The eight degrees below zero I welcome to the Big Apple, the streets with the typical heads of vapors of the underground tell me that the City is the same as always, so often seen in many films. Concealed by tinted windows of a "monstrous" limosine - uncomfortable, more alcove and disco train that transference-reach machine with some friends the Doubletree Hilton Hotel in midtown Manhattan, near Rockefeller Center. There I met four Italian-Americans who run a salon .. "Sim came to New York in 1936, from San Martino D'Agri, Padula and Buonabitacolo: We take in sim Canoscio ham and hard, first to master after by suli. The effort was strong, but ham had satisfaction, a growing family and to study whether the children. Customers are, the gain is bbuono. It is called the Renaissance salon run by four-barbers barbers in New York! - Of Italian and South, located in one of the busiest streets in Manhattan, la Lexington Avenue che fa angolo con la 51a Street, all’interno dell’hotel Doubletree, sopra la metropolitana, a pochi metri dal Crysler Building e dal Grand Central Terminal. Nell’ora passata nel loro salone ho visto avvicendarsi una decina di persone. Taglio di capelli e shampo al costo di cinquanta dollari. Non è poco ed è spontaneo il calcolo del presunto guadagno giornaliero:”si guadambia tanto, ma non lo diciamo”. E’ un flusso consistente di clienti abituali, che lavorano negli uffici o nelle vicine attività commerciali, di gente di passaggio, che viene da Lower Manhattan a Midtown, arrivando da Brooklyn o dal Bronx e da Harlem. Ho letto che nel vicino Rockefeller Center lavorano sessantamila persone, forty-five there are restaurants, a hundred shops, running two hundred and fifty thousand visitors a day. "I did m'aggio seven apartments in New York, I keep a house in Maine, I do well in construction activities. Here is bbuono but it is hard. " They want to talk about the Barbers in New York, to meet the "paisan" who speaks well of Italy where they have returned more than once. Meet the country and they feel like the country. They show no shyness, ready to give all necessary advice to visit this city they love so much. I am interested in how Italy is in crisis and, of course, what combines Berlusconi. "Italy ends to hell "-telling with a touch of sadness," but what we can do, and before he did well and is mo'si imputtanito. I do see a New York newspaper with pictures and comments: "So we lose face, never been taken so Italy is around, poor Italy. Four Italian-American barber shops, a barber in Lexington Avenue, working from morning till night without pause, the hair is $ 50, 7 apartments in New York, a mansion in Maine, interest side of buildings, families pulled up with dignity and without deprivation , well-being achieved and lived simply. I tell my barber who remains in a narrow alley on the corner of Via Pretoria, right to make a difference with New York. Fifth Avenue is a river disciplined and impressive machines, most taxi. A lot. New Yorkers use the car shortly staff in town, for what it costs to keep it in the garage, as parking is expensive, for the shortest time. Prefer public transport, taxis are cheap, the buses and subways are very efficient, boats from Brooklyn to Staten Island are free. One wonders if the bet of the Fiat Cinquecento in New York will win or not. It will be seen, for now I have not seen one. It is understood, however, the fact that New Yorkers to move in the territories during the weekend they need their big cars and not a mouse. Walk the Fifth Avenue through the Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick's, Top of the Rock, the statue of Prometheus, the murals of Sert, Radio City, Trump Tower, the Public Library. The nineteen buildings that form the famous Center designed by the famous billionaire is striking not only for their beauty, even for its original town planning offices on the upper floors on the ground floor the large open atriums citizens who become staging areas, places appointment, areas of relaxation and shopping. Walking! It 's true that New York turns to foot meeting a mix of people, cultures, ethnicities, and types of people: whites and blacks, Latinos, Asians, Europeans, vendors, employees. The blacks, often huge closets and looking as sweet and gentle, young people, dressed as a rapper all a bit 'approved together with the i Pod fixed to the ears and pants to his knees with his horse and a sort of cap on her, the women, some very beautiful, maintained in clothing and manner. The brokers who work in the Financial District, dressed in dark clothes, which emerge from