With my commute taking almost two hours each way I often got home after 8pm so if I wanted to anything; have a drink or go to a store I would stay in the city and do it before I went home.
I did use the long train rides to catch up on books I had wanted to read, but more often than not the time was used to catch up on sleep.
Some nights I would have a drink and something to eat with my brother and other co-workers at a great old bar just a half of block from work on 18th Street; Old Town Bar.
The bar used to be featured on the opening of the David Lettermen show back when it was on NBC in the 1980’s.
A few times I got to go to another classic bar, McSorley’s Ale House just 10 blocks further south in Greenwich Village.
I went there a few times and remember one time meeting up with friends from college for a great reunion and maybe one or two ales too many, but a still a good time.
It was a men’s only bar until 1970 and does not serve beer, wine or mixed drinks; just ale, light or dark.
Also it had great food; big sandwiches with classic stone ground mustard.
There was always plenty to see and do in the area around work and I would often come back late from lunch, but never got caught.
If my boss was looking for me I could always tell him I was working on the other floor or out buying paint.
One time I was having so much fun looking around the Strand Bookstore that I was over an hour late getting back from lunch.
The Strand is a huge used bookstore with several floors of interesting books and is still going strong.
Of course many of the places I used to frequent have closed or changed in the past 30 years, but with Old Town and McSorley’s, both with over one hundreds year in business, some things go on and on and look the same as when I was there.
We had a tradition of going to the Lone Star Café for drinks anytime someone was leaving the Photo Studio.
Great chili and music, but it has been closed for twenty years now.
There were always many distractions and places to see in NYC.
If I had time I would walk to Penn Station just to see what there was to see along the way.
Sometimes I would go a few blocks North of Penn Station to Macy’s and Gimble’s and many other little shops and restaurants of all descriptions.
One day I took a subway up to Rockefeller Center to see the Big Christmas Tree and ran into several friends from College, one from Buffalo and one from Michigan.
It seemed that I would see someone I knew at least twice a month.
One day while coming down an escalator at Macy’s I saw a girl that I knew went to Buffalo.
As I rode down I realized that I did recognized her from several years of seeing her walking around the Buffalo campus, but I had never meet her and thought it would be too weird to go up to her so I just kept walking by.
A few times I would run into famous people on the street.
One day as I was coming around the corner of a building near Union Square I literally ran into Andy Warhol.
He was a kind of creepy looking guy with a very odd looking entourage following close behind.
There were a few other famous faces here and there, but I usually did not care, and like other New Yorkers I just would walk on by and maybe sneak a look.
I had not given up on Theatre and would go back into the city on the weekends to see some Broadway shows.
Of course I got a call for a Theatre job soon after I had started working at the Photo Studio.
It was odd because I had never sent the theatre a copy of my resume.
I never found out how they got my name, but I had committed to working at the Studio for a little while and wanted to save a little money before I dove back into the Theatre world.
But as always things change and plans are adjusted.
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