traces the whole subprime disaster to the Clinton administration's push to make home ownership available to low income taxpayers requiring minimal down payments. In hindsight, this indeed appears to be the start of it all, and I don't know why this hasn't been more widely acknowledged that it has been. Historically, to buy a home, a prospective homebuyer needed to make a 20 percent down payment. I put down almost 30 percent when I bought my first home. Yes, there were FHA/VA low down programs in the past, but actively targeting a group of homebuyers who were likely to default probably was not a good thing, despite the noble goal of home ownership for all. Of course, President Clinton was gone for quite a while before things blew up, so that's probably why he didn't get the blame. In a climate where home prices were escalating rapidly, after just one or two years of home ownership, the no down/low down homebuyer had his 20 percent equity and everything was hunky dory. Personally I became at least a little worried when I discovered that there were virtually no residential properties in the city of Los Angeles, not even in the worst neighborhoods of South L.A. or East L.A., that were selling for less than $400,000. Or when I read the quote in the newspaper of a Los Angeles homeowner who said he had no need to save any money because he was "sleeping in his piggybank." Or when houses in places like Adelanto and Murietta were rising to the same price level as properties in Los Angeles.
The most striking thing about the subprime meltdown and financial crisis was that it played out over such a long time. It was clear there was a big problem with subprime mortgages over three years ago. Yet amid Citbank's announcement of loan loss reserves for subprime loans back in 2007, the Dow Jones Industrials marched past the 14,000 mark. The subprime problem, everybody said, was just a temporary problem. Boy, were they wrong.
About 20 years ago Messrs. Leventhal and Ross invented something called the multi-builder mortgage backed bond. This enabled small residential builders, who had been required to tie up valuable capital in seller financing for their homebuyers, to access the public capital markets. Publicly issued debt would be secured by these seller financed mortgages of multiple homebuilders, permitting these builders to cash out and move on to their next project. Of course, if you're really smart, you'll realize this was the start of the securitization of real estate debt, so in a way Leventhal and Ross could be considered to be the Godfathers of the financial meltdown. But really, making Wall Street financing available available to small builders was unquestionably a good thing for these builders, and the subsequent subprime crisis merely shows that even the best ideas may be abused and turned into implements of evil.
With this in mind, I asked Kenneth Leventhal where he thought things went wrong. Interestingly, he pointed the finger at President Clinton. He traces the whole subprime disaster to the Clinton administration's push to make home ownership available to low income taxpayers requiring minimal down payments. In hindsight, this indeed appears to be the start of it all, and I don't know why this hasn't been more widely acknowledged that it has been. Historically, to buy a home, a prospective homebuyer needed to make a 20 percent down payment. I put down almost 30 percent when I bought my first home. Yes, there were FHA/VA low down programs in the past, but actively targeting a group of homebuyers who were likely to default probably was not a good thing, despite the noble goal of home ownership for all. Of course, President Clinton was gone for quite a while before things blew up, so that's probably why he didn't get the blame. In a climate where home prices were escalating rapidly, after just one or two years of home ownership, the no down/low down homebuyer had his 20 percent equity and everything was hunky dory. Personally I became at least a little worried when I discovered that there were virtually no residential properties in the city of Los Angeles, not even in the worst neighborhoods of South L.A. or East L.A., that were selling for less than $400,000. Or when I read the quote in the newspaper of a Los Angeles homeowner who said he had no need to save any money because he was "sleeping in his piggybank." Or when houses in places like Adelanto and Murietta were rising to the same price level as properties in Los Angeles.
