This is some very brave advertising by Dixons and you can see the copywriter has had great fun in constructing it. Its beautifully written, there’s no doubt about that, but is it good for the long term health of the Dixons brand?
For me, ever since Dixons profits showed that they made more money selling warranties that we didn’t need than they did from the products themselves, they showed their true colours as sales charlatans. Their brad values were short term opportunistic profits. They became the brand that people loved to hate. John Lewis, with their sensible people offering sensible prices in sensible locations became the choice of sensible people and they filed that void left behind by the Dixons customers who deserted them. They became a better than viable alternative.
But just recently, I’ve started falling out of love with John Lewis. I don’t believe their people are that nice. I don’t actually believe they are never knowingly undersold as I can always find cheaper (they don’t want or allow you to compare their prices with online prices you see!) and I began to doubt the value of their brand promise when I (over)heard people being knocked back when they were trying to return things a few days out of warranty.
So after I’ve walked through the hallowed halls of John Lewis, played with their docking stations, left funny messages on the screens of their laptops, logged them into things they shouldn’t be and and had their sensible staff come along and offer to help me, will I go to Dixons last?
No. Actually I won’t. I’ll go home and buy it online from Amazon, or another online retailer where I know where I stand, I know where and when it will be delivered and where I know that, at the moment at least, I’m a valued customer.
Good try Dixons, but I still think you’re too shady to get my custom in the near future. Keep this up though and I’ll certainly come back into store to look.
Updated
Another brilliant written and crafted ad from Dixons. I’m starting to think they actually deserve some success in what they are doing as they have captured most of our thoughts and more importantly, our actions, pretty damn well.
Another brave ad from Dixons capturing the spirit of what we're actually doing!
A little while ago, I wrote a piece about the fight that Margate and Derby were facing in attracting new retailers when they are committed to charging business rates based on the rateable value. I proposed that the councils have to be flexible and offer rent and rates free periods to attract younger start ups in, without the fear of long lease commitments – which would put the mockers on most retail start-ups in any trading times, let alone difficult trading times.
And it seems that the answer has happened right on my doorstep, with the arrival of Wayne Hemingway’s Kioskiosk Project. This project allows start-ups free use of a funky retail space within the city to see what works for them, see whether they like it and to see whether they can make money at it – without much downside risk.
Embarrassingly, I was actually invited (and had accepted) the invitation to the opening of this in Pelham Street, Nottingham, but forgot. That’s pretty bad planning on my part and appallingly rude. Sorry Wayne and sorry Nina of Invest in Nottingham who invited me.
So I went along today to see what it was all about and the star of the show today is a young designer called Gill Heeley, who actually did a placement with us a few years ago at Purple Circle. This is her at the Kiosk.
Gill Heeley of We Make T-Shirts with their three days of fame at Kioskiosk in Pelham Street Nottingham
I asked her to look proud for the shot and I think that works! It’s also my first published shot with my new Ricoh GR camera that I bought after realising that many of the shots I got in the US were rubbish.
Gill, whilst studying graphic design at Nottingham Trent, started making T-shirts for fun and then teamed up with two friends – Tony Waddington and Mike Knight – from college to try it out as a business.
They now run a business called We Make T-shirts and you can look at their website here.
They’ve got some lovely shirts with great detailing and already look to have some good orders behind them for other independents. This independent sector is what allows any city to differentiate themselves and Kioskiosk, delivers a trial independence beautifully.
There is no way Gill and her partners would take out a lease. There is no way that any bank would lend them the cash to start up without a proven track record. But Kioskiosk gives them the chance to have a look.
Talking to Gill, she was under no illusions about how hard starting and running your own business can be, so she’s being realistic – and maybe this chance is just what her and her partners need to get started on their way to a great business.
Good luck to them and thanks for giving them the opportunity Mr Hemingway. Oh, and Nottingham City Council for giving them the space.
CJ as a young corporate customer on his laptop in Starbucks
In an article I wrote recently about place branding, I proposed that the future of branding is unbranded. You can read that here.
What I was arguing against was homogenisation. Standardisation being used as a byword for branding, that decreases rather than increases consumer choice.
