Over the course of my 81 years, I have been to New York City over 100 times and lived there once when I was young and foolish. On that occasion, I took up residence at the $14-a-day Hotel Lindy, a few blocks from what we then called Grand Central Station, not Terminal. All you have to know about the Hotel Lindy is that its only residents were myself and several ladies of the night, who were but casual friends. I would occasionally run into one or another of the girls on the stairway, having it out with an underpaying John. They’d politely interrupt their conversations to smile, “Oh--hi, Bill…” as I passed and nodded in recognition, then they were back to the fray.
My room at the Lindy was on the fourth floor, which was inconvenient because the hot water only reached the second. Since I had to shave often for my job at a magazine company, I was forced to lug my large, heavy bathroom mirror up and down the stairs, which caused great consternation among the girls. On my 20th birthday, they laid a very nice new lightweight mirror against my door with the note, “Hope you can see yourself visiting us soon.” I never visited but various of the young women knocked on the door from time to time to tell me their troubles and cry. My unerring hospitality was merely a part of being a good neighbor.
In all those New York days, I was a Times Square regular. I liked to watch the shell game operators and corner preachers bilk and confuse their willing prey, to watch the first-time visitors’ eyes light up at the wonder of the place, its colors and oversized signs exploding in all directions. The Square was a Sociologist’s dream, a psychologist’s playground, the best free show in The City, and it never closed. And in all those days, those countless visits, I never saw such overwhelming numbers, such human gridlock, such bumping and backing up and twisting through tiny gaps before they closed as I witnessed in the late afternoons and early evenings of August, 2022. It was perambulatory chaos of historic proportions. We pulled up our masks and plunged in.
Take A Walk On The Wild Side
The bulk of the population has given up to Covid and the Centers for Disease Control has followed their lead in frustration. You can just hear Howard Beale from Network yelling “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” The relative paucity of deaths and hospitalizations from Covid invasion #62 has released the Kraken and it’s every man for himself. You have to take a long look to spot a masked man or woman in much of The Apple, let alone the kamikaze dive-bomber’s paradise called Times Square. This neo bravado combined with the surging numbers will just about guarantee some kind of eventual herd immunity. Let’s hope not too many are culled from the herd and deposited on a slab before it happens.
Meanwhile, back at the party, the pungent aroma of marijuana has never been more prevalent on the streets of Times Square. On first arriving, I thought the odor of the weed was trapped in a long covered walkway on 47th Street until I realized I was following two young ladies who were puffing away without any concern for being noticed. Tall, formidable black men stand quietly on corners holding large jars containing countless elephantine joints. The boys are not exactly hawking them but they’re not hiding them either. The possibility that one of the many Officer Andys on the scene would take offense seems laughable. Keep it on the downlow, lads, and we’ll all get along just fine.
Shelter From The Storm
After ten years of abstinence, we returned to the quaint little Sanctuary Hotel. On our last visit, our room was so tiny we thought we’d fallen into the depths of The Incredible Shrinking Hostelry and would never be heard from again. Anyone with a Body Mass Index in excess of 22 would not fit into the bathroom and the closet could only be found with a magnifying glass. It’s an anorexic’s fantasy. The shower, of course, was located in the main room, separated only by a curtain, as are beds in a hospital ward. Still, the location is a mere half-block off The Square, the subway is a stone’s throw away and the price is right. I ordered up the largest room in the place and it was acceptable. Needless to say, there were no opportunities for full-court basketball.
On our second night, we went to see Moulin Rouge at the Al Hirschfeld Theater. We bought along a lock of local actress Anna Marie Kirkpatrick’s hair to leave in the sacristy. The place was packed, of course, and the play took off like a freight train. Miraculous sets, engaging show tunes and great dance numbers. The second act was quieter and a little silly but the place came alive again for the finale. Siobhan got to practice wearing heels again and remembered why she loved them so much. On the way home, we noticed a street sculptor shaping small heads of sitting customers. “You need one of those,” Siobhan said. “As much as a dog needs a hoverboard,” I told her. “Wanna ride home in a pedicab?” She looked at me with the sneer of a Doylestown blueblood. “I beg your pardon?” sniffed she.
