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Life in New YorkFrom Times Square, if you draw a 50-mile radius circle, you will define the New York City Metro area which holds more than 20 million people. If you draw that circle with a 100-mile radius, you will define the New York City commuting region which encompasses more than 30 million people, all using one of New York Cities mass transportation systems all directed to Mid Town Manhattan which assumes a population of 15 million every week day.Who hasn’t heard about the Long Island Railroad, New York City’s subway system (biggest in the world), AMTRAK (fastest trains in the USA), Metro North, Con Rail, the PATH Subway (New Jersey to Manhattan), Penn Central Station (700,000 commuters per day), Grand Central Station (biggest train station in the world), The World Trade Center mass transportation center (longest escalators in the world) and the Port Authority Bus Station (biggest in the world). International connections are provided by New York City’s five major airports, La Guadia, Kennedy, Newark, White Plains, and Newark.New York’s mass transportation system provides extensive interconnections to Long Island, Westchester County, Southern Connecticut, Downstate New York, Northern New Jersey, the Jersey Shore, Eastern and Northern Pennsylvania, and of course, New York City itself consisting of Queens, Brooklyn, The Bronx, Staten Island and the island of Manhattan. These areas contain every kind of disparate neighborhood known to man, of distinctive cultures, ethnic groups, races, colors and social economic variances, from poor too extremely wealthy, but basically middle to upper middle class.It is not the gargantuan size of the region, or the crushing and suffocating commuting to a small Mid Town Manhattan space through tunnels and bridges that defines New York City, it is the diversity of people and everyday experiences that generate the excitement of living or working in New York City. Just think, 37 per cent of New York City residents are foreign born and each ethnic group has its own colorful neighborhoods, restaurants, Badagas, social styles with its own ethnic parades like St. Patties Day that millions watch and hundreds of thousands march in on 5th Avenue. There are similar parades for Halloween in Greenwich Village, the Caribbean, Asian, Middle Eastern peoples and that grand daddy of all, Wall Street Ticker Tape Parades.New York is not about whom to hate but who to love, because hating would be fruitless in this widest expanse of diversified humanity on earth and loving is so much fun . . . and Godly!It is because this gigantic collage of differentiating humanity is thrown into a bucket and stirred around and mixed up really well, the result being a salad bowl with political opinions and life styles that are so different and varied that the typical ideological wars between Republicans and Democrats or Whites and Blacks seem like child’s’ play, like confrontation 101. Believe it or not, everyone gets along, because they want to keep the peace and because they have learned to enjoy each other.New York’s life style has always been to “Live and Let Live.” They work together, socialize at the dance or night clubs, date and marry, go to church and have sex with each other, and now you can understand New York City. It’s all about connecting to the world in a small space, the island of Manhattan. The culture of New York City extends well into the 100-mile radius of the commuting region with the performing arts, academic intellectual curiosity and liberal social life styles.Life in New York CityThinking about moving to New York City? Here's what you should keep in mind before you put down stakes in the Big Apple.Honking Horns are a New Yorker’s Ambien. Ads for an apartment often say “cozy.” At first, you’ll think this means a nice little one-bedroom, maybe with some exposed brick or a fireplace. Nope: It means you can probably touch your fridge from your bed. Seriously, there are hundreds of apartments in this city that are 200 to 300 square feet. Sometimes you’ll have to shower in your kitchen or store your clothes in the oven. And many of them cost upwards of $1,000 a month.In New York City your job is your life - 10 hour days are the norm (even if you’re just an assistant). This means that by Tuesday, you’re exhausted and in need of a cocktail. The good news for you is that NYC has one of the best bar scenes on Earth (we have a cocktail named after our most famous borough,Manhattan) - and you never have to worry about drunken driving (subway!).At first, you’ll move to the City and the sound of traffic will keep you up. But then, a strange thing happens: The traffic begins to soothe you. “It’s like the ocean, no?” you’ll explain to your bewildered mother. Then, when you go visit your parents in the ‘burbs, the sound of silence will literally freak you out. “Am I about to get murdered?” you’ll lie awake thinking—as you count the hours until you’re back in the city.Without a car, going to the grocery store is a hassle. So New Yorkers get almost everything they eat and drink from their corner bodega. This means your bodega guys sees it all - that 3 a.m. bottle of cheap Chardonnay you’re using to console yourself after another bad date, your affinity for Chubby Hubby and Cool Ranch Doritos after a long day at work. It won’t take long before the two of you are on a first name basis—and it won’t take long after that ‘til you start to dish on your problems. After all, with the rent you’re paying, it’s not like you can afford a real therapist.Sure, pizza in NYC is incredible, but when it comes to bagels, we rule. Soft on the inside, crusty on the outside, and slathered in cream cheese, mmmm.Driving in NYC is best left to the taxi drivers. The traffic is insane, no one obeys traffic lanes and you can forget about parking for less than about $20. You’ll take the subway or taxis everywhere—and pretty soon, you’ll come to love it (just read on your iPad and chill until you’re deposited at your destination). Years go by, and almost by accident, you wonder if you’ve forgotten how to drive—but you don’t really care.NYC has some of the best food on earth - at all price points. There are more than ten thousand restaurants, diners, and street counters. And then there are the thousands of Halal food carts. You can easily spend $200 at Per Se for one of the best French meals of your life or $1 for a slice of pizza that will blow your mind. And you can get pretty much any type of food delivered anytime you like. You’d think all these delicious eats would make the pack on the pounds, but they won’t - you literally burn them off because New Yorkers walk everywhere (that restaurant’s one mile away - no problem!). Oh, and thanks to Mayor Bloomberg, you’ll be forced to look at the calories on menus of any chain restaurant, so you can forget about your appetite after that!Living in NYCNew York City occupies a special place in the American consciousness as the tumultuous seat of our financial markets and the buzzing capital of our culture.New York is celebrated for its wealth of nationalities, ethnicities and languages. But why would anyone want to live in NYC? It's insanely expensive, there are too many crazy people, it's bundles of energy and famously, "If you can make it inNew York, you can make it anywhere." And lots of people love the challenge! Most important, it’s the city that exemplifies American pluralism, the “melting pot” that attracts new immigrants looking for work and college graduates drawn from their hometowns by the promise of excitement and opportunity. Its appeal hangs on its image as a city where everyone can try, get, and be anything. It has been my home for more than 40 years and I love it for its social and economic freedoms. My education and computer technology background fit right in and I found great career and social successes. Am I wrong or what?But NYC is not a panacea, it has its own problems just like any other city. First of all, it's terribly expensive, living costs are very high, you live in a small apartment that cost a fortune or commute from far away distances. Taxes are high to pay for all the social services, city employees and infrastructure support. The New York City government's budget is the largest municipal budget in the United States. In 2016 the NYC city government had a budget of $80 billion a year. The best jobs are in NYC and unless you are wealthy, you must commute and the hours required while being stuffed on packed trains and subways which are actually a frustrating second job. Second, the City is densely crowded. People are piled on top of one anther. Third, you will never get a good job unless you have a great education, NYC is comfortable for skilled and educated people only. Others scrape by! NYC is also being seriously gentrified, wealthy people move in to replace poorer people who are moving out.On the other side of the coin, NYC is certainly a playground for adults. There's never a dull moment in NYC. It's the city that never sleeps. It offers a thousand different interesting things to do every day. Besides high paying jobs for the talented in the business, banking, financial, advertising, business, performing art’s world, there is Broadway, Greenwich Village, China Town, Little Egypt, parades galore - St. Patties Day, Halloween, Macy's Thanksgiving, street theater and theatrical Flash Mobs, thousands of restaurants, bars, night clubs, museums and parks to pleasure your life away. Living or commuting to NYC is like being a member of Delta Force. It ain't for everyone but if you can do it life is great and you are a very special person.So let's talk about NYC. The New York City immediate Metropolitan area represents the largest city and metro in America with more than 20 million residents.New York City has an extraordinarily diverse population. Half of the residents are immigrants. It is one of the few cities in the country in which four different racial/ethnic groups each make up at least 10 percent of the population. Put it in perspective, and you end up with the conclusion that New York City is by far the most ethnically and racially diverse city in the world. It has the largest number of blacks, close to 3.5 million in the USA . (Atlanta is second.) This is almost 9% of the entire Black population of the United States.New York City proper has more than 2.4 million African Americans. According to the 2010 decennial census, 33 percent of New York City residents are white, 26 percent are Hispanic, 26 percent are black, and 13 percent are Asian. Altogether, 47 percent are immigrants. Some neighborhoods are mixed, but most are of the same ethic/racial groups. Expensive neighborhoods like most of Manhattan and lots of Brooklyn and Queens are white. Immigration from the Caribbean and Central America are diminishing the dominance of Puerto Ricans, and among Asians, where new arrivals now are more likely to be from rural China or Southeast