And it would appear that Starbucks, in the US at least would agree with this sentiment. In a great article by Tim Haywards in the UK’s Guardian newspaper he savages them for drifting from Happy hippiedom to the same tired old corporate suit as everyone else on the homogenised high street.
For any brand to be able to survive, it has to evolve or it will die. Like dinosaurs did when they failed to build protection against meteorite strikes. Today’s meteorite strikes are coming from the upstart brands and from locally differentiated, welcoming outlets.
In Seattle, there is already a company calling themselves Seattle’s Best and who’s to say it isn’t? (my cup I had in a plane on the way to Seattle was absolutely horrid – see here) But that doesn’t mean its the most loved, by any stretch of the imagination.
With any brand the product is critical, but so is the tribe in which consuming it puts you. You have to feel good about it. You have to bask in its reflected glorious ‘brandness’ and you have to want to tell your cool friends about it.
I think this is a great move for Starbucks.
I hope they have the nerve to debrand their estate, to give their customers the chance to fall in love with them all over again.
I hope they have the nerve to allow their local people to interpret their offer locally and create cool places for their customers to hang out. If that means they want to appeal to corporate wannabe’s then that’s fine, but design your offer accordingly. If that means they want their hippies back, then that’s just as fine – again, design accordingly.
The future of branding maybe isn’t unbranded, but it has to listen to its customers needs and be flexible as hell in delivering what they want or it will go the way of the dinosaurs.
Thanks to Jayne Wilson for the use of the picture of CJ on a Laptop in Starbucks. You can see more of her fine work here.
Holiday Inn rebrand – A rebrand borne out of listening to customers
In our role, we see an awful lot of rebrands and we see a lot of awful rebrands.
But not so the rebrand of Holiday Inn, which in my opinion is spectacularly good. It should be for $1billion though.
I’m not impressed because they have created a swish new logo, because the one they have created is only fine. It’s certainly not groundbreaking, particularly different or revolutionary, it’s just fine.
What they have done brilliantly however is redesign the branded experience by listening to their customers.
In their own (nicely crafted) words, they ‘Had a serious heart to heart with their guests – it was the biggest global dialogue that has ever happened in their category’
They are aiming to remind past present and lapsed customers, why they fell in love with them in the first place. Love is a great word in branding and its talked about a lot, but very rarely achieved. Only the real greats ever reach this status and we see them all over in Apple, Harley, Virgin, Sony and the other ‘Lovemarks’ brands.
They’ve taken control of the welcome, introduced (or reintroduced) friendly and efficient check in and even their signature sound and scent.
Wow.
How many brands control their sound and scent?
I stayed in the Holiday Inn, in Back Bay, Boston and the staff were already superb. It was the friendliest hotel we stayed in during our whistlestop US tour but I’ve yet to stay in one of the refreshed ones.
If they can deliver worldwide on this very bold and public promise, that will be one of the most truly outstatnding rebrands ever seen.
Updated
In this really interesting piece on the Wall Street Journal it would appear that Holiday Inn are again doing the right thing by enforcing the switch of their brand from old to new. If you don’t update to their new standards by the end of 2010 they will dump you.
This is where most rebrands or brand implementations fall over. It’s nearly always bad implementation or a lack of implementation altogether. There is clearly a major cost implication for the Holiday Inn franchisees of $150-250k and some will not be able to justify the expense. This will effectively get rid of up to 300 existing operators who will then be ‘debranded’ altogether.
This may be a bit of a rough way to treat your business partners, but it’s vital to remember that one single bad brand interaction can undermine the whole branded experience. By getting rid of these 300 or so, they will reduce the average age of their hotel stock by 11 years to only 15 years old. This is a major percentage change and one that will ensure a more consistent branded experience across the world.
I was impressed before and as I’m not one of those 300 operators under threat, i’m still impressed. I wonder how this will play out in the long term?
It was announced on the BBC (so it must be right then!) that spending on online advertising in the UK has overtaken the spend on TV advertising for the first time. It came from a report prepared by Pricewaterhouse Coopers for the Internet Advertising Bureau.
Online spending grew 4.6% to £1.752bn – which doesn’t sound that large a growth in what is such a young and explosive market – whilst TV advertising fell by a rather more substantial 16.1% to £1.639bn.