The most striking thing about the subprime meltdown and financial crisis was that it played out over such a long time. It was clear there was a big problem with subprime mortgages over three years ago. Yet amid Citbank's announcement of loan loss reserves for subprime loans back in 2007, the Dow Jones Industrials marched past the 14,000 mark. The subprime problem, everybody said, was just a temporary problem. Boy, were they wrong.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Tuesday's Election Predictions
There's no way from watching the news how one can get a sense of how an upcoming election will turn out. Candidates and political parties do not provide legitimate assessments of their chances, but rather engage in posturing. News organizations don't want to influence elections by saying there is a particular inevitable outcome. Polls are caveated with a margin of error and distorted because of significant early absentee voting. All we can glean is that the Republicans have a good chance to gain at least 39 House seats and a remote chance of getting 51 in the Senate. Interestingly today's news is full of increased public optimism from the Democrats that they'll hold both chambers and caution by the Republicans in assessing what will happen on Tuesday. Indeed, RNC Chairman Steele said that even if the Republicans came close to taking the House, it would be a significant accomplishment. So is the tide really turning? Certainly the news and public statements say "Yes."
But as I mentioned before, there is a neat resource called Intrade, where futures contracts are traded on all sorts of political and other events of public interest. And today, the futures for Republican control of the House are still over 90, and the overs/unders for Republican House gains is right about 60. So it seems in reality that nothing has changed. One interesting event is a surge today in the futures on Republicans taking at least 50 Senate seats (and particularly the Senate being split 50-50), a one day increase from 21 to 32. Still long odds, but something significant must have happened today to trigger such a jump.
But as I mentioned before, there is a neat resource called Intrade, where futures contracts are traded on all sorts of political and other events of public interest. And today, the futures for Republican control of the House are still over 90, and the overs/unders for Republican House gains is right about 60. So it seems in reality that nothing has changed. One interesting event is a surge today in the futures on Republicans taking at least 50 Senate seats (and particularly the Senate being split 50-50), a one day increase from 21 to 32. Still long odds, but something significant must have happened today to trigger such a jump.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Toronto Dim Sum Crawl--Six Restaurants In Six Hours
In hindsight it was probably a crazy thing, and it wasn't planned in advance. However this past Sunday I ended up going to six different Toronto area dim sum restaurants between 9 am and 3 pm. Originally I was just going to hit two or three places with the intent of judging the quality of Toronto area dim sum as well as to look for innovative items, but it ended up being more like a marathon.
My morning started out at Dragon Dynasty on Brimley Road in Scarborough. Arriving a little after 9 am I ran into the Sunday dim sum dilemma. The good thing about early dim sum is you avoid the crowds. The bad thing though is not all the dim sum is out. I was very surprised to find that Dragon Dynasty was largely cart service, with a few off the menu items. It turned out to be the only cart style of the day. And did the carts come slowly. After a considerable while I had taken only one item, a scallop shrimp dumpling, and ordered another from the menu, the rice noodle roll with scallop and snow pea leaves, which interestingly used the large pea leaves. Both items were fantastic, particularly the wrappers and fun. It was at this point, with the prospect of a long wait for who knows what that I began to launch my dim sum hopping plan.
Next stop was Regal 16 Seafood in Richmond Hill, which was probably a 25 minute surface street drive from Dragon Dynasty. I hadn't realized until then that Toronto's equivalent of the San Gabriel Valley, covering Scarborough, Richmond Hill, Markham and parts of other communities like North York, was similar in size to the SGV, though obviously not as densely Chinese. At 10:30 am, Regal 16 still had plenty of room. I had the beef dumplings with wolfberries, the vegetarian chicken bun with ginger sauce and the garlic chicken pastry rolls, with the latter being the only loser. It was here I decided to only eat some of each order and save the rest in lieu of going out to dinner.
I then drove over to Highway 7 in Richmond Hill to O Mei, another highly rated Chowhound favorite. But something was wrong. While Regal 16 was full when I left, O Mei, which wasn't that big to begin with, was half empty. Furthermore, the dim sum menu was very ordinary. I ended up ordering just the rice noodle rolls with beef and the diced lotus root meat patties. Not to say that these weren't good, but hardly Toronto's finest.
Moving a couple of blocks west on Highway 7, I landed at Rich Land Chinese cuisine. The restaurant was bustling and packed. I ordered one XL item, the garoupa with fruit, as well as the chicken avocado rolls. Actually the garoupa with fruit wasn't as exciting as it sounded--battered garoupa slices with four red grapes on the side. The chicken avocado roll was essentially an egg roll with a chicken and avocado filling, and was very good.
