Trix & Jack's Fabulous NYC Adventure: Times Square To Wall Street

After a packed day on Thursday, December 29 with Trix & Jack visiting New York for New Year's from Virginia—where we ventured on foot from Brooklyn Heights to DUMBO, across the Brooklyn Bridge, along Canal Street, up Broadway to St. Mark's Place—Friday's outing comprised one of those citywide step-on step-off bus tours, customized with our own fab & festive stops along the way.

The journey began in Times Square—Jack's first glimpse of "the center of the world." After a walk around the hood, including ABC's Good Morning America studios, we trumped the tourists with a clandestine excursion into the Marriott Marquis for some stunning (free) views of the madness & mayhem below... because, you know, "The answer is yes until someone says no."

We three teemed around the eighth floor lobby, up to floors in the 30s and 40s and discovered some amazing vistas below, as ABC and CNN set up their massive stages for New Year's coverage, even pausing for a relaxing sit-down along the massive windows, providing some of the best possible views of Times Square.
Once on the bus, we passed Macy's and heard some coolio history of North America's largest department store from our guide Vernell: A dozen dogs are let loose at night to sniff out opportunists who think they might spend the night in the store; as well as strategically placed cameras capable of following would-be shoplifters up to two blocks from the store. So now you know better...
We then ventured east to the Empire State Building, where we discovered our City Sights NY tour had more or less duped us: While our passes included tix to the observation deck, no one let on that the wait could entail a three-and-a-half hour wait. Boo!

We continued on our way, stopping through the mind blowing Eataly emporium, visited the Flatiron Building—which had a festive public arts display where a woman sat within view and hand-painted white cups, which were hung all along the corner of the iconic building—and Madison Square Park... and then stopped for lunch at the trusty Hollywood Diner in Chelsea (I learned from Jack this trip that 16 year olds are famished every 3 hours and need full refueling).

Back on the bus headed downtown—when Trix & I lost Jack for a good 30 minutes to a post-lunch coma—as we motored through the West Village and onward to our next major destination: Wall Street and the Statue of Liberty! Below, more scenes from the city on Friday... *

Broadway's 'Addams Family': A Mystifying Mess

Familiar concept, check! Star power, check! Clever set design, check! Plot, catchy songs, theme... aw, who cares... I've seen some stinker Broadway shows in my day, but nothing prepared me for the random mess of The Addams Family, promoted as "uproarious." I'd say outrage is more like it.

No need to belabor the point, since the show is closing at year-end 2011 after a one-year run, but did the book writers really believe audiences wouldn't see through a plot as wispy as a spider web, and a score so unmemorable that every musical number is more like spending time with the Manson family rather than the Addams?

Perhaps original leads Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth were so dazzling in the production's launch that The Addams Family was able to run on automatic pilot for a year... Brooke Shields—now handling the Morticia lead—is apt stunt casting: She certainly looks the part and who knew she possesses such a robust alto singing voice? British Tony winner Roger Rees as Gomez is relatively unknown in the States, and didn't add much to the role... Simply, Shields is not enough to save two-and-a-half hours of scary nothingness.

Truly, the biggest waste of time is a random collection of bizarre sub-plots that quickly unravel the entire production. The show turns out to have no particular point, no lesson learned. My date Suzanne and I were looking at one another with a big "WTF?" halfway through the first act, dreading the fact that we had another hour to endure. Addams Family was scary, all right. Boo, indeed.

'Follies' On Broadway: Old-School Razzle-Dazzle Grandeur

Considering that I typically see one Broadway show a year, 2011 has been a real banner. We're up to two! In April, I saw Sister Act with buddy Mae Moose and Wednesday evening, Leo took me to see Follies.

The revival stars fave Bernadette Peters, whom I adore for the fact that she and Mary Tyler Moore host annual animal rescue event Broadway Barks—where Ayhan and I ultimately found our dearly departed Maltese Kirby. Also featured is Elaine Paige, whose duet with Barbara Dickson, "I Know Him So Well" from Chess, was my No. 8 hit of 1985.

The show, originally staged in 1971, has all the razzle-dazzle grandeur of a true Broadway extravaganza, with ornate costumes, some hands-wringing musical numbers (Stephen Sondheim) and enough drama to rattle the house.

