1/23/25
I first experienced NYC at 13 years old. It was a class trip, but I had a family friend who lived in the city. I stayed with her for a week. We rented bikes and rode them all over Central Park. We haggled with street vendors, and rode the subway, and saw Phantom of the Opera from orchestra seats. Something formative cemented in me that week. I fell in love with the big city and I fell hard. I wanted to stay forever.
I'm 36 now and my body is very different from that gangly 13-year-old who rode that rented bike for miles. The short version is I have a spinal curvature that started to present in high school and just got worse and worse. 4 years ago I had surgery to correct it. The surgery was "successful" but it left me permanently disabled with chronic pain.
Being recently disabled makes every experience new in the worst possible way. Everywhere I go, everything I try to do, I am reminded of how easy it used to be. I used to love rock climbing. And hiking.
And NYC.
My second trip to NYC was last winter, and it didn't go well. We brought my power chair, Virginia, and I thought that navigating the city would be a breeze. I thought that right up until we went to our first subway entrance and were confronted with the stairs to get down. Now, I knew some stops had elevators, but I didn't know which ones, and I couldn't find that information for the life of me. We ended up spending a fortune taking cabs everywhere we needed to go, and every time Virginia had to be completely disassembled and reassembled.
But things were going to be different this time. This trip I had a year to plan, and I used that year to research the hell out of navigating the Big Apple with a wheelchair. First off, I found this map. It marks all the stops with elevators. Now, not every stop has an elevator, but at first glance there seemed to be enough of them we could get everywhere we wanted to go - maybe with a little extra travel on foot/wheels. Then I looked closer. Fully half of those handicap map markers had a little yellow triangle next to them, indicating "long-term elevator outage".
But I still thought I could make it work. We were arriving by train to Penn Station, and I picked a hotel we could walk to. We had two main destinations - Madison Square Garden and the Statue of Liberty, and I made sure there were accessible stops near both. I meticulously went over the accessibility info on the websites for Madison Square Garden and the Statue of Liberty. I was ready.
It was 6am and dark when we left the house to take the bus, to the train, to the city, and I made a fun new discovery: Virginia does not do snow. Like, at all. Even over a tiny amount of snow, her wheels would just spin. Our 7 minute walk turned into I don't even know how many minutes. We missed our bus. Had to wait for the next one. That bus had trouble with their handicap ramp. It kept failing to deploy, which delayed us exactly long enough to miss our train out of the Exchange St Station. Amtrak got us on a new train out of Depew Station.
Depew Station, I should say, was just fine from an accessibility standpoint - with the possible exception of the terrifyingly antiquated HAND-CRANKED lift they put me on to get me on the train.
Accessibility Rating: 5 out of 5 ancient but effective wheelchair lifts
The Amtrak itself was lovely. Got a little of that handicap privilege and had some more room to spread out than your average coach passenger. I liked that they didn't strap the wheelchair to the floor like they do on the bus. I deserve the right to wander as much as the next passenger. Pro tip though- bring a lunch. The train food was aggressively terrible.
Accessibility Rating: 5 out of 5 extra leg room
We stayed at a Best Western, where the wheelchair access was predictably fine, although we really should have asked for an accessible room because our room was hilariously tiny.
Accessibility Rating: 5 out of 5 cheap rooms
Our hotel was two doors down from Pio Bagels and there is little I love more in this life than a NYC bagel. After crashing for the night, it was our first stop.
I couldn't get in. The door opened to a set of stairs leading down. I had to leave Virginia parked outside in order to enter the bagel shop. I'm an ambulatory wheelchair user, so I could pop my cane out and handle the stairs, but other wheelchair users might not be capable of the same. Also, I hated leaving Virginia outside. I could still see her from the window, but that didn't stop me worrying someone was going to run off with my very expensive power chair.
Accessibility Rating: -1 out of 5 stairs
A little flustered by the bagel incident, nonetheless I headed out into the city confident I could handle the subway this time. As we walked to our closest subway entrance, I was struck by just how many shops and restaurants also had stairs to get in. Even if they didn't have stairs, a lot of places had a lip under their door that was just too big for my little wheels.
