An evening in New York with Spyro Gyra

What to do in Manhattan on a summer's evening

This morning my Spotify Discovery Weekly featured a song Can’t Find My Way Home from the 2019 Spinal Tap album by Spyro Gyra.

This took my mind back to my second trip to New York, in the summer of 1995. I was on my way to Ithaca, to visit a supplier, and given that I had to catch a couple of local flights to get there from NYC, made sure I had a weekend for another visit to Manhattan. No Gypsy cabs this time.

I had caught a yellow cab that took me downtown to the waterfront. “Where are you from, you sound like an Australian.”

“Hell no! I’m from New Zealand.”

“Oh, All Blacks. I hear they are pretty tough. You’re a long way from home.”

I watched street entertainers, skaters, and all manner of people enjoying the weekend in the hot sun on the boardwalk in Battery Park, wondering what to do next.

I caught the ferry to Staten Island, just for something to do, which got me close to the Statue of Liberty. I wish I had actually done that trip instead, but she was still impressive.

When the ferry arrived, I didn’t know what to do next. It was early afternoon, so I hopped off, so I could say I had been there, and hopped back on again.

I don’t know why I didn’t take more photos, I guess I was just soaking it in. It would have been different today, with my iPhone. I would have been posting my Facebook story with pics and videos. I didn’t even have my first Palm Pilot yet!

I started walking back to my hotel, the Manhattan at Times Square. It was hot, very hot. I was in a microwave oven with the heat coming at me from above, bouncing off the brownstones, and radiating up from the sidewalk.

I didn’t know exactly where I was, and wasn’t in a hurry, except that I was getting sweaty and my thighs felt like they were going to start chafing.

I came upon a market and realised I was in Chinatown. It was all a hustle and bustle.

A vendor was chasing crabs back to his stall with some kind of brush. I didn’t know whether he was making a show of the fact that they were alive and therefore fresh, or if some prankster had set them free. They were quick, probably also trying to escape the hot road.

I came across a stall selling fake Rolex’s and I had to buy a few, for myself, and some for my friends back home. They all worked well, although the second hands stopped with each tick and tock, wheras the real ones, like the one my boss, Nico, sometimes wore, seemed to just glide.

I must digress as I do sometimes. When I showed it to my colleagues back home, we hatched up a plan. Sometimes Nico would leave his watch on his desk in his corner office. Don’t ask me why. It’s not like anyone would pinch it. He was like family to us.

One morning it was lying on his desk and we swapped it for the fake one. The strap looked the same, the weight was similar and he never noticed. I waited all day for a bellow. His office was only 2 doors from mine.

I was cracking up but trying to look serious, when I went into his office the next morning, asking if he could spare five minutes for me. “Luiiiigiiii. What’s up mate?”

I told him what I had done, gave him his watch back, and got some sort of wise-arse comment back from him, like “Small things amuse small minds.” and we laughed.

Those fake watches kept pretty good time and kept working for years.

Back in New York, I continued the long walk back to the hotel, at least it seemed long, because of the heat. I stopped and looked in the door at the Madison Square Garden Box Office and sneaked a look into the theatre. The box office itself looked pretty ordinary, but the venue is of course legendary.

By the time I got my weary way to Times Square, I knew I was getting close to my Hotel. I didn’t linger, I had been there a few times already. Got to my hotel, collected my key and zoomed up to my room on the 38th floor, getting an electric shock from the static energy generated as it rushed up to my level when I brushed past the door.

What to do that night? I was on my own and decided to look at the entertainment guide. There was nothing big close by and I had been scared off from going into Harlem on my previous trip, not wanting to get mugged. I knew now that I was not streetwise, after little experiences on my first visit. You don’t just say gidday to people standing in doorways looking to sell drugs, women, or “What do you need?”

There was nothing on Broadway that got me interested. There was a dinner and show venue which the previous night had featured Jose Feliciano, and tonight they had Spyro Gyra. I loved jazz and didn’t get to see much in New Zealand. So off I went.

You might remember Morning Dance, which was on an album I had back home. I ate alone, surrounded by a mix of people, from well-dressed out for a special occasion, to people in jeans, just another Saturday night. I was probably somewhere in between and a little sad that there was nobody with me to enjoy the gig.

The band was great, and chill. They were having a good time with the appreciative audience of maybe 80 people, who frequently called out a “right on”, or “Yeah!” I’m not sure if they ever came to New Zealand, but if they did, they would have filled the Auckland Town Hall, and here I was maybe 20 feet from the stage, enjoying an MGD after my meal.

Walking back to my hotel again, I thought about how cool it would be to live in a city that had more good shows and concerts over a weekend than we had in New Zealand in a year.

The following night I went to a show on Broadway, but that’s for another post. In between I stayed up watching rubbish on TV, waiting for 2 am so I could call home and say hi to my family.

#NYC #Spyrogyra #Jazz #Manhattan