Five jam packed days in New York!
 

Here is a (hopefully) quick review of a trip May 13-17.

Flew standby LAX-JFK. Got on first flight.

JFK to Manhattan via Airtrain to E Train, what a cinch!

Hotel- The Mayfair on 49th between Broadway and 8th. Smallest room in the history of hoteldom! I had a single for $150 a night. Free wireless. Good elevator. Clean, darling, tiny room. Fantastic location, great staff. Would stay there again. Other friends stayed at La Quinta on 32nd, their rooms were huge in comparison. Others stayed at some firetrap on the UWS they would not recommend (cant recall the name.)

Laundromats! I had to do a load of wash before continuing on trip. There are 3 convenient places near midtwon near 49th and 9th!

Plays! Got either last minute TKTS or Broadwaybox.com for these shows:

Gypsy- Bravo! Fantastic! Patti LuPone was made to play Mama Rose. Loved it!!!!! (I had seen it with Bernadette and Tyne also, this was the best.)

Young Frankenstein- Excitedly seated in row 3, alas did not love the show though the second half sorta redeemed it for me. I hear Blazing Saddles is next!

August: Osage County- Mesmerizing, I was hypnotized the entire 3.5 hours. Outstanding. Also I think the characters were mostly related to me or the friend I was with, LOL.

In The Heights- It was a treat to see Priscilla Lopez perform. It was a likeable show, I am ashamed to say I nodded off as I was beat!

South Pacific- struck out, soooo disappointed. Went twice to the cancellation line, called someone with tix on Craigslist, it was just not to be I guess.

NYU Tisch School graduation at Madison Square Garden: the entrance line wrapped entirely around the block! But what an uplifting celebration it was once we all filed in and found seats.

MOMA on a rainy day- aaahhhhhh.

Nat'l History Museum- Got the VIP tour from a friend who is a big wig there. We sneaked into the new exhibit Horses before opening day. Also saw the space show in the planetarium-like theater.

Restaurants-
Ocean Grill- UWS. Lovely spot for lunch.

Mollys Pub- On 3rd and 20-something. Jammed, lively, usual greasy calorie-laden pub grub. Fun

Cuba- Greenwich Village. Small, packed, live Cuban music, cigar roller on premises. Crowd way too hip for us, LOL.

Central Park- Hit it on a lovely spring day, leafy and green. Truly an oasis.

Then the dreaded travel snafu hit. We were all returning to JFK on Saturday independently from our hotels. We had all scoped out Air Train and bought advance tix. The traffic in Midtown on that evening was totally gridlocked but I was unphased when I went to retrieve my bags and walk the block to the 50th St Station to catch the E train. My heart thudded when I saw the whole station was closed due to track maintenance. I dashed down 8th with luggage thru THRONGS of theater-goers to the 42nd St Station. The man in the booth instructed me to follow signs to the A Train, I lugged bags in and out of gates, up and down stairs, thru miles of corridors. Found the tracks, they were also closed!!! I was in panic mode as I had a flight to Edinburgh to catch and had just wasted an hour. I raced upstairs lugging bags, could not hail a cab! Impossible! I ran to the taxi stand at the Marriott, there were at least 15 groups ahead of me in line and only one cab was arriving every 10 minutes or so. I was stricken at my situation, I knew I would miss my flight, I started to cry! The taxi-hailer saw me with my suitcase, a cab appeared, he pulled me out of line ahead of everybody waiting and pushed me into the cab! The drive-God bless him- got me to JFK and I ran like OJ to make my flight to Scotland. He got a giant tip and today I wrote a note to the taxi queue man to tell him his intervention saved my trip from disaster! (My friends had similar hair raising tales of getting-to-JKF that Saturday including one group who pleaded with an off duty cabbie who took mercy on them by driving them to his cousin's house in Brooklyn who was going on-duty!)

Oh how I love New York despite the chaos. The End.

Great report, vivi. I have to say my heart was pounding at the end! Thanks.

I think it's great for everyone to see what NYC is really like -(we may grumble but we don;t bite - and will try to help out in a difficult situation).

I know a lot of people think we're mean/cold since we're not all constantly fakey friendly - grinning idioitically 24/7 and wishing everyone a great day every 2 seconds. But - IMHO - that stuff is all bogus. What matters is only what people will do if you need help.

vivi - glad you had a wonderful time here. Graduation must have been very special.

Your traffic saga brought back my own nightmare the following day. I was on the UWS in my car trying to get home on the UES. But there were street fairs and a walk on Riverside Dr with thousands of people and as they say, 'I couldn't get from here to there.'

I went south to 54thSt - no good - north again to 96th St - fine until CPW and eventually north AROUND Central Park until I made it home. It wouldn't have been such a big deal, but I had a matinee performance and the clock was ticking. At one point I was crying in my car, but I made the performance by two minutes.

I hope you come back again to visit - usually things run smoothly.

I appreciate the getting-to-the-airport sympathies! I am an experienced traveler (been to NYC and Europe many times) and I have never experienced near-hysteria like I did trying to get to JFK from midtown last Saturday when our train-to-the-plane plan failed! The kindness of strangers got me to my Edinburgh flight and I will be forever grateful.