‘Reel’ New York

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New York Reel

Of all the locations that one could play while in Manhatten, I was determined to record an Irish tune at the Irish Hunger Memorial, a remarkable grassy knoll just west of the World Trade Center Site in Battery Park. This place is guaranteed to take you back in time, and its’ incredible design evokes the Irish countryside whilst underscoring the extraordinary historical impact that the Great Irish Famine had on New York City in its formative years.

From the adjacent boardwalk that skirts the south and west edges of Manhatten, one can say hello from afar to the Green Lady, and even get a glimpse of Staten Island, which served as gateway for countless immigrants and their families arriving in America.

I had wanted to bring along my old British-made 8-keyed flute expressly to play a jig, reel or ballad, so as to properly evoke the time and place of this kind of history. However at the last minute I had to jettison a pile of things onto the dining room table so that I could just gunny-sack it around town for 36 hours, and my Hawkes & Son Superior Flute of 1860 sadly was left behind.

I have friends who lament the passing of ’80′s New York, that the place just isn’t its former self; however here I explore my personal fascination with the New York of the 1880′s!