At this point I was starting to get full so I thought I'd drive back to Scarborough and scout around. What I hadn't discovered until the last day of my previous Toronto visit was that a lot of Chinese shopping centers are barely visible from the street, if at all. This trip I discovered a whole bunch of them. Driving down Warden Ave. I spotted another large Chinese shopping center which was actually highly visible, and moreover the signage "Sam Woo." I knew from prior trips to Toronto that L.A.'s Sam Woo chain had set up shop in Toronto, and I had often wondered whether they were able to keep up with the high Chinese food standards in Toronto. So in I went. I wasn't surprised that the choices here were more mundane. The snow pea leaf dumpling once again used the large leaf variety, and the shrimp and avocado roll was pretty good. The real surprise was that Sam Woo's dim sum was the most expensive I had all day.
At this point in time I needed a respite so I drove to another hidden Chinese megamall in Markham and walked around for a while. At about 2:15 I figured it was time for one last selection of dim sum. I chose Casa Victoria in Markham, having previously been to their sister Casa Imperial for dinner, which had been the highlight meal of my previous trip to Toronto. The last dim sum of the day was clearly the best, with a selection of interesting and tasty items--lamb roll with cucumber and avocado in teriyaki sauce; duck with chive dumplings; chicken with black fungus dumplings; and crispy fried mashed potato cake with shrimp.
This trip reinforced my previous conclusion as to Toronto's place in the Chinese food pecking order, which is below Vancouver and above Los Angeles. The difference is that in Vancouver everything is clearly better than the food in Los Angeles. You can walk into any Chinese restaurant in Richmond, B.C. , even in a food court, and get a superior meal. In Toronto you will find food that is just as good as Vancouver, but you will also find food that is comparable to what we have here in Los Angeles. Last time I came back from Vancouver, I had no interest in eating L.A. Chinese food for over a month. Back in L.A. from Toronto last night, I'm going out for Chinese food today.
My morning started out at Dragon Dynasty on Brimley Road in Scarborough. Arriving a little after 9 am I ran into the Sunday dim sum dilemma. The good thing about early dim sum is you avoid the crowds. The bad thing though is not all the dim sum is out. I was very surprised to find that Dragon Dynasty was largely cart service, with a few off the menu items. It turned out to be the only cart style of the day. And did the carts come slowly. After a considerable while I had taken only one item, a scallop shrimp dumpling, and ordered another from the menu, the rice noodle roll with scallop and snow pea leaves, which interestingly used the large pea leaves. Both items were fantastic, particularly the wrappers and fun. It was at this point, with the prospect of a long wait for who knows what that I began to launch my dim sum hopping plan.
Next stop was Regal 16 Seafood in Richmond Hill, which was probably a 25 minute surface street drive from Dragon Dynasty. I hadn't realized until then that Toronto's equivalent of the San Gabriel Valley, covering Scarborough, Richmond Hill, Markham and parts of other communities like North York, was similar in size to the SGV, though obviously not as densely Chinese. At 10:30 am, Regal 16 still had plenty of room. I had the beef dumplings with wolfberries, the vegetarian chicken bun with ginger sauce and the garlic chicken pastry rolls, with the latter being the only loser. It was here I decided to only eat some of each order and save the rest in lieu of going out to dinner.
I then drove over to Highway 7 in Richmond Hill to O Mei, another highly rated Chowhound favorite. But something was wrong. While Regal 16 was full when I left, O Mei, which wasn't that big to begin with, was half empty. Furthermore, the dim sum menu was very ordinary. I ended up ordering just the rice noodle rolls with beef and the diced lotus root meat patties. Not to say that these weren't good, but hardly Toronto's finest.
Moving a couple of blocks west on Highway 7, I landed at Rich Land Chinese cuisine. The restaurant was bustling and packed. I ordered one XL item, the garoupa with fruit, as well as the chicken avocado rolls. Actually the garoupa with fruit wasn't as exciting as it sounded--battered garoupa slices with four red grapes on the side. The chicken avocado roll was essentially an egg roll with a chicken and avocado filling, and was very good.
