It’s time for another retrospective post. This time we’re off to New York. In 1983, I visited the Big Apple
for the first time as an 18-year-old exchange student. My host high school’s Art Club spent a week in the city experiencing many of its artistic endeavours, including ballet at the Lincoln Centre, musical theatre on Broadway, and numerous exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum, the Guggenheim and the Museum of Modern Art. We also ticked off some popular sights, including a visit to the United Nations, the Empire State Building observatory, and the lights of Times Square.
However, despite an active week, we missed plenty of iconic sights. It would be another 15 years before I’d finally return to complete more of my New York bucket list. This post is about my return visit in 1999, the first of many in the years that followed. On this occasion, I travelled with Ian, a friend I’d known for many years. He had the unfortunate nickname of Stoompy, a not-so-subtle play on the word stumpy, as he was a rather short, stocky bloke. Together we spent a week rediscovering the best of the Big Apple.
Just weeks earlier, I’d spotted a discount fare advertised by United Airlines. I mentioned it to Ian at the pub one night. He expressed interest in joining me for a holiday. It was the first time I'd agreed to travel with a friend since a crazy outing
in Hawaii a few years prior. Back then, my trips for business or pleasure were a largely solo affair.
On Friday, 27 August, we departed Sydney on an early afternoon flight to San Francisco, where we stopped for 48 hours before continuing to New York. Our brief stop in San Francisco was my first visit to the Bay Area. We crossed the dateline mid-flight and thus landed shortly before 8:30am the same day. We made the most of our brief stopover. This included a little bar-hopping in the Castro District on Friday night, plus a handful of popular sights on Friday and Saturday.
Like all good tourists, we caught the cable car to Fisherman’s Wharf and stopped along the way to visit Grace Cathedral in Nob Hill. At the time, the Cathedral was popular thanks to Tales of the City, a series of books by Armistead Maupin set in San Francisco’s gay community. We visited Lombard Street, the crooked hill street renowned for its eight sharp hairpin turns in the Russian Hill neighbourhood.
On Sunday 29 August, we boarded UA810 bound for New York, and arrived five hours later around 10:20pm. We then spent the next seven days exploring the best the city had to offer before departing again on 5 September 1999. I recently discovered that flight UA810 originated in Osaka and served as United’s primary connection from this Japanese city to New York. In late 1999, the airline had announced the end of this service. Hence, it sold the domestic leg at a hefty discount to fill seats on its last remaining flights.
Stoompy and I packed in a host of wonderful highlights, and the Autumn weather played its part, making for an incredibly memorable trip. Three highlights stand out. We climbed the Statue of Liberty, toured Ellis Island, visited the Observation Deck at the top of the World Trade Centre, and shopped until we literally dropped at South Seaport’s discount outlets.
Climbing the Statue of Liberty was a real treat. As a child, I'd prepared a school project on its construction by Gustav Eiffel (yes, the same guy that built that famous tower in Paris). I’d also delivered a presentation on its history and construction as a public speaking exercise at work. Yet another example of my enduring passion for feats of Civil Engineering.
As a result, I’ve always wanted to climb to the observation deck built into the crown on Liberty's head. The deck itself is relatively small, with room for about a dozen people, and a row of 25 narrow windows offers an iconic view towards lower Manhattan. The first image above was pulled from the web to show how cramped the space is inside her crown.
To reach it, you climb a narrow internal 162-step double-helix spiral staircase from the statue’s pedestal, plus another 172 steps from the pedestal's base. A climb of more than ten stories. Tickets sell out fast, so it's best to book the first ferry of the day. I can honestly say that the view of the statue’s internal skeleton is almost as memorable as the view across the Hudson River.
Equally memorable was the opposing view from the top of the South Tower at the World Trade Centre. I’d desperately wanted to visit the Twin Towers in 1983. However, the Art teacher leading the group politely reminded me that our school excursion wasn’t a sightseeing tour; we were in town to experience the arts. The closest we ever got was a tantalising view from Chinatown. I still have a photo I took of towers in a quiet laneway.
