My travelling companion (TC) and I arrived in NYC Thursday afternoon. We stayed at the Carlton Hotel, a very decent little hotel on 29th. After an initial mix-up, we got our room. Room number? 911. As it turned out, not a bad omen at all as everything went almost perfectly.
We were within walking distance of the Empire State Building so we headed there almost immediately. Went up to the observatory and walked the perimeter snapping the typical photographs. Also indulged in round one of souvenir shopping, including squishing a penny into “The Ultimate New York City Souvenir!” I love squished penny machines.
My TC’s last name is Booth so the big thing she wanted to do was visit Gramercy Park, which houses a statue of Edwin Booth, famed Shakespearian actor and father of John Wilkes. After a few wrong turns we found the park only to discover it gated and locked! A woman was letting herself in one of the gates and we headed toward it, only to be told the park is private and we could not enter. Crushed, we attempted to snap pictures of the statue through the fence. The woman, seeing us, relented and allowed us in long enough to take closer pictures and even took our picture together with Edwin! And they say New Yorkers aren’t friendly!
We went out that night to a piano bar in Greenwich Village called The Duplex. Very relaxed atmosphere, cute singing waiter too. Some of the “audience” who were “persuaded” to sing turned out to be plugging upcoming shows at local venues and just happened to have fliers with them. How lucky was that?
Friday we vistited the United Nations and took the tour. Very interesting although the security guard was a bit grumpy. Someone asked what would happen, since the UN grounds are international territory, if someone were born on the premises? Sounds like a GQ to me! Round two of souvenir shopping commenced at the UN. I bought my boyfriend a keychain with the flag of Luxembourg because he’s half Luxembourger.
Next stop was the Museum of Sex. The standing exhibit was on the history of sex in NYC. It started with the murder of some prostitute I’d never heard of and went through early bawdy houses and brothels, burlesque, postal censorship and the Comstock Act, underground gay scenes, fetishes, Gay Liberation, the mainstreaming of porn, swingers, the AIDS crisis and the crackdown on Times Square. Very interesting stuff. Lousy gift shop, though, considering the subject matter.
That night we saw the first of our two shows, Mamma Mia! Awesome show! 2 1/2 hours of ABBA songs stitched together by a whisper-thin plot, but everyone was outstanding. TC and I thoroughly enjoyed it and I splurged for a t-shirt, magnet and program. Later we headed out for a bar that according to the guide book had an 80s night but there was apparently a change since the guide book was printed as the bar had a different name and was playing standard boring hip-hop/dance stuff. We stuck around for a while slagging on people who thought they could dance but, sadly, could not.
Saturday we headed down to explore Greenwich Village. We went to the famed Gay Liberation statue and the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop (recently saved from demise by the owners of Lambda Rising in DC).
That afternoon was our second show, the matinee of Hairspray. Fabulous! Harvey Fierstein was wonderful as Edna Turnblad and while we had understudies in three of the major roles everyone performed beautifully. On the way to the theatre I jokingly suggested that we get rose to give to Harvey and now I kind of regret that we didn’t. I splurged again on a program and a t-shirt. No magnets, though, which was quite disappointing.
TC and I split up for the rest of Saturday afternoon and evening. I met up with a couple of people and got some dinner and did some more gift shopping, then went back to the hotel to rest a little before going out. I decided I couldn’t leave town without having a drink at the Stonewall so headed back down to the Village. I saw a drag queen and a go-go boy, and what visit to the Stonewall is complete without a drag queen and a go-go boy? Some porn star I’d never heard of (Chris Steel) did a show and then after signed pictures so I had him sign one for me and one for my boyfriend. Made it back to the hotel around 3 AM and collapsed.
Sunday we went to the Algonquin Hotel for brunch. We ate in the famous Round Table Room and sat at a round table (not, of course, the Round Table). Our bus person’s name was Otto! I had brought along my portable Dorothy Parker and read aloud some of her more depressing poems at table. We took some pictures around the lobby and outside and the front desk clerk gave us some post cards.
We went directly from the hotel to the airport, a little on the early side but we thought best to be a little early in case security was difficult. We got back in town about 45 minutes late but other than that the flight was uneventful.
A thoroughly enjoyable time was had by all. My only regret is that I didn’t buy a big pretzel from a street vendor.