At this point I was starting to get full so I thought I'd drive back to Scarborough and scout around. What I hadn't discovered until the last day of my previous Toronto visit was that a lot of Chinese shopping centers are barely visible from the street, if at all. This trip I discovered a whole bunch of them. Driving down Warden Ave. I spotted another large Chinese shopping center which was actually highly visible, and moreover the signage "Sam Woo." I knew from prior trips to Toronto that L.A.'s Sam Woo chain had set up shop in Toronto, and I had often wondered whether they were able to keep up with the high Chinese food standards in Toronto. So in I went. I wasn't surprised that the choices here were more mundane. The snow pea leaf dumpling once again used the large leaf variety, and the shrimp and avocado roll was pretty good. The real surprise was that Sam Woo's dim sum was the most expensive I had all day.
At this point in time I needed a respite so I drove to another hidden Chinese megamall in Markham and walked around for a while. At about 2:15 I figured it was time for one last selection of dim sum. I chose Casa Victoria in Markham, having previously been to their sister Casa Imperial for dinner, which had been the highlight meal of my previous trip to Toronto. The last dim sum of the day was clearly the best, with a selection of interesting and tasty items--lamb roll with cucumber and avocado in teriyaki sauce; duck with chive dumplings; chicken with black fungus dumplings; and crispy fried mashed potato cake with shrimp.
This trip reinforced my previous conclusion as to Toronto's place in the Chinese food pecking order, which is below Vancouver and above Los Angeles. The difference is that in Vancouver everything is clearly better than the food in Los Angeles. You can walk into any Chinese restaurant in Richmond, B.C. , even in a food court, and get a superior meal. In Toronto you will find food that is just as good as Vancouver, but you will also find food that is comparable to what we have here in Los Angeles. Last time I came back from Vancouver, I had no interest in eating L.A. Chinese food for over a month. Back in L.A. from Toronto last night, I'm going out for Chinese food today.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Does California Have An Anti-Business Climate?
This fall's Proposition 24 once again raises the issue of whether state government policies are so anti-business that they drive businesses out of the state. Proponents of the viewpoint say that between layers of regulation not present in other states, as well as tax policy, California is tangibly business unfriendly. The other camp says that California is such a population and economic center that businesses would be irrational to leave the state.
In reality both sides are correct to some extent and one might argue that there is really no way to determine who is right. However, I think there is in fact very strong evidence of which argument is correct, based on an examination of economic activity on both sides of the Colorado River dividing California and Arizona.
I remember crossing the Colorado River nearly 45 years ago on a family vacation where we drove from Los Angeles to Texas. I did not return to that area until just a short while ago. Stopping recently in the towns of Blythe and Needles, I was amazed how so little had changed in 45 years. No offense to the good citizens of these towns, but the California side of the Colorado River was depressing. The streets of these towns were not very busy and there had been very little in the way of new construction since the mid 60s. Small local retail businesses far outnumbered any chain stores. The California side of the river was lined with cheap motels and the entire path along the river was either undeveloped or in disrepair.
On the other hand, the Arizona side of the river was amazing. Fancy river side resorts. Tons of new construction. Nice shopping areas with major stores. Gasoline prices almost $1 a gallon cheaper than the California side. The differences between the California and Arizona sides of the river are what I imagine the contrast was when a visitor crossed from communist era East Germany over to West Germany. The California/Arizona border is the one area where businesses have a choice of whether to operate in California or outside of California, and it is clear that anybody who really has a choice will not operate in California.
So while it's obvious that major retailers won't abandon Los Angeles and San Francisco due to the sheer number of customers, there's no doubt that if given a viable alternative, a business will choose to operate somewhere other than California.
In reality both sides are correct to some extent and one might argue that there is really no way to determine who is right. However, I think there is in fact very strong evidence of which argument is correct, based on an examination of economic activity on both sides of the Colorado River dividing California and Arizona.
