My Friday Nighttime At Nightline

The Nightline set is, to be kind, tiny. The street traffic behind the anchor plays off a server and is shown on a rear projection TV. Is nothing real?

When I came to WTNH the director of our evening newscasts was a young guy named Jeff Winn&#185. He had the thankless task of directing our newscasts on a chromakey set. This is much too complex to explain here except to say any mistake Jeff made was glaringly obvious to even a casual viewer. It was that obvious. Luckily, Jeff was good at what he did. Mistakes were few.

He left us and went on to bigger things. Again, too complex to explain here, plus if I thought about his career versus mine I’d openly weep. Jeff has seven Emmys, as do I. His are the much larger, heavier, impressive, national ones. Jeff won most of them directing “Real Sports” on HBO. He still does that on a monthly basis.

Jeff’s day night job is directing ABC News Nightline. Originally Ted Koppel’s nightly wrap-up of the Iranian Hostage Crisis and then a daily single subject half hour of hard news, Nightline post-Ted is flashier, lighter and more feature oriented. It’s also stronger in the ratings than it’s been in years, recently beating Letterman.

I’ve been meaning to watch Jeff direct for years but never had the chance. I went last night.

The drive to New York was speedy and without incident until the Bronx. What had been a wide open highway became a slow moving bumper-to-bumper grind. I broke free, headed down the West Side Highway and pulled into an open and totally legal parking space on Columbus Avenue directly across the street from ABC’s entrance.

Really–I found legal on-street parking in Manhattan. I’m available for autographs later.

When Nightline first went to its rotating three anchor configuration it came from a windowed studio above Times Square. Even now you can watch the traffic behind the anchor. Don’t be fooled (as I was). They moved around a year ago and now come from TV-3, the same studio as World News with Charlie Gibson. The Nightline set is, to be kind, tiny. The street traffic behind the anchor plays off a server and is shown on a rear projection TV. Is nothing real?

For much of the evening Jeff is ‘on a leash,’ even when there’s nothing to do. If a major story broke, he would direct live coverage across the full network. That is no small responsibility. ABC has standby staff just-in-case 24/7.

We took the grand tour to the control room passing through Nightline’s sparsely staffed offices. Most of the action happens here during the day. The show is anchored live, but the packages are mainly pre-produced at a more convenient hour. TV work isn’t as glamorous when you consider so much of it is “second shift.”

ABC’s New York headquarters is a confusing collection of mainly connected buildings on Manhattan’s West Side between 66th and 67th from Columbus Avenue to Central Park West. There are a few apartment buildings interspresed, but most of the block is ABC’s.

Back when I did some freelance work at the network (weather fill-ins on Good Morning America–you never call anymore–I’m crushed) I never ventured far from my studio (TV-2) lest I get lost! In some of the interconnections the floors don’t even line up!

The control room itself is very impressive with two rows of arena type seating, a few individual positions farther back and a separate audio booth. The production crew face a winged wall of large high definition flat panel monitors. Each monitor is split to show individual inputs as needed. Most are pretty standard cameras and servers, but I also saw tie-lines to Washington and Europe (feeding Arab language broadcasts back to New York last night).

Jeff sat down and with the technical director and assistant director went through the show’s scripts page-by-page making sure each input was properly marked and available. As far as I could tell only one small change was made during this run-through. A courtesy font for a photograph came positioned over the person’s face. It was moved to air in a less intrusive spot.

As 11:35 PM approached more and more people drifted in. By airtime there were around a dozen people at work. Actually, the show starts 15 seconds early as an animated countdown streams to the network. I’m hoping that’s a tradition carried over from the good old days, because by now the affiliates had better have synchronized clocks, wouldn’t you think?

One floor down Martin Bashir anchored. His only contact with the upstairs crew was electronic. I enjoyed when he read about someone being taken to the hospital and in his British English left out the article “the.” “He was taken to hospital,” was what the audience heard.

The show was flawless… at least it looked flawless to me. In many ways the production resembled a local newscast, but with longer packages, no live shots and more help. The producer even shuffled extra promo content in to help fill the show’s scheduled time.

Jeff and the team were relaxed and playful as the show aired. These are people working together every night. They know their jobs and at this level I suspect screw-ups aren’t tolerated long.

A little after midnight we were done.

&#185 – Our other director was Tom O’Brien, who moved out of directing to sales and then management. He is now general manager at WNBC in New York after a long stay as GM at KXAS Dallas.

Rand McSteffie

Steffie’s college roommate is back at school for some summer classes. Steffie thought it might be nice to bring her their shared television and some other things we’d stored here in Connecticut. So yesterday afternoon, with her friend Sam in tow, Steffie set out for Long Island.