the subway to fast waves during rush hour, stopping at street carts in the breakfast bagel and coffee bollentissimo. Cops tall, beautiful, blacks and whites, as in small and big films. Walking and still walking with his nose up. Palaces so high that no end in sight, glass, mirrors, metal, brick, stone and lights, lights e ancora luci. Qui le luci nei palazzi non si spengono mai, neppure quelle degli uffici, nemmeno il sabato e la domenica. La notte è un lunapark abbagliante, affascinante, animato. E’ uno spettacolo vedere dall’ottantaseiesimo piano dell’Empire State Building o dal settantesimo piano del Top of The Rock la notte accendersi in milioni di luci sulla città. Solo l’energia elettrica generata dal Niagara ha potuto dare elettricità a una città affamata di luce. Dire luci vuol dire Times Square: un’esplosione di neon nel luogo che sembra il centro del mondo. Ad ogni ora del giorno e della notte una moltitudine di gente, di ogni razza e colore, si illumina con una moltitudine di luci, colori, suoni, rumori. E’ a constantly moving kaleidoscope, where every fragment is always colored his place. It 's so also for the yellow taxis, limousines for the monstrous, the policemen on horseback, the flashing lights of the legendary NYDPolice and firefighters. Only the Marines in dress uniform are a bit 'sad when, in this explosion of life, looking for volunteers for the army. Here is the legendary Hard Rock Cafe, Temple of the Beetles, there is Bubbagump Forster, Planet Hollywood is ready to welcome you with burgers and fries, cheesburger and fries, shrimp and french fries and Coke and ... beautiful music. There Tois the realm of toys, from the headquarters of the Times where the beginning of each night's set a crystal ball. Walk walk. Leaving the Broadway at the 42nd Street, Bryant Park, an oasis of greenery and tranquility with dozens of New Yorkers to skate on a large ice rink surrounded by picturesque stalls and local shops. It seems impossible all this just a quarter mile from the explosion in Times Square and in the midst of magnificent skyscrapers! But New York is: a sudden oasis of relaxation and tranquility of green lungs in the middle of casting of concrete, steel and glass. New York and a huge and magnificent movie set. To realize just walk on the Brooklyn Bridge and throw "A View from the bridge" Arthur Miller on Italian immigrants in America, just go on Fifth Avenue and remember to "Breakfast at Tiffany's" go to Washington Park and try to walk "Barefoot in the Park, cross the street to the Five Points careful with his" Gangs of New York "by M. Scorsese, without delay to the 'Meeting at the Plaza "for having lingered to see" King Kong "still climbing the Empire State Building. Just sit down with Woody Allen on a bench in Pier17 and admire the skyline of Manhattan to be convinced that all of New York has been and always will be a wonderful movie set where the film was created by magic. E Needless to say, even the New York Barbieri I recommend visit the Grand Central Terminal where he was shot the film "The Untouchables" by B. De Palma, the legendary scene of the wheelchair on the steps of the monumental train station. I also recommend going to the restaurant, "Full Moon" by Luigi, a native of Putignano: Argentine beef steak, scialatielli, Nero d'Avola, lentils, fazooli, panelluccia homemade. We leave sixty U.S. dollars even if I declare that I have sent Barbieri of New York. Better a good sandwich to eight dollars, made with genuine Italian community of Little Italy. Now the Italian neighborhood has changed. Ten years of new immigrants have transformed the Italian community and beyond. I find a few flags and a few Italian stores with the signs because everything is swallowed up by nearby Chinatown. Invasive, enterprising, entrepreneurial Chinese monopolize the business of this and other areas. Here are the Feast of San Gennaro, the restaurant "da Mario" which was filmed the famous scene from "The Godfather", a few Italian-American families. Even Harlem and the Bronx have changed. Since a certain Bill Clinton has set up his offices in Harlem, the neighborhood is also inhabited by white and bourgeois, however, remains the largest African American community that lives in the memory of Malcolm X, in the gospel choir of Abyssinian Baptist Church and nell'Harlem Market. In the Bronx, the Latin Americans are now the majority, so that in New York if you do not know English, but you get on with the English, you do not mind because that is the most spoken language in Latin America. Magic New York.
Philip Pugliese
Philip Pugliese
