Missed Opportunity

When I left the apartment this morning I walked past some construction equipment on Broadway in front of the Ed Sullivan Theater. I remember saying to Andrew "it looks like they are doing something stupid on Letterman today".

The parking in my neighborhood is limited on the best of days. When the "Late Show" does something outside their theater/studio they usually eat up some of the available parking. They also usually block traffic on 53rd street, which is my route to and from the grocery store. It is just what happens in The Big City, and we get used to it. That doesn't mean we like it. Part of the attraction of The Big City to tourists is that they get to visit places that appear on television and in the movies. The prevailing thought among policy makers is that all of this disruption is good for the city's economy.

There is some debate as to how much economic impact film and television production has on New York City. Where there can be no debate however is the impact the Letterman show has on my nap time. If I try to take a snooze between 4:30 and 6:00 pm I run the risk of disrupted sleep. Usually the disruption is Letterman's interns warming up the studio audience while they are still standing on the sidewalk waiting to get into the theater. Occasionally it is crowd noise from the exterior activity.

Usually, when Letterman's show is doing one of these exterior shots it is so they can drop pumpkins off the roof of the building, or build a swimming pool on 53rd St. for synchronized swimming. I personally find this stuff amusing, unless it interrupts my life in some way. Today I was amused as I had already found a parking spot the previous evening. At about 8:00 AM this morning Andrew and I loaded his luggage into the Trailblazer. We then carried out of the apartment and loaded into the Trailblazer a computer desk I bought at IKEA in 2002, but have not yet assembled. While doing this I noticed the work being done to the marquee of the theater. I also noticed wires were being strung up crossing Broadway. There were a couple of scissor lifts being used and the parking spots on Broadway had the orange cones in place.

I was curious, but I was also in a hurry. Andrew needed to get to JFK to catch an airplane to South Africa, where he is going to school for the next five months. Normally I would have walked over to the workers and asked "what's Letterman doing now?". But the plane was due to leave at 11:30 and I had no idea how much traffic we were facing at the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. This is what distinguishes me as a responsible adult. It is my ability to suppress my need to know everything in order to help someone get to the airport. Sure, I could have put Andrew in a cab and said, hey, have a good trip. But no. That's not the kind of guy I am. I told Andrew's Aunt Sue and Uncle Greg I would take Andrew to the airport and see him off, and that's exactly what was going to happen.

So, Andrew and I went to the airport. We spent about 30 minutes on Second Avenue waiting to get into the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, which is about par for that time of day. Otherwise, the drive was uneventful. We arrived at Terminal 4 with plenty of time to spare. I saw Andrew walk through the security screening. (I assumed it was him. It was a tall, white teenager. From that distance, at my age, they all look the same). I then bought my overpriced banana nut muffin and headed for New Jersey. There I needed to pay Frank, the superintendent of the building where Pumpkin owns an apartment, for some repairs he is doing. I also needed to pick up a couple of bookcases the new tenant didn't want in the apartment.

With the Trailblazer now fully loaded I drove back to Rochester, where I had been most recently at 1:00 PM the previous day.

So, here is the timeline. I leave Rochester with Andrew and his luggage on Tuesday (yesterday) at 1:00 PM. We arrive at the apartment at 7:30 PM. We walk through Times Square and get dinner at Yoshinoya. (I don't recommend Yoshinoya. I go there because it is convenient, cheap for the neighborhood, and the food is reasonably healthy. The downside is that there are often panhandlers working the patrons).

Andrew and I walked back to the apartment, checked our email and that was it for the day.

That brings us to the activity on Broadway at 8:00 AM.

I had the option of staying in the city today and returning to Rochester tomorrow. That would have given me a chance to visit some friends. Unfortunately, I have an appointment with an auditor at the fire department tomorrow, so I returned to Rochester today. If I had stayed in the city today I would have discovered that Paul McCartney was playing on top of the theater's Marquee this afternoon. As it is, I watched the show on TV.

I'm not a huge fan of Paul McCartney. Still, it would have been cool to have seen him performing outside my front door.

When I speak to the auditor tomorrow I will be certain to let him know how happy I am to be there.