This is great isn’t it?
All clients are becoming much more savvy and spending their money where they can get a measurable return and not throwing any of their hard kept budget at more general profile raising ads.
I think this is not great, not great at all, as brands will suffer in the long term for doing so.
Brilliant virals change perceptions, we all know that, but brilliant TV advertising changes generations. It just has a far greater impact than another click through to a website by someone bored in their office on a quiet Friday.
Internet advertising must be part of any advertising mix that’s obvious, but so must profile raising clever TV ads, if you want to create and maintain a world brand.
When Nick Kamen stepped out of his pants in a launderette ad for Levis, he literally rebuilt their brand from that day forward. He gave them ‘cool’ and they have worked hard ever since to keep it.
I can think of thousands of transformational TV ads, but Virals, with very few exceptions are often just a gag that wears thin all too fast. Its the creatives having a hoot and winning awards. But is it really winning them customers or just massive click through rates? When Chris Tarrant, presents them on late night TV, how much good is that really doing for the brand?
And the best bit?
The irony that it was PwC reporting the demise of TV ads.
PwC were the people who were laughed at through massive viral campaign of changing their name to ‘Introducing Monday’ in 2002 by the hilarious viral geniuses at B3ta. If you don’t remember that, have look here and here.
PwC - We've got your name and you are a donkey
It was the viral that created virals, but its brilliance was in its irreverence, not in its conformity.
If I owned a consumer brand, I’d be sticking by TV for a long time yet.
When I was a child at school. Doc Martens were all the rage. It was the height of the punk era, the birth of the ska era and the death of the disco era (thank god for that). I loved the music of the first two, and I loved the style too. I had a Harrington jacket – you know the one, it’s a black cotton bomber jacket with a tartan lining – but my parents always thought that Doc Martens were a bit too ‘thuggy’, so I wasn’t allowed any for school.
I hankered after the six hole docs that the cool kids had and watched with growing envy as more and more holes were added and the boots reached nearer the knees, perhaps stretching the bounds of practicality in favour of fashion.
But throughout this time, they kept their (mostly) functional appeal and the AirWair sole, that they had taken ownership of in the 1960’s through the Northampton based Griggs family tie up with Dr Klaus Maertens of Munich, Germany.
By the time I started at college, when I was 18 and allowed to make all my own decisions (based on a grant of £205 per year) I either couldn’t afford them or they had fallen off my radar as something I needed to own.
But I’m 43 now and able to make my own decisions again. My recent trip to the US saw me facing the terrible dilemma of ‘smart casual’ being the dress code for the trip. Any of you who know me, would know that this is not a bracket I sit comfortably within. Scruffy casual maybe, really scruffy oik probably, but smart casual would be a bit of a stretch.
So the first thing I needed was a new pair of shoes. Ones I could polish, to replace my exhausted Merrell casual trainers. And the shoe retailer Soletrader had the answer in these wonderful creations.
My magical new Doctor Martens shoes
Now despite the fact it must have been a quieter few years for Doctor Martens, they stuck to their knitting. They still have AirWair, they still have the yellow cross on the sole and they have now added some detailing such as an embossed cross on the rear corner and some clever stitch detailing to give that hand finished appeal.
And they were great value too at £60.
I have also now had the opportunity to road test them through five cities in the US and they have been exceptional. Not a single blister, not a rubbed toe. Nothing. Entirely uneventful, like your most comfortable slippers since the day I put them on.
I’m not sure if that is good branding, consistent attention to detail, or just great quality manufacturing, but my 30 years of waiting for my own pair of Docs has been well worth it.
Our last day in New York and its our first free time since we arrived eight days ago and we’re flying through the night home tonight, giving back our five hour time difference in one six hour flying stroke. It’s a typical British Autumnal morning and I feel very much the Englishman in New York. Its dauntingly big and there’s too much to learn from in too short a time.
I wander up to the Wholefoods Market on the corner to buy my breakfast as I am up early and debating whether to take off on my own for the day or stick with the group. Wholefoods are the people that Tesco said they were taking on with their Fresh & Easy concept that they thought would capture the hearts and wallets of New Yorkers, but has so far, pretty much underwhelmed them.