Asia rather than Taiwan or Hong Kong. In joining the ranks of American cities where whites are a minority,New York, in its diversity, is more like Los Angeles and San Francisco than cities like Detroit and Newark, where black majorities replaced white ones. New immigrants do not simply replace old residents in the same jobs. They alter the economic mix. Look at the way Italians shaped the construction industry or, more recently, how Koreans have changed green groceries. The succession of wealthy and skilled Blue Collar European groups who founded New York and dominated it for centuries have now become a racial minority. Whites are the racial minority residents in NYC itself. And they tend to be wealthy too to afford the expensive skyscraper multi million dollar condos and $3000/month apartments being built by the hundreds to accommodate the huge world migration to NYC. People have their priorities and if one of the top ones is living in Manhattan then they make it happen. Lots of people live in 2 bedroom apartments with 2 or 3 other people they don't know so they only pay $1,000 month each. I don't know how people move to NYC from anywhere else because the amount of living space you'll end up having is just a fraction of what you're probably used to . . . but for us NYers it's just what we are used to. It's also a very different lifestyle. There are a lot of singles and couples, it's exciting, active, socially diverse, people get along, tons of things to do any day with lots of entertainment choices, Very few families live here (in Manhattan).Lots of the people renting are struggling actors or such and they sacrifice space for location. I have friends who live in only a small room and share bathroom and kitchen. I know people who commute 2 or 3 hours to work . . . I am one of them, which is ridiculous but I have six kids and wife Upstate in the Catskill’s mountains, so its worth it. If you know the right spots to look and the right people you can get something affordable in this town . . . but for most people you're better off moving somewhere else. It sounds crazy but it's just life here.Most New Yorker's don't own, they either rent and/or live in the burbs & commute. When I first moved here, I lived in Hell's Kitchen in Midtown Manhattan and then moved to Jamaica, Queens. I worked in the Village and spent one hour on the F Train each way to and from work. The average rent for a Manhattan apartment was more than $2500 in 2005 and it's only gone up since. It would be more realistic for you to look for a studio, deep in another borough and even then you will have a hard time finding something acceptable that is that cheap. There is an affordable housing crisis in NYC and things are bad for everyone. Luxury skyscraper condos are sprouting up for sale everywhere but nothing affordable to rent. You could always try renting a bedroom in a share situation. It's possible that you won't find much less than $700/800 since you don't want to get shot or have an hour commute.NYC is a commuting culture. Millions of people commute to Manhattan every day, they ride trains, take ferries, subways or buses to Manhattan and there are tens of thousands of amenities to accommodate them. They come from Westchester, Long Island, Connecticut, Hudson Valley, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Upstate. This Metro area is more than 30 million people. Consequently, transportation is everything in NYC. But if you live in Manhattan, don't even consider a car unless you're wealthy, because you'll have to pay big time to keep it in a parking garage which cost around $800/month. You can get around by train, subway, taxi and bus. Subways go everywhere but are full of smelly homeless, hot, dirty, loud with rude people, constant beggars and candy sellers etc. But the entertainers at the stops are great. The A Train travels the entire length of the city, from the Bronx all the way through Brooklyn. It is quite the ride . . . a bucket list thing. Busses aren't bad but it tends to be slow. Living in Manhattan or Brooklyn and having a car is suicidal. A car is needed if you live on Staten Island. In Queens a car is helpful, and not a pain. For most of the Bronx, forget it, except for Riverdale.Manhattan and parts of other boroughs have alternate side parking, which means you have to move your car every day except Sunday and find a new parking spot. Loads of metered parking also.When I moved to NYC, I kept my car. I love the freedom that driving gives me and I hate having to rely on public transportation. My only issue with cars would be traffic & parking. It's HORRIBLY hard to find parking in Manhattan. And no one drives a nice car in NYC, just whoopdees that suffer lots of dings and dents. Your car is also apt to be hit or sideswiped so if you're very anal about the way your car looks, you'll have to pay extra to fix it . . . And yes, insurance is expensive.As for "deals" on apartments, some neighborhoods are cheaper and some more expensive. Location counts for a lot. I, for one, always was more interested in space than in location. I was always willing to live on off blocks (but never dangerous ones, just skuzzy looking ones) to get a bigger place. Right across the Hudson,Hoboken is a great pace to live. Hoboken is a very up and coming place, lots of young people who commute to Manhattan, lots of bars, restaurants. It's just so clean, quiet and friendly here. There is the PATH Subway and ferries to take you to work in NYC. Speaking of commuting, New York City has one of the most extensive public transit systems in the world. The New York City Subway System is one of the largest subway systems in the world with more than 700 miles of tracks covering the four out of five boroughs of New York City. It is the only subway system in the world that operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Penn Station is the busiest railroad station in the world, with more than 800,000 commuters in it every day. In addition it hosts the Long Island Railroad, which bring million of the commuters from the eastern suburbs into the city daily. Grand Central Terminal is the largest railroad station in the world. The GCT is home to Metro-North Railroad, which operates train from this fame rail hub to the Hudson Valley, the northern suburbs and Connecticut. And now also the Long Island Railroad to Manhattan's east side.Other form of transportation operates to and from New York City, they included The PATH, NJ Transit, Amtrak, and both national and regional buses departing from and arriving to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. There also five airports, (Newark, LGA, JFK, Newburgh, and White Plans), as well as an extensive ferry system that include the Staten Island Ferry. So there is definitely no way you'll need a car to get around New York City.Manhattan squeezes people in skyscrapers and more are built every year for business, condos and apartments. Most people who work in those tall Manhattan skyscrapers of Manhattan live in Brooklyn, The Bronx, Queens, or even the NJ cities. Asking whether the City or New Jersey right across the Hudson is better is like asking if surfing is better in the Great Lakes or the Pacific. Stay away from Long Island, New Jersey or Hudson Valley, etc. if you're not looking to start a family, or simply do not prefer some of the most exciting activity in the world.NYC is heavily minority but overall, whites are much better off - they are better educated, have significantly less out of wed lock births, suffer less drugs, idleness and do much less crime than minorities. The evil doer whites steal unethically at the top in Wall Street and the blacks steal violently at the bottom on the street. Social progressives are always trying integrate the neighborhoods and schools, but it is the old story, how do you mix poor minorities with educated affluent whites? So the melting pot image belies the reality that much of the city remains divided along racial or ethnic lines. In dozens of neighborhoods, a single racial or ethnic group predominates, at rates of 70 percent to nearly 90 percent.New York schools are the most segregated in the country according to a new study. More than half of New York City’s public schools are more than 90 percent black and Latino, But these numbers don’t mean very much when placed in the context of the demographics of the school system as a whole - more than 67 percent of all students in the NYC system are black and Latino to begin with and live in their own neighborhoods. There just aren't not enough white kids to go around and integrate. And the white kids come from a different demographic too - more wealth, better educated and less dysfunctional homes. Sounds like Atlanta to me too! This is the worrisome inequities hidden beneath the New York’s glowing facade. There is a “tale of two cities” and the growing gap between the city’s haves and have-nots, which all too often follow racial lines. Indeed, racial segregation in New York is frequently accompanied by socioeconomic segregation. Across the state, the typical African-American student “attends a school where 69% of students are low-income.” For the typical Latino student, that number is 65 percent. For whites, less than 30 percent. Mandatory efforts to force integration - such as busing - are unlikely to gain political traction today. This causes great anger among whites and they move out.New York’s elite high schools are some of the city’s crown jewels, are the best in the USA, renowned for their merit-based exclusivity. Changing admission requirements to the city’s top schools for the sake of feel-good social justice would erode the schools’ tradition of excellence in the service of dubious ends. Absent a massive program of busing, or forced population transfer, there aren’t enough white people to satisfy the social progressives. And many of the best-regarded public elementary schools are getting whiter.More than a third of the 100 most diverse schools are high schools, reflecting the city’s practice of allowing students to apply to any high school. The Mathematics, Science and Engineering High School at City College is the most diverse. Every year about 80,000 students will soon receive high-school acceptance letters, and for many this time marks the culmination of months—sometimes years—spent hitting the books, meeting with tutors, and sprucing up resumes. That’s because admission into one of the city’s 400 or so public high schools is rarely automatic: Each kid ranks and applies to as many as 12 schools, and recent statistics suggest that less than half of a year’s applicants get into their first-choices, while 10 percent of them—nearly 8,000 kids—don’t get a match at all.Then there are the crème de la crème of New York City’s public high schools: the nine prestigious "specialized" institutions that are often seen as informal feeders for the Ivy League. Only 5,000 kids are offered admissions to these college-prep schools, which