It’s really not a difficult trip and before long they were there.

Flash forward to departure time. By this time Sam, suffering from a headache, dozes off in the front seat. Steffie hops onto the Meadowbrook and heads home.

Everything was going so well, so smoothly until she got to the Cross Island Parkway. That’s how Helaine and I get to the Throgs Neck Bridge. The problem is, just at the point you exit to the Cross Island there’s a sign beckoning you to a different exit for the Throgs Neck!

Confused, Steffie followed the sign… and so began her great adventure through the boroughs!

Instead of heading north, into the Bronx, she was heading west toward Manhattan. Somehow she got on the Long Island Expressway, driving past the apartment where I grew up, past Queens College and the New York World’s Fair site.

Her exact route isn’t certain. She doesn’t totally remember and probably had no way of knowing anyway. I am reconstructing it from a conversation we had a little after 1:00 AM.

“You know that tunnel,” Steffie asked?

“Did you go up on a very high section of roadway with a great view of Manhattan?”

Holy crap! Steffie had made her way to Long Island City and was heading into the Queens Midtown Tunnel.

“It went on forever and was really narrow,” she said.

She’s right. The twin tubes of the Midtown Tunnel run around 1¼ miles. The lanes are narrow and the tunnel does curve. Even worse, as you leave you’re faced with three choices, “Uptown, Midtown and Downtown,” none of which would make any sense to Steffie!

She remembers Lexington Avenue and seeing Times Square on her right. She was totally lost.

“You know the glass building?”

Glass building? I looked at my toes – where all answers emanate. Glass building… uh… “You mean the Javits Center?”

It was around this time in the conversation that Steffie admitted that she knew she’d drive in Manhattan at some point, but had hope she’d wait until she was around 40.

Back in the car she pulled into a parking lot, hoping to find an attendant. No dice there. She yelled across at a taxicab stopped at a light. As he explained, the light turned green.

The time between a green light and horn honk in Manhattan is measured in milliseconds.

The were signs for the Holland Tunnel. She knew she didn’t want to be there. There were also signs pointing toward the George Washington Bridge. That sounded more familiar.

She didn’t know it at the time, but she was now heading north on the West Side Highway.

On family trips, we often make a decision as we approach the George Washington Bridge. If there’s heavy traffic on the bridge heading into the Bronx, we continue north and wind our way through the Bronx and Westchester. If the coast’s clear, we take the easy way – I-95, the Cross Bronx Expressway.

Steffie looked at the bridge and decided to continue. It’s lucky for her she did, because as it turns out, she would have taken the GWB. She would have headed across the Hudson into New Jersey!

Heading north, the West Side Highway becomes the Henry Hudson Parkway. She drove through the toll, over the Henry Hudson Bridge and into the Riverdale section of the Bronx.

Now nothing looked familiar! Exits came and went, but no names she recognized… until Mosholu Parkway.

Unfortunately for Steffie, she knew the name because we’d had brunch at the Mosholu, a boat moored on the Delaware River in Philadelphia. She took the Mosholu anyway.

Even with a map, it’s tough to reconstruct her trip from here. She did panic a little when she saw signs pointing to Albany. A little after that, a sign for the Hutchinson River Parkway.

Steffie headed north on the “Hutch,” finally breathing a sigh of relief as she passed the “Entering Greenwich” sign. She was back in Connecticut.

The 100 minute trip had taken her four hours. She had visited Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx and was within a few hundred yards of Brooklyn.

Steffie probably expected Helaine or me to get angry. We didn’t.

Do I wish she would have called me at some point? Of course.

It’s a great story we’ll have forever… one of those family fables grandparents will someday tell grandchildren about their mother.


Thanksgiving Recap

I am just beginning to reenter the world of the living. Going to New York was a major shock to my system because of the one day schedule upheaval. I went to work a few hours before I normally wake up.

It was well worth it. Make no mistake about that. I had a great time, in spite of the weather.

Steffie accepted my offer and came along. While I caught a few hours sleep Wednesday evening, she decided to just stretch her day. By 1:15 AM Thanksgiving morning we were getting into a town car for the ride to Manhattan.

The ride started under cloudy skies, but by the time we got to Bridgeport, it was snowing. The snow was light at first, but before the New York line it was covering the road.

The town car blasted along between 65 and 75. I was beginning to get a little panicky. I didn’t want us to be the first Thanksgiving highway statistic!

As we moved through Westchester and into the Bronx, the snow turned to sleet and quickly to rain. Now the highway was just wet.