Wholefoods Market - A beautiful store for New Yorkers
Well, I have to report that having not seen the Kensington branch of Wholefoods, the one I saw on Second Avenue in New York was stunning. It looked welcoming, yet urban, the food looked beautiful and the staff members I spoke to were educated and interested, with one of the team on the till having spent time in the London Kensington store, helping with staff training. Can you imagine Tesco sending there checkout staff from Victoria centre being sent across to New York to show the Fresh & Easy staff how to be surly and cause unnecessary queues to wind people up in a hurry. Maybe they could just show them how they can tell customers that they can only use this queue if they’re buying Lottery, despite no-one else in the queue and people stacking the full length of the store at the self service tills?
Okay, that’s me being cynical and comparing the natural service culture we saw everywhere in the US. In the UK, we assume that it is insincere and below us to be polite, helpful and interested. We seem far more comfortable in being snotty or trying to catch our customers out than helping them enjoy their visit. This is a training issue we discussed an awful lot whilst we were away and whilst we don’t want ‘have a nice day’ all over the place, we do want to be able to deliver service staff who do just that – serve. It sounds simple, and it is in the US, but with a few notable exceptions, we make it look very difficult in the UK.
So after my early morning breakfast of orange juice and a parmesan breadstick (pretty healthy huh?), sitting in the park, next to the hotel, I watched the New York morning unfold before me.
There’s lots of honking, despite the signs threatening a $350 fine for anyone who does it and the driving is aggressive, the pace is hectic. It almost seems the opposite of how people behave when they get to work, or maybe those in cars are a different breed who never work in service positions? It’s a magical place to sit and absorb the atmosphere. I’m surrounded by New York Sparrows, (or their close relative, ‘cos I ain’t no ornothologist) and I share my bread with them and seem popular amongst them.
Back at the hotel, the others are gathering for the day and I decide to stick with the Sheriff and Adela as they are planning to go to Liberty Island. I know this is probably the cliché of all clichés, but I’ve never been and I wanted to take in another audio tour and see how the trip across compares to my favourite river trip – The Ferry across the Mersey.
The first stop is the Metro station at Lafayette and Broadway which we follow down to Bowling Green. This leads us onto Battery Park and our first view of the Statue of Liberty across the water. As we walk across the park, there is a huge damaged sphere in front of us.
The Sphere is another 9/11 reminder and this damaged relic is from the Plaza of the Word Trade Cetre
At first the thought was that it had been vandalised, but when you read the sign in front of it, you begin to understand.
I like the wording of this plaque in front of the damaged Sphere in Battery Park
Again, the feelings of anger rise up at how this could have happened, but I love the Sphere’s symbolism. Its an even more powerful reminder than the slightly cold but informative hoardings at Ground Zero and its simplicity paints a far starker image in your mind than a display of what’s coming next could portray.
The boat trip with a full audio tour of Liberty Island and Ellis Island is $20 (about £12) which seems like good value. You then travel through a full airport security style search and scan, with everything X rayed and shoes, phone, cameras, belts ad even notebooks in the trays. Its something that is hard to begrudge as the symbolism of peace and liberty that the statue stands for is one that must be under constant terrorist threat.
The short boat ride across only stood out for the fact that it was a great place to photograph armpits and other people’s hands. It was like a class full of the worlds most enthusiastic school children with every hand up for most of the trip.
The silly thing about these shots, was that five minutes later when you landed, it was easy to get a much better image without the hands in the way and without the crowds around you.
We had a cup of coffee to see off the heavy rain and marvelled again at what exceptionally low prices they charge in these nationally controlled attractions. $1.50 (£0.89) for an almost nuclear strength 3/4 pint of coffee wouldn’t be seen at anything but the lowest of cafes in the UK, let alone with a captive audience on a cold wet island full of tourists.
The audio tour used the exact same digital system as the one at Alcatraz, but was far more dull. The single voice talking you through the history was informative at best, but turgid, if I’m honest. By the time we’d walked half way around the island, it was off and we were reading the signage, which had all the information anyway. But the view close up is perfect.
