My map pin posts are about stories as well as places. And here is a story about my first ever visit to New York City. I remember just how excited I was; excited but irritated. This was a business trip, and an annoyingly brief one. I wouldn’t have any time to explore. Damn! I was on a flight from Atlanta, due into La Guardia around nine o’clock at night. I had a meeting at Mount Sinai Hospital at ten thirty the next morning, and I’d need to rush away from that to get to JFK for my flight back to London. I was resigned to seeing next to nothing of the city. But I had a stroke of luck. I struck up a conversation on the plane with the man in the seat next to mine. He was a New Yorker, now living in Atlanta. I told him about my disappointment, not being able to explore. ‘To hell with that,’ he said. ‘Did you never hear about the city that never sleeps?’ He wrote down his name and the address of his hotel. He was staying (can you believe this?) at the Waldorf Astoria on Central Park. ‘Come and find me there at 11 o’clock tonight,’ he told me. ‘I’ll be waiting in reception. You have the rest of your life to catch up on the sleep.’
What could I do? I barely had time to check into my hotel and then I went to find him. (His name was Charles, by the way.) He took me on a walking tour. We did Times Square, and Broadway, and 7th Avenue, and 42nd Street. He showed me the Empire State and Macy’s, and the Flatiron Building, and Madison Square Gardens. And so much more. We walked all the way up to Greenwich Village, and Soho, and we dropped into Grand Central Station. Wow! We walked the leather off our shoes, but there was no stopping this guy. He was loving this as much as I was. We had a swift beer in a little speakeasy, and off we went again. There was something on almost every corner we had to see. Theatres. Skyscrapers. The PanAm building. FAO Schwarz. All the shops were closed, but what the heck. ‘They’re way cheaper at night,’ he said. I told him I was a huge fan of Damon Runyon so he pointed out Mindy’s for me. We walked past the UN, back to Central Park, up by the Guggenheim museum, and he still wasn’t done. He showed me the Dakota Building and Strawberry Fields, and the Natural History Museum, and a load of his favourite parts of the park. ‘Isn’t it dangerous walking in Central Park at night?’ I asked him. ‘Not for two six-foot guys,’ he said.
I got back to my hotel at three forty five am. We had been
walking for more than four hours. I’m guessing we had walked maybe ten miles. The
next morning, following Charles’ instructions, I took a yellow cab to the World
Trade Centre and an elevator to the top, and I got to see the whole city
emerging from an early morning mist. And I still made my meeting.
I never kept Charles’ contact details. Which is a shame.
Because I owe him. Big time.
The photos are from a trip with my family a year or so
later. We did the World Trade Centre again. That’s me and Jon in the pictures. That
was a great trip too.
The What3Words is Times Square. It’s as good a place as any
to start.
What3words: café.ahead.intelligible
what3words /// The simplest way to talk about location
Please check out my website for more information on my books. https://www.johnironmonger.com
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