I asked the driver to stick to the West Side because I assumed some streets would be closed for parade preparations. We headed down the Henry Hudson Parkway, past the beautiful George Washington Bridge. At night the lattice of the bridge’s towers are lit, making it look like a gigantic model bridge. It’s too good looking to be real or functional.

Traffic was light as we transitioned from the Henry Hudson to the West Side Highway. We were doing 74 mph when the cop caught us on radar!

I’ve never been pulled over in New York. It’s an experience. There’s no shoulder on the highway to safely stop, so the cop called through a loudspeaker, telling us to pull off at the next exit.

I got antsy and wanted to intercede. Steffie, wisely, kept me in check. As it turned out, the limo driver had things well in control.

Unbeknown to us, he had a small metal NYPD shield in his wallet. His cousin is a cop in Midtown Manhattan (or so he said – does it really matter). Under the unwritten law of professional courtesy, the officer acted angry, asked the driver if he knew how fast he was going and then walked away. Just like that. Holy cow – those things do work!

My instructions from ABC said to meet at 79th Street and Central Park West. There was no way to drive there, so we got out at 77th and Columbus.

IMG_3112I talked my way past a young guy standing security at Columbus Avenue, only to get questioned again at Central Park West. This person was tall, unhappy, and actually speaking into his wrist! When I asked if he was with the police or Macy’s he said, “Both.”

He was a little more thorough, wanting to see some ID. I don’t have an NYPD press pass, but I did have my Channel 8 ID. He looked at it for a few milliseconds and said OK – but he’d accompany us.

We headed uptown, past workers getting ready to march. We walked by the stately, somewhat Goth, Museum of Natural History. When we got to the next corner it was 81st Street.

There is no 79th and Central Park West! Uh oh.

I called Chika, my producer. She too was on her way. She asked me to stay put until she got there. Steffie and I stood under my umbrella in the rain. We were next to the Manhattan North command post and there was a constant buzz of activity.

When Chika got there, we realized not only was there no 79th and CPW – there was no live truck! I was standing there wondering if we’d get on the air at all. That thought only lasted a few seconds, because this type of logistical miscue happens all the time. Somehow, it always works… well almost always.

IMG_3014The truck ended up on Park Drive South, with a long cable run to the parade. The photographer, Mark, set up and we were ready to go.

Before leaving Connecticut I had cut the audio for a package on the parade. That track was for timing. Now, in the truck, using the strangest looking microphone I’d even seen, I recut it with better audio.

Along the curb, camera after camera after camera set up. All the local New York stations were there, as was GMA (ABC, but separate from us) and Today.

As shot, each reporter stood with the street behind him. Truth is, we were all shoulder-to-shoulder-to shoulder.

IMG_3083Let me take a second to apologize for anyone near me Thanksgiving morning. I project… OK, I am loud. It must have been tough for the reporters next to me, because I’m sure they heard me. Disconcerting, no doubt.

I cut a tag for World News Now, ABC’s overnight show, and then the live shots began.

It didn’t begin smoothly. The IFB system (IFB for interrupt feedback, describes the communications system that allows me to hear both the TV station in another city and its producer) was flawed. I was hearing a few syllables at a time and then silence. Something was there, but it wasn’t usable.

The first few live shots ended up being me fronting my package without interaction with the local anchors. I couldn’t speak with them, because I couldn’t hear them.

It wasn’t long before the IFB was squared away and we started ‘servicing the affiliates.&#185’

IMG_3090Here’s how it works. Chika speaks to the producer via cellphone. My IFB gets switched so I can hear their ‘air.’ We go over the names of the anchors and who I’ll be speaking with. Sometimes, if while waiting to go on I hear a weather forecaster mention local weather, I’d ask Chika to get his/her name.

Once on, I ad libbed a little about what was going on and then tossed to the package. On the way out I’d talk about the forecast of wind or let the anchors see the new Scooby Doo balloon resting across the street.

We did live hit after live hit after live hit. Sixteen separate shots over the morning. It was great!

I suppose you might say I’m a live TV slut. It’s a rush – a seat of the pants experience each and every time. I have called it crack for middle aged white guys.

IMG_3030After it was all done, the folks at ABC NewsOne thanked me. I appreciate that. But, the truth is, maybe they were doing me the favor. It’s a job I enjoy doing and they gave me the opportunity to do it from a great location, on a fun story, on stations all across the country.

The icing on the cake was going there with Steffie. I introduced her early on as my daughter. As the morning wore on, and other people came and went, she was just accepted as part of our crew. It’s nice to see her as a grownup and to see other people see her that way.