students can pursue in addition to their 12 choices. You get into them by passing a test - a 150-minute multiple-choice test known as the SHSAT. But critics say the test encourages a culture of exclusivity - one that, matched with the schools’ notorious lack of student diversity, has been subject to intense debate over the years. Social progressives suggest new desegregation efforts that link “choice” with “key civil rights standards, such as strong public information and outreach, free transportation and no admissions screening.” Personally, I think that admission screening is a must unless you want to water down academics.NYC is the epitome of capitalism and socialism - called Plato's Utopia - in the USA . They are conflicting values, but everyone on both sides gets along. In such a highly people packed environment, where ten thousand people work in one skyscraper, getting along is a must. Immigrants, entrepreneurs and business make the world turn, the socialists want undeserved economic equality.I am old school - you work for what you get - and I do not agree with much on the progressive social agenda that I equate with giveaways and guarantees for the free lunch crowd. I don't have a problem with providing a "hand up" but dislike the handouts that never go away and encourage laziness and dependence on the government. Excellence starts in the home and grows stronger in the schools. I do not favor increased social welfare spending - life is sweet but can be hard, getting educated and keeping a job and your nose clean is perquisite for the good life. In another words, "personal responsibility" counts more than welfare spending. Social progressive wanted to eliminate tests and merit-based criteria for schools, busing to mix populations, reserved housing for minorities in wealthy areas, etc. I totally disagree with any of that. I say stimulate the economy, create jobs and that will eventually take care of most of the problems.Life on 34th StreetI am a 35-year New Yorker. I lived in Hells Kitchen, Manhattan and Jamaica, Queens for two years and worked in Greenwich Village, Mid Town, the East side on 42nd Street, and around Manhattan's Penn Plaza (One Penn Plaza @ 57 floors and Two Penn Plaza @ 42 floors). It was a very busy area with major transportation facilities and office buildings where tens of thousands of people walked by every day. New Yorkers tended to be diverse, thick skinned, adventurous, well groomed and mannered, tall, slender and well dressed - and friendly too, always ready for a joke or a prank. There are dozens of Delis, cafeterias, and eateries in each building and one Penn Plaza has a roof top Mexican restaurant which has decent view of the Empire State Building , which is all you need/want when you’re throwing back beergaritas - giant, strong margaritas with a Corona dumped right in.Madison Square Garden (MSG)It was a busy area, across the street from Penn Plaza was MSG and below was Penn Station with all Manhattan's subways connections also serving Amtrak trains to destinations all over the United States and Canada, and Long Island Rail Road and New Jersey Transit trains to suburbs and the Jersey Shore. Consequentially the people traffic was about a million every day, with about 800,000 using Penn Station alone. MSG is home to concerts, hockey, basket ball, circuses, conventions, and boxing. It is the oldest and most active major sporting facility in the New York metropolitan area. I have been there dozens of times, but there's nothing like The Garden on fight night. Some of the greatest heavyweight championships have taken place over the years and more than fifty world title bouts overall have been decided at The World's Most Famous Arena. I went to the "Fight of the Century" in 1971 between Joe Fraiser and Mohamed Ali - It was a great fight - Burt Lancaster did the blow by blow. Fraiser won. I went to Club 21 after the fight and hung around with Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack who were at the fight too.8th Avenue & Times SquareWithin two blocks were about 500 restaurants, fast food, places, bars, shops and hotels. Street performers and Flash Mobs were everywhere. You could even get into a great game of Chess on 34th Street. Around the corner on 8th Avenue was the Fashion District, going up several blocks to 42nd where the infamous and world's largest bus station Port Authority sat, across the street was the infamous Terminal Bar with exciting and somewhat perverted 42nd Street right next store. Times Square had thousands of activities, home to hundreds of night clubs, dance clubs, discos, Bars, Porn shops, Massage Parlors, all night Movie theaters (each had three movies plus cartoons), restaurants, hotels, and the Great White Theater District. The 11th Avenue Diner was my favorite all night spot for eggs, bacon with greasy potatoes and onions. Celebrities haunt the place. I met Woody Allen and Telly Savalas there. It was a very exciting area. One of trembling anticipation of what was around the next corner to embellish your life.There are even high quality strip clubs if you like some skin, for Belly Dancing there is Little Egypt; for cabaret there are dozens of clubs around; plus all kinds of fine ethnic restaurants - Chinese - Korean - Japanese - Indian - Egyptian - Portuguese and German food emporiums. The area is filled with food street counters, Orange Julius, Pizza, Shiskabob and Halal street carts for even more tasty ethnic dishes. Lunch out on the tumultuous streets was always an adventure. You had a hundred restaurants to pick from and the girl watching was excellent. Girl watching is an art form in Midtown, so many beautiful women pass by on the street, of every color, racial type, size and ethnic origin, you have your pick of whom to fall in love with for that second. You could say "I am watching for a six-foot Asian girl in a Yellow dress and five minutes late she would walk by. And the girl watching around Penn Plaza was great, not as good as Mid Town or Wall Street, but great.Occasionally you would see one of the painted girls, they are naked but there body is painted so you cannot see their privates. Usually they have something like the American Flag painted on them. There is lots of street entertainment, Flash Mobs put on dance and singing performances from hits in Broadway plays while the underground music scene in New York City is in the subway system, and is characterized by Mariachi bands and musicians playing various instruments. Occasionally you stumble upon a gem, a real professional playing versions of the Grateful Dead’s 'Me and My Uncle.' Yesterday while waiting for the train to Brooklyn , I saw a young girl do a roof-raising Irish jig who inspired a small hootenanny of strangers coming together in unfettered joy.Right up the street on 34th Street's Penn Plaza was a major shopping street connecting the Lincoln Tunnel and Queens-Midtown Tunnel - is Macy's the world's largest department store, Gimbals, the Empire State Building - the second tallest building in the city, and Herald Square, a major subway station where Broadway and 6th Avenue intersect. Slightly north, at 38th Street and 5th Avenue is Lord & Taylor; the oldest department store in the United States. At the west end of the street one finds the Hudson River, the West Midtown Ferry Terminal, the West 30th Street Heliport, the Hudson River Greenway, the West Side Highway, and the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center where the Auto and Boats shows are put on. On the West Side 34th Street is in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, at the north end of the West Side Yard. On Tenth Avenue is a McDonald's with a drive-thru and a small parking lot, a rarity in Manhattan . There are more than 180 hotels near Penn Plaza , but right around the Plaza there dozens, each with its own restaurant and Happy Hour and many with entertainment or a DJ. Are you looking for a cheap Motel, an economy Holiday Inn, staid Penn Plaza Pavilion hotel, fancy Staler Hilton? From sleaze to five star, it's all here.New York City is all about meeting people and the street Café serving up espresso or wine is great at that and they are on every street and corner. Meeting New Yorkers is not who you are but what you are . . . diversity personified, no bigotry allowed, mix with the poor and rich, just have fun and appreciate each other. On special occasions we go to the Florida Bar and Grill on 35th off 8th Avenue . It's really a first class strip club, women are curvaceous and beautiful, and their topless dancing is good. Over all a fun experience.Penn PlazaAround the complex of Penn Plaza office building, there is Penn Station, Madison Square Garden (MSG), dozens of hotels, and hundreds of bars / restaurants / dance clubs / strip joints. After a stressful day at work satisfying Manhattan's high expectation customers, if you are interested in some intellectual or casual conversation, maybe unwind with a beer or cocktail, or for sure a tasty snack, there are literally hundreds of places within two blocks to try. Everyone knows that the area surrounding Penn Plaza and MSG is just an unfortunate, low brow, Irish-themed reality (if you don't, now you do), filled with your favorite gritty places to eat and drink for Happy Hour or before a big game. I like McCann's on 33rd off 7th Avenue , its got multiple huge TV screens, you can watch sports or news, eat all kinds of free food snacks from Sliders, pickled Pig Feet and hard-boiled eggs up to $5.00 three inch thick burgers and $10.00 full course meals if you want it.It's wonderful to have so many interesting spots near my Two Penn Plaza office for lunch or after work drinks, even in a five star restaurant. Other than that, the next best place is the Brother's Bar and Grill across the street from MSG on 33rd by 8th Avenue . It sits right next to One Penn Plaza , my first Plaza office for my 50 person engineering group was 9,000 sq. feet on the Mezzanine right next to the bar. The big circular bar surround by sit down tables hold hundreds, you will meet all kinds of famous people and performers playing MSG who hang out there. It gets super crowded after work hours but there is a lot of outdoor patio seating which is great during the summer.Penn StationUnderneath Madison Square Garden (MSG) is Penn Station where you will step into a homeless shelter enforced by the ACLU, full of sleaze and excitement. It's the busiest passenger transportation facility in North America catering to almost a million people every day, and there are hundreds of 24 X 7 available food choices available. When I used to live on NJ and if there was a delay (let's be honest that happened more often than it should) there was in the station lots pf places for a bite or a drink and 30 or 40 random spots that no sane person ever dared to go into - but commuters are not sane - they are tired, hungry and desperate. Penn Station is basically a subway/train station on a Hollywood playwright’s