More Liberties in New York

Today I cannot remember on which New York liberty we covered certain events and sights, but I do recall the events themselves. One of the earliest was the boat trip around Manhattan Island, taking an hour, I think, while we heard about the sights we could see from the boat. When we’d bought our tickets, we met the first crude, rude, cranky New Yorker, perhaps the only one in the city. We met no others like that.

One event was an interesting evening at Toffinetti’s on Times Square. I don’t know if the restaurant still exists, but at that time it flourished. We stepped into the place, got into the fast-moving line, and saw two levels. A set of stairs—an escalator, I think—led to the lower dining room into which we had a wide view. Just a few steps led to the upper level. There were three of us, and if my memory serves me right, a man stood at the top of the escalator steps and held up three fingers as a signal to someone at the bottom of the escalator, who then went to locate a place for three. When he returned and we descended, he asked if we would mind being seated in a booth with another diner. We did not mind. This was New York. We’d got used to sharing a taxi with strangers, so why not a booth? The other person was a good-looking, family-type man, forty-to-fifty, but without his family. We all said hello but waited for him to speak to us, before we said anything to him. He did speak, right away. He asked such questions as where we were from and where we were stationed. Someone out there is going to think this darling man paid for our dinners. No, he did not. He finished before we did and excused himself. We were glad we didn’t have to turn him down on paying for our meals. Why should anyone expect him to? We had our fifteen cents and more. And he might have been short of money. It can happen to the best of us.

One day we dropped in at the New York Stock Exchange to sit and watch the ticker tape awhile, just as if we had stock to watch. That’s what the other drop-ins did, so we followed their routine. They showed no emotion over losses or gains, so we were good little copycats about ours.

At Radio City Music Hall in Rockefeller Center we saw the whole program, which took a while. It offered a hit movie, acrobats, music, and the world famous Rockettes and repeated itself around the clock, yes, 24 hours of it. During the Christmas season, the tall Rockettes have performed five shows a day, seven days a week, for 77 years, with over two million viewers per year. Perhaps their best-known routine is an eye-high leg kick in perfect unison in a chorus line, which they include at the end of every performance. This was really something to see.

Today a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters brought a change in tempo, but I don’t recall it as an art museum then. I won’t go into detail here, but you can read about The Cloisters on the Internet. Then we visited the MMA itself. Besides the wonderful exhibits on display there, the guards following us from room to room intrigued us. Did we look like thieves or vandals in our smart navy blues and white gloves? Those silent, older men must have been just flirting with us.

Some of you might be wondering if we Waves ever had any dates while in New York. Not during boot training, for there was no time for dating and no way to meet guys. Our little trio didn’t think just meeting a cute guy on the street—or on the stairs of the Statue of Liberty—was a good enough basis for accepting a date in two minutes’ time. In Specialist School, we did have a few dates, but we had agreed earlier that at least three of us would always stay together. And we did meet three sailors in their own group. We had dinner with them (none of us drank), conversed, and did a bit of walking, looking at various places of interest, and the date was over. We had a good time and that was it. I don’t remember any of their names.

Of course, we took a walk in Central Park, even saw a bit of Harlem, and rode some vehicle under the Hudson River, a subway perhaps. But it was always good to get back to barracks, where we crashed. To be continued.

♥