Liveshot rundown:

-- 0430 World News This Morning

-- 0515 WFTV - Orlando

-- 0545 WJLA - Washington

-- 0550 WTNH - New Haven

-- 0615 WFTV - Orlando

-- 0620 WTNH - New Haven

-- 0640 WCPO - Cincinnati

-- 0645 WJLA - Washington

-- 0650 WTNH - New Haven

-- 0705 WTNH - New Haven

-- 0720 WLS - Chicago

-- 0740 WTNH - New Haven

-- 0800 KABC - Los Angeles

-- 0820 KXTV - Sacramento

-- 0840 KNXV - Phoenix

-- 0900 KABC - Los Angeles

&#185 – When I ran into Al Roker and told him I was there ‘servicing the affiliates’, we both smiled. It does have that stud horse implication.

New York City Trip Report – Day 1

Click here, or on any photo to see my album of photos from this trip.

It’s inside my wedding ring – 11/26/83. Helaine and I were married, just outside Philadelphia. In the beginning, I used the ring for reference to remember the exact date. Now, I know. It has been 20 years!

The past few months have been sort of rough, especially with Ivy passing away. Helaine thought it would be better if we were away on Thanksgiving and our anniversary. I agreed.

I had asked for November 26th off way back in December of last year. It was the last day of the very important November ratings book. To their credit, my bosses allowed me to take the day off. Twenty years is a milestone.

Helaine thought it would be fun to go to New York City, get a hotel, see some shows, do a little shopping, maybe catch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and come home.

We had never used Priceline, but some folks at work had had success with it. I looked for a 4-star hotel in the Times Square area and bid. My first bid was rejected, but there was a suggestion that ‘maybe’ I’d get it if I upped the amount. I did, but in retrospect, I don’t think my Priceline deal was that hot.

I called the hotel to make sure the room would have two king size beds (we were taking Stefanie). No problem, but it would be a rollaway bed at $50 per night! And, of course, at this time my Priceline bid was locked in and non-refundable.

Helaine set out to get show tickets. Stefanie and I have gone into Manhattan on numerous occasions, standing in line at TKTS in Duffy Square and buying half price theater tickets. This would be different.

Helaine found pretty good seats for Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks, starring Polly Bergen and Mark Hamil and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Ashley Judd, Jason Patric and Ned Beatty.

Six Weeks was in previews but had been well received pre-Broadway. Cat had gotten very good reviews, especially for Ned Beatty. We ended up seeing neither play!

Six Weeks was lambasted by every reviewer I could find. This was the kind of awful play that critics take particular pride in crushing. It wasn’t long before we got a call from Telecharge saying the Thanksgiving performance had been canceled. Actually, the show closed.

Helaine set back to Telecharge and found Wonderful Town, a revival of a 1950’s show about 1930’s New York. I had been hearing radio commercials for this show and it hadn’t appealed to me. Still, there wasn’t much choice on Thanksgiving night, and I love the theater.

We set out for Manhattan on the morning of November 26. I had been up the night before writing a story for work and taking two tests for my courses at Mississippi State. Steffie got behind the wheel of the Explorer. Helaine got into the back and prayed for a safe journey.

Stefanie got a little highway time behind the wheel and taking us to Norwalk. We swapped seats and I took us the rest of the way into the city.

Traffic was unusually light, especially considering it was the day before Thanksgiving. I got in the wrong lane at a construction site in the Bronx and ended up having to double back though some side streets. Still, we made it to the Cross Bronx Expressway and West Side Highway without incident and breezed crosstown on 44th Street directly to the hotel.

The Millennium Broadway is an OK hotel in a great location. It is less than a block east of Times Square.

We knew parking wasn’t included and now we found out it was $45 per day! We were reminded again that a rollaway bed was $50. We headed upstairs to our room, 1716.

In most hotels a 17th floor room would provide you with a commanding view. Not here. The 17th floor is only barely above the roof lines of the smaller buildings in the area and provides no view of the street or anything farther than a few blocks away.

Our room was as small as any hotel room I’ve ever been in. The king size bed took up most of the space. There was a small desk, color TV, microscopic closet with a moderate sized safe, and a few smaller chairs. One entire wall was windows.

The bathroom was normal sized with incredible water pressure. I have never seen a bathroom sink that could puncture your hand with its water pressure before this one. Towels were moderate in size. The tub/shower had glass doors and was a decent size.

Helaine discovered the drain in the tub was stuck closed. I’m not sure how the housekeeper didn’t catch this. I tried to unstick it and it snapped off in my hand. I would later tell the front desk of this problem and it was repaired properly.