The Statue of Liberty - in all its green glory
We had opted not to take the trip up the monument, which was good as the queue was huge and there was yet another scanning scrutiny. One of the previous blog commenters, Christine from Boston had been helpful in her recommendations and warned us that this was simply not worth the money or the queue, so we gladly took her advice.
So some statto facts about the statue itself. Its 305ft tall from the ground to the top of the flame and was completed in 1886 as a gift from the People of France. It was the tallest structure in the Eastern US when it was built as most of Lower Manhattan was only five stories until well into the 1920’s. She has a 35ft wide waist (like many other people in the US) and a 42ft right arm. Even her fingernail is the size of my forearm and she sees 3 million visitors per year to her very own island.
The ferry took us back via Ellis Island for a further (dull) audio tour and then back across to Battery Park.
Time was pressing on and we were leaving in a few hours, so we opted to walk back to the hotel along Broadway to take in some more of the atmosphere. A good three miles or so along a dead straight road, took in Wall Street. The signage is as we have all seen it, but the state of the roads and paths were awful. The police presence was massive and the crowds even more massive.
The very scruffy pedestrian entrance to Wall Street with Seaport in the far distance
After collecting a late lunch in an immaculately clean and friendly salad bar, where you can choose what you want and pay by weight, we sat in one of the City parks and watched a group playing chess with a form of winner stays on. Quite a crowd gathered and you got the feeling that this was a regular haunt for city types and students alike. Black squirrels ran around us picking up scraps and the feeling was far more relaxed than any other place in New York I had seen.
The final walk took in the Bell of Hope and St Pauls Chapel, back at Ground Zero. The Bell was a gift from the Mayor of London to the people of New York and was created by the Whitechapel Foundry, who also cast Big Ben and the bell on Liberty Island. It is rung each 9/11 anniversary and was also rung after the Madrid bombings in 2004 and on July 7th 2005 after the Subway and bus bombings. It’s a very sombre reminder.
The Bell of Hope - A gift from the Uk, in memory of 9/11
The chapel itself is where the firemen gathered and rested during the recovery mission after 9/11 itself. To most, it is the spiritual home of those who lost their lives.
The table of remembrance inside st Pauls Chapel
It seems like a suitable place to sign off, on what was an incredible trip, full of learnings, stark reminders and world class attractions.
I honestly never thought that the US, would be my thing. I thought it would be too brash. Its big, yes, but it’s so full of genuine people who love our history, curtsey to our Sheriff and respect our country, its impossible to not end up feeling like you’re part of it.
In the words of King Arnie of California. I’ll be back.
We’re off duty, we’re finished, we’re shattered and we’ve learned loads. Its impossible to not learn if you’ve seen 31 attractions over 12,000 miles in 8 days. If you manage to not learn here, you shouldn’t be here in the first place. I’ll write out the full conclusions from my own viewpoint and get them on here in the next few days, but first, I’ll wrap up with the last few things we did, in our briefly hectic time in New York.
Having left the Museum of Natural History, we headed off to Seaport, on the east coast of the Island and underneath the Brooklyn Bridge. This is a brash, sprawling shopping and entertainment centre that few love, but hundreds still flock to, in order to shop, eat and drink.
Looking down into Seaport - a huge mall of shops, eateries and entertainment stuff
This is NOT my scene at all, but it was another to see and tick off. Perhaps to ensure we don’t rip the heart out of the city of Nottingham by overdeveloping the riverside, when this is eventually done and turn it into a vile tourist mecca with shops and a distinct lack of character.
We did stop at a restaurant that looked okay and had the Arsenal game on (replayed in full, but time delayed by five hours) in the background. Being the cultural tourist that I am, this was as much of a draw as the view of the Brooklyn Bridge and the tall ships.
The food portions, were the most ludicrous yet. Being slightly healthy and wanting to avoid accusations of salad dodging, I went for a Caesar Salad with chicken, only to be presented with a family size bowl that had two chicken breasts in it and at least a cubic metre of lettuce. It was simply enormous. I’m not sure if I got much over half way through it before giving up and even leaving some of the chicken. You can see my choice of drink, to give me a real sense of home. I waddled back to the hotel to get ready for our night out.