Finding the elevator to get down to the subway took a minute- the trick was to read the bottom of the subway entrance signs. The elevator worked fine, we made it to the platform only getting a little lost, and waited for our train. Another train arrived as we waited. I watched the doors open and my heart sank. There's a gap. More than that, there's a step up. It's not that big, but it might as well have been a cliff's edge. I would not be able to drive my chair in. Now, a very athletic, manual wheelchair user could pop a wheelie to get up into the train. That's technically feasible. But a power chair user? Or a manual chair user who doesn't have the ability to pop a wheelie without falling backwards and hurting herself and having all her family and friends yell at her if she ever thinks of trying again?
We managed. I got out of my chair and entered the subway with my cane. My husband put the chair in neutral and half pushed, half lifted it into the car. I never would have been able to do it on my own.
I've often dreamed of living in NYC. If I lived there, I could choose not to frequent shops and restaurants that aren't accessible. I could avoid subway stops with broken elevators. But to not be able to use the subway on my own at all? The city would simply be impossible to navigate. Impossible to live in. It's a city that prides itself on being this big multicultural melting pot - but the disabled need not apply.
Accessibility Rating: -2 out of 5 "long-term elevator outages"
At least the rest of the day was enough to pull me out of my funk. Confession time, I am a big nerd. The whole reason for our trip was to see Gauntlet at the Garden: Dimension 20 Unsleeping City live at Madison Square Garden - a Dungeons and Dragons game helmed by Game Master Brennan Lee Mulligan. Everywhere we went that day we ran into fellow geeks who were there to see the show - easily identified by their d20 pins and Unsleeping City cosplay. We popped into a local game store and cafe - Hex & Co - to buy some new dice - we needed to bring dice to the show so they could be blessed by the radiance of Brennan Lee Mulligan. Hex & Co had a great selection and a killer turmeric latte, but I couldn't get in the bathroom.
Accessibility Rating: 3 out of 5 tiny bathrooms
I can't say enough about the accessibility at Madison Square Garden. The security guards had that place running like a Swiss watch. Every time one of them saw me they guided me straight to the lift, elevator, or ramp I needed to get in. When they saw that our seats weren't accessible they offered to move us to seats that were - and our new seats were frankly incredible. They put us at this table with a bunch of computers that might be where commentators or press usually sit. The show was a hoot and a half, and I got about 10,000 compliments on my Misty Moore cosplay.
Accessibility Rating: 5 out of 5 helpful security guards
Riding the high of being in the same room at Brennan Lee Mulligan I almost forgot to be upset about the lack of access in the city. The next day's adventure was a trip to the Statue of Liberty, and I felt good about it going in. According to the accessibility information on their website, there was an elevator to take me to the top of the pedestal. Once we were there, my husband and small blonde child planned to make the climb up to the crown. Climbing up to the crown was a long time bucket list item of mine. I didn't get to do it on that 8th grade class trip (it was right after 9/11) and I was determined to do it at some point in my life. Obviously, I had to let that dream go. But I'd convinced myself to be happy with what I was capable of doing. I could sit and enjoy the view from the pedestal while my family made the climb.
At the top of the elevator to the pedestal is a small room with open doors on either side. Out the door is a shoulder height wall surrounding a narrow walkway all the way around the pedestal. A walkway that was too narrow for my chair.
Instead of a beautiful view of the harbor and looking up at the Statue of Liberty, I was offered a view out a doorway of a stone wall. Nowhere on the accessibility section of the website for the Statue of Liberty did it explain you could not actually get outside in a wheelchair. I thought my view would be just as good as any able bodied person who came up to the pedestal.
Accessibility Rating: 2 out of 5 lovely views of a doorway
Of course, my view WAS better than that, because I can walk with a cane. I went outside and did a couple laps around before coming back in and settling in my chair to wait for my family.
As I sat, I stared out that doorway, and I thought about the other wheelchair users who can't walk, who could only stare out that door and wish they could step through it. I stared out that door and thought about the words of Emma Lazarus, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..." New York City asks for "the wretched refuse of your teeming shore" but if you're disabled, it's pretty clear they'd rather you stay away.
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