Dances With Clouds
New York’s famous Twin Towers were far more endearing when they came down than when they went up. Two tall toothpicks in the pie, certainly not tres chic, especially when compared with their stylish neighbors, the Chrysler and Empire State buildings. They hung around, though, like the inept kid with the unused baseball glove who never gets picked when the guys are choosing up sides. Then one day someone gets the chicken pox and it’s “Okay, Homer—get out there in right field.” Finally, he’s part of the landscape.
In 1983, Betsy Harper and I zoomed up to the glamorous Windows on the World restaurant on the 107th and top floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center for an exotic dinner. The weather was good, the night clear, so we were surprised in the middle of drinks to see the lights in the distance begin to flicker out, perhaps a prelude to another of New York’s mini-blackouts. There was a murmur of concern from diners, but the waiters kept their game faces on and proceeded as if nothing unusual was happening. Betsy said something to the garcon about the fly in her ointment, but he merely smiled in reassurance. “Just wait,” he grinned, ambling off with a tray of glasses.
Then, as if by magic, the lights began slowly coming on again. You could hear the dining room exhale en masse as the band struck up “You’ve seen clouds from both sides now….” Relief, smiles, the reclinking of dinnerware. Normalcy returned to the room. Our waiter strode by and winked. It was Betsy’s first visit to the Big City. “Is this a great town or what?” she exulted.
Siobhan and I went to New York in the year 2000. Some kind soul took our photo on the Liberty Island Ferry, the Twin Towers appearing vividly behind us in the eventual picture. A little over one year later, the icons were gone and over 3000 souls with them, a devastating gut punch to the morale of the nation. I never went back to New York until after the debris was cleared, the plans were drawn up and a new building rose in 2014. When the One World Observatory opened six months later, Siobhan and I were among the first people there. August 7, 2022 was my second visit.
The Freedom Tower is unlike any other building. It is uniquely reflective, swims among clouds like part of the heavens. Sometimes it seems a mere mirage, an impossible creation that changes before your very eyes. Once in the elevator, it’s a smooth 47 seconds to the top, which offers 360-degree views of the metropolis below. The surrounding pools, memorial walls and museum are moving, but the small Callery pear tree which survived the blast, was carefully coddled and replanted in 2010 is especially poignant. The Tower and its grounds are testimony that the sometimes suspect American spirit remains, that whatever the fight, the country will outlast its detractors. A visitor who’d lost a father put it this way; “Hit us in the mouth, we get up. Knock our buildings down, we’ll build a bigger one. Hide in the remotest areas in the world, we’ll find you. Vengeance will be ours.” And a more beautiful vengeance cannot be imagined.
Start Spreading The News
Given time to exhibit all its glories, New York seldom disappoints. You may not be thrilled to visit in July when it sizzles or January when your extremities freeze up and turn blue, but the city offers wonders not seen elsewhere. I find myself returning time and again to the old places…to Bleecker Street, where I found most of my inventory for the Subterranean Circus at an eye-popping shop called The Infinite Poster…to the old Greenwich Village streets where young poets dreamt and folksingers plied their trade in small cafes…to Washington Square Park, the agora, general meeting place and street theater of hippiedom…to the ever-funky, expect anything, graffiti-laden East Village, where giants strode, the Fillmore East lit up the night and you and five other people might be able to afford a basement apartment.
New York has an electricity about it that beckons you to its streets. Arriving tired and travel-frazzled, you will nonetheless throw your suitcase on the hotel bed and run out the door looking for action. The vibe never fades, the ambulance sirens never disappear, the smells from the army of food carts is everlasting, a new experience awaits around every corner. The Big Apple is the ultimate answer for the terminally bored, the searchers and anyone looking for the perfect deli. It has the best of everything and the worst. It’s a land of opportunity, of risk and reward, of good baseball and great pizza.
Got the blues? Lost your dolly? Hiding from the mob? Need a new start? You can find it there if you can find it anywhere. It’s up to you---in New York, New York .
That’s all, folks….
