NYC - Day One

It's almost twenty-three years to the week since my first visit to New York - and indeed to the US.

I'd come to work at the BBC on a three-month attachment as a researcher/director and had been given a studio apartment on West 14th Street. Arriving on a Saturday evening I woke early the next morning, with the obligatory jet-lag, and to the sound of ambulances racing along 14th Street, 21 floors below.

I will never forget my first hour or so in New York on a chilly February Sunday. The streets were deserted and I felt like I had Greenwich Village to myself. I discovered the Food Emporium - first experience of an American supermarket - and stocked up on supplies. I bought an enormous Sunday New York Times from a news stand, where the guy was still unpacking the papers. Then I had my first American coffee in the little Greek diner next to the apartment.

And that's how my love affair with America began. Yesterday, on another cold Sunday morning, I set off at 7am to explore the area around my hotel in Hell's Kitchen and felt as excited as I did all those years ago. And, once more, my wander culminated in coffee and a paper.