This being New York, we headed down to Canal Street. I’ve written about Canal Street before, so let it suffice to say, this is the place to go to get knock offs of all types.

There are a few very interesting points about Canal Street. First, how can the trademark/copyright holders not enforce their rights? Sales of Rolex, Movado, Luis Vuitton and a zillion other brands go on right in the open.

There is some ineffectual enforcement I believe, because from time-to-time, without warning, Nextel direct connect chirps will sound and black cloths will be quickly drawn over the display tables. In the small booths, metal rolldown doors will close. Essentially any visible evidence of knock off commerce will disappear.

The second interesting point has to do with the ethnic makeup of the business owners. Most shops seem to be run by ethnic Chinese. Canal Street skirts New York’s Chinatown. There are book sellers on tables set up curbside. These folks are Southwest Asian – either Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan or Bangladeshis. I’m not good enough to make finer distinctions. From time-to-time lone black men will move through the crowd pulling out watches in small display boxes. These men are all African, based on their accents.

If sales tax is collected on Canal Street or if any paperwork is kept, I’ve yet to see it!

Steffie bought a few watches and a head band. Helaine and I watched.

For our 20th anniversary dinner, Helaine made reservations at Rocco’s in the Flatiron District. Rocco’s is the scene of the reality show, “Restaurant.” We caught a cab after a few minutes of jockeying for the proper location and quickly moved uptown.

Our reservations were for 5:30, but we were early, so Steffie and Helaine popped into a local furniture store while I took some photos. From the Flatiron District the Empire State Building dominates the northern skyline.

In order to eat at Rocco’s you have to sign a bunch of waivers acknowledging that a TV show is being taped here and that you give up all rights to the production company. I signed, but am unsure how AFTRA (the performers union I belong to) would react to this.

It’s a moot point. I doubt I’ll be on the show.

Rocco’s is a nice Italian restaurant, undistinguished in most ways except for the camera crews running around, the cameras on the ceiling and the casting call fresh contingent of waiters and waitresses.

Helaine and Steffie had spaghetti and meatballs (the house specialty) while I had linguine with white clam sauce. Dinner was good, not great.

As we ended dinner, Helaine spotted Rocco’s mom. She is actually responsible for the spaghetti and meatballs. With the TV show she had become a minor celebrity. Pictures were taken, of course.

We headed uptown by cab toward the Music Box Theater and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. We got to the theater and heard the news: Ashley Judd was sick. She would not be performing tonight. Since she was the big star, refunds would be offered. Helaine and Steffie decided to pass on the understudy, and I went along. We weren’t alone. I believe most ticket holders walked.

There might be a back story here. Just the day before, in the New York Times, Ned Beatty had been less than kind toward Judd and Jason Patric. To paraphrase, they were working hard but didn’t have the chops that many unemployed Broadway actors had. It was not a glowing endorsement.

Since the show would be dark on Thanksgiving, taking Wednesday off would give Ashley two in a row and some time to get over what Beatty said. Was she sick? Was she pissed? I just don’t know. Ashley and I never did get together.

This left us without anything to do, but there was a possibility. We had heard the Thanksgiving Eve balloon inflation on the Upper West Side was very visual, so it was into a cab again.

Columbus Circle was already closed in anticipation of the parade, so we went far west and scooted up to the 70’s before cutting back to Central Park West. We followed a crowd to what we thought was the one block line to the balloons. Nope. Once we got to where the entrance should be, we found out there was another 2, maybe 3, block wait.

Too much. We headed back to the hotel.

In retrospect that was a great idea because Thanksgiving Day was going to be quite full and begin very early!

Click here, or on any photo to see my album of photos from this trip.

New York City trip – The Producers

Ivy the dog is still in the hospital There was some improvement today, which I’ll get to later. Still, Helaine felt it was best for her to stay home… and she did.

Steffie and I took our three tickets to see The Producers, got in the car around 9:00AM, and headed into New York City. After Dunkin’ Donuts and gas (there’s a joke here somewhere), we hit the open road, convertible top down.

This was actually risky. The mostly cloudy sky turned overcast as we moved west from Bridgeport (In Connecticut, the east-west Connecticut Turnpike is labeled north-south. This makes a geographically challenged adult population even more confused). I expected to have to pull over, under an underpass, at any moment to get the top up. But, by the time we hit the Cross Bronx Expressway, the sun had returned and the air began to get steamy.

The trip to New York, though shared with lots of other cars, was never hampered by traffic.

We followed the CBE to the West Side Highway (following the Last Exit in New York signs) and headed south along the Hudson River. The view to New Jersey was a little hazy. The river itself was pretty empty.