I remember crossing the Colorado River nearly 45 years ago on a family vacation where we drove from Los Angeles to Texas. I did not return to that area until just a short while ago. Stopping recently in the towns of Blythe and Needles, I was amazed how so little had changed in 45 years. No offense to the good citizens of these towns, but the California side of the Colorado River was depressing. The streets of these towns were not very busy and there had been very little in the way of new construction since the mid 60s. Small local retail businesses far outnumbered any chain stores. The California side of the river was lined with cheap motels and the entire path along the river was either undeveloped or in disrepair.
On the other hand, the Arizona side of the river was amazing. Fancy river side resorts. Tons of new construction. Nice shopping areas with major stores. Gasoline prices almost $1 a gallon cheaper than the California side. The differences between the California and Arizona sides of the river are what I imagine the contrast was when a visitor crossed from communist era East Germany over to West Germany. The California/Arizona border is the one area where businesses have a choice of whether to operate in California or outside of California, and it is clear that anybody who really has a choice will not operate in California.
So while it's obvious that major retailers won't abandon Los Angeles and San Francisco due to the sheer number of customers, there's no doubt that if given a viable alternative, a business will choose to operate somewhere other than California.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Chilean Miner Rescue
The rescue of the trapped Chilean miners is one of the great stories of our time. As the time for beginning the rescue approached I was hearing about the thought going into the order that the miners would be removed, the fact that they would be coming out one at a time, and that each miner would have to ride the rescue capsule for perhaps 15 or 20 minutes. I was struck by a random thought that waiting for all this to start was like waiting for the start of the NFL draft. Well apparently, I wasn't the only one to see the broad analogy. For once the rescue started, the CNN home page had a display showing numerically which miner was being rescued, and how long it had been since the current miner rescue started, e.g., miner #7 is 8 minutes and 24 seconds into his ascent. Did they include biographical info too? Just like the NFL draft countdown clock!
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Me And New York
For somebody who set out a goal some 35 years ago of seeing the United States first and visiting every state, it took me a long time to get to New York. It wasn't until 1985 when I had probably visited 30 other states that I made my way there to teach a class. There are a couple of reasons why I actually avoided New York. Manhattan sounded like a dangerous place to visit--people were in fact being mugged in the subways and attacked in Central Park. Indeed, when relatives moved to Philadelphia in the 1970s and offered to take me there on a day trip while visiting them, I declined. Furthermore, having done the bulk of my traveling on fly and drive trips, the thought of driving in New York City was frightening. Indeed all my trepidations were proven true on my first trip to Manhattan, as the taxi taking us from JFK airport crossed over into the Manhattan side. Right after crossing the East River, the cabbie got into a dispute with a truck driver, a dispute so nasty that the cabbie stopped his vehicle, and got out of the car to jaw with the truck driver. Welcome to New York!
Five years later in 1990 I actually got up the nerve to drive into New York City, at the tail end of our two week fly and drive Canadian/East Coast trip. I made sure we arrived on Saturday, when traffic was lighter. It was a fun trip with our little kids in the back. Crossing the George Washington Bridge from New Jersey into Manhattan, I pointed out Grant's Tomb on the bluff overlooking the Hudson River. "Are we going to visit there?" asked Christina. "No, we're not" I responded. "That part of town is too dangerous." To which Eric thoughtfully inquired, "Oh. Is that how Grant died?" Yes, and they buried him on the spot.
As it turns out Manhattan wasn't that difficult of a place to drive if you followed certain rules. First of all, don't drive through Times Square, but rather go a few blocks out of your way to streets like West Highway. More importantly was don't drive like a polite Californian. Rather drive like the locals do, particularly the cabbies. Force your way into lane changes and through intersections. Indeed, I became fairly good at driving through Manhattan using these principles. When a colleague attending a training session with me on Long Island disclosed over dinner in Queens that he had never been to Manhattan, I immediately drove him over to Manhattan and gave him a tour of all the major sights. He was so impressed that when we got back he told everybody about the tour of Manhattan that I had given him.