The salad that beat me - easily!
When we got back to the hotel it was just turning dark and two doors away at a tiny cinema called the Sunshine Cinema, was Charlize Theron, who just happened to be premiering her new film ‘The Burning Plain’ in New York. Either that, or she was just hanging around our hotel, just hoping to get a glimpse of the Sheriff of Nottingham and his men.
Charlize Theron hanging around outside our hotel
It was remarkably low key, with no red carpet, almost no Paparazzi (except Tim Garratt – who got this shot – Thanks Tim) and very few people hanging around. I didn’t bother staying to see her on the way out as we had a date with Little Boots at The Bowery Ballroom.
This is rated by many in the music industry as one of the best venues in the world and with a capacity of around 575, a superb sound system and a stage that allows everyone on the floor or the balcony to get a perfect view, I’m not surprised.
Victoria Christina Hesketh, or Little Boots by her stage name, was supported by two other bands, ‘The Plastiscines’ who I (with my feeble musical taste and knowledge) thought were ok and ‘Yes Giantess’ who I thought were great. I had chat with them afterwards and despite the fact they come from Boston, they were still prepared to speak to me (unlike many others of the fair city, after me upsetting them last week). They’re in UK on the NME tour soon, so if you get chance, go and see them and tell them I sent you.
Little Boots can really sing. Whether you like her music or not, listening to her live shows the power and range of her voice and how well received she was by the people of New York (and Nottingham).
Again, I have to thank Tim Garratt and his excellent photographic skills for the quality of this shot.
Little Boots, singing her heart out at the Bowery Ballroom
I also got to speak to her road manager and asked him about the tour. He described it as a mini tour, that was far more about PR than finances. Thinking about it logically, at only $15 a ticket and playing to only 500 odd people, they never had a chance of ever breaking even, but I’m sure the people adding images and videos to their Facebook and Bebo pages (and blogs like this) will help her profile no end.
Good luck to her. She is one hell of a live singer.
More later for my last day in the USA, taking in Liberty Island and a walk along Broadway.
Okay, now I know what jet Lag is and I am just recovering from the tiredness of the trip, with lots of catching up on sleep. Maybe four hours a day isn’t enough for me at my tender age?
So, we’ve just left the High Line, which was our last official duty and means that we have seen every site we said we would and more and now we were into ones that we thought could be useful, interesting or just personal favourites.
As we walked off the High Line, there was the most amazing car park contraption right down below us. These are prevalent in New York, but I have worked out some of the numbers and they seem to make an awful lot of sense for parking in a crowded city.
Parking in High Rise New York Style
The site is only 30metres square and can house over 144 cars. The guideline is that you can park for as little as 30 minutes, but you need to give them around 20 minutes notice to leave, so they can have your car ready. But the parking charges are massively cheaper than anywhere else in New York. If you arrive before 8am, it only costs $14 for the day and $23 after 8am. This encourages people to beat the rush hour and save money.
The other lovely thing that the company who runs it called Edison Parkfast do, is tell the world about their long serving employees. I would imagine, in a normal parking business, a parking attendant would be a fairly transient employee, but whatever these people are doing to keep and motivate their staff is working, as they have over 40 sites around New York and have a very low staff turnover.
This is how to treat your employees
We then headed towards the American Museum of Natural History, which shows the sheer scale of Manhattan Island as it took absolutely ages on the metro to get there. We walked past the Dakota on the edge of Central Park. This apartment building was built in 1880 and seems to be famous for the famous people who have lived or still live in it. It’s also infamous as the place where John Lennon was shot and killed in 1980.
The Dakota, Home to lots of famous people and the place where John Lennon was killed in 1980
Just across the road is the Strawberry Fields memorial, which is remarkable for being so unremarkable. It looks to me like its just a small sign at the side of the path, but maybe I missed the rest.
The remarkably unremarkable Strawberry Fields memorial - seems to consist of a sign, err and that's it.
I was far more impressed with the signage of a very enterprising tramp, who had decided to pursue a policy of honesty in advertising. His simple, clear appeal had people queuing up to have their picture taken at his side (whilst he remained firmly asleep) and almost everyone who did this left him a dollar or two. I guess he only wakes up to pocket the cash and slope off for a beer or two.