The 15-year wait to finally visit was well worth it. We took the express elevator to the 107th floor and stepped into the lobby of the South Tower’s indoor observatory, which wraps around the building’s interior. However, the next observation deck on the 110th floor really took our breath away. An escalator takes visitors up another three floors to an outdoor observation deck on the roof. The deck is a raised platform that elevates visitors above the pipes and utility plant installed on the roof.
The view is truly magnificent. You’re so high up that you literally feel like you’re flying. Above you stretches the open sky, while all around is an unobstructed view of New Jersey and the Hudson River to the east, the dramatic Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to the south, and the five boroughs of New York to the north, east and south. The view looking north along Manhattan, past the North Tower and towards the Empire State Building, is one I’ll never forget. I took my digital video camera with me and still have the mini tape I recorded of the breathtaking view. Little did we know that less than two years later the building would be gone, destroyed in the horrific
9/11 terrorist attacks.
After climbing the Twin Towers, we crossed the East River via the Brooklyn Bridge. It was pure catnip for a civil engineering geek like me. Another bucket list activity finally ticked off. However, we didn’t explore Brooklyn; instead, we caught the subway back to Chelsea to wander its brownstone-lined streets and soak up the local cafe culture. We also dropped into The Stonewall Inn. In 1969, a series of riots and demonstrations outside this bar kicked off the gay rights movement in the USA. Much to Stoompy’s amusement, I grabbed a manicure while wandering through Chelsea.
We also ventured up the Empire State Building to take in the view back down Manhattan. I visited the small enclosed 102nd-Floor observatory in 1983 and was keen to repeat the experience. However, this time, the 102nd floor was closed, so we had to make do with the outdoor observatory on the 86th Floor. We ended up visiting the observatory twice. Once during daylight hours, and again after dark. The second visit was very much spur-of-the-moment. We'd seen a mid-week promotion for discounted evening tickets and decided over dinner one night to go for it.
A helicopter flight over Manhattan was another bucket list moment for both of us. We booked the circuit that basically flies a circular loop down the Hudson River, around the Statue of Liberty and back to base. In those days, heli-tours departed from a pier on the Hudson River, west of Times Square. I distinctly recall that the walking distance to the river looked shorter on a map than it was in real life. Manhattan's unusual street grid layout always disorients out-of-town visitors. North-south blocks are about 61 metres apart, while east-west blocks are up to 280 metres apart.
Our tour of Ellis Island was equally memorable. I’d always wanted to visit the island and learn more about the millions of immigrants who first made landfall here in the USA. During its years of active service, this immigration centre processed more than 12 million people. In the image, you can see one of the ledger desks officials used for screening the huddled masses. I was surprised to learn that the centre operated until 1954. The guided tour we took served up plenty of these fascinating facts and figures. Another satisfying bucket list tick.
Stoompy and I also got our fill of the arts. We visited the Museum of Modern Art, marvelling at Van Gogh’s famous Starry Night and Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup series. The Guggenheim got a look in, as did the Metropolitan Museum of Art across the road. The Met's famous display of knights on horseback in the Arms and Armour Galleries was a notable highlight, along with the Temple of Dendur.
The temple is particularly impressive. The last thing you'd expect to find in New York is an Egyptian temple dating to 15BC. It stands in the middle of a dedicated glass-walled atrium. The temple was dismantled in 1963 to save it from rising waters caused by the construction of the Aswan High Dam. Egypt gifted the structure to the United States in 1965 as a thank-you for American aid in preserving other Nubian artefacts.
While you might think the Egyptians were exceptionally generous, it's worth noting that after the original Lower Aswan Dam was completed in 1933, the temple complex was underwater for nine months every year thanks to the Nile's annual flooding. As a result, it was starting to show the effects of water erosion and constant immersion. In other words, the Americans were given a temple that the Egyptians had all but written off decades earlier. Still, it's an impressive sight, standing in its custom-built atrium.
