Thursday, April 28, 2011

Fun in New York City

Of course working in New York City means I got to play in New York City.
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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Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Brockport Alumni, part 1 of many

Current projects have kept my away from my blog for a while, but fear not as I still have a great deal to write here.
Recently we had four successful alumni from the 1970’s come back and give a talk about their work in Hollywood.
These guys were students at Brockport before my time but after 29 years of teaching I will of course run into some of my former students from time to time.

Stu Krieger ’73, William Fichtner ’78,  Paul Pape ’74, and Jesse Goins ’74
http://www.brockport.edu/newsbureau/1597.html

I was working with my student the next day when two of the alumni stopped to walk around the theatre a bit more.
We talked about what was going on at the college today and I was able to show them a few posters I had from their days here at Brockport.
My favorite part of the visit was when asked to take a photo with me, just like you see when somebody runs into a famous person on the street.

Most times it is not an arrange visit like Friday’s but just an unannounced surprise.
Just this semester I have seen and half a dozen alumni, a couple each from the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s.

Recently I ran into a guy from almost twenty years ago in Wal-Mart with his two kids.
He had taken my stagecraft class, I think he was an Art major, and went on to have several different professions but after being a general carpenter and now is building guitars.
He said he learned the basics back in my stagecraft class and when he was looking for a new career path the skills he had learned in my class helped him choose his new path.
I know that I do not turn out master carpenters from my class, but it was nice to hear that he felt what he did learn helped him transition to his new career.

Of course many students graduate (or drop out) and I never see or hear from again but I am always surprised by how many I do hear from.
The alumni always seem to appear in groupings over the year: around Christmas time or during the summer when they are vacationing and just happen to stop by.
Some do make special trips just to see what has happened since they left.
Many have come by recently because we have gone through a major building renovation and they want to see the changes.

A few years ago we did have an alumni come back and he performed his one man show and talked with a group of current students about working in NYC for the past twenty five years.
I will have pleanty more stories about my former students in the comming blogs.

My current project is Wait Until Dark a play we did here as part of our summer season over twenty years ago.


I will be returning back to the re-telling of my days working in NYC next and how it was that I came to work in Brockport.