steroids where writing about Penn Station is like writing a review of herpes. It’s a gritty place, full of characters, Dive Bars, and new big city experiences, all with plenty of COPS around too kept the peace. If you are an ex sailor, it’s a great place making you think you are back in Karachi or Bangkok . If you're unlucky, sloppy, or come from far enough away where all this is strange, you do what you have to do to get out of it as fast as possible . . . but the stink will linger on. It is a whole lot dirtier than Manhattan 's other big public transit center, Grand Central Station on 42nd Street. Penn Station has all the glitz and glamour of your usual subway station, which pretty much says it all. More than 800,000 commuters a day use the place, and it is always crowded. It is home to the LIRR, NJ Transit and Amtrak. Penn Station is the commuter's home away from home, it has everything to keep you comfortable whether you want to eat or drink.Rabbit Dive BarThere were more than 30 bars in the Penn Station complex alone, each with its own theme and ambiance, but the Rabbit was the most fun. I like a Dive Bar, they are comfortable, dirty, sleazy, and usually filled with crazy and interesting characters. It had a great Top 40 Juke Box, greasy hamburgers, with pickles and onions, Hamburgers and chili smothered Hot Dogs. On the 7th Avenue entrance and across the passageway from the Rabbit Bar was a Pizza Place, a Manhattan Deli, newspaper stands, and a convenient store where you could purchase clothes, candies, and personal items if you suddenly found yourself stuck in town overnight. Which did happen often and we would get one of those vacant (where the Manhattan Project people stayed) prepaid DEC rooms at the South Gate Hotel on 31st street. You'd probably miss this place with the hustle and bustle and gazillions of people pushing/shoving their way through the Penn Station underground, but you'd be missing out on this place that's literally right under all these people's noses. Go down the 7th avenue stairs into Penn Station and its on your right. Of course, the crowd is of all types . . . this can be a plus or a minus depending on who YOU are.. We started to go there for Happy Hour and sometimes wind up hanging out there all night and then get rooms at the South Gate hotel down the street where DEC booked rooms at for our guests. Besides New Jersey / New York / Pennsylvania commuters, you would meet people from all over the USA and world. This place is like a hidden diamond. Its got a juke box, pool table and old piano. The bar is long and serves up standard NYC bar food, pickled pigs feet and hard boiled eggs.The Rabbit is the kind of place for meeting interesting people and talking. Most people have to catch a train,. so you keep meeting new people all night. Being such a comfortable and interesting bar, a lot of people practically lived there. George would came over once in a while and play three sets of flawless big band tunes. When the Juke got fired up, the dancers hit the floor and were a treat to watch. All levels of skill and knowledge, and a delightful older black man who was obviously from the old school of Lindy Hop who was very kindly and sweetly teaching some of the younger pups how to do the steps. There was one older guy who looked kind of like an elderly and spindly college professor who could move more in five minutes than I ever could in a lifetime. It was a true total treat.

1970sCruising Times SquareI was listening to Bernard Meltzer’s call-in advice show. It wasn’t so psychology-based, just heavy on common sense and consumer advice. Women could find out how to get their husbands to pay them a compliment once in awhile, and men could find out how to cancel a scam insurance policy. Meltzer was Dear Abby over the airwaves. Usually I just listened to WABC on the a.m. dial, a top forty station that played plenty of Carly Simon, James Taylor, Harry Chapin and other sentimental singer-songwriters. The one-hit-wonders of the day were often the songs I liked the most. “Alone Again, Naturally,” “Lonely Boy” and “Seasons in the Sun” touched an emotional chord in me that I didn’t yet have a name for. We took the long way in, over the 59th Street Bridge, and I always hummed “Feelin’ Groovy” in my mind. I knew the Simon and Garfunkel song from my sister’s record collection.The mood of the city changed as night began to fall. Times Square was pre-TV screens and only had neon lights and seamy sights to catch a passerby’s attention, but there were plenty of both. Crazy Eddie’s prices were “In-saaaane” and the people on the street seemed pretty whacked out too. Orange Julius attracted a lot of nighttime customers, who stood outside, not a one drinking juice, but everybody making deals. In the heat of summer, sweaty men and women still wore a bit of fur, even if it was just a hint of it on their wide-brimmed hats or feral collars. The folks who did business in this part of town were mostly black and Hispanic, but the white and Asian ones somehow also appeared black or Hispanic, too. There was something about the way the neon lights outside and the fluorescent lights inside the stores cast a sallow glow over all these bejeweled and exciting creatures of the night. It was theatre on the streets. Who needed to go see “Grease,” perpetually playing on Broadway, when the real drama was right under your toes and next to a drunk or dead body?I drove across 42nd Street and up and down the avenues looking for parking. I cruised around and passed paunchy, bald businessmen bringing young girls in stiletto heels into Tad’s Steakhouse and La Scala. Sometimes these same types walked in and out of the Mayfair Bar, making up or breaking up. I couldn’t have been happier back then, sitting like a Buddhist Monk, behind the wheel, lost in my dreams. Squeegee men approached my windshield at what seemed like thirty-second intervals, rags in hand and rank smells exuding from their skin. I would roll up my window to keep them away. Once one was gone, the windows came back down till the next one approached and the trapped-in-traffic dance continued. Yet everybody was cool and knew the rules, and I was thrilled to learn them from a pro. People were terrified by the nocturnal world of crime and danger and other races and vermin crawling out of unknown crevices. Times Square was filled with half naked strutting, prostitutes; creatures of the night, filthy, smelled like a dirty dish rag soaked in piss, neon lights on everywhere, nocturnal, dangerous and I loved it.The movie posters outside the brightly-lit theatres told the story of what adults did after their kids went to sleep. In these black and white pictures, Oriental girls walked on white men’s backs. Their tight bosoms had sparkly nipples, like the fireworks that exploded all over Chinatown on the 4th of July. Some posters just had men playing games with other men. These guys tended to look like Sam Cobra, the mustachioed villain in black leather, who was part of my Johnny West & the Best of the West doll collection. I passed a half dozen fleabag motels walking in the direction of a Castro Convertible Couch billboard, our North Star, on the way to play arcade games.I plugged quarters into my favorite pinball machine, the one that said “Rock and Roll!” and had drawings of mop-topped guys playing guitars. As I racked up points and tried for more, my father walked around, always within sight but somehow keeping his eyes focused outward, on the streets. When I’d done a dollar’s worth of work, I approached him for more money. He gave me a worn green single and told me to ask the man to change it for me. The guy wore an apron and a change machine on his belt that doled out silver. He took my dollar and looked right past me as he pressed coins out with his thumb. His face carried the grizzled look of a lost man, all salt and pepper stubble and bits of grease from his hands, lingering on his lips.1971 Taxi Driver Wild Cat StrikeI visited my Price Waterhouse customer and left the office building drooling over another encounter with Rhapsody Dawson. Right off, while standing at the corner waiting to cross the street, I saw hundreds of taxi drivers clogging 6th Avenue with their taxis. They were protesting the Taxi and Limousine Commission for higher rates and called this traffic jam a ‘job action.’ Not a single car or bus was moving and there was no room to cross the street, pedestrians were blocked by cars and trapped on the sidewalks.A Black policeman walked around trying to get traffic moving while thousands of pedestrians on all four corners of an intersection stood around and watched. Looking west across sixth avenue, there were about 500 people jammed into the intersection I was standing in and the crowd was rapidly growing. Without reservations, we started talking to each other and I struck up conversations with some tall and thin girls who were obviously fashion models, they were all extremely attractive and carried those big black leather folders filled with pictures of themselves in their best poses, the ones they showed perspective clients. There was the blonde from Paris with a ticklish French accent, the sexy bombshell from Russia with deep black eyes and a fully Hooter qualified curvaceous figure, the slinky Black girl from Africa with full lips, wonderful smile, rounded hips and delightful butt, and the one I like the most, the Indian girl, was dripping with sexual intensity and looking like she just came out of a calendar shot for Playboy Magazine.A Pizza delivery guy was lamenting his two large Pizzas had gotten cold, so he passed out free pepperoni slices. Every type of New Yorker was standing there, hard hat construction workers, business people, street characters, every hue of color - Black, White, Brown, Yellow - all transfixed on the scene, engaging in conversation and enjoying the moment of New York City inspired spontaneity. Wearing suits, mini skirts, fashion jeans, or just shorts with braless halters, the people gathered, and enjoyed our newly found comradeship. It was in this way people appreciated New York, meeting fellow travelers in life who, based on these impromptu meetings, would often become friends and even lovers.You would think that a simple thing like a massive traffic jam was frustrating, but it was really providing multiple opportunities to meet new people and share the excitement of being alive. Evidently the policeman thought the same way as he marched up and down 6th Avenue with his arms over his head shouting “Ain’t New York City a wonderful place.” The crowd clapped and cheered. Even the street character with the spear and dressed like a Russian Cossack cheered. Manhattan is a very spontaneous and exciting city that allows people to enjoy life.1972 - Field ManagerAfter serving as a Product Support Engineer for one year, I was promoted to Field Manager in a new office being established in Manhattan. Our first Manhattan office on 2 West 45th Street started