I parked the car ($30, thank you) on West 44th Street, just west of 8th Avenue. I always put up the top when parking, even in attended parking, and that was a good thing, since it later rained.

It was near 11:00 AM and the show wasn’t until 2:00 PM, so we headed into the subway at the corner and went downtown to Canal Street.

For some unknown reason, I thought the IRT #1 train would be the closest (it wasn’t). I mention this, because the subway stairs at 8th and 44th bring you to the 8 Avenue Line IND station with connecting corridors to the IRT (mentioning IND and IRT only helps to show I’m getting older. These labels, a throwback to the era when some subways lines were privately owned, haven’t been used in decades.) It seemed like we were walking to Canal Street as the narrow, tiled, dingy, hot tubes led up and down, left and right, until we were on the downtown platform. We took the express a few stops and then walked across the platform to take the #1 to Canal.

New Yorkers leave the city in droves during the summer, and I’m sure that’s especially true for Labor Day weekend. At the same time tourists pour in. Canal Street was jammed.

Maybe I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m sure Kate Spade, Christian Dior or Louis Vuitton (is there really a Louis Vuitton?) would clutch their collective chests and fall to the ground in cardiac arrest if they ever saw Canal Street. Everything is a knock off… but a nearly perfect knock off.

When a bag says Prada on the outside, it also has Prada on the hardware and Prada “franked” on the leather inside. It’s a pretty thorough job.

Today, I actually stopped as I bought a bottle of Poland Springs water from a vendor, thinking maybe it too wasn’t the real thing. Hey, it’s Canal Street, who knows?

I continue to look, to no avail, for a Breitling combination analog/LCD watch. Obviously, Breitling has them, but that’s a little out of my price range for a watch… maybe not for a car, but for a watch.

Steffie went bag, wallet and shoe shopping. Is it an obsession? Sure. There should be some 12 step program to get her back on the right track. But, at least on Canal Street you can indulge your fantasy. She bought a few things, including some shoes she had been lusting after.

I found a few computer books. One was on Perl, a computer language (which will not make my spell checker happy) used on websites like this one, that I want to learn. The second had to do with Cascading Style Sheets. Again, it’s a concept used on this website and something I had heard about for years without understanding. Like Perl, if I’m going to administer this site, I need to learn at least a little bit about it. Books on Canal Street go for 1/2 retail price or a little less.

A few Canal Street observations. There is a street side display ad for Tag Heuer watches. These watches are sold on Canal Street… they’re just not real. It’s an odd place for an ad like this.

Canal Street is old and tired. There hasn’t been new construction here since the 1930’s or maybe earlier. Little shops are crammed into spaces no larger than a small closet. And, my guess is, this was never an upscale neighborhood, even back in the day. That’s why it was interesting to see beautiful detail work on some of the older industrial buildings.

Finally, even in the midst of urban congestion, people find comfort in things growing. I found this ‘city garden’ on a fire escape. There’s no doubt it’s against fire code, but it is nice to see.

With a 2:00 PM curtain, we headed back into the subway and north to the 42 Street stop on the E train. Up the stairs and, astoundingly enough, we were a half a block from the theater. But, there was a problem. We had Helaine’s ticket!

A try outside the theater yielded nothing. It didn’t seem like the right place to sell it. So, we headed to the TKTS booth in Duffy Square. This is where you’d likely find people looking for tickets, and Producers tickets were always tough to come by.

I walked parallel to the line at TKTS. “Single ticket to The Producers.” Once, twice, three times… and then as I was about to try one more time, Steffie turned me to a woman in line who was interested. She asked how much? I hadn’t thought about it, so asked her to make me an offer. She said half, and the deal was done.

As it turned out, she was Japanese, in New York by herself (though she said she had friends there) and had only come in earlier in the day. She was about to sit dead center in the 6th row, and I was subsidizing 50% of the cost.

The Producers was excellent. It is everything the movie was, though the story has been adapted and simplified for the stage. The current cast is considered “B” next to Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane. Even then, like most New Yorkers, some of the biggest players were out-of-town, replaced by stand-ins. Lewis J. Stadlen, the lead, was replaced by John Treacy Egan, which meant Egan was also covered by an understudy.

I would very much like to see the show again, with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. As the originators of Bialystock and Bloom, and with the theatrical clout to be a little ‘over the top’, my guess is they bring the show up a few notches.

The dialog and sensibility of the show was pure Mel Brooks. You could hear his voice in nearly every line. And, in fact, his voice was heard (lip sync’ed by an actor) during Springtime for Hitler; “Don’t be stupid, be a Smarty – sign up with the Nazi Party!” I believe he did this line in the film as well.

