I love New York

I’ve always had a bit of a love affair with New York City, and I’ll get into a lot more detail about trips to New York Rick and I have taken over the years.

My initial trip to New York was when I was still in high school in 1975. A friend of Tracy and mine, Joe, had family in New York, his grandmother and his aunt. Joe invited Tracey and me to accompany him on the train to New York for the weekend. Mom and Dad said “Yes,” and I was ecstatic. When we arrived in New York, Joe took us all over the city by subway. We went to the Bronx Zoo, we saw all the major sights, but the thing I remember the most was seeing my first Broadway Show. It was at the Palace Theatre. It was called “Goodtime Charlie” and starred Joel Gray and Carol Reinking in her Broadway debut as Joan of Arc.

As we were standing in the theater lobby, I remember looking around and, much to our surprise, we see “the other Mrs. Jones.” In our high school, the mother of one of our friends, Cathy Jones, worked there, but there was also another Mrs. Jones who worked in the office. So it was a bit of a surprise in the middle of a crowded theater to find someone that we knew. After seeing that show, I was hooked.

I visited New York many other times for sightseeing. Once in college, my art history class went to New York for the day. We of course went to all of the museums and several of us decided to stop in a restaurant for dinner before heading back on the bus. After we were seated and saw the prices on the menu, we had to discreetly stand up and leave the restaurant. After all, we were all on college students’ budget. We ended up eating, much to my chagrin, at Tad’s Steakhouse. Any of you who have ever been to New York know that it probably would have been better if we had gone to McDonald’s.

Years later, another friend of ours, Kas, worked for NBC News. I was working at our hospital in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Kas and I arranged an evening on the town. We got tickets to “Gypsy” with Tyne Daily the night before she received the Tony Award in 1990. We had dinner at a Manhattan restaurant, and then went to the Carlisle Hotel to hear Bobby Short. It was the quintessentially perfect New York evening.

Subequently, Rick and I have been to New York many, many times, but those stories will be saved for another entry.