One of the things that I really noticed about being in New York this week was how similar it felt to London. Apart from the humidity which, thankfully, we don't get so much of at home.
I'm not sure if it's because I'm older now or because I spent more time exploring the city by myself or just that I know much more of London now that I live and work in the centre of town rather than in suburbs. For whatever reason though, it felt very familiar. We popped into a Pret a Manger one morning and apart from the fact that the drinks are bigger and the brownies are smaller, I could have been opposite the office, picking up something for lunch.
I read this week that Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, has vague plans for a park in London, high above the railway lines, connecting some of the main stations. He has been inspired, no doubt, by the High Line park in New York.
Over the last 10 years or so, a stretch of what used to be an elevated railway snaking down the west side of Manhatten island has been repurposed into an urban garden walkway. On either side of the path, wildflowers grow among what used to form the railway tracks. The mile-long stretch is replete with art, with benches and sun loungers, musicians and food trucks.
We walked from the top of the park, at 30th Street, down to the end in the Meatpacking district on one of those mornings when the weather can't quite make up its mind what it's going to do. Some of the buildings on either side have been redeveloped into modern high rise apartment blocks, shimmering with glass. Others haven't changed and you feel like you're getting a sneak peek into a world that you were never supposed to see.
