Weekend in the city
Sitting on the Amtrak train racing home toward Albany my wife asked me what I was thinking about? I said, “I need an idea for the newspaper column”, to which she replied, “Why not write about our trip to the city.” Good suggestion. Now “by the city” she means New York City. I learned this phrase back when I was a college student at SUNY Oswego. Many of the kids in my dorm were from downstate so when they said, “I’m going home to the city this weekend” and I responded, “Syracuse?” Well, they made fun of me. For those students there is only one city, the big apple, and the rest of it is just cow country upstate.
Let’s get back to our trip to the city. My wife was celebrating her birthday recently so we thought it would be nice to do something fun out of town. Since we both love Broadway I purchased tickets to the unbelievably fantastic “Dear Evan Hansen.” When I bought them back in December for a show in August all of the original cast was still with the show with the exception of the big star Ben Platt. Nine months later almost all of the original folks had moved on but it didn’t matter because the material is so rich and there’s no shortage of talent on Broadway to step in. More on that in a moment.
We were going to drive down to the city but since we were staying overnight that would mean paying for parking for two days. Problem is to park the car they charge you $65 per night times two. Add in the gasoline, tolls and the $15 to cross the George Washington Bridge and it was cheaper to take Amtrak.
We’ve never stayed at a hotel right on Central Park so I went for a place called the Park Lane, just a few doors down from the famous Plaza Hotel. The Park Lane was nice but pricey once they add on all the fees they don’t mention on the website. Still, waking up to the view of Central Park and the building the Stay Puft Marshmallow man climbs in the original “Ghost Busters” movie was worth it
We arrived Saturday afternoon with plans to have a fancy birthday dinner and take a sunset cruise. Two issues with that right out of the gate. It was raining so the cruise was out and my wife was craving a big cheeseburger instead of an overpriced gourmet dish. So we hit the Hardrock Café and had a great meal.
Since the cruise was impossible we stood in the rainy drizzle at the Tix booth in Times Square uncertain what show to see that night (Evan Hansen was the next day.) I gave the ticket guy three choices and told him whichever one had the best seats I wanted them. The Carol King musical “Beautiful” had 9th row dead center so I was sold. What a stroke of luck picking this show by accident. “Beautiful” was, well, beautiful and we both loved it. If you are in “the city” and looking for a half price show this is the one my friend. Spoiler alert- I had no idea Carol King wrote the smash hit “The Locomotion.” Crazy.
The next morning I did what I always do when I’m on vacation, order a pot of coffee and two bagels up to the room no matter what the cost. That said I nearly did the locomotion through the wall when the room service guy handed me a bill for $49. I assumed they were magic bagels.
After licking the plates and getting every last drop of coffee (did I mention I just spent $49 on something I could get at Stewarts for six bucks) we took a nice walk in the park. I saw the rock formation where Macaulay Culkin got his foot stuck and was rescued by the pigeon lady in “Home Alone 2” and put a dollar in a street performer’s empty violin case because she was doing an amazing job playing Mozart. At least I think it was Mozart; or perhaps Backstreet Boys. They’re very similar.
We ate a light lunch and then my wife told me what she really wanted to do while in Manhattan. Apparently there’s a place that sells yummy cookie dough called, appropriately, DO and she was dying to have dessert there. Since it was 30 blocks away we took a cab through the horrendous Sunday traffic. Knowing we had expensive theater tickets I had the driver wait outside while we spent $14 on two small cups of cookie dough. The ride back to the theater district took nearly an hour and the roundtrip ride ended up costing me $40. Add in our dessert and I just dropped $54 dollars on dough, after my fifty bucks on bagels and coffee. Still, to see her smile was worth it.
Evan Hansen was incredible and left the entire audience in a puddle of tears. Back to Grand Central we went to catch the Amtrak home and the birthday girl was happier than a violinist playing Mozart in the park on a sunny day.
John Gray is a news anchor on WXXA-Fox TV 23 and ABC’S WTEN News Channel 10. His column is published every Wednesday. Email him at johngray@fox23news.com.