However, it wasn't until 15 years after my first trip there that I discovered that it really didn't make any sense to drive in Manhattan. First of all the cost of overnight parking was ridiculous, and on top of that, it took forever for the parking attendant to get your car off of the storage ramp and out to you. Secondly, we discovered the New York subways. Now even in 2000 I was still greatly influenced by tales of crime in the subways, and since it made no sense to drive short distances in Manhattan, we opted to rely on taxi rides for those short trips. However, one evening after taking the cab to Manhattan Chinatown, we were going to return to Midtown when Mrs. Chandavkl pointed at the stairway going down to the subway station. Mrs. Chandavkl, who is many times more paranoid about crime and doom in general than I could ever be, said "Look at all those Chinese people going into the subway! It must be safe." This time I was the skeptical one, reluctantly following her down the tunnel. We got on the subway and the ride back to Midtown was wonderful--much faster and cheaper than a cab, and not a suspicious looking soul anywhere on the train. We turned in our rental car the next morning and it's been nothing but the subway ever since.
With numerous business trips to the east coast in the last few years, I've explored transportation alternatives I never would have dreamed of. Take the Long Island Railroad into Manhattan from the outskirts? Sounds interesting, but I had never taken a domestic train ride anywhere in the US. But it wasn't much harder than catching the subway from Flushing to Manhattan. There's an Amtrak commuter train between Washington DC and Penn Station in New York? Again, sounds interesting, but how do you buy your ticket, how do you find your track, where are you supposed to sit? Well, two years ago I finally booked the train. Amazingly, arriving at the ticket counter just 10 minutes before an earlier train was about to leave, I was able to switch to the earlier ride in time. Arriving at Penn Station, fortuituosly my randomly booked hotel was just a couple of blocks away. The next time I rode the Amtrak from DC to NY I got more adventurous, booking a hotel in Chinatown, requiring a subway ride not originating from Penn Station. While I had actually taken the subway from Manhattan to JFK airport once before, it was with a lesser amount of luggage, but somehow I managed my way on the stairs through the turnstiles into and out of the subway station.
Which leads me to my next potential adventure in traversing New York City. When travelling back from Washington DC to New York, I need to make a choice of whether to stop overnight in Manhattan or in Flushing. Both are very interesting places, but staying in Manhattan entails taking the Amtrak train and its three hour ride, while Flushing is a short plane ride from Reagan Airport to LaGuardia. Now you can do both Flushing and Manhattan at the same time since there is the 7 subway train, but that can take 45 minutes to more than an hour each way. Also while I did ride the Long Island Railroad from Flushing to Manhattan once, that service is not as frequent as the subway and it only gets you to Penn Station. But I recently found that hitting both Manhattan and Flushing on the way back is a possibility due to the Chinese bus service between Manhattan Chinatown and Flushing Chinatown. While I have heard about the legendary Chinese buses for many years, I've never ridden one since there are several issues. For one thing, there is no "Chinatown Bus Station" at either end. The buses pick up and drop off their passengers on the street, from buses marked only in Chinese. Also, there is no set schedule. A bus won't leave until it's full. Supposedly the buses fill up quickly, so the wait shouldn't be that long. Indeed, I suspect the buses run a circuit like the Disneyland parking lot tram rides. But the attraction is that for the $2.50 bus fare, you can travel between Flushing and Manhattan Chinatown in roughly 20 minutes. Will I be able to find the Chinatown bus? We'll have to wait until next year to see.
Five years later in 1990 I actually got up the nerve to drive into New York City, at the tail end of our two week fly and drive Canadian/East Coast trip. I made sure we arrived on Saturday, when traffic was lighter. It was a fun trip with our little kids in the back. Crossing the George Washington Bridge from New Jersey into Manhattan, I pointed out Grant's Tomb on the bluff overlooking the Hudson River. "Are we going to visit there?" asked Christina. "No, we're not" I responded. "That part of town is too dangerous." To which Eric thoughtfully inquired, "Oh. Is that how Grant died?" Yes, and they buried him on the spot.
