It was roughly a two-block walk from Cassie’s brownstone apartment to the Carroll Street subway station where we took the ‘F’ train into Manhattan. My first experience on a NYC subway train was far different than when I rode the L-Train in Chicago. We were underground during our entire ride into Manhattan; we stayed above ground in Chi-town.
When my photographer put together our agenda several months before the trip, he figured we would need lunch as soon as we arrived by subway into Manhattan. As an avid Seinfeld fan, Tom thought there would be no better place to kickoff our experience in NYC than to buy soup from the ‘Soup Nazi’ and eat the soup in Central Park. The closest ‘F’ train stop to our destination was at 48th Street and 6th Avenue near Rockefeller Center, which meant my photographer and his wife had a seven-block walk to the Original Soup Man takeout counter on 55th Street. From the comfort inside my camera bag, I thought it seemed to take a while to hike the seven blocks; even though there isn’t much distance in-between streets.
It was 1:25pm when we arrived at the Original Soup Man, which was a very small open-air counter that was sandwiched between two restaurants – one was Italian and the other Thai. That soup stand, originally owned by Persian soup vendor Ali “Al” Yeganah, was the inspiration behind “The Soup Nazi” episode of Seinfeld that first aired during the show’s seventh season on November 2, 1995. I had to laugh when I snuck a peek out of the camera case and saw the shoeprints painted on the pavement in front of the counter. There were four sets of prints; beginning at the ordering area and ending at the pickup and payment area. It was funny to me as Tom mimicked the characters on Seinfeld with the way he ordered his potato with bacon soup; always conscious not to anger the “Soup Nazi” behind the counter. After all, my photographer was hungry and the last thing he wanted to hear was “No soup for you!”
Once Tom and Vicki’s hunger pains were subsided by the potato with bacon soup, the three of us began a 13-block walk along the west side of Central Park until we arrived at a famous apartment building known as The Dakota. Built in 1881, The Dakota has been home to many rich and creative people including Judy Garland, Boris Karloff, and Gilda Radner. But the most creative of them all moved into The Dakota in 1973 – former Beatle John Lennon, along with his wife Yoko Ono. When we arrived at the beautiful and historic building, my photographer (wearing a Beatles tee shirt) wanted his picture taken to resemble a photo that Lennon had posed for just two weeks before he was killed. After we crossed Central Park West and walked alongside The Dakota, we came to the entrance of the building where on December 8, 1980 John Lennon had autographed a record album for Mark David Chapman as the singer was headed to the recording studio. Five hours later, as Chapman waited in the dark shadows, Lennon and Ono returned from the studio and walked towards the entrance archway. Five shots rang out from Chapman’s Charter Arms .38 Special – four bullets hit home. Seventeen minutes later, after police officers rushed the wounded singer to Roosevelt Hospital in their squad car, John Lennon was pronounced dead on arrival.
For my photographer, standing at the entrance to The Dakota was exactly like standing on the ‘X’ in the middle of Elm Street in Dallas’ Dealey Plaza. I heard Tom say to his wife: “I was only seven when Kennedy was assassinated and don’t remember where I was when I heard the news. I can remember exactly where I was when John Lennon was murdered – watching Monday Night Football in our living room when Howard Cosell announced the shooting and Lennon’s death.”
The first hour or so of our time in Manhattan had put my photographer through a gamut of emotions; from laughter and fun with the Soup Nazi to deep sadness at the Dakota. The Beatles were a huge part of his childhood in the ’60s and Tom had always held out hope that one day the Fab Four would reunite for one tour. But on December 8, 1980, a low-life scum-bag piece of crap name Mark David Chapman ended that hope. For a lot of rock and roll fans, that fateful night was the second-coming of ‘The Day the Music Died.”
With me in the camera bag, my photographer and his wife walked into Central Park directly across the street from The Dakota. Located a short distance into the park, the two of them found a peaceful area called Strawberry Fields; which was a beautifully landscaped memorial to John Lennon. In the center of Strawberry Fields, embedded into the pathway, was an impressive circular mosaic that contained one word – ‘Imagine’.
Over three-and-a-half decades had eclipsed since the death of John Lennon and for some, like my photographer, it still seemed like Yesterday – all his troubles seemed so far away; now it looked as though they’re here to stay; Oh, he believed in yesterday. Tom found it terribly sad and ironic that John Lennon wrote, sang and demonstrated for peace and love; and a madman with hatred in his heart and a gun in his hand snuffed-out that optimism like an old cigarette butt. As we stood alongside the Imagine mosaic, I heard my photographer mutter out loud: “Bernie and Elton summed it up the best – ‘It’s funny how one insect can damage so much grain.'”
From Strawberry Fields we crossed Central Park, which was one-half-mile wide, via the paved walkways that wound through the scenic 843-acre park. The shade of the trees was a relief as the mid-day temperature hit 95 degrees. My photographer and his wife found Central Park to be a good escape from the thousands of people that clogged the concrete jungle of New York City.
Out of the park and back into that jungle, we had about a six-block walk to our first Presidential site in Manhattan, The Roosevelt House, that was located on East 65th Street. When we arrived at the historic home of our 32nd President Franklin D. Roosevelt, it reminded me of the place that we were staying in Brooklyn. But then again, it seemed that most of the houses in NYC looked like that. In 1907, Sara Roosevelt (the President’s mother) bought side-by-side townhouses and immediately had them demolished. She had an architect rebuild them into two new townhomes that were hidden behind one façade where the original structure once stood. In 1908, Sara gave one of the townhouses to Franklin and Eleanor as a wedding gift, while she lived next door. In 1921, when FDR became paralyzed by polio on Campobello Island, he was taken to that townhouse where he stayed in a 3rd floor bedroom. After I posed for a handful of photos alongside the exterior of the historic structure, I was carried inside – only to be somewhat disappointed by what we found. We were not allowed to visit the President’s third-floor bedroom; plus the other areas of the building did not contain any authentic furnishings. At one point I stood on a fireplace mantel, which was original to the home when FDR lived there; and I also stood on the spiral staircase that led to the floors above. Those two areas, which were both original to the home, were the only highlights for me inside the Roosevelt House.
