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Trip Report: September 22 to October 19, 2003
by Ted & Sylvia Blishak
Fall Colors Coast to Coast - by Land and Sea
New York, Wednesday, October 8, 2003.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK, IT'S A HE_ _ OF A TOWN,
THE BRONX IS UP AND THE BATTERY DOWN, ..
Ted says:
We are not "New York" kind of people. The first time I visited, on business, in 1972, a taxi cut me off while I was in a pedestrian crosswalk. He hit my briefcase, damaging a camera that I was carrying inside. The last time we were in New York was one day in 1978 when we stopped over between flights from Europe to California. We paid $3.40 each to see an Easter Show at Radio City Music Hall, complete with the Rockettes, a full orchestra, and the mighty Wurlitzer pipe organ. New York real estate interests nearly razed the Music Hall, but preservationists prevailed, and the Hall is beautifully restored to its 1931 Art Deco splendor, and you can still see the Rockettes, though no longer for $3.40.
Sylvia says:
As you have undoubtedly noticed, we enjoy the wide open spaces and small towns (such as Bar Harbor). Many people appreciate the excitement and vitality of this city. But crowds make us uncomfortable. So what are we doing here? It's an ego thing!
We can't resist coming here again in 2003 to accept an award from Condé Nast Traveler magazine, having been honored by being placed on their list of the World's 125 Top Travel Specialists in our case, as North America Rail Specialists -- for the second year in a row. There is a luncheon today at the elegant St. Regis Hotel in their 20th floor ballroom, overlooking Central Park. One hundred twenty of the 125 are present. We hear Wendy Perrin, author of the August article about travel specialists, speak about how she has selected this list of top agents for the magazine, followed by a panel discussion with three top travel executives, from Radisson Cruises, Starwood Hotels, and for some reason, Delta Airlines. (Delta was the leader when airlines eliminated the payment of commissions to travel agents.)
However, the other travel specialists we meet, like ourselves, have found a niche and used sound business practices to survive and thrive.
Ted says:
This afternoon we visit Joel Abels, editor of TravelTrade magazine, at his office. Joel is a great supporter of agents, and was instrumental in convincing Amtrak to permit us to issue their tickets via the airlines reservation computer systems. (We used to get writer's cramp hand writing Amtrak tickets, while maintaining our Golden Spike status for high sales with the passenger railroad.) Joel and Ted have corresponded for decades, but this is our first face to face meeting.
Joel's office is two blocks from Grand Central Terminal. As a child I remember a radio program called "Grand Central Station". I visualized it to be the crossroads of the nation. When I last toured the station in 1972, drunken derelicts were sleeping in its passageways. Today it is gleamingly restored to its early 20th Century splendor. Although the New York Central System no longer rolls out the red carpet for its daily 20th Century Limited to Chicago, thousands of commuters and countless tourists pass through its grand concourse every day. New Yorkers shop and take their meals here, including at the world famous Oyster House.
This evening we are the guests of Condé Nast executive Tricia Baake, and the Director of Marketing of the Greater Phoenix Convention and Visitors Bureau, Cindy Winkelman, at an "in" restaurant called Town, where the trendy people are in evidence. This restaurant is so classy that when Sylvia orders a single-malt Scotch straight up "in a brandy snifter" she is advised that it will be served in a single-malt glass. And sure enough, there is a special glass in a shape we Klamath Falls folks have never seen before! Travel is educational
Thursday morning we attend a breakfast at the Tavern on the Green in Central Park, sponsored by Singapore Airlines, their objective being to demonstrate their new Business Class and First Class seating in their Trans Pacific Boeing 747s. This service was demonstrated by a cadre of Singapore Airlines stewardesses, dressed in their lovely traditional uniforms. If one must fly, this is the way to do it.
After breakfast, we stroll from Central Park at 65th Street to our hotel at 32nd Street, down such well known routes as Fifth Avenue, and Broadway through Times Square. We stop to enjoy the ambience of Rockefeller Center's ice skating rink. Unexpectedly, we come across a cool miniature park hidden from the hustle and bustle of Manhattan streets, and rest by its sparkling fountains.
New York taxi drivers are more careful than they were in 1971, and we actually felt quite safe crossing the forty intersections between Central Park and La Quinta Inn. Times Square is clean. We were never panhandled. The word is that Mayor Rudy Guiliani was responsible for making the Big Apple more visitor friendly.
Our room at the La Quinta Inn is only nominally air conditioned and has not cooled down below 76 F., so we are not unhappy about leaving. We did not have time to visit the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, and Carnegie Hall. Nor did we have time to attend performances of the Philharmonic or the Met. But we do have plans to visit our family in Greenville, South Carolina, this weekend, so we must pack up and head for Pennsylvania Station.
Due to the ever present worldwide danger of Arab "suicide" bombers, taxis cannot drop off passengers at the door of Penn Station. As in Chicago, we are dumped at the curb. Unlike in Chicago, the cabby does not assist us with our luggage. He relaxes in the driver's seat while we manhandle our bags to the curb, not even getting out to close the trunk lid or passenger door. There are no Red Caps in sight, so I inquire of the taxi dispatcher, who advises that I go to a shack with a blue call box where I can summon a red cap. One appears very quickly and he trundles our bags to the Club Acela lounge and promises to return to carry them to our sleeper on the Crescent when boarding is possible, and escorts me to the baggage check counter, where we send our formal clothing bag home to Klamath Falls. Thirty minutes prior to departure he picks up our hand carry luggage at Club Acela, and we are spared the task of manhandling our impedimenta to Room H of the 1910 car. I hand him a twenty, it was worth it. We settle in and look forward to seeing our grandkids tomorrow.
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