26.0°

New York never sleeps. A fact that I, as a traveler not a tourist, witnessed firsthand after my midnight arrival at Newark Liberty International Airport.

Rather than check into a hotel that night, I saved $200, stored my bags, and saw the flip side of the city as it changed from dusk to dawn, an experience kind of like reading the end of a story before the first chapter.

From midnight to morning another New York lives and breathes and scurries and saunters about. I watched the glitzy lights pale to the leftovers of touristed footsteps. I watched waiters and staff, hucksters and theater professionals give way to those who depended on what was left behind; and then watched the early morning hustle as papers hit the stands, and suits and ties hit Starbucks.

My clothes storage, and future hotel, was on 46th Street, a half block (or two hot-dog vendors and a newsstand) away from Times Square. Yet even that half block opened up a world to me: Church of St Mary the Virgin, American Globe Theatre, Ha Comedy Club, two Irish bars and a TGI Fridays. They led me on to Duffy Square, the center of Times Square, where bright red steps flowed upwards and filled with multiple camera-toters trying to capture the illumination of 46th and 47th streets.

Every traffic light change seemed to pump a fluid life-blood of people in scattered directions into and out of surrounding establishments. Any direction that I moved was an 'ah-ha' moment. The "Late Night With David Letterman" building; Chicago on stage; ESPN II; the Times Square New Year's Eve crystal ball; horse-drawn buggies nabbing their last passengers; the last cheesecakes being sold; dancers leaving their various shows; musicians giving impromptu sound bites; taxi doors swallowing whole the humanity that dared to pause on corners.

I worked up Broadway toward Central Park, moving in zigzag patterns down side alleys and then back to Broadway.

I initially dreaded the thought of dodging huge mounds of heavy-duty plastic bags, swiftly moving city garbage collectors and the door-awning condo-homeless who use what salvage they can find to bed down for the night, but it all seemed organized.

As the edge of night started to lighten, a zig revealed a spotless street and a zag back to my main walk showed no mounds of plastic, nor cigarette butts or discarded phone numbers written hastily on bar napkins. All the previous days' and nights' human remains had been swiftly tucked away somewhere on the waterfront awaiting transport and dumping. All that remained from the night before were the marquee lights; those, it seems, are never turned off.

I walked past the M&M World Store and its huge dancing multi-colored peanut and plain M&M's and made a mental note of a Starbucks that would be my refuel on the return. After ten minutes of taxis going past, heads appearing out of subways, and street corners congesting with human placebos, I crossed E 59th Street and entered Central Park at Columbus Circle. Once inside, the trees seemed to buffer the noise of New York.

The lovely plastic-coated map of the park I received from the hotel clerk stated the park is 250 acres; the park actually covers 843 acres. It is easily two days worth of strolling. As light filled the shadows of the foliage, critters' sounds began to issue forth from the tropic, temperate and polar zones of the Central Park Zoo and Tisch Children's Zoo.

I could have poked my head out of the park in Harlem or Little Italy but instead ventured back towards my lodging. I strolled to Chinatown then on across the Brooklyn Bridge. I would return after a piece of cheesecake and catch the bridge at night framing the Manhattan skyline.

As I walked down into the subways, I dropped change into the baskets of a dozen different types of performers. I had barely touched on all the areas to be seen in the city: Rockefeller Center, the New York Stock Exchange, Madison Square Garden, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. A new pair of shoes was my goal for the next day, so I'd start off at Nike Town, one more tower of neon and glitz that opens the city's eyes and cries out 'Don't fall asleep!'