The real find is co-lead Jan Maxwell in the role of Phyllis. The twice Tony-nominated actress' previous roles include The Sound of Music (as the Baroness), City Of Angels and The Royal Family. She puts the "d" in diva, for sure. Broadway vet Danny Burstein (Women On the Verge..., South Pacific) as Buddy also deserves an ovation as Follies' consummate showman, singing some of the most complicated and impressive Sondheim numbers in the production.

Unfortunately, Peters was ultimately a disappointment. Whether fatigued or simply not connecting with the role, she appeared distracted and did little justice to the supposedly show-stopping number "Losing My Mind." That was surprising... thankfully, her fellow cast members not only made up for her tepid performance, but trounced it.

Follies is not a giddy show: It deals with discontentment, regretting life choices and how it pretty much sucks to get older. But you might as well be entertained while your soul is smacked around. Good night!

NYC Vintage Image: Fast Food's Birth At Horn & Hardart Automat

The Horn & Hardart Automat that thrived in Times Square from 1912 to 1991 is among the most beloved relics of vintage New York City. The food services company was founded in Philadelphia in 1888 and opened the first automat in the nation in Philly in 1902. When the German-born concept came to NYC in July 1912—opening in Times Square and Union Square the same week—it ushered in the original era of fast food.

The automat was remarkably simple: Instead of waiting for waitresses to take an order and drop off lunch, self-serving vending machines were lined with hundreds of little glass windows showing fresh food served on green-on-white china kept stocked from the other side.

Slip a nickel in the slot and twist the chrome-plated knob for a fresh piece of lemon meringue pie or today's special Salisbury steak and a side of macaroni & cheese, baked beans or creamed spinach. Add a cup of coffee (served from the mouth of a chrome dolphin copied from a Pompeian fountain) for another nickel, have a seat with your newspaper and a cigarette... and lunch is served. What a sweet deal.

By the peak of its popularity, from the Great Depression to the post-war years, Horn & Hardart was a culinary treasure and a technical marvel. This was the industrial revolution—and you could eat it. At the time of Horn's death in 1941, the business had 157 restaurants in New York and Philly, serving a peak of 800,000 patrons and 72,000 pieces of pie a day (with a menu of 400 items), driving the company to go public.

Irving Berlin, the composer of "God Bless America," wrote a famous song about the coffee at H&H, "Let’s Have Another Cup of Coffee," which became the restaurant's theme song. Horn & Hardat also opened retail shops selling prepackaged automat favorites, cafeterias and bakery shops, with the slogan "Less Work for Mother."

But, of course, all good things come to an end. By the '60s and '70s, fast food joints had become prevalent and customers moved to the suburbs. By the mid-'70s, some of H&H's locations were replaced by the owners with Burger King franchises. Can you imagine how the concept might work today? Slide your debit card through the slot for an $8.25 burger. Oops, it's jammed...

In April 1991, the last New York Horn & Hardart Automat closed, on the southeast corner of 42nd Street and Third Avenue. The site of the original store at 1557 Broadway (between 46th and 47th) is now the three-story Grand Slam Souvenirs. I was in the store in July and a friend pointed out an original Art Nouveau ceiling decoration that miraculously remains from H&H.

Meanwhile, a beautifully ornate 35-foot piece of Philadelphia’s 1902 Horn & Hardart is in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, with mirrors, marble and marquetry.

TImes Square: Your Pepes Say Heeey!

Walking through Times Square Wednesday, I saw your mamer and your cousin Leviticus. They say, "Heeeeey!"

Happy Birthday Timothy White

I must admit, I was taken aback when I glanced at today's birthdays on Wikipedia and found former Billboard editor Timothy White listed among the notables born this day. It's hard to believe he died in 2002, at the age of 50...

I was in the office the day he goddamn dropped dead in the elevator of our office building, followed by a dreadful staff meeting where we were told he'd been raced to the hospital and did not survive... From that day on, Billboard lost its consummate leader, a man identified with the brand simply by bow tie, buck shoes... and his grand (albeit, wordy) but ever passionate signature on what was the music industry's must-read weekly mag.

Timothy arrived at Billboard in 1991, four years before I came on as Radio Editor. From the beginning, he proved to be a tough sell: ardent in his passion, but fitful with his opinions. You could transition from his darling to nemesis overnight.

For the most part, Tim and I had a charmed relationship. In 1995, I had the advantage of a cubicle in close proximity to his office when Billboard was at 44th & Broadway in New York's Times Square. As a newbie, I often worked late into the night and because he lived in Boston and spent the weeknights in New York, he was also on-site past normal work hours.

