Catherine Price by 101 Places Not to See Before You Die Page B
Authors: 101 Places Not to See Before You Die
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barriers, partied their hearts out, and then hopped back on the Long Island Railroad. Nowadays the event is heavily guarded by the NYPD, with each partygoer treated as a possible member of Al Qaeda. Backpacks and large bags are forbidden, and every would-be reveler has to pass through a metal detector before being allowed into the Square.
Once inside (and get there early, since people start arriving by midday), you’re stuck: in order to control the crowd and prevent people from pressing to the front, the police herd visitors into metal pens, which they’re not allowed to leave until the clock strikes twelve. If you do desert your fellow livestock partygoers, don’t expect to get back to your original spot—by midnight, the streets are packed to Penn Station, eight blocks away.
And trust me when I say you’ll have plenty of reasons to leave. First, it’s freezing. January in New York is cold, and midnight in January in New York is even colder. The event organizers recommend dressing in heavy layers, but I’d go a step further and suggest wearing everything you own.
It’d be nice if you could warm up with a cup of soup, but don’t get your hopes up: food vendors aren’t allowed in the Square on New Year’s Eve. So unless you packed your pockets with Clif Bars or feel like paying a cover charge at a restaurant (and thus losing your place in the pen), you’re going to be ringing in the new year on an empty stomach.
You’re also going to be celebrating it sober—at the world’s most famous New Year’s party, no alcohol is allowed. Some people choose to booze it up ahead of time—like at 10 A.M. —but be careful: there are no bathrooms. That’s right. Nearly a million people crowd into Times Square every New Year’s Eve, some of whom arrive twelve hours before the ball drops, and yet the city provides no additional facilities. In the words of a former NYPD cop, if you want to survive New Year’s in Times Square, “you’d better have the bladder of a camel.”
If you are still insistent on spending New Year’s Eve in Times Square (perhaps you are also the sort of person who enjoys spending long periods of time in MRI tubes), then do yourself a favor and get a hotel room with a view of the festivities. It’ll be expensive, and you’ll have to book far in advance, but when you’re standing in your toasty room, champagne glass in hand, looking down at the crowds with a private toilet just steps away, there’ll be no question it was worth it.
Countdown Entertainment, LLC
Chapter 29 The Double Black Diamond Run at Powderhouse Hill
J ust kidding. There is no black diamond run at Powderhouse Hill, a miniature ski resort in South Berwick, Maine. With a vertical drop of just 175 feet (that’s 2,100 inches), its three trails range in difficulty from easy to really, really easy, and the hill is so small that it doesn’t even have a lift—instead, an eight-hundred-foot tow rope drags skiers and snowboarders, most of whom are too short to go on amusement park rides, up a grade so gentle that at first glance, it’s hard to tell whether they’re moving up or down. Occasionally neighborhood teenagers build small ski jumps, but anyone looking for Maine’s version of Taos had better keep searching.
If you’re not a thrill-seeker, however, Powderhouse Hill is charming. Run entirely by volunteers, lift tickets go for $5, and $25 earns you a lifetime membership. The small chalet at the bottom of the hill is heated by a wood stove and sells small snacks to offset the cost of running the ski area. The best part: the original engine for the tow rope came courtesy of a jerry-rigged 1938 Ford truck that the founders of the ski slope parked on the top of the hill and modified so that its rear wheel could pull the rope. These days its engine has been replaced by a newer, thirty-seven-horsepower version, but the truck still sits at the top of the hill, chugging away.
Chapter 28 The Double Black Diamond Run at
Once inside (and get there early, since people start arriving by midday), you’re stuck: in order to control the crowd and prevent people from pressing to the front, the police herd visitors into metal pens, which they’re not allowed to leave until the clock strikes twelve. If you do desert your fellow livestock partygoers, don’t expect to get back to your original spot—by midnight, the streets are packed to Penn Station, eight blocks away.
And trust me when I say you’ll have plenty of reasons to leave. First, it’s freezing. January in New York is cold, and midnight in January in New York is even colder. The event organizers recommend dressing in heavy layers, but I’d go a step further and suggest wearing everything you own.
It’d be nice if you could warm up with a cup of soup, but don’t get your hopes up: food vendors aren’t allowed in the Square on New Year’s Eve. So unless you packed your pockets with Clif Bars or feel like paying a cover charge at a restaurant (and thus losing your place in the pen), you’re going to be ringing in the new year on an empty stomach.
You’re also going to be celebrating it sober—at the world’s most famous New Year’s party, no alcohol is allowed. Some people choose to booze it up ahead of time—like at 10 A.M. —but be careful: there are no bathrooms. That’s right. Nearly a million people crowd into Times Square every New Year’s Eve, some of whom arrive twelve hours before the ball drops, and yet the city provides no additional facilities. In the words of a former NYPD cop, if you want to survive New Year’s in Times Square, “you’d better have the bladder of a camel.”
If you are still insistent on spending New Year’s Eve in Times Square (perhaps you are also the sort of person who enjoys spending long periods of time in MRI tubes), then do yourself a favor and get a hotel room with a view of the festivities. It’ll be expensive, and you’ll have to book far in advance, but when you’re standing in your toasty room, champagne glass in hand, looking down at the crowds with a private toilet just steps away, there’ll be no question it was worth it.
Countdown Entertainment, LLC
Chapter 29 The Double Black Diamond Run at Powderhouse Hill
J ust kidding. There is no black diamond run at Powderhouse Hill, a miniature ski resort in South Berwick, Maine. With a vertical drop of just 175 feet (that’s 2,100 inches), its three trails range in difficulty from easy to really, really easy, and the hill is so small that it doesn’t even have a lift—instead, an eight-hundred-foot tow rope drags skiers and snowboarders, most of whom are too short to go on amusement park rides, up a grade so gentle that at first glance, it’s hard to tell whether they’re moving up or down. Occasionally neighborhood teenagers build small ski jumps, but anyone looking for Maine’s version of Taos had better keep searching.
If you’re not a thrill-seeker, however, Powderhouse Hill is charming. Run entirely by volunteers, lift tickets go for $5, and $25 earns you a lifetime membership. The small chalet at the bottom of the hill is heated by a wood stove and sells small snacks to offset the cost of running the ski area. The best part: the original engine for the tow rope came courtesy of a jerry-rigged 1938 Ford truck that the founders of the ski slope parked on the top of the hill and modified so that its rear wheel could pull the rope. These days its engine has been replaced by a newer, thirty-seven-horsepower version, but the truck still sits at the top of the hill, chugging away.
Chapter 28 The Double Black Diamond Run at
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