Another Bite of the Big Apple

by Dennis Goza

In September 2001, we finally made a jaunt to New York City, as we'd been wanting to do for years, and we had a great time even though the circumstances were not ideal. But we didn't do the one thing we wanted to do more than anything else: attend a Broadway show. So this year we decided to make up for that failure.

Actually, the first trip to New York -- and the first trip to Broadway -- -for Kimberly and me occurred several years ago, before Zephyr came along. That little trek started a love affair with the city that has endured to this day, despite our having had more than our share of traveler's nightmares.

In 1989, when we both were still living in San Francisco and weren't even married yet, I happened to acquire a round-trip plane ticket to NYC for the miraculous price of 99 dollars. As I began planning to spend a week there, Kimberly decided that she couldn't let me do it alone, so she scouted out the best airfare she could find. Trouble was, our tickets were on different airlines.

My own flight went capitally, even by the standards of someone who hates to fly as much as I do. (This was the last time I flew.) But her plane left Oakland Airport, then turned around and landed again, due to a mechanical problem. As the airline tried to figure out what to do with its stranded passengers, I spent eight increasingly frantic hours at La Guardia, trying to learn what had happened. (I found out only after I had called her parents, for about the third time, after she had managed to get to a phone and brief them.) During that ordeal, I learned very quickly that the stereotype of the rude New Yorker was not exactly accurate; in fact, I can't imagine airport personnel being any more courteous and helpful than those I encountered. The truth is, it was I who finally lost my temper, and they handled it extremely well.

During the day, I walked several times between terminals -- -a distance of about half a mile, as I recall -- -and at one point a bus driver pulled up and asked me if I wanted a ride. Exhausted by that time and carrying a bag, I decided maybe it was time to quit scrimping, so I asked him how much the fare was. He just waved me aboard and said, "Fuhgeddaboutit. Just get on."

Finally I caught a bus into Manhattan and checked into our hotel, just around the corner from the Empire State Building. As I left the desk to go to rest in the room, the phone rang, and after the clerk had answered it, he yelled after me, "Hey Mr. Goza, it's for you!" It was Kimberly, who'd just landed, and it was the first time I'd been able to talk to her all day. Like a native, I gave her instructions on how to reach the hotel by bus and taxi.

What I'm getting at is that after the way we were introduced to New York, it would have taken quite a vacation to make us love the city. Fortunately, New York was up to the challenge.

We went to the top of both the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center, we took a ferry to the Statue of Liberty and climbed to the top, we rented a bicycle carriage and peddled through Central Park, we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, we took a subway ride to Coney Island and rode some rides there, we took a bus ride through Harlem, we walked all over town and absorbed the rich, bustling, cosmopolitan atmosphere (heavily tinged with the thick yellow smog of a stifling August heat wave) and we attended an original cast performance of Stephen Sondheim's "Into the Woods", which I consider one of the two greatest musicals ever written.

Three years later, when we were doing our first performing tour on the East Coast, we drove by the city while traveling between gigs in New Jersey, and seeing the imposing skyline dominated by the twin towers made us realize that we really wanted to go back there someday. But it wasn't until two years ago that we even got close again. In the fall of 2000, we again had some time in the New Jersey suburbs, so we drove to Liberty Park and took a ferry to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. Zephyr was building a collection of Junior Ranger badges from the various national parks we'd attended, so he wanted to add those two. And we all wanted to go back up into the Statue of Liberty, which we did. It was still worth the two hour wait in line -- - especially now that no one may be able ever to do it again. Riding the ferry, we had a closer view of the skyline brooding in the fog, and we knew that we had to make plans to get back into the city really soon.

Then came September 2001, and... well we've already discussed that in another story. The bottom line is that New York was more magnificent than ever, even as it sadly struggled to crawl out of the chaos of blood and smoke.

This year, we finished our summer season in Middletown, New Jersey, a little town that lost 35 of its residents in the World Trade Center. We had about three weeks of idle time (a rarity for us these days) before starting our fall season of school performances, and having just concluded our busiest summer ever, we decided that this was the perfect time to reward ourselves with that visit to Broadway. And it just happened that at the Middletown Library, where we performed, I found half-price coupons for a number of shows. It wasn't hard to decide which one we wanted to see; it had to be "Les Miserables", which I consider the other of the two greatest musicals ever. Kimberly and I had seen the Broadway touring production in San Francisco in our pre-Zephyr days, but we really wanted him to see it too. Since the tickets were half-price, I splurged on orchestra seats (which I charged by phone) in the fifth row -- -the cost was about the same as we would have paid for nosebleed seats at regular price.