But it does have an honest, enterprising and lovable tramp
The American Museum of Natural History is huge. Really huge. And seriously impressive as a space. You can guess the scale of the exhibitions by the scale of the reception area.
Even the Reception area is impressive at the American Museum of Natural History
There are again, the names of loads of benefactors above the door and throughout the introductory signage, from individuals at one end to Toyota at the other. Whatever we do in Nottingham, we have to find a way to harness the businesses of our region to need to be involved for the kudos they can draw from the association. Without wishing to bang the same cliché out again, they are only going to do this, if what we do is world class!
One of the pride of place exhibits out there is the Willamette Meteorite, which looks like a big lump of pitted metal until you start hearing some of the facts about it.
The WiIlamette Meteorite which weighs 15.5 tons
It weighs 15.5 tons and was formed over 15 billion years ago which is quite a long time, even by universe standards. This piece was bought by the benefactor 100 years ago for $20,000 (around £5,000 then), which seems like a lot until you hear that last year, a piece that weighed just 30lb sold for $1m (around £600k).
The Planetarium, was one of my favourite things of the whole trip, but as with others, I wasn’t allowed to take pictures to show you – and they probably wouldn’t do justice to the panoramic nature of the display.
It was exceptional, right down to the vibrating seats, the beautiful way that our planets history was explained in Layman’s terms by the voiceover of Whoopi Goldberg. A world class voiceover, certainly helps with a world class attraction.
And some of the lovely little cameo pieces around the place are weighing scales, set into the floor, that give you your weight on different planets.
At this point I was feeling a bit of a podge, but was quite reassured to see I had lost around 12 stone, but would need to move to the moon to realise this terrific weight loss. A move to the Sun, would be far more tricky. Partly because it is very hot there but also because my weight would increase 134 fold. I may need some new trousers in order to avoid embarrassment.
I want to live on the moonrather than the sun
Still more to come, but I’ll add that as soon as I can and finally end with my conclusions in a few days.
Sorry, I’m a bit behind, but I’m now at home, at my desk and writing furiously to catch up on all the things we have seen and learned on the last leg of our mammoth trip across the USA.
Our last official day is in New York, and to say I am feeling tired would be something of an understatement. If I was sitting at home with a few days in New York ahead of me, I would be so excited I’d be jumping around like a loon. When you have done six straight 18 hour days ad averaged four to five hours sleep a night, it seems more like hard work.
So, choose your attitude. Look at New York and all its attractions with an open mind. There’s almost too much here to see, but there was one that we all agreed was a real winner and that’s the Highline Project. This is a regeneration project that we could directly learn from and bring to Nottingham. More of that shortly.
I’ll talk you through the day as to how it panned out ad show you some of the sights I saw along the way. In New York alone, I took over 250 shots, so I can only hope to get a brief flavour of the scale and excitement of the city. Oh, and by the way, it does sleep. On our way back from Top of the Rocks yesterday, we tried about three bars to get a drink at around 12ish and they were all closing, so we gave up and went back to the hotel which hasn’t got a bar in it either.
Another early start saw us walking toward Ground Zero. I wanted to see this, not out of some morbid curiosity, but to understand the scale of the redevelopment and see what they had done with the signage and information around the site, in order to be able to compare it with how we convey information to the public during development and building works.
There's a little bit of Nottingham in New York
First stop was to admire in original Chopper parked up in the heart of SoHo (South Houston), near the hotel. It was lovely to see a bit of seventies Nottingham, alive and well in the heart of New York’s vibrant centre.
We then stopped of at a really grungy looking bar for breakfast called the Cupping Room cafe, which comes highly recommended from friends and having eaten there, it again proves (as did John’s Pizzeria) that in New York at least, appearance can be very deceptive. The food was absolutely gorgeous.
The Cupping House - A perfect place for a gigantic New York breakfast
I had the oddest breakfast ever of a Mexican Omelette, which came filled with Sour Cream, Tomato Salsa, red pepper, sliced bacon and loads of Chilli spiciness. It also came with the best cup of coffee I have had so far in the entire trip, fresh bread, juice and a mass of home fries. These are a really rough cut potato quarter that are fried (so chips in effect) and gorgeous. A bit slobby for breakfast but on our two meal a day regime, it set me up for the whole of the rest of the day.
