In between my two road trips around Colorado and New Mexico, I spent a few days in New York. This was my first trip back to the city in nearly five years, and my first opportunity to take a good look around since I left in 2008.

I went back to my old neighbourhood, and while much of it was still the same, there had been some startling changes. The retail stores on the ground level of my building all had new tenants – no surprises there – but the real shock was that St Vincent’s Hospital, which had been just across the street from my apartment, had gone.

Looking up the details later I found that it had closed in 2010 and was demolished in 2013. It had never been part of my life other than to see it out of my window and to hear the noise of ambulance sirens, but it was shocking to find that the main hospital for people injured on September 11, 2001 had simply disappeared.

Talking about September 11, there had obviously been a lot of rebuilding around the World Trade Center site since I last saw it. The new PATH and Subway station, or the World Trade Center Transportation Hub to give it its official name, was designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, and it’s a beautiful addition to the downtown area.

The large building in the background is the new One World Trade Center tower, which also went up after I left New York. The buildings on the left and right of the photo aren’t really leaning over, that’s just an artefact from having to tilt the camera back so far because of the height of the tower.

The Transportation Hub is also strikingly beautiful on the inside, with the high vaulted roof making it seem like a secular cathedral.

A new structure erected as part of the redevelopment of Hudson Yards on the west side of Manhattan is named, simply, “Vessel”.

It consists of a number of platforms with connecting staircases, but it was closed to the public when I was there – it seems that no-one foresaw that the platforms would provide a golden (or in this case copper-coloured) opportunity for people contemplating suicide. It has apparently since reopened following the addition of safety barriers.

I’m not sure I find it particularly attractive, but I don’t want to be like those Parisians who complained about the Eiffel Tower when it was first built.

The High Line is a public space created from a disused elevated rail line running south from the Hudson Yards for several city blocks. I lived just a short distance from the line, and there were proposals at the time to turn it into a pedestrian walkway – described in the proposals as a “linear park” – but when I left this was still just talk.

Now completed, the walkway may not exactly be a park, but it does give views of Manhattan that would be otherwise inaccessible to the public, like this view of an apartment building by Zaha Hadid.

Even this view of W 23rd St is improved by the elevated angle.

The large building on the left is London Terrace – I always disliked it for its enormous unadorned slab sides on the few occasions I ventured this far west on 23rd St, but I have since learned that it is a much sought-after address.

I just want to add a note about my flight from Denver to New York. I had booked the flight before I left Australia, and because I am a frequent flyer with Qantas, and Qantas is partnered with American Airlines, I booked with American.

American do not fly direct from Denver to New York, so I had booked a flight via Dallas / Fort Worth. But when I arrived at Denver airport, the gate for my flight was deserted, and there were not even any American personnel around to ask what was happening. I eventually located someone and was told that my flight had been cancelled (without explanation), and I had been booked on a flight via Philadelphia and Charlotte, North Carolina – two stops (and a total travel time of about 14 hours) for a flight that should have been a single leg of about 5 hours.

The flight offered would get me into New York around 8:30 pm, but I already had theatre tickets for that evening, so 8:30 wasn’t a viable option. The American staff in Denver couldn’t suggest any alternative that would get me to New York in time, so I took the Philadelphia flight, thinking that at least that would take me a lot closer to New York. In Philadelphia I went to the American counter, and was told that there were no seats available on any flight to New York, and it was helpfully suggested that I could rent a car to get me there.

Fortunately, I was able to draw on my experience of working in the Philadelphia area many years ago, when I used to travel between New York and Philadelphia by train. I got onto the Amtrak web site and was able to book a seat on a train that would get me into Penn Station by late afternoon, in time (just) to meet my friend and get to the theatre for the start of the performance.

I had some bad memories of domestic air travel within the US from my time living there, but the unhelpful indifference on the part of the American Airlines staff in this case marked a new low.