After exploring the Met, we walked through Central Park to see its iconic sights, including Strawberry Fields, the Boathouse, and its dramatic Alice in Wonderland sculpture. We also ate hot dogs from sidewalk vendors, soaked up Times Square's dazzling billboards and bright lights, and bought tickets for a Broadway show. Sadly, I cannot recall what we saw. We walked down Wall Street, viewed the stock exchange in action from the public gallery, and explored the United Nations. We really did see it all, do it all and loved every moment. However, I don't recall ever feeling rushed by our itinerary.
As two single blokes, it would be fair to say that we also made the most of our evenings with several decadent outings to some of Manhattan’s popular gay bars. This included Splash, a bar in Chelsea renowned for its scantily clad Chippendale dancers who performed their routines standing on the bar’s counter, or in a series of transparent shower stalls on an elevated stage. The less that’s said about our exploits after dark, the better.
One final memory. I recall we decided to visit Century 21 for a few clothing bargains. This is a discount department store, a couple blocks east of the Twin Towers, stocking end-of-season and residual inventory from designer labels. It's the original outlet store concept before outlet malls became a thing.
Sadly, the in-store selection was a little limited, so we headed across to the pseudo-outlet mall at South Street Seaport. I distinctly recall both of us stumbling out of the complex with shopping bags laden on both arms. I was a lot fitter back then. On a whim, Stoompy and I decided to walk back to our hotel near Times Square, a distance of more than six kilometres. It’s a long walk at the best of times without the added burden of heavy shopping bags.
On Sunday 5 September, we flew back to San Francisco on Flight UA5, where we caught our late-night connecting flight to Sydney. We finally landed back at home two days later, on Tuesday morning. My New York bucket list was finally complete. It really was a wonderful vacation. Ian and I had travelled well together. We both enjoyed the same sights, and the weather was almost perfect for the entire trip. In hindsight, I should have travelled with Stoompy again, but never did.
I’d be back in New York for business two years later, and then return regularly after Garry and I relocated to London in 2005. My first return visit in 2001 was an intense affair. At the time, my employer Text 100 was pitching for IBM’s global public relations account. It was the biggest opportunity the company had ever pursued, one that could completely transform its fledgling global network. It flew in representatives from around the world to demonstrate both its global reach and its cohesive culture.
I was Australia’s Managing Director at the time. I flew in from Sydney via Los Angeles as the company’s Antipodean representative on 21 July, and returned home again on 31 July. For almost a week, we refined and rehearsed our presentation in the company’s newly established New York office, before heading north to White Plains for the actual pitch. Ironically, the New York office was on 17th Avenue, a few blocks west of Union Square and a block or so east of Splash, the notorious gay bar Stoompy and I had frequented a few years earlier.
The company put us up in Omni Apartment Suite Hotel, a few blocks east of Times Square. My enormous room was a real winner. A row of windows stretched along its entire length, offering an elevated view of midtown Manhattan. Every night, I enjoyed a spectacular view of the Chrysler Building and the surrounding skyline, lit up in all its glory. And yes, as a single man, I made it my mission to reacquaint myself with the clientele at Splash on Friday night. Let’s just say Australian accents are a bit of an aphrodisiac for adventurous Americans.
Text 100 ultimately won the IBM account. However, despite it being sold as a global pitch, the account was formally awarded only in the USA. Several markets worldwide, including Australia, were later required to re-pitch the account competitively on a local basis. As a result, in Australia, I was forced to go head-to-head against my former employer, Recognition Public Relations, which already managed IBM's software portfolio. We ultimately won the entire account with a pitch I still consider the best I’ve ever led. Globally, Text 100 went on to retain IBM as a client
for 17 years.
That's the pitch team posing above for a group shot after our mega-pitch at IBM's global headquarters. The company certainly spent an eye-watering amount on this opportunity. One final observation. I was in New York in July 2001, just six weeks before 9/11. As a result, my memories of the city were still fresh when tragedy struck that fateful day.
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