We walked on, heading south west and having to zig zag through the gridded road layout. New York is actually very easy to walk around once you work out the system, but the scale is awesome. There are 10m people who work on Manhattan Island. It’s massive. Taking on a walk from one end to the other is a good two to three hour challenge. If you can cope with the walking, there’s loads to see on the way. You can even learn to Cha Cha, by following the simple step-by-step guide that I saw on the floor by a shop called Kate Spade.
And you can learn to Cha cha whilst you walk around
A few minutes later we arrived at Ground Zero. You can’t really get over the scale of the hole between the buildings. Not in terms of the hole in the ground, but the sheer scale of footprint the buildings sat on. It is actually three times the size of our own market square at 65,000 square metres and our own square is the biggest in the UK.
I found it a terribly sad place to be. The police presence was extraordinary, with a double line of cars outside a building at one corner of the site and cameras everywhere.
The Police presence could only be described as 'noticeable'
I felt a huge sense of outrage at how the lives of 3,000 people could have been taken so brutally, when they were just going to work. The amount of materials posted everywhere offering help and advice to anyone involved or affected, shows how raw it still must be for many and the sense of sadness that hangs over the place is impossible not to feel.
Even now, they're still pulling twisted metal out of the ground at Ground Zero - Its an eerie place
And then, as we were leaving the site, it got worse. Right in front of us were a group of men with diggers, still involved in the site’s excavation in preparation for the new tower and memorial fountains, pulling out twisted metal and loading it into lorries for removal. This must be an unbelievably grim task for those involved, but one that has to happen for the nation to grieve and move on.
I found it very difficult to simply turn my back and walk away, but being in a group with a timetable to work to, I had to. I had been deeply affected by what I saw and what I felt. I had already decided to return the next day, in my own time, to spend some time in St Paul’s Chapel, the spiritual home of the 9/11 workers and survivors. More of this tomorrow.
We then walked on to Chelsea market, a fairly new development of retail and restaurants made from the former new York Biscuit Company factories and bakeries. This has been imaginatively and beautifully restored and has become a vibrant little centre with tourists and locals mingling throughout.
Chelsea market - an amazing use of an old biscuit factory that has real character
We stopped for a drink at Ronnybrooks dairy. They present as a really homely Mom and Pop milk bar hailing from the time of theFonz and the 50’s.
My drink of choice was a Lemonata. It’s a sort of lemon and mint ice crush drink that is lovely and refreshing and made in front of you using the juice from fresh lemons and squashed up mint leaves.
Suitably refreshed, it was off to the High Line, which had been sold to us as a concept that would be one of the highlights of our trip.
It was.
You can see from the entrance to one end of it that its still work in progress, but it is already a hugely popular park with the people of the city. In the few weeks since it opened on June 8th, it has already had a million visitors walking, sitting and resting along its lengths.
As you can see from the entrance to the High Line, it's still work in progress
The management of the site is by the New York Parks Department. Their officers, have the power of arrest, but they’re still happy to stop and talk and told us about how well received the whole project had been and how little trouble they actually have to deal with on a daily basis. Again, it is immaculate, with not a spot of litter anywhere.
The High Line - A City Park in the heart of the city and built on an old railway line
The design of the signs and the humour they imply is excellent and must be one of the reasons it is being so well looked after.
Keep it Wild, Keep on the pathOfficer Valentin of the New York Parks Department, who polices the High Line
There are some lovely architectural touches. My favourite was an area that was built over an old railway bridge, where a tiered seating arrangement had turned the streets of New York into a theatre. People were sitting having drinks and sandwiches watching the world go by with the window on the world as a giant screen.
The High Line makes the street a theatre
The whole thing is currently only around 1/2 mile long, but they are working on the next sections, which could open up another 1 1/2 miles. The quality of the finishing was superb. Detailing, as good or better than anything I have ever seen in the UK and the overall feel of the site was chilled and brilliant.
If we could create this in our city, we would be onto a winner.
Johnny Lyle's new brand thinking 