When Tim loved something, he would play it ad nauseum, often the same song again and again. I remember walking into his office one night, offering, "She's awfully good. I hear a future. What's her name?" It was a spanking new, barely discovered Shania Twain. He had those kind of ears.

Timothy offered me four grand rewards during our time at Billboard, which changed the course of my life.

First, when I arrived, the (Radio) Programming column was little more than a regurgitation of industry promotions in sister radio mag Airplay Monitor. I came up with a proposal to bring my signature to the Radio Editor column: Each week, I would write about a hit single on one of Billboard's charts, interview the artist, radio programmers and a record exec. As an editor who fed on his staff's enthusiasm, Tim gave me an immediate thumbs up.

Over the years, my AirWaves column defined me at Billboard, peaking as the third most-read regular feature in the magazine. It gave me access to every act I adored, new and established—and believe me, when Billboard called, publicists delivered.

Second, as absurd a request as it seemed, when I arrived at Billboard, my focal obsession was to find a way to connect with music idol Sheena Easton. It happened she was appearing on Broadway in "Grease," giving me an ideal hook. I pitched Tim to write an article about an established artist who had found "life beyond the hits"—not only did he agree, but the story ran, my god, for three pages.

Third was a fateful one-on-one discussion with Tim to let him know I didn't believe radio was my life; I wanted to evolve at Billboard. He promoted me to Senior Writer, a role that left in command of scribing page 1 trend articles, monstrous undertakings that took weeks to write and often ran just under the masthead.

Truly, it was a love-hate undertaking. Tim expected me to come up with entrepreneurial ideas on the fly. I was admittedly better at taking direction. When I failed to deliver a worthy list of potential headlining pieces, he not only made clear his disdain, but threatened my job. That was the wicked side of Tim: When it was good, it was awfully good, but when he turned on you, your career was hanging by a thread.

Back to good: Fourth, by 2002, after I had become Billboard's focal connect to Celine Dion—as my career grew parallel to hers, I was able to interview her up the ladder and pretty much inherit her as my artist at Billboard—Tim suggested that in January, as she returned with album "A New Day Has Come" following a two-year break, that we negotiate the first interview in the world with Celine, promising a page 1 Billboard cover in exchange for a face to face with Celine.

Sure enough, her husband/manager Rene Angelil agreed, and I flew to Montreal, spending a day with the pair in their home, interviewing Celine for five hours... absolutely the greatest experience bar none, in my life. I remember how Tim suggested breaking the interviews into a series of articles, spreading out page after page, and putting the cover together, with Tim, ultimately rejecting Sony's choice of artwork, because he thought Celine was sexy in alternative artwork we obtained—and why shouldn't we show her evolution? Goddamn, it was a peak. The peak.

By the time he died, Tim (sadly, any photos I have of us together are in the print era, laying in a stack somewhere not readily at hand) had promoted me to Senior Editor at Billboard, pretty much third in line, editing and proofing the front of the book. When he left us and new editor Keith Girard was hired, hell cast its fury with a guy with a lot of power who had no knowledge of what he was doing (think William Hurt in "Broadcast News"). Instead of relying on those who could make him look better, this idiot hired wings to "protect" him, firing and demoting anyone who intimidated him.

I was among those who appeared to get in his way, and was stripped of my duties as Single Reviews Editor and ultimately put to pasture with sis Billboard Radio Monitor (post-Airplay Monitor, when protective longtime exec Michael Ellis refused to let me be canned). Eventually, the inept Girard and his minions were not only fired, but sued (I participated in a comical 10-hour deposition filled with fictional accounts of racism, prejudice and all sorts of preposterous accusations), and future execs unfortunately never had any idea that longtime staffer Chuck had once been a heavyweight... nor did they care. As is typical, new editors hired their own fledgling heroes—just as Timothy did with me in 1995.

I hope to hell that Tim, in his resting place, recognizes that as difficult as he was for many (and other stories would definitely differ from my positive sway), he was surely the voice of Billboard in its heyday.

He honored my ambition, offered opportunity and, in the world of Billboard, which, at that time, mattered in the entertainment business, made my every dream come true. To this day, I visit with Sheena Easton every time she's in the Northeast. Tim, thanks much.

Times Square Saturday Night

The view that never cools off... Times Square on a hot summer Saturday night. So inspiring, so glorious, consummate New York.. First, from street level......And then looking down from the 8th-floor Broadway Bar at the Marriott Times Square.