Monday, February 9, found me up at 5 a.m. so I could catch the 6:30 C&J bus to Logan. I was scheduled for the 9:30 Delta Shuttle to LaGuardia and then onto the CBS Offices to be “made over” for some new interview duds. The bus ride was two hours, and the flight barely one!
Taking the shuttle was a new experience. The plane was about 1/3 full so everyone had a row to him/herself. Coats, laptops, bags, were all on the extra seats as we made our way to the Big Apple since it was not necessary to stow all your gear under the seat in front of you or in the overhead bin. And I hadn’t needed to get a bagel and coffee at the airport because there were complimentary snacks on the way onto the plane. Now that’s the way to travel – only thing better would have been first class.
Bob tracked the flight on Flight Aware. As I would learn later, the flight path was pretty similar to how we drive it through Massachusetts and Connecticut. After reading the complimentary copy of USA Today and doing both crossword puzzles in the flight magazine, I figured it was time too look out the window.
My timing was good. I noticed we were veering east because I recognized the upper Hudson. Soon the East River came into view and we continued the easterly path. We were now over Long Island Sound and started to turn. Underneath me was the Throg’s Neck Bridge and then the Whitestone. (Bob and I used to go to the Whitestone Drive-In back in our “courting” days, but that’s the subject of a blog that will probably never be published.) There, slightly ahead of me to the right, was Yankee Stadium. But, of course, now there are TWO Yankee Stadiums (Stadia?), the new one right there alongside the one I had visited many times with my parents and later with Bob during the glory days of the team.
Although LGA airport was probably pretty much under me, we would spend the next 15 or so minutes over New Jersey and then come back from the other side so that I saw the two bridges again only this time they were on my lower right instead of lower left. Pretty soon the houses, the cemeteries, the buildings came closer into view and we were on the ground.
Once in the terminal I soon saw my name on a card. A chauffeur was there to take me to Manhattan! There’s a first time for everything. (The only other times I have been chauffeured was for my wedding and various and sundry funerals. This was all mine.) I don’t know my way around Queens, but once we crossed the bridge into Manhattan, the sites were very familiar: Columbus Circle, Central Park South, Broadway, Carnegie Hall — memories of my growing up years in Manhattan and the Bronx. In fact, my high school actually held its graduation ceremony at Carnegie Hall, so I can honestly say I have been “on stage” at that venerable institution! <VBG>
The CBS offices are located in the upper 50s between 10th and 11th avenues, the area where my mother grew up. Hell’s Kitchen it was called then, inhabited by the working poor, so very different from how those buildings are used today. We came up 10th Avenue and as I went by Independence High School, I figured that must be the old Harran High School where both Mom, and as I would later discover, my mother-in-law had gone.
The limo driver left me off in front of 524 West 57th Street, which was just one of about six buildings that had the CBS name on them. I would actually go across the street to another building where the filming would occur.
I was about 30 minutes early. Unfortunately that really wasn’t long enough to enjoy lunch at one of about a dozen restaurants I passed as I walked east; so I grabbed a sandwich at a local deli, ate half of it, and headed back. Of course, while I was in the deli, I checked the baked goods to see if there were any of New York’s “official cookie,” the black and white. Unfortunately, there were none; nor had I seen a bakery in my travels. Darn.
As I walked back toward the studio (and blocks in mid-town are about twice as long as any place else), I could see the Hudson ahead of me backed by New Jersey, more familiar sites from my childhood. Each July 4th, we would walk from our apartment in the upper 90s to the shore of the Hudson on Riverside Drive, a park that ran about 30 blocks right along the river’s edge, to watch the spectacular Macy’s sponsored fireworks. Perhaps a few weeks back folks walking down this very block saw another spectacular site of a plane landing on the water.
Upon entering my destination, I made my way to the 13th floor (low by NY standards) for the next part of my adventure – wardrobe!
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