with only fifteen people and within a year, there was more than a hundred. We left our temporary office at 2 West 45th Street and moved into new digs at 810 7th Avenue on the 22nd floor. (Us) supervisors sat in a large rectangle office where customers called us directly to log service calls. We would put the call slips on a bulletin board and assign the first available technician. The phones rang off the hook incessantly. Eventually, I memorized all my customers’ phone numbers and could punch them up in a second, my fingers would just fly over the ten key unit. In New York City, hand speed was critical, even the people making sandwiches in Manhattan’s Delis had fantastically high hand speed and to this day that is one thing I notice wherever I go.Our office on the 22nd floor of 810 7th Avenue, the 41-story glass tower is located on the 53rd Street side of Seventh Avenue with Broadway at the buildings back. Two of our customers, Blue Cross - Blue Shield and Reuters, had their corporate headquarters next to us on 53rd street. Behind our building on Broadway was a Disco where Clint Eastwood was filmed. Telly Savalas and his TV production crew filmed street take scene outs for his detective TV show there too and I was in several of the back ground scenes. Gorgeous Brown and Black women were always found on the elevator going to the floor above us. They were singers for Mo Town which had a recording studio there. They invited us up to watch them record and we invited them down for our office parties. You can imagine what a blast that turned out to be.I was a field manager directing computer service efforts for a gang of engineers. It was very - New York - busy and I was on the phone all day trying to solve major customer crises. It was so busy I had to piss in the waste basket, only a major dump would allow me to the bathroom. Sometimes when I needed to quiet my emotions and have a mind break, I would go out on our 22nd floor fire escape and smoke a cigarette and from my small perch, like being on an overhang rock on a 400-foot cliff, I could look up and down Seventh Avenue and into the Americana hotel rooms across the street. It was scary looking down 22 floors, and this was only a narrow steel fire escape attached to the building by bolts and I wondered if it would stay in place if a bunch of people tried to use it. I was amazed on how crooked the brick wall was that formed the exterior of our building. In the course of a few hundred feet, it seemed to wave in and out about two feet.Nothing undermines business as much as feather bedding New York style unions. Because our building did not allow Digital to use the elevators during the day for non people stuff, my computer part’s orders would be delivered by Parcel Post at night exactly at 5:05 P.M. We are not talking about heavy stuff. All our computer parts could fit easily in a suitcase or on a small dolly. Just for one five-minute use of the passengers’ elevator, the building’s union demanded a full staff who would be paid overtime for an eight-hour shift. They wanted a dock receiver plus a loading supervisor, a security guard, and an elevator operator. Remember that this is for one small box of computer parts, or the building superintendent wanted a one hundred-dollar bill under the table. Using my personal finances, I cashed a hundred-dollar check and solved my problem. At the end of the week I used my Travel Letter to recoup my expenses. Corporate Digital did not understand the corrupt operation of New York City unions.Nubian PrincessesOne evening, after working late, as I walked out of the lobby of 810 7th Avenue, I ran into two of the most exotically beautiful Black women I have ever met. They were both tall, slender and built like the wall of China, and they immediately attracted my attention. They were outside the entrance to my office building on 7th Avenue trying figuring out where a good coffee shop was and being the gallant soul I am, I offered to take them to a coffee shop around the corner. We sat and talked for hours and I discovered they were sisters and African princesses from Nigeria and their father was Nigeria’s ambassador to the United Nations. I gave them a ride to their hotel, The Opera Hotel, on 77th & Broadway where I found one of the best hideaway bars in the city. Although decrepit, it was where many Broadway performers hung out and developed new material for the public on the full sized sound stage in the back. They put me onto another hangout for the performing arts crowd, Sweetwater's on 67th and Amsterdam Avenue.Gunfight on 8th AvenueOn a sunny day while I was walking back to Port Authority, I heard a series of gun shots directly in front of me. It sounded like fire crackers, but I knew they were gun shots. I hit the ground while only a few yards away, a major gun battle was going on. Immediately, within seconds the police swarmed, filling the street and blockading people from getting near the gun fight. The Tactical Squad was there in a minute with shots guns, helmets and bulletproof vests and they were not firing back. I was kissing the sidewalk and could not see all the action, but soon the police calmly stopped the gun fight between Irish Hells Kitchen gangs and got them into Paddy Wagons. In a little while, I walked past the spot where the gun fight had taken place and saw no blood stains, so I took it that no one got hurt.Honey Suckle DevineHoney Suckle Divine, a prominent model often featured in Greenwich Village’s ‘Screw Magazine,’ was walking down Eighth Avenue wearing a long white dress. She was directly in front of me as I walked toward the Port Authority Bus Station. Honey was tall, a blond, large breasted, with legs up to her neck, and she was swinging her butt suggestively. At that time I did not know who she was, but by the way she carried her self, it was obvious that this was a woman in show business. Men turned around to stare at this beauty and I heard her chuckle with every adoring look. All of a sudden she pulls her dress over her head and wearing only a G String, walks down Eighth Avenue swinging curvaceous hips. I was right behind her and could not help but goggle at her voluptuous and beautiful rear end and those long legs. Suddenly she brought her arms up embracing the sky and wiggled her butt vigorously down the street, this lady was putting on a show. It was strange, but now most people were embarrassed and avoided looking directly at her. Then I noticed she was being followed by a camera crew, they were taping a promotion for Screw Magazine, and it was all a publicity stunt.The Manhattan ProjectIn the 1970s working in Manhattan within the explosive growth of the computer industry, we never had enough technicians to install the more than one hundred systems per month for our Fortune 500 customer base. Even though I had a very talented crew, many of my computer engineers came from military weapons programs or were Brooklyn Poly, Steven Institute, Harvard, MIT and Princeton engineering graduates, we needed help. So I put the word out to our international company - "We need technicians, come to Manhattan for a few weeks and we will put you up in a nice Midtown hotel, provide $100/day diem, tickets to Broadway plays and lots of high tech computers to install." It was called the "Manhattan Project" and it when on for several years. We were setting new standards for urban operations and people from all over the world were coming to visit our Manhattan office and see how we did it. They came from all over the Western world and from the USA to experience the "Big Apple" and have some fun while installing the latest computers that seldom were found outside of Manhattan's high tech data base applications in major headquarters accounts.I put our temporary workers up at the Parker Meridian Hotel located on 7th avenue and 54th street. Workers were constantly coming and going and each week we constantly had more than 25 technicians in town to help us. Often, I stuck around at night to manage their service efforts while I played cards with the off duty workers, after all, they had the best poker games in town. Most of these guys were from small towns across mid America or from our manufacturing plants in the Northeast. At first, they were afraid of Manhattan, but soon they would be hanging out in any one of hundreds of Mid Town bars or night clubs. After all, there were more than 13,000 Bars in Manhattan, so they did not have to walk far. Within a few blocks of the hotel, you could find more than a hundred bars, dance clubs, night clubs, theaters and restaurants . . . anything in your wildest imagination your heart desires.Of course the Europeans spoke English and were anxious to see Manhattan's bright lights up close. I became good friends with the men from England and Holland and spend much time with them carousing the night clubs and exciting streets of Manhattan. It seems they were more interested in that aspect of the big City than our field operations. They felt their London and Amsterdam operations were nothing like Manhattan, not even close, and our operational skills were not transportable back home, we were just too different. Basically, we operated on New York time . . . fast and furious! Europe was set in a slower pace with much smaller systems in smaller applications. Those from small mid western towns were amazed at Manhattan's diversity and cosmopolitan ambiance. They liked being around where there are big buildings and lots things to do, dance clubs, restaurants and shops. Those from California, Chicago and Boston felt right at home. The most disagreeable bunch was from the South - a region still segregated and backward with horrible opinions of New York buried in their southern cultural minds. They were aghast at the hundreds of integrated bars/night clubs within a few blocks of the hotel, the equality and mixing of the races at work and customer sights, and in New York they couldn't use their evangelical religion to justify their horrible racial views. I had to send many of them back home for there constant use of the world "Nigger" and disrespect to our black employees and fellow engineers.Southerners came from racially segregated environments where there were very limited social activities. Most of them just couldn't get used to the social integration Manhattan life represented. What made it worse for them, just within two blocks of the hotel I put them up in were hundreds of integrated bars and dance clubs, the DEC office was loaded with both black and white secretaries and sales people. It drove them nuts! These red necks were used to the separation of the races, blacks being at the bottom of the totem pole in all things and used to talking down to blacks and calling them a "Nigger" and getting away with it.I would go over to the Midtown Parker Meridian Hotel where I put all the temporary workers, sat and played cards with them, told them the things to do in Manhattan, where to go and how to conduct themselves. Some