We were staying at a campground in New Jersey that was quite rural, despite being only 30 miles from the heart of New York. On the day of the show -- -we were going to a matinee -- -we drove to a nearby train station and rode into town (driving in Manhattan is one nightmare we've always managed to avoid) On the train, I overheard an interesting conversation between a young man who lived in New Jersey and worked in the city, and an older man who was a vacationing journalist from Ohio. Although it was a casual chat, the journalist was especially skilled at asking the right questions in the right way to encourage the younger man to talk about Sept. 11. He had been working in an office nearby, and as he evacuated the area on a ferry, he saw the first tower collapse.

We debarked at Penn Station, and then took a walk to the Empire State Building. Zephyr had wanted last year on his birthday to take a ride to the top of the World Trade Center, but we came a few days too late. So as a consolation, we went to the top of Empire State. And what a magnificent consolation it was. It was like studying a 3-D map of the city, and I was able to point out the various landmarks to Zephyr in one sprawling panorama. The traffic and other noises of the city blended into one harmonious hum at this height, mixed with the roaring of the wind that is always fierce up here, even on the most stifling of days down below. I have to admit that it was a bit jittery being up there and thinking about what happened the previous year, and it was a relief when we got back down to terra firma and only had to worry about purse-snatchers and high prices.

We'd thought about returning to Ground Zero and seeing how it looks one year later, but it was really too far to walk in the amount of time we had. So instead, we went to the Times Square Visitors Center to check our email on the free terminals they have available. We noticed a promotion being conducted by a bank that consists of taking photos of people, free of charge, and putting them on electronic billboards in Times Square, and we couldn't resist doing something so uniquely unique. A few minutes after having our photos taken, we stepped outside to see our faces, high above the street, fused into little cartoon stories -- -my own face was patched onto a baby's body in a maternity ward. It was quite a hoot. (These animated episodes, of course, alternated with commercials for the bank.)

We also observed that The Naked Cowboy, as he bills himself (he's not really naked, but pretty darn close) was still performing on his guitar in the middle of Times Square, patiently pausing every now and then to give directions to tourists who requested them. Hey, if a cowboy in his underwear doesn't know his way around town, who does? As long as he's still on duty, one can't help feeling that, as Browning put it, "God's in his heaven, and all's right with the world."

Then we went to the theatre to see the show. It was quite interesting to see this production up close after having seen it from the crow's nest perspective of the balcony in the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. Overall, we enjoyed the latter more; the wide-angle view seems better suited to such a sweeping spectacle. The cast in San Francisco was definitely stronger; this one was uneven and sometimes downright weak. Our favorite performer portrayed a minor character, a heavy drinker (an easy role to overdo) who had great stage presence and held his own vocally with solos in the ensemble pieces "Drink With Me" and "Red and Black". After the show when we were standing outside the theatre, we saw him leaving, so we made a point of shaking his hand and letting him know that we thought he stood out. He laughed and said graciously, "It's just because I was drunk."

Another thing we noticed is that, except among opera singers, vocal projection is a lost art; all the singers were miked. Not only that, but in Threnardier's song "The Dogs Eat the Dogs", which takes place in a cavernous sewer tunnel, a blatant reverb effect was added that sounded more Hollywood than Broadway.

But such negatives notwithstanding, I think the experience was worth every penny of the 150 bucks we spent on it. Someone once said that "Les Miz" is the shortest 3 hours you'll ever spend in a theatre, and I've certainly found that to be true. With no spoken dialogue -- -it easily qualifies as an opera -- -this masterpiece is curtain-to-curtain musical story, with every tune and lyric memorable. Composer Claude-Michael Schonberg did more than justice to Victor Hugo's watershed epic novel. In particular, the Act I finale (" One Day More" ), which weaves all the diverse strands of plot, character, theme, and musical and lyric motif previously presented into a rich, seamless tapestry, is a gem without equal. Weeks later, Zephyr is still singing and humming the songs from his first excursion to Broadway. (A few weeks later, we learned that "Les Miz" will close in March after a 16-year run on Broadway.)

To avoid the rush of commuters on the subway, we had dinner at an Italian restaurant, then we started walking back to Penn Station. But as we continued to see fire trucks headed in that direction, we began to become concerned. And it turns out that our concern was rather justified. The trucks had indeed stopped in front of Penn Station, and as we went inside, we found ourselves in a cloud of smoke, and the firemen were wrapping up their mission, which wasn't as bad as we'd feared. A train (with no passengers, apparently) had had an engine fire, and flooded the station with smoke. But due, no doubt, to an overly cautious mindset, station traffic was halted for about two hours until safety inspections had been conducted. By that time, the stranded commuters were thicker than a Bronx accent; and even when the trains did begin running again, there was a scramble to pack them, and we were unable to make it onto either of the first two going in our direction.

We finally returned to our campsite at about 10:30 that night, with another New York adventure under our belts. So far our visits to that city have been fraught with inconveniences consistently. But the rewards have always been well worth it. We look forward to returning.