My Times Square: A Big Apple Love Letter - Part 1

I spent a good deal of the last week of February in New York City—and I simply have to share it with you! Please come with me for a whirlwind tour of the Times Square I know and love. If you don't love New York's theater district already, I hope you will before the end of this two-part article.

I have been visiting midtown Manhattan and the Broadway theater district for a long time, and this time I went with tickets in hand to see In The Heights, The Little Mermaid, Sunday In the Park With George and Young Frankenstein. But first things first, gentle reader. Where does my true allegiance lie? With Chicago, of course. Not with the long-running revival now housed at the Ambassador Theater, but with the city itself.

I have lived in the Windy City for over twenty years, and deeply love it as my adopted hometown. There's no place like home. But let's face it, folks. This website is called "Broadwayworld.com." It isn't called "Loopworld.com," is it? I agree that our Second City and its world-renowned theater scene are justly deserving of even more acclaim from writers, theater professionals and audiences across the globe than we currently receive. But New York is New York. I mean, come on—it's New York!

Chicago is proud to be called the "Second City"—and we're not ranked behind Los Angeles, either. New York's top dog status is nowhere more true than in the theater. Plays and (especially) musicals are woven into the fabric of New York more so than any other city in the world, with the possible exception of far-away London. For readers of this article, you already know that New York holds a special place. So come with me! You will have to look elsewhere for reviews of the shows I saw, but let me share a little slice of last week's Big Apple pie with you. I truly hope you have a great time. I know I did.

Tuesday, February 26

Courtesy of the weather at O'Hare and a cancelled flight (sound familiar, Chicagoans?), my theater excursion got a later start than I had planned, and I flew into LaGuardia Airport pretty late in the evening. LaGuardia, by the way, is named after the same fellow who inspired the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning musical, "Fiorello!" The one-time mayor of New York gave half his name to an airport and the other half to a Broadway musical. I just love that! And his airport makes a perfect first stop for a theater trip to what residents call "the City."

The only problem was that I arrived at this always-under-construction airport too late to stop for a hot dog at the Brooklyn National booth in the lower level food court between LaGuardia's concourses C and D. Ah, well. The pleasures of a hot dog with no pickle wedge, celery salt or hot peppers falling out of the bun would have to wait. I needed rest for the rest of my journey.

So I hopped a cab and headed for the Hilton Hotel at 54^th Street and 6^th Avenue, at the exact northeastern corner of my definition of midtown Manhattan's theater district (from 6^th to 8^th Avenues, from 40^th to 54^th Streets). And for the first time, I came in contact with the new interactive computer screens in the backseat of New York's famous taxicabs. Besides the local news, weather and information you can view on a screen set into the back of every cab's front seat, they have planted some sort of GPS tracking device in every cab, and you can now follow your location on a zoomable touch screen map. Heaven! When does Chicago get those things?

We zoomed across the Triboro Bridge and into Manhattan pretty quickly, and I checked in, unpacked and got some sleep. Four shows in three days was the plan.

Wednesday, February 27

Young Frankenstein (matinee at the Hilton Theater) and The Little Mermaid (evening performance at the Lunt-Fontanne) were everything you have read about.  Whether or not you agree with the reviews you have seen, if you care about the musical theater you simply must see these shows. They will talked about for years—so go!

What I can tell you is that Mel Brooks himself was scheduled to sign copies of the Young Frankenstein original cast album compact disc in the lobby of the Hilton Theater after the performance I saw. The line to meet him sure looked long. I wish that someone would tell one of the young sellers of the cast album and other show memorabilia that she is not selling "the soundtrack" to Young Frankenstein, but in fact the original Broadway cast recording. Really, someone needs to tell her! How embarrassing to wonder why the late, great Madeline Kahn was replaced by this woman named Megan Mullaly, and Cloris Leachman by Andrea Martin. Where is Gene Wilder? Well, on the soundtrack to Young Frankenstein, one would expect to hear the older actors giving impassioned performances. On what they are selling at the theater? Well, that man where you expected to find Gene Wilder is named Roger Bart.

As for The Little Mermaid, the lady in question is a graduate of Milliken University in downstate Decatur, Illinois. Sierra Boggess is just one example of the connections between New York and the Chicago area that can be find all over the Times Square area—if you know where to look. I found several more, and lots of interesting topics, as I traversed Broadway (the actual street) and the nearly-parallel 7^th Avenue on Wednesday.

A sad example of Chicago's presence in New York is the fact that The Color Purple closed recently, produced by Oprah Winfrey, directed by Gary Griffin and originally co-starring Felicia P. Fields—all Chicago's very own. When I passed by the Broadway Theater, half of 53^rd Street was blocked off (in between the Broadway Theater and David Letterman's Ed Sullivan Theater, actually) for loading out of the The Color Purple's sets. Sad to see, really.

A happier example is the presence of Steppenwolf's cast and production of August: Osage County at the Imperial Theater on 45^th Street, usually the home of Broadway's biggest musicals. A strong favorite to win lots of Tonys in June, this show is something Chicagoans can really crow about in New York these days, as is Next Theater's Adding Machine, freshly transferred with its Chicago cast to the Minetta Lane Theater in lower Manhattan. Second City, indeed. 