of the southerners used the "N:" word profusely and I sent them home - we couldn't have that in New York. It was for their own safety too, because many blacks would take them to task and beat the holy loving shit out of them for a lark and leave them in the street bloodied and unconscious.Willy was this small, diminutive, innocent looking black man in my engineering organization who was ex military, he was Green Beret and took no shit from anyone. What fooled people into thinking he was just a smiling, nice, small black man was his pleasant demure, he was quiet and friendly, but what they didn't know was that he was very smart, spoke multiple languages, was proficient in all types of squad weapons, had great martial arts skills and killed a huge number of Viet Cong in Vietnam. He could take you down just with his thumb and rabbit punch you death in two seconds. I had a large number of such fierce ex military types in my organization.Well, while playing cards one night, Bubba, this one red neck, a big bellied man from South Carolina, got into with Willy, called him a dirty Nigger and dared him to do anything about it. I went wild . . . this racist jerk was going back home tomorrow. Willy said "Cool it Jerry, I will take care of this now." He took a beer bottle and told the red neck that he expected an immediate apology or he would shove the beer bottle up his ass, and if he was nice he would shove it up the narrow neck end first. The red neck laughed and went for Willy, after all he was a big against a small man.In a second he was pinned on his stomach with hurt body parts screaming his head off, his pants down and the beer bottle slowly going up has ass. He cried out an apology and begged for respite. Willy said "Got me a slave tonight, get me a drink Bubba, call me 'Sir' and otherwise keep your mouth shut." I had Bubba on a plane the nest day with a note to his boss. that we didn't want this type of help in New York.I have spent many years in New York City and learned quick that you never know who you are talking too and what their capabilities are. Tough men come in all colors and sizes and beware if you anger them. So, rule number one , , , be nice; rule number two, don't get into some ones face, it may mean a fight that you won't win. And bring a gun out and you will do at least 18 months in jail at Rikers.Many of the technicians who came to Manhattan eventually came to love New York City and they wanted to transfer here. The biggest problems about working in Manhattan were the quality of life and commuting issues, which typically were costly housing and long hours on trains or buses, even the subway from Queens or Brooklyn could be a 1 ½ hour ride. But the work was on the most advanced computer systems and technology in the USA and one year of experience in Manhattan was like ten years anywhere else, in fact, in most cases, they would never see the advanced applications such as found in Manhattan. The kinds of people who really liked New York City tended to be high risk oriented urban adventures who wanted to live a colorful life full of excitement in the Big Apple and during the first year of the Manhattan Project, 27 technicians transferred to Manhattan. No southerners transferred to Manhattan. They lived an entirely different culture that didn't suffer multi culturalism, racial integration, ethnic diversity, where religiosity supported their legalized Jim Crow segregationMo Town Recording Studio - Building FireBelow our 22nd floor office was a MoTown recording studio and often we could feel and hear, through the cement floor, their vibrating music being recorded. We met hundreds of famous artists on the elevator and even had them attend our infamous office parties. One night, a bunch of us was working late and we smelled pungent smoke coming from the air-conditioning vents, it quickly worsened so I called the fire department. No one had any idea where the fire was and heavy smoke was now entering our office through the air vents and eliminating good breathing air. We were told by the fire department not to use the elevators nor the fire escape because the fire could be anywhere. The fire department said they would call me once they got there and discovered where the fire was. Soon, the smoke got so bad and it was suffocating us now, so I threw a steel chair at one of our big plate glass windows. At first, the chair just bounced off, but when I used the chair as a ball peen hammer, it broke and fresh air rolled in allowing us to breath. When the fire department got there, they discovered the fire was directly below us in the MoTown recording studios. By that time, the smoke was blinding us, you could not see beyond a foot and we had to stick our heads out the 22nd story windows for breath, but once the firemen got there, things improved fast. One of favorite “After Work” Happy Hour hangouts was the 21 Club, which we referred to as simply 21; it is a restaurant and former prohibition-era speakeasy, located at 21 West 52nd Street (off of 5th Avenue). The bar tender said Frank Sinatra owned the place and brought his cronies there and we would see celebrities there often. It was kind of a Las Vegas - Hollywood hangout. You know when celebrities drink, they turn into just regular people.Homeless Guy Attacks Me - Charley’s BarI was walking to my hangout, Charley’s Bar on 51st off of Broadway when, what looked to be, a homeless guy walked up and asked me for a cigarette. I gave him one from my shirt pocket, he asked for a light, and as I was getting out a match, he pulled a small hunting knife and demanded my wallet. I looked the guy in the eye and saw a desperate man, who was drunk or high on drugs who smelled like he hadn’t taken a bath in a month. I told him to beat it. The knife was in his right hand and he lunged for my stomach with it, but I was able to push his thrust away with my left hand. I kneed him in the balls and with my right hand, grabbed his throat, squeezed and threw him against a wall. He gasped and tried to talk but couldn’t and I squeezed some more. His eyes were rolling over and going blank so I released my grip enough for him to talk and he pleaded with me to let him go. He cried that he was just trying to get some money for some more drugs. I reminded him that he tried to kill me while I looked around for a cop, but there were none to be seen any where. I wanted this guy arrested but there were no police around anywhere. There were a few people on the street and I called out to passers by and asked them to call the police but they ignored me.NYC Lunch - Relaxing at Bryant ParkLocated at 40th and 42nd Street and Between 5th and 6th Avenue, I spent many lunch hours in Bryant Park I had many customers in Midtown, the CUNY University system, Pfizer and the Daily News. I could spend the day in the area fixing computers but when it came for lunch, I would head to Bryant Park, a fascinating place, it's next to the New York Public Library with its sculptured stone Lions sitting out in front, a place I go to when I want to relax and meditate. It's a very large park, four large Manhattan style blocks square, with a lovely green lawn in the center. There are Delis all over the place, so there are plenty of choices for food. With a minimum of crime, the park is filled with office workers on sunny weekdays, city visitors on the weekends, and revelers during the holidays and has become a favored setting for film and television productions. Daily attendance counts for lunch often exceed 800 people per acre, and there are over ten acres, making it the most densely occupied urban park in the world. One of the park's most impressive features is a large lawn that is the longest expanse of grass in Manhattan south of Central Park. Besides serving as a "lunchroom" for midtown office workers and a place of respite for tired pedestrians, and world class chess contests, the lawn also serves as the seating area for some of the park's major events, such as the Bryant Park Summer Film Festival.1974 My Long Weekend at the Jersey ShoreI don’t like to get drunk, it is embarrassing and I don’t like the way I feel, especially if I am feeling nauseously sick and start throwing up. So, I usually take it easy when drinking and stick with beer, something I know and can handle. But there are exceptions. Like the last time I went to the Jersey Shore with some of my motley gang from the New York support group. We got rooms at a motel right on the beach, a dingy, old, smelly, dirty thing, but it was on the beach and close by was the broad walk and all those dance clubs and juke joint Dive Bars the Jersey Shore is famous for, the ones that cater to the New York City wild man types, you know, the crazy fun living and damn the torpedoes kind of weirdoes. Not that the Jersey Shore is all about drunks and audacious times. In fact, what I have always loved about the shore was how much it has to offer. If you wanna just chill out all day at the beach and call it an early night, well, that’s there for you. There are great food and fishing and rides for the kids and the young at heart. However, there is no denying that drinking plays a major part in the allure of Jersey Shore. Don’t ask me to explain, it just is. There’s not one person reading this right now who can’t at the drop of a hat recite a blow-by-blow account of a night that started with three cases of Miller Late. “And how about stories your secretary, “Mary actually was wearing a can on her head and we all went out to Casino Pizza.” And so it is when the DEC folks from Manhattan get together, it usually means mayhem on the beach.After a 60 to an 80-hour work week, going to the shore is like taking a trip back in time. Down at the shore, its OK to funnel Miller Light or shotgun a can of low grade lager and listen all night to Bruce Springsteen on the Boardwalk. It’s OK to hang with your buddies or business teammates and get dirty. We are deadly serious during the week on our high tech - high stress jobs, but young professionals can succumb to peer pressure, acting more like high school seniors than the leaders of tomorrow. Whether its LBI or Asbury Park, people come to the shore to forget about the working week and have fun. