Instead of describing Midwest Sound & Lighting events, I’ll now share a few thoughts upon my recent, first-ever excursion to New York City my perspective on it and what’s happened since we left The Big Apple. It was, as we used to say, “a trip”.
Last Thursday morning October 25th through Sunday afternoon October 28th, I accompanied my wife, two other adult chaperones and 8 high school juniors and seniors on a whirlwind tour of NYC. From our arrival in The City around 1 pm on Thursday afternoon to lifting off from Newark Airport at 8am Sunday, we covered a lot of ground and didn’t get much sleep. We toured in a double-decker bus, rode the MAT and Path subways and trains and walked more blocks than I have willingly walked in years.
We saw The Dakota, The Ed Sullivan Theater, Grand Central Station, The Apollo Theater, The Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, The Empire State Building, The Chrysler Building, Times Square, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Guggenheim Art Museum, Carnegie Hall, Madison Square Garden, Central Park, SAKS 5th Avenue, F.A.O. Schwartz, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Wall Street, the Hudson & East Rivers, Greenwich Village, The United Nations, the 911 Memorial, The World Trade Center and The Freedom Tower.
We ate some great pizza, spaghetti, fish, omelets and “street meat” (countless carts w/ethnic foods, pretzels, hot dogs, etc.). We even took in The Late Show with David Letterman on Thursday evening (and got to hear that great band live!) and then went to Phantom of the Opera. We swam in an endless sea of people and jammed into train cars like sardines. Of all there is to see in New York, we barely scratched the surface, but we did sample several iconic New York experiences. A busy but generous New Yorker even paid my subway fare when I was struggling with an MTA card with too little remaining credit. It was a lot to take in, but the kids were exemplary and now we all have lifetime memories.
Then on Sunday morning we flew back home; Hurricane Sandy would strike just hours later. As we watched TV at home on Sunday evening, Jim Cantore from TWC came on, wearing a heavy raincoat in a fierce wind, standing in Battery Park, right where we had stood just 24 hours earlier. The sidewalk where we had waited for the Liberty Island Ferry would soon be under 4’ of water. Water was rushing into subway stations we had been waiting in less than 24 hours earlier. Times Square was deserted…it was surreal and quite gripping; we couldn’t turn away from the TV coverage, having just left these landmarks that were now getting pummeled by Sandy.
We enjoyed the blessing of good timing and couldn’t help but imagine what our new-found New Yorker friends were about to face. From Shay, our server at the Jersey City Hyatt Regency to Tony at Tony DiNapoli’s Italian Restaurant to my bartender Justin, the New Yorkers we met were about to be dealt a very tough hand. But they’ll get through it, because that’s what they do.
If there’s a moral to this story, it might be “Timing is everything”!
Best wishes and thanks for reading this,
John Rogers
Midwest Sound & Lighting, Inc.