Brad Musgrove as the astoundingly gay Carmen Ghia was a hoot. He got the biggest ovation of the non-principals.

After the play broke, we headed away from the car, and back toward Times Square. Steffie wanted a henna tattoo, which we never found.

We did see a few things in Times Square that you only see in Times Square. The most notable is the “Naked Cowboy.” It is, stripped to its essence, a man wearing a cowboy hat, boots and underwear. That’s it. He charges to pose for photos, and does a pretty brisk business.

For the cowboy challenged, there was also Spiderman, available for a price. In the spirit on New York, I doubt any of his take goes to the copyright owner.

What we did find was rain! What had been a sprinkle as we left the theater turned into a downpour. We were near 42nd Street by this point, so we headed to the ESPN Zone. With a 30 minute wait, we turned back up Broadway and ended up at Planet Hollywood.

When in Times Square, Steffie and I eat at Planet Hollywood more often than not. The food was fine, but more importantly, the restaurant was dry. We were soaked when we got in. Luckily, the camera, books, bags, shoes and the like were in plastic bags. Steffie’s purse had been outside, but tonight, it seemed none the worse for water.

We headed back to the car, only to run into the New York City Fire Department. Something was going on above West 44th Street. Four or five pieces of fire rolling stock and at least a dozen, firefighters (each wearing oxygen packs) stood around chatting as a ladder was extended from a truck and two firefighters climbed to the roof of the theater adjacent to the St. James (where The Producers plays).

If there was cause for alarm, it was well hidden. No one was breaknig a sweat. Steffie wanted to stay and watch, which we did for a few minutes. But, as time went on, it became clear that whatever was going on, was going on out of sight… and wasn’t all that dramatic.

By 6:00 we were in the car, turned north on 8th Avenue, and headed home… with the top down.

Best of New Haven Advocate

Ivy the dog is still in the hospital There was some improvement today, which I’ll get to later. Still, Helaine felt it was best for her to stay home… and she did.

Steffie and I took our three tickets to see The Producers, got in the car around 9:00AM, and headed into New York City. After Dunkin’ Donuts and gas (there’s a joke here somewhere), we hit the open road, convertible top down.

This was actually risky. The mostly cloudy sky turned overcast as we moved west from Bridgeport (In Connecticut, the east-west Connecticut Turnpike is labeled north-south. This makes a geographically challenged adult population even more confused). I expected to have to pull over, under an underpass, at any moment to get the top up. But, by the time we hit the Cross Bronx Expressway, the sun had returned and the air began to get steamy.

The trip to New York, though shared with lots of other cars, was never hampered by traffic.

We followed the CBE to the West Side Highway (following the Last Exit in New York signs) and headed south along the Hudson River. The view to New Jersey was a little hazy. The river itself was pretty empty.

I parked the car ($30, thank you) on West 44th Street, just west of 8th Avenue. I always put up the top when parking, even in attended parking, and that was a good thing, since it later rained.

It was near 11:00 AM and the show wasn’t until 2:00 PM, so we headed into the subway at the corner to head to Canal Street.

For some unknown reason, I thought the IRT #1 train would be the closest (it wasn’t). I mention this, because the subway stairs at 8th and 44th bring you to the 8 Avenue Line IND station with connecting corridors to the IRT (mentioning IND and IRT only helps to show I’m getting older. These labels, a throwback to the era when some subways lines were privately owned, haven’t been used in decades.) It seemed like we were walking to Canal Street as the narrow, tiled, dingy, hot tubes led up and down, left and right, until we were on the downtown platform. We took the express a few stops and then walked across the platform to take the #1 to Canal.

New Yorkers leave the city in droves during the summer, and I’m sure that’s especially true for Labor Day weekend. At the same time tourists pour in. Canal Street was jammed.

Maybe I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m sure Kate Spade, Christian Dior or Louis Vuitton (is there really a Louis Vuitton?) would clutch their collective chests and fall to the ground in cardiac arrest if they ever saw Canal Street. Everything is a knock off… but a nearly perfect knock off.

Today, I actually stopped as I bought a bottle of Poland Springs water from a vendor, thinking maybe it too wasn’t the real thing. Hey, it’s Canal Street, who knows?

I continue to look, to no avail, for a Breitling combination analog/LCD watch. Obviously, Breitling has them, but that’s a little out of my price range for a watch… maybe not for a car, but for a watch.