As it turns out Manhattan wasn't that difficult of a place to drive if you followed certain rules. First of all, don't drive through Times Square, but rather go a few blocks out of your way to streets like West Highway. More importantly was don't drive like a polite Californian. Rather drive like the locals do, particularly the cabbies. Force your way into lane changes and through intersections. Indeed, I became fairly good at driving through Manhattan using these principles. When a colleague attending a training session with me on Long Island disclosed over dinner in Queens that he had never been to Manhattan, I immediately drove him over to Manhattan and gave him a tour of all the major sights. He was so impressed that when we got back he told everybody about the tour of Manhattan that I had given him.
However, it wasn't until 15 years after my first trip there that I discovered that it really didn't make any sense to drive in Manhattan. First of all the cost of overnight parking was ridiculous, and on top of that, it took forever for the parking attendant to get your car off of the storage ramp and out to you. Secondly, we discovered the New York subways. Now even in 2000 I was still greatly influenced by tales of crime in the subways, and since it made no sense to drive short distances in Manhattan, we opted to rely on taxi rides for those short trips. However, one evening after taking the cab to Manhattan Chinatown, we were going to return to Midtown when Mrs. Chandavkl pointed at the stairway going down to the subway station. Mrs. Chandavkl, who is many times more paranoid about crime and doom in general than I could ever be, said "Look at all those Chinese people going into the subway! It must be safe." This time I was the skeptical one, reluctantly following her down the tunnel. We got on the subway and the ride back to Midtown was wonderful--much faster and cheaper than a cab, and not a suspicious looking soul anywhere on the train. We turned in our rental car the next morning and it's been nothing but the subway ever since.
With numerous business trips to the east coast in the last few years, I've explored transportation alternatives I never would have dreamed of. Take the Long Island Railroad into Manhattan from the outskirts? Sounds interesting, but I had never taken a domestic train ride anywhere in the US. But it wasn't much harder than catching the subway from Flushing to Manhattan. There's an Amtrak commuter train between Washington DC and Penn Station in New York? Again, sounds interesting, but how do you buy your ticket, how do you find your track, where are you supposed to sit? Well, two years ago I finally booked the train. Amazingly, arriving at the ticket counter just 10 minutes before an earlier train was about to leave, I was able to switch to the earlier ride in time. Arriving at Penn Station, fortuituosly my randomly booked hotel was just a couple of blocks away. The next time I rode the Amtrak from DC to NY I got more adventurous, booking a hotel in Chinatown, requiring a subway ride not originating from Penn Station. While I had actually taken the subway from Manhattan to JFK airport once before, it was with a lesser amount of luggage, but somehow I managed my way on the stairs through the turnstiles into and out of the subway station.
Which leads me to my next potential adventure in traversing New York City. When travelling back from Washington DC to New York, I need to make a choice of whether to stop overnight in Manhattan or in Flushing. Both are very interesting places, but staying in Manhattan entails taking the Amtrak train and its three hour ride, while Flushing is a short plane ride from Reagan Airport to LaGuardia. Now you can do both Flushing and Manhattan at the same time since there is the 7 subway train, but that can take 45 minutes to more than an hour each way. Also while I did ride the Long Island Railroad from Flushing to Manhattan once, that service is not as frequent as the subway and it only gets you to Penn Station. But I recently found that hitting both Manhattan and Flushing on the way back is a possibility due to the Chinese bus service between Manhattan Chinatown and Flushing Chinatown. While I have heard about the legendary Chinese buses for many years, I've never ridden one since there are several issues. For one thing, there is no "Chinatown Bus Station" at either end. The buses pick up and drop off their passengers on the street, from buses marked only in Chinese. Also, there is no set schedule. A bus won't leave until it's full. Supposedly the buses fill up quickly, so the wait shouldn't be that long. Indeed, I suspect the buses run a circuit like the Disneyland parking lot tram rides. But the attraction is that for the $2.50 bus fare, you can travel between Flushing and Manhattan Chinatown in roughly 20 minutes. Will I be able to find the Chinatown bus? We'll have to wait until next year to see.
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