When we left the home of our 32nd President, it was roughly an eight-block walk to the home of another President. I was anxious to get to the next house as it was the home of the current President – Donald J. Trump. I had visited numerous Presidential homes in the past four years, but Trump Tower was a site to behold. Trump’s home was much more than just a Presidential house; it was a 58-floor, 664-foot-tall skyscraper and it likely could’ve held most of the other 43 President’s homes collectively inside it.
My photographer stood on the opposite side of Fifth Avenue to capture an image of me with Trump Tower, but the shear height of the building made that task very difficult. Even though Donald Trump had been living at the White House for the past six months, security was very thick around the front entrance. Not only were there concrete barricades situated in the street, armed members of the Secret Service patrolled in front of the building as well. After I had posed for a photo beneath the large gold lettering that spelled out the building’s name, the three of us walked through the doors and were immediately subjected to an airport-type security screening. My cameraman had to explain to the Secret Service the reason he had a bobble head inside the camera case, which once again didn’t raise any concerns. I had to laugh to myself when Tom asked one of the younger Secret Service members if he would hold me for a photo; not surprisingly his request was quickly denied.
I was carried throughout the bottom four floors of Trump Tower, which were the only floors that were accessible to the general public. We found a very cool 60-foot waterfall that cascaded down an ornate marble wall; while across the atrium we found the Trump Store where we saw hundreds of Presidential souvenirs. My photographer and his wife took the escalator to the fourth floor and found an exit that took us outdoors and into the afternoon heat. While there was seating and tables for visitors to relax; there were also some trees and other greenery that made it seem like a park setting. From that outdoor location I was finally able to pose with the top floors of Trump Tower behind me; which was exciting because that was Donald Trump’s actual residence – before he moved into the White House, that is.
It was almost 5:00pm when we walked out of Trump Tower. We had visited two consecutive Presidential homes and we were headed for the third – the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel where President Herbert Hoover had lived for the last 20 years of his life. It didn’t take too long for my photographer and his wife to make the six-block walk to the 47-story luxury hotel. When the Waldorf was built in 1931, it was the tallest hotel in the world at 625-feet high. After he left the White House in early 1933, Herbert Hoover and his wife Lou Henry moved into a suite on the 35th floor; while at the same time the couple also had a place in Palo Alto, California. After Lou Henry’s death in 1944, the former President lived permanently in the Waldorf suite until his death at 11:35am on October 20, 1964 at the age of 90. I posed for a handful of exterior photos with the historic Waldorf-Astoria Hotel as a backdrop; and like Trump Tower, the entire hotel was too tall to fit into the picture. It was extremely disappointing to me when we discovered the Waldorf-Astoria was closed for renovations; which meant I couldn’t see any of the interior. Visiting the lobby was important to me because every President since Hoover had either lived or stayed at the Waldorf; although Jimmy Carter said he never stayed over night. Jimmy was such a good ol’ Southern boy! In 1957, Senator John Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline attended the April in Paris Ball in the hotel; that ball was also attended by actress Marilyn Monroe. JFK was NOT a good ol’ Southern boy!
It had been a long day for my photographer and his wife; and the intense heat had not helped the cause. At about 5:30pm the pair headed back towards Rockefeller Center, which was located roughly three-blocks to the west, where they had planned on catching the subway train back to Brooklyn. On their way to the subway station, Tom and Vicki cut through Rockefeller Center where they saw the Prometheus statue that was situated at the western edge of the sunken plaza. The bronze gilded statue Prometheus stood 18-feet high and has been a landmark in the plaza since 1934.
We spent about ten minutes walking around the sunken plaza of Rockefeller Center before we made our way to the subway station. Vicki was the master of the underground ticket kiosk that got us back on the ‘F’ train and headed to Brooklyn. We made the 20-minute journey back to the Carroll Street Station where we debarked the subway and began our two-block walk to Sackett Street. On the walk along Smith Street, my photographer’s wife wanted to stop at an Italian diner that she and Tom had eaten at in 2008; the place was called Vinny’s and they served excellent homemade food. Even though my photographer has never been an Italian food lover, he did enjoy the home-cooked spaghetti at Vinny’s.
As tired as my two travel companions were, they wanted to wind-down with a couple of beers at a place called Angry Wade’s; a quaint sports bar that featured a variety of drinks and free popcorn. It was 7:45pm when the three of us finally arrived back at Cassie’s brownstone for the night. I was placed on top of a wall shelf that was near the bed; that shelf gave me a great look out of the window. Usually I think about Presidential sites throughout the night; but on that particular night, my focus was solely on the ‘Late Night with Seth Meyers’ show that my photographer and his wife had tickets to see the next afternoon. I knew that Tom was taking me into Manhattan because one of our early stops in the morning was scheduled to be at Grant’s Tomb, but I wasn’t sure if the security at NBC Studios would allow me inside for the taping or not. During the entire night I envisioned me standing on Seth Meyers’ desk while the late-night host interviewed my photographer about our Presidential travels. I thought to myself as I stood near Seth’s microphone – “Rick Bieth was right. It’s not Good Morning America, but it’s a start.” Then I awoke and came to my senses.
