https://www.cbc.ca/radio/q/thursday-april-19-2018-bernie-taupin-brad-peyton-and-more-1.4625092/elton-john-s-co-writer-bernie-taupin-on-50-years-of-hits-and-what-their-perfect-song-is-1.4625132
[Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters] is about our first impressions of New York City in 1970, and if anybody was around in that that period of time they'll realize that New York wasn't quite as magical as it was probably presented to the rest of the world. It was a tough place to get along in and we didn't have a lot of money back then, obviously, when we first visited, so we were staying in really sort of cheap hotels, and eating with very little money in our pockets, playing gigs and getting out. But it had a profound effect on me. I remember New York as being always cold when we were there and I don't know again if that was because we weren't very flush with money. But I mean, I found refuge in museums and art galleries and any place I could get in that didn't cost any money that would give me some sort of inspiration. But it was a tough place and all the magical things you hear about it sort of were contradicted by other things that were happening on the street.
Posting this because it came as a surprise to me. This is about their first tour here, in 1970, and apparently they weren't being paid at all well even then, though the tour was to support Elton's second album. They'd played at the Troubadour in both LA and SF in August and September, played at the Playboy Club (???) in NYC in September, returned to England for several weeks, then returned to the States from the end of October to early December. (Info from the Wikipedia page on Elton's first world tour.)
NYC can be very expensive. I didn't pay much attention to the cost of going out because I usually didn't pay for anything when I went out. But I wouldn't have gone out nearly as often if I'd had to pay. There were some halfway reasonably priced restaurants that served decent food, but if you didn't know which ones they were, you could get sticker shock from menus, and this was long before you could check prices online.
The reference to how cold NYC was surprised me, but they were in NY in October and November of 1970, and it probably did seem cold compared to England (though not compared to the Midwestern states I'd lived in, especially Minnesota).
But I completely understand Taupin going to museums and art galleries that didn't charge for admission. I loved the Metropolitan Museum. Great place to kill hours of free time...
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