This morning while sitting ensconced in my warm, soft swivel chair, I was reading about a favorite author, Lee Child. He was telling about his career and life while writing his “Reacher” books. In one chapter he tells the readers about his apartment in Manhattan where he did some of his writing. Looking out his window, he could see the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings. He explains how the view tended to be rather non-productive, continually pulling him away from his writing.
Reading these paragraphs made me think of my own visits to New York City. Looking back I have been there seven times. I have to say that each of the times I was there had been pleasurable and if given the chance, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
I’ve always thought of New York as a great place to visit. Figuring out when it became a destination in my mind would be hard to narrow down. I’ve read so many books that use the city as their background and there are countless movies and TV shows that have been based there. Even though most of them were fictional, in my mind they have come to represent the town. I came to feel as if knew the place. I’ve always thought it would be great to explore and a wonderful town to photograph. All those buildings clustered together are extremely artistic, just begging to be photographed. It has an edge to it, it’s a bit risqué. There are some places that could be dangerous, crime isn’t unknown but it also has so much culture and so many sights, so many places that I’d want to see.
My first visit was just a drive-through. In the late 70’s I had a job to drive some packages from Pittsburgh up to Hyannis Port. I brought my friend Ed along for company and we did some sight-seeing on the way up. One of the places we stopped was in York, PA where we took a tour through the Harley Davidson plant. We sat in their parking lot for an hour waiting so that we could get on the first tour of the day. After being overwhelmed by seeing so many H-D motorcycles, all brand new and un-ridden, we headed towards NYC.
We had no plans to stop in the city, we only wanted to see if it was as big and exciting as we had heard. We arrived in the afternoon and it was amazing! Traffic was bumper to bumper and most of the cars on the streets seemed to be Yellow Cabs. Horns were honking, people were overflowing off the sidewalks, there was too much to see. We didn’t know which way to look, all the while; I had to watch the road since I was driving. The size of the town was phenomenal; it just kept on going and going.
I’ve lived my whole life in the outskirts of northern Pittsburgh. I have always thought of Pittsburgh as a BIG city, after all, it is the second largest in the state. I was shocked at how small my city was as compared to New York. I was enamored by the wide streets and sidewalks, the heights of the buildings, the combinations of the old and the new; even the alleys and the trash in the streets grabbed my eye. It was unbelievable and I wanted to go back. It took me a few years before I did.
When I was married, Barb and I decided on a whim, to take a trip to Washington DC and New York City. We thought we could spend a night or two in both places. Unfortunately we didn’t plan as well as we should have. We figured by using our AAA card and directory we could find a place to stay when we got there. What we didn’t take into consideration was, that these were “tourist towns”, there were no rooms to be had without reservations. After being turned away at a couple places in Washington DC, we went to the AAA office and begged for help. So, while we went sightseeing, the Automobile Club managed to find accommodations for us.
While in New York, we did what most tourists do, visited all the regular sights. We did the Empire State Building and we sat in on the filming of the TV show, Kate and Allie, starring Jane Curtin. We went to Times Square. We meandered around the town, enjoying everything we saw.
.jpg)
On this trip I found a wonderful travel bookshop. Located only a block or two from the Empire State Building, it was filled with guides to other cities and countries. In the back room was a wall of Baedeker travel guides. All those red covers with gold lettering, sitting side by side, they looked so classy and aristocratic.
The Baedeker Guides were first published in the 1830’s. Their distinctive red covers weren’t produced until the 1850’s. Published in Germany, they were known for their accuracy. The guides not only gave the basic information about the cities, they included history, the transportation, currency, customs and even how to tip. They included detailed maps to help the visitors find their way around the towns. The guides were a nice size, easily stored in a coat or pants pocket. In time, these volumes became time capsules into the past.
Their red covers were eventually faded out and while the guides are still produced today, their pages and covers are glossy paper, looking much like any other guide.
It was in this bookshop when I first thought about collecting these books. I could picture a shelf in my house with a collection like this. Sadly, I didn’t have the funds to purchase one of them and the next time I visited the city, the store had gone out of business. I have since collected a small group of Baedeker Guides and have them in a place of honor on my shelves. My collection is rather shabby looking as compared to the nice crisp and clean books I saw in that store!
A few years later, I took a trip to the city with Tia, Barb’s aunt. She took me to see Phantom of the Opera. We flew into New York and spent some time roaming around and then after dinner, we went to see the play and then returned home. Wow, we stuffed so much into that one day. A favorite memory was the two of us sitting on a wall or bench and Tia commenting on the odd smell coming from some guys sitting near-by. I explained to her that it was marijuana. To this day I can’t imagine that she didn’t know that.
My daughter Chelsey and I took two trips to New York City, one in 2009 and the other in 2011. During one of the trips we had an unfortunate incident with a pigeon that I will never forget! Some say that having “this” happen to you is good luck but neither of us thought we were very lucky when it happened! We took a walk down to Canal Street so Chelsey could find a “knock-off” purse. We visited a couple storefronts and were escorted behind the displays to see their “goods”. I felt as if I was seeing the underworld of the city.
We called the 2011 trip our Diabetes Tour. Chelsey had recently been diagnosed as being a diabetic. So, the two diabetics of the family headed into the city to visit, among other things, The Donut Factory and a macaroon store. Sweets and diabetics are sadly, often drawn together!
During the day we compared our sugar readings and were usually with-in a few numbers of each other! We walked a lot that day, visiting tourist spots such as Times Square and the Grand Central Station. We did a couple geocaches and walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. We walked through the famous New York Library and we found a weird little store that sold odd things such as medical instruments and old doctor’s charts and displays, things you’d never imagine seeing in a store, let alone want to buy! There might have even been a skull or two in it. You never know what you might find when you’re roaming around this city.
After Chelsey and Jaime were married, we went to a wedding reception held in Queens. While this wasn’t in Manhattan, it is still a part of New York City. We drove in following Jaime and Chelsey’s car on a rainy evening. It was spectacular driving across the huge bridges and seeing all the views of the city across the water. I didn’t take any pictures of the city; it was a night for celebration, not sightseeing. We spent a wonderful evening with Chelsey and her new relatives, another trip to New York I’ll never forget!
My last trip was after my grandson Mateo’s second birthday, in 2021. On a Monday morning, Ann Marie and I drove to a parking lot across the river from the city and then took a bus through the tunnels and into town. This visit was recently after the Covid Pandemic and the majority of the people we saw were wearing masks. The streets weren’t as crowded as I remembered, the sidewalks seemed almost empty. The town definitely wasn’t closed but it sure differed from my other trips. This was Ann Marie’s first time in the city so we (I) had lots of things on our to-do list.
We checked off a few of them, we visited Times Square and took the elevator up to the observation deck on the Empire State Building. We had to stop at the library; it is something we both deemed important. We squeezed in a visit to a book store and had lunch and a beer in an Irish pub. By then the walking was starting to get to us and we took a cab back to the bus station and then left the city behind. I discovered that my tolerance for long distance walking just wasn’t the same as my last visit.
I know the city has returned to its previous fever pitch and I’d like to be able to experience it at least one more time. If I had the chance, and I still might, I wouldn’t hesitate to go back. Much as I hate to admit it, my days of continuous walking are in my past, maybe I’ll do some research on how Uber works. The idea for a visit is lodged in my head once again; perhaps with some more planning I might be able to do it. I’m going to have to pull a couple of those travel guides off my shelves…