Hotels and Stores

Over the years, I have stayed at many of the Times Square area's larger hotels, such as the Hilton, the Sheraton, the Marriott Marquis, the Crown Plaza, and (especially in my early days) the Milford Plaza and the Hotel Edison. You have to give these big hotels their due. Not only do they house flocks of tourists who keep Broadway shows running long after all the New Yorkers have seen them, but they are quite useful for bathroom breaks and weather escapes when traversing the theater district for long stretches. They also have gift shops with plenty of candy bars and soda pop, if you don't want to wait in line at the area's many Duane Reade drug stores. If you aren't quite sure you can look innocent at using the good graces of a hotel lobby when you are not a registered guest, try it some afternoon in a test run at the Palmer House or the Drake. Just walk in, do what you came to do, and move on. It can be done—trust me!

The other great thing about these hotels is this forty-five minute video loop playing on their in-room TV sets called "the Broadway Channel." Just a series of short commercials for the big (mostly new) shows in town, with clips, interviews and man-on-the-street reactions—I just love it. They should put it on the internet, if it's not there somewhere already.  I keep it on in the room and let it repeat. There is no better audio-visual wallpaper anywhere in the world!

As for the great shopping in midtown Manhattan, don't let 5^th Avenue's department stores sway you from your true mission. You belong in the Drama Book Shop between 7^th and 8^th Avenues on 40^th Street (now marking the southern end of the theater district after its move from 48^th and 7^th) and at Colony Music, the sheet music store located in the legendary Brill Building at 49^th and Broadway. The staff at these stores are marvelous—they know everything, they have worked there for years, they will sell you anything at all if it's in print and they can get it, and their heating and cooling systems work just fine, thank you.

Thank goodness for the Virgin Megastore, directly across Broadway and 7^th Avenue from the Marriott Marquis in the block between 45^th and 46^th streets. With the demise of Tower Records and HMV, it is the largest pure record store that I patronize in New York. Not to downplay the role of Borders and Barnes and Noble, but those really are just book stores which have made room for CDs and in-store appearances in their floor plans and marketing strategies. In my personal opinion, Virgin is still the real deal. 

And of course, Times Square is dotted with what I call "trinket stores," those little shops with show memorabilia like magnets, t-shirts and posters, some more theater-oriented than others. You will find your favorite, and the odds are that they will be there when you return the next year. A couple of them seem to be owned by the same people, and the employees all know each other and cover for one another on bathroom and meal breaks. Quite a little commercial fraternity, if you ask me. And why not, I say?

Restaurants

Why eat at those expensive and crowded touristy-type restaurants (the ones with the chartered buses pulling up outside) when you can eat at a Ray's Pizza or a Tad's Steaks? Or one of the diners or delis, all eager to serve you enormous portions of sandwiches and cheesecake? (Seriously, the portions are usually even larger than the pricetag at these places. They all say, "New York, baby," to me!)

Alas, the ancient Howard Johnson's restaurant at Broadway and 46^th is gone now. (It wasn't a hotel/motel, it was just a HoJo diner.) It is making room for something. We don't yet know what, as it is just a hole in the ground. And at the other end of the same block, at 46^th and 8^th, McHale's bar and restaurant is gone, too. The skyscraper there is almost finished. I am sure I will love it, but a little bit of the Broadway that Bob Fosse and Jerome Robbins knew is now gone. Ah, well.

Come to think of it, there are no more Roy Rogers roast beef restaurants left that I can find, either. There used to be one next to the entrance of the Minskoff Theater, and then later there was one across from the Broadway Theater. And of course, the legendary Mamma Leone's has been gone for years—first from its old mansion on 48^th Street, and then from its perch on 44^th Street next to The Phantom of the Opera—I mean, the Majestic Theater. The Milford Plaza now uses part of that space for luggage storage. Why doesn't some fabulous new restaurant go in there? You heard it here first.

Random Thoughts from Wednesday

Why isn't the TKTS booth in Duffy Square finished yet? How long has it been temporarily relocated to the side of the Marriott Marquis Hotel? And I have no idea why 47^th Street east of 7^th Avenue is New York's diamond district, its answer to Wabash Avenue. And yet, there it is.

Thank God for Chicago's system of alleys. How New Yorkers can put up with piles of garbage sitting on the sidewalks, waiting for the overnight garbage trucks, is beyond me. I think they invented those hot pretzel carts just to cover the garbage smell! Gotta love those pretzel carts.

There sure are a lot of TV studios in this area. Oh, wait, the TV industry is here because it's where the theater industry is. The same holds true for the recording industry. But the talk of the town is the theater marquees and billboards advertising shows not yet open. Gypsy, South Pacific, Cry-Baby and A Catered Affair are all set to open soon. Create that buzz anyway you can!

There is nothing in the world like the feeling of seeing Times Square for the first time. The whole city suddenly opens up with this extra-wide feeling—there is more air, more light, more freedom, more excitement, more ability to run and jump and catch a falling star. Looking down Broadway, down 7^th, down 46^th or 42^nd, it fills me with oxygen and lightness of being every single time. It may not be the "Crossroads of the World" anymore, but I don't know anywhere like it. To quote from the theme song to TV's Green Acres, as declaimed by the voice of Eva Gabor:  "Times Square!"

COMING IN PART 2: The Side Streets