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” and for a bad summer and an even worse existence. It seems in order to get ahead today, you need to put in at least 60 hours a week and sometimes a trip to the shore can remind us who we were, who we are, and why we work so hard. There is so much going on at the shore, college kids, locals, Manhattanites, Long Islanders, Upstaters, tourists, conventioneers, and have you ever noticed how many young workers at the Jersey Shore speak with heavy accents? The pizza workers? The balloon game barkers? The boardwalk sales clerks? Well, there's a good reason why, they are foreign college students here on work visas for the summer. Think of it as studying abroad for a semester, but instead of studying, they sell Hermit Crab shells.It was a grinding week, and after work, four of us drove down from Manhattan and had just gotten into Sea Side Heights on a hot Friday night in July. We are going to meet more of the group later, it’s only 7:00 p.m. or so. We were in Tommy’s Volkswagen red convertible enjoying the weather and the warm breezes coming off the sea shore. We went to a party in Dimsum’s (he’s Russian) Sea Isle condo that had already been broken up by the police for loud Vesuvius noises and disorderly conduct. Well, if you can call one of the girls running around in the parking lot in her panties disorderly - we thought it was funny since she weighed more than 300 pounds and gulped down booze from two peanut butter jars half full of vodka as she ran. We knew it was vodka because she had the White Gold Vodka, Black Edition, Russian labeled bottle tucked into the rear of her panties. And she wasn’t even part of our group, probably one of those crazy college kids from Columbia U., but we were cheering her on when the police came and broke it up! So we turn the car around and head downtown when we got pulled over on Central. At this point we were completely sober, but in fairness to the police, I would have pulled us over too. We LOOKED like trouble. However, the police quickly realize that we are straight and are just about to let us all continue on our way, when one of the officers, looking at the license of Tommy, the driver and says, “And you’re Thomas Briglow, right? And Tommy replies, “That’s what the license says, doesn’t it, genius?” Bang. Pow. The next thing you know all four of us are being locked up and you know what for? PARADING WITHOUT A PERMIT. That was all they could really get us on.We went to the judge quick and were on our way after paying a $35 fine each. And believe me, we were using credit cards and didn’t have a $35 cash between us. Tommy didn’t learn his lesson and insulted the Mouse McCourt judge and ended up spending the night in jail. And he was driving and now we were walking!I called Dimsum who picked us up and took us to his condo in Seaside Heights where his buddies, Cardiff and D'Milz, were hanging out smashing a case of Red Bull. There was a crowd there, all from my New York Support Group waiting for us: there was me (Lutz), Vince Kaminski (Weed), Tom Wilder (Surfer), Ed Hubbard (Shooter), Ben Battle (Brownstown), his girlfriend Sinbad, Dave Shea (Eat Me) his girlfriend at the time Ram, Dan Lucky (Ukraine), John Fischer (Burpy) and the support group’s two acquaintances, Robo and Roxy from the Seaside Heights Diner. Dimsum had a completely stocked bar and we got a few drinks before going to the 5 O'clock Somewhere Bar on the Broad Walk which offers signature boat drinks to Land shark Lager beer. The lively vibe of the bar features “flair bartenders” whose cocktail serving performances are only overshadowed by the cocktail creations they serve. Next door is D'Jais, well known for its diverse atmosphere, which different kinds of music seven nights a week. From there it’s a short jump to the Crescent Bar where the Bikers hang out for a taste of the real nightlife. It was right next to Braca’s the movie theater where James Candy is playing now.The Crescent Bar welcomes motorcycle riders. A pool table hides in the back, while an open spot just the right size for a Country - Western band is left by the door. Christy, the bar tender, says the stereotype of the "wild biker bar," she said, just isn't true. "Everybody thinks that this is a rough place because bikers come here," she said. "But we've had so many people that will come in by themselves, or with their friends, and love it. "They say the men are the most respectful, they feel safe, and the women say that this is the only place they'll come to by themselves," she said. A bouncer is on hand on the weekends to help with crowd control, and no "colors" (a biker's vest, which is adorned by club patches that identify the group of club the biker rides with) are allowed in the bar to avoid possible confrontations. Because the colors identify what club a person belongs to, they can quickly lead to trouble if rival gangs show up at the same spot. Christy says that riders are allowed to leave their colors on their bikes, turn them inside out, or put them in the back room; many outlaw clubs' members, however, are not allowed to take their colors off, and so will go somewhere else.Last month when we were here we went to Braca’s to see a Mel Brooks movie! We buy our tickets and, thanks to the 15 minutes of previews, haven’t missed a frame. The air conditioning is barely working, but each of us has two bottles of Red Bull. What could be better? Well, I don’t know if it’s the heat or the fact that we have been drinking for hours at that point, but the next thing I know were being woken up by an usher. The movie is two thirds over. The usher appears to be 15 years old and he’s ticked off. He sees the Red Bull bottles on the floor with his trusty flashlight and says to us with an all knowing smirk, like he really nabbed us, ”Uh, you didn’t buy that wine in here did ya? LIKE THIS THEATER SOLD POPCORN, GOOBERS, AND MD20/20! We got thrown out, but the story lives on. That usher today? I think he is working for the CIA.Tonight we are going to hang out all night at D'Jais - the bars are open until 5:00 A.M. - on the wooden dance floor right next to the beach. With sounds ranging from live classic rock & roll, reggae bands and the TriState's best DJ’s spinning the latest dance music. Few can resist the urge to jump up and boogie when Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” starts pumping through the big sound system’s speakers. There's an indoor restaurant, a food court, outdoor raw bar, and an outdoor bar/restaurant overlooking the beach with live music during the day and almost every night in the summer. A cool stage is built on a pier out over the surf. The Jersey Shore is famous for its population of Guido's (Italian Americans). They are a strange lot, and I couldn’t understand why guys would want to tan until they were orange and would wear their hair in spiky, absurd, Brylcreem product saturated styles, all while boasting about their Italian heritage and steroid use. Even more confusing is the fact that girls found these weird guys attractive.Granted, they weren’t the types of girls I’d be particularly interested in – high heels, fake boobs, and, like their male counterparts, plenty of tanning and smoothed back cream hair products. If you’ve ever been to Long Island or, obviously, the Jersey Shore, then you know just the type of Guido or Guidoette I’m referring to. What kind of people make themselves look like that? What kind of subculture is this? How can you take seriously anybody that struts around like this. But you see everything here.Sea Side Heights is a mixed bag of nationalities, but for the most part, the majority of its summer help hails from former Soviet countries. One of the guys at DEC operates a family owned boardwalk businesses and find themselves becoming friends with their workers, and hanging out with them all summer, so when our support group go down for a few days in the summer, we are bombarded with a new slew of Olgas, and Ludas, and Soushas, and Natashas, whose names and faces I have to try to remember. But never before have I witnessed something like I did tonight. And Oh My God was it "different." First of all, they were not lying . . . besides the bar tenders, my six friends and I, were the only Americans in the place. And trust me, you could tell, just little things like the clothes and the hair styles were just . . . different. There was loud House and Techno pounding through the sound system, and a thin layer of fog machine smoke filled the air. Bodies threw themselves across the dance floor in odd and awkward movements there were no fist pumpers here and the stage and speakers were stood on by both guys and girls who attempted to entice the crowd with bizarre dance moves. When the Russians come to dance, they come to DANCE! They were spinning and jumping and skipping and sweating and they just never let up, it looked more like a slam dance pit in the late 70's than anything close to what we're used to.Ukraine was pissed because he didn’t like Russians and was on one of his ‘try anything shooter all night vibes and he was filling his mouth with anything ranging from vodka to some fairy stuff that tasted sweet, like a Singapore Sling. Well when Ukraine gets all liquored up on shots, he becomes the most generous person in the world and buys rounds for everyone and rounds were bought. I’m sure some lucky, unsuspecting bastards standing next to me got a few shots and a hug from me during the night. Basically I got drinking – I had three Long Islands, two Sex on the Beach, and after that I was totally drunk barely walk out of the bar. Anyway, at this point, I’m flying on a new previously undiscovered drunken cloud. Then came that unavoidable feeling. I walked to the bathroom and sat in front of the toilet. Two orange, chunky pukes later, I walked out back into the bar. We sober up a bit and head out on the beach with the sand crabs for a swim, to cool off sober up a little. Then soaking wet, it’s to the nearest bar on the beach. There was this really hammered dwarf who would repeatedly stagger over to the bar, get a bartender to lean all the way over to hear him and then whisper, "I'm sorry I'm a little drunk" before exploding with laughter and then staggering back to the dance floor. A coworker and I were chatting about something on the news and I said "Yeah, at least it's not Russia!" Suddenly from the end of the bar a massive woman with a thick accent yells, "VAHT YOU SAY ABOUT RRRUSSIA?" She then started regaling the entire bar with stories of the Soviet glory days, babbling on in a crazy Bond villain accent about how great everything used to be. She proceeded to finish her margarita, left a $10 on the bar, and walked out. We then noticed that she'd peed all over the stool. We ended up throwing away the stool. I can think of crazier stories that happened that night, but this one stands out as one of the funniest scenes. I’m leaning against the bar talking to Brownstown and Ukraine about something unimportant when some girls sitting down next to us start laughing. We turn to check out what was so funny when we see this goof ball dancing it up on the dance floor. This guy was wearing some weird pants, a sparkling silver shirt and a skull and crossbones bandana. Even as hammered as I was, I knew this guy looked ridiculous. So without much thought, I made my way over behind him and started dancing behind him in a mocking way. My dancing is a mockery in itself but the fact it was geared at this guy had my friends laughing hysterically by the bar. Pretty soon a few others took notice in this ugly scene and found it funny. Sure enough, my target eventually caught on and kept trying to catch me doing whatever was making these people laugh