Steffie went bag, wallet and show shopping. Is it an obsession? Sure. There should be some 12 step program to get her back on the right track. But, at least on Canal Street you can indulge your fantasy. She bought a few things, including some shoes she had been lusting after.

I found a few computer books. One was on Perl, a computer language (which will not make my spell checker happy) used on websites like this one, that I want to learn. The second had to do with Cascading Style Sheets. Again, it’s a concept used on this website and something I had heard about for years without understanding. Like Perl, if I’m going to administer this site, I need to learn at least a little bit about it. Books on Canal Street go for 1/2 retail price or a little less.

A few Canal Street observations. There is a street side display ad for Tag Heuer watches. These watches are sold on Canal Street… they’re just not real. It’s an odd place for an ad like this.

Canal Street is old and tired. There hasn’t been new construction here since the 1930’s or maybe earlier. Little shops are crammed into spaces no larger than a small closet. And, my guess is, this was never an upscale neighborhood, even back in the day. That’s why it was interesting to see beautiful detail work on some of the older industrial buildings.

Finally, even in the midst of urban congestion, people find comfort in things growing. I found this ‘city garden’ on a fire escape. There’s no doubt it’s against fire code, but it is nice to see.

With a 2:00 PM curtain, we headed back into the subway and north to the 42 Street stop on the E train. Up the stairs and, astoundingly enough, we were a half a block from the theater. But, there was a problem. We had Helaine’s ticket!

A try outside the theater yielded nothing. It didn’t seem like the right place to sell it. So, we headed to the TKTS booth in Duffy Square. This is where you’d likely find people looking for tickets, and Producers tickets were always tough to come by.

I walked parallel to the line at TKTS. “Single ticket to The Producers.” Once, twice, three times… and then as I was about to try one more time, Steffie turned me to a woman in line who was interested. She asked how much? I hadn’t thought about it, so asked her to make me an offer. She said half, and the deal was done.

As it turned out, she was Japanese, in New York by herself (though she said she had friends there) and had only come in earlier in the day. She was about to sit dead center in the 6th row, and I was subsidizing 50% of the cost.

The Producers was excellent. It is everything the movie was, though the story has been adapted and simplified for the stage. The current cast is considered “B” next to Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane. Even then, like most New Yorkers, some of the biggest players were out-of-town, replaced by stand-ins. Lewis J. Stadlen, the lead, was replaced by John Treacy Egan, which meant Egan was also covered by an understudy.

I would very much like to see the show again, with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. As the originators of Bialystock and Blum, and with the theatrical clout to be a little ‘over the top’, my guess is they bring the show up a few notches.

The dialog and sensibility of the show was pure Mel Brooks. You could hear his voice in nearly every line. And, in fact, his voice was heard (lip sync’ed by an actor) during Springtime for Hitler; “Don’t be stupid, be a Smarty – sign up with the Nazi Party!” I believe he did this line in the film as well.

Brad Musgrove as the astoundingly gay Carmen Ghia was a hoot. He got the biggest ovation of the non-principals.

After the play broke, we headed away from the car, and back toward Times Square. Steffie wanted a henna tattoo, which we never found.

We did see a few things in Times Square that you only see in Times Square. The most notable is the “naked cowboy.” It is, stripped to its essence, a man wearing a cowboy hat, boots and underwear. That’s it. He charges to pose for photos, and does a pretty brisk business.

For the cowboy challenged, there was also Spiderman, available for a price. In the spirit on New York, I doubt any of his take goes to the copyright owner.

What we did find was rain! What had been a sprinkle as we left the theater turned into a downpour. We were near 42nd Street by this point, so we headed to the ESPN Zone. With a 30 minute wait, we turned back up Broadway and ended up at Planet Hollywood.

When in Times Square, Steffie and I eat at Planet Hollywood more often than not. The food was fine, but more importantly, the restaurant was dry. We were soaked when we got in. Luckily, the camera, books, bags, shoes and the like were in plastic bags. Steffie’s purse had been outside, but tonight, it seemed none the worse for water.

We headed back to the car, only to run into the New York City Fire Department. Something was going on above West 44th Street. Four or five pieces of fire rolling stock and at least a dozen, firefighters (each wearing oxygen packs) stood around chatting as a ladder was extended from a truck and two firefighters climbed to the roof of the theater adjacent to the St. James (where The Producers plays).

If there was cause for alarm, it was well hidden. No one was breaknig a sweat. Steffie wanted to stay and watch, which we did for a few minutes. But, as time went on, it became clear that whatever was going on, was going on out of sight… and wasn’t all that dramatic.

By 6:00 we were in the car, turned north on 8th Avenue, and headed home… with the top down.