If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywyere
New York City … what does it conjure up in your mind? Tall buildings that cause your neck to ache as you look up at them? Lavish shows on Broadway.
Streets teeming with all manner of people dressed from straight-laced to bizarre…and they could be walking side by side carrying on an animated conversation. It’s the city that songs are written about like, ”New York, New York” or “The Sidewalks of New York.”
I love New York City and always have. My Grandfather John Peter Joseph Colligan was born in Brooklyn. My Grandmother Emily Grace Fink Colligan came to New
York City when she was six years old through Ellis Island with her mother, Martha Robinson Fink. Her father was a German sea captain named Wilhelm Fink. She and my grandfather met when they were both performers on Coney Island. He was a singer and dancer in Vaudeville, and she was a dancer in the Ziegfeld Follies.
My mom was the youngest of their six children and all grew up Irish Catholics in New York. They were redheads and blonds with blue eyes except for my grandmother and daughter May who had dark hair and gray eyes. I remember they were a fun-loving family who thought nothing of singing Broadway show tunes at their big spinet piano while my grandfather and grandmother would waltz around the room. My Uncle Bill had the deepest voice and my Aunt May’s voice was simply beautiful.
My first memories of New York City were when Mom, my sister Maureen (who I renamed Reenie), and I stayed with Grandfather and Grandmother for almost a year while my Air Force Captain dad, who was supposed to be in Germany, wound up being stationed in Morocco. It took a while getting us a place.
Mom would take my sister and me to Central Park and I loved it there. It may be changed now, but I remember brick walkways and a cement pond. Mom turned her back and I proceeded to climb up on the edge of the pond. She grabbed the hood of my coat as I fell into the icy water. Yes, it was cold. She stripped off my soggy coat and wrapped me in her coat all the while fussing at me for falling in. She’d told me to stay away from the edge. That was not the thing to say to me. I tended to do the opposite. My sister stood laughing.
We made trips to the Empire State Building and the Bronx Zoo. During Christmas season, I sat on my grandfather’s shoulders and watched the Macy’s Day Parade. It was wonderful and I was thrilled to see the “real” Santa Claus.
Bill (my husband) and I went to New York City in the early 70s BC (before children) for the carpet markets. Bill worked for Wellco then. We stayed in the Drake Hotel – a stately, old hotel, quite ritzy, with large suites – in Manhattan. Bill always tipped well and while there, we used room service in the morning. I always got a red rose on our tray for “the little lady.”
After a couple of days, we got tired of hotel food and headed down Park Avenue to a little coffee shop for some homemade pastries and the best coffee we’ve ever had even to this day. We still talk about it and let me tell ya, New York City pastry is just above the rest, at least it was then. I don’t doubt that it is still the best.
We found out that many rock stars and other famous folks had an affinity to the Drake. We just missed John Wayne who left a few minutes before we arrived and Patty Duke and John Astin walked right past us. The marvelous, old hotel was demolished back in 2007. What replaced it was at one time, the tallest residential building in the world. I’m just glad I got to experience the ambiance of the Drake. It was grand.
My son, Hartwell and his husband just recently moved to New York City. They have both wanted to move there for several years and were finally able to jump in with both feet. I’d like to think they are taking the advice suggested by Fred Ebb and John Kanders who wrote “New York New York.”
“I want to wake up in the city that doesn’t sleep
To find out I’m king of the hill, top of the heap
These little town blues are melting away. I’ll make a brand new start of it in old New York.
If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere. It’s up to you New York. New York.”