around him. Like the idiot I was, the second he’d turn to me I would stop moving completely and scratch my head as if I had some intense idea I was trying to wrap my brain around.Keep in mind we were in the middle of the dance floor so I just looked like I might have been retarded or maybe gay. The night wore on. Sometime between that last round of shots and dancing on the bar, I have become a stand-up comedian and a first-rate politician. Well at least in this bar I can go out side and pee on the beach sand. I come back inside and toss another Red Bull. I can’t believe that I used to think that Red Bull was the most destructive invention of the past 50 years.Closing time was around the corner so we got out of the bar and went to a pizza place on the Broad Walk. I managed to order a slice of pepperoni and bumped into an old buddy from my days at the New School in Greenwich Village, shot the shit (maybe he understood some of it, who knows) while they heated up my slice, made my way up the six stairs to join my buddies on the deck over looking the street and tried to sit down on a flimsy plastic chair. Now, at this point, everything went into slow motion. I sat on the plastic chair, which could not handle my drunken way of sitting, propelling me backwards. My slice of pizza went airborne, and in the middle of my fall, a convertible filled with four smoking hot girls drove by. I landed on my backside next to my slice of pizza and the sound of four of the hottest women I had ever seen laughing their asses off at me as they drove off in green Mini Cooper car. This upset me. What the hell kind of chair is this? Unfortunately, most of my angry remarks were directed at a bunch of police officers about ten feet away. Someone managed to hail a cab before I really got us all into a bucket of shit and started us on our way back to motel. As it turns out, we didn’t have enough for the full fare and this jerk off cabbie didn’t trust us enough to let us off at a bank (I might have played a role in that). He dropped us off a good ten minutes from our motel. I got out of the cab and promptly passed out on someone’s lawn.Now, this is the last I remember from the night. I blacked out the moment I stepped out of that cab. The rest has been told to me or I pieced it together. I woke up the next morning completely reclined in the passenger seat of a minivan parked in a random person’s driveway. I had no idea whose van this was, I didn’t recognize the house that was towering in front of me and I barely recognized the environment. What was even more alarming was that I was wearing nothing but my boxer-briefs and my socks. Where the hell are my clothes and it’s nearly 7:00 A.M. On the front steps of the house are all my clothes, neatly folded. My shoes are placed together right in front of my clothes with my wallet and lighter sticking out of them. Everything seemed to be carefully placed and handled with the utter most care. I am perplexed, how did I neatly fold my clothes and check for unlocked minivans to fall asleep in? Imagine the horror on the owners face had he opened the driver’s door to find a half-naked drunk passed out in their own vehicle? This was by far one of the weirdest places I had ever woken up in after the madness of a full-blown drink fest. That’s why I hate drinking and don’t do it. Except a little socially, but I never get drunk, well, except on my DEC canoe trips, but you are supposed too then! Brown Town is trying to be celibate and even Burpy gets no loving when the lady he picked up at Karma is found to be indisposed for that time of the month. Shooter gets one of the Princeton DEC secretaries to come down and they hook up. After few more nights in Seaside Heights there were no more drunken episodes or trips to the police station.Its Sunday morning, I rented a Jeep and I am heading home and it’s pouring down rain, I’m lost out on the edge of the county proper (only Jersey marshland beyond) somewhere near Perth Amboy and I’m just trying to find the way back to the Garden State Parkway and I think I almost have. I make a slow right turn on a slick surface street and WHAMMO! Out of nowhere this other car comes right at me and I plow into the ditch and I start to see jail in my very near future. I stagger out of my rental car, my forehead bleeding from an open cut above my eye and I look like I’ve just gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson. This next part is a bit of an illustration into why alcohol in the system from the previous night, combined with a naturally outgoing personality can be a problem.So the cop (all I remember was one Highway Patrol officer) asks me if I’ve been drinking. I slur out my denial in obvious screwed-up tongue-tied fashion, the crash has taken its toll on my senses. He asks me a couple of more times. I admit to having drinks the night before, and he whips out the Breathalyzer, but remember, I haven’t been drinking for at least eight hours, I’ve been driving around now for a while, I’m a fairly big guy at 180 lbs. so the Breathalyzer likely doesn’t go off. They ambulance driver tries to “good cop bad cop” me into admitting any drugs I’ve taken because he’s “just wants to know.” They load me into the back of an ambulance and take me to the hospital where the dreaded blood test is done. Then I go to sleep for a few hours. When I wake up, I am alone in a hospital room. I am craving a Bettie Jean (my wife) toasted cheese sandwich with bacon and tomato and am still pleasantly buzzed from the percoset pain killer they gave me, I can see a long year of lawyer’s fees, hassles with my license, and having to drive a cheap car that will make me look like a jerk, and having no farther CAREER prospects whatsoever. But there are no COPs here waiting to take me to jail. I walk out of the hospital about 3:00 P.M. and call Tommy at his motel, maybe he is out of jail now. I drive home to East Orange and feel into bed.Monday morning my hung-over head and dilapidated body was rudely awakened by Bettie who asked me “what the hell had I been up too?” I mumbled something about being with my “boys” at the Shore and we drank to much.” Well, she knew I was there but to come home in this condition worried her. She told me that thieves had stolen a bunch of stuff from our garage last night. The kids bikes, a cheap lawnmower, a foot scooter and some sound equipment someone had been storing there were taken. I ran downstairs in a panic to find my garage doors wide open, it looked like the thieves had done us in. Except for the kids bikes, the stuff that was stolen was no real loss. That was a hell of a way to cap the weekend off. Must have happened after I came home? I was terribly dehydrated and still feeling queasy and drank lots of water and had a big breakfast with bacon, potatoes, whole wheat bread and eggs. I was still to messed up to drive to work so I took the buss into from East Orange to Penn Station. Vince was sitting in my One Penn Plaza office waiting for my appearance and he got some hot black coffee for me. I asked him about Roxy, the waitress from Sea Side Heights who got drunk with the rest of us. He said she did get drunk but didn’t have a drunk driving story, she wouldn't do something like that. Vince grinned! Now, giving a blow job to the driver, driving while switching places behind the steering wheel with her boy friend while they were both are undressing while going 60 mph, THAT she has done . ..Damn, why do I worry so much about people? It's my Irish heritage I think. Only 1/4 per cent but it can be dominant when I feel for people. I still feel wasted and know that exercise is good and plan on walking down to our Wall Street office this morning. I will stop off along the way and get something to eat at the my favorite Greek Dinner on 14th street.P.S. I get the police report about two weeks later. The box he’s supposed to check if you’re drunk isn’t. And the box your supposed to check if there are drugs in your system isn’t. And the box that he’s supposed to check if you had an open container isn’t checked either. The box you check for racial ethnicity I wrote in Irish. Officer O'Herlihy winked when he handed me the ticket. I love those Jersey COPs. "Hath and begonia"So, what is it like living in Manhattan?Living in Manhattan is basically living in the epicenter of all human society . . . .they don't call NYC the capitol of the world for nothing! Life is great in Manhattan. It's exciting and you will accumulate experiences in just one year that would take you one hundred years to average up anywhere else, if that is even possible because Manhattan generates life stories not found anywhere in the world. You can pretty much do whatever we want, whenever you want. You can shop at high-end stores or shop at bargain stores. Go to one of many public parks. See a concert. There are 12,000 bars in Manhattan, 6,000 night clubs, and 3,000 formal restaurants. Dance clubs are all over the city as well as all night Mickey Spillane type Dive Bars that have a Juke Box and small dance floor. See a professional sporting event. Go to a top-notch restaurant . . . It's a walk around city that is alive 24 X 7. You get the picture! But life is fun, fast and frazzled. And that interesting person you have been wanting to meet is just around the next corner.Despite the diversity, several characteristics do come to mind that could be considered common to most New Yorkers as a whole. With everything literally at their fingertips, New Yorkers are by definition savvy and worldly, and very little surprises or shocks them. They are not very liberal as you might expect, but basically down to earth and normal. Most people on the street or in the subway are friendly and helpful after you get past an initial wariness. On the other hand, New Yorkers are unfailingly proud of their great city, and this pride can, at times, come off as arrogance and an inability to see the positive beyond the Big Apple’s city limits. New York offers the visitor as many cultural activities as there are existing cultures – in other words, an overwhelming choice that couldn’t possibly be experienced in only one visit. Numerous offerings in sports, the arts, food, and university life are available for the taking!Religion and Politics are all over the map. Everyone has a different opinion, tolerance is expected, bigotry is not tolerated, The NYPD is respected, The NYFD are all heroes, Giuliani was our greatest Major, Sharpton is an asshole, protests for anything happen everywhere, everyone gets along with a smile and a wink, and serious debates focus on sports. New Yorkers come from every belief persuasion known to man and are reasonable human beings, not argumentative absolutists and ultra conservatives intolerants like found in the south and they know a phony when they see one. Plus there is the romanticism of this city, what with its beautiful people and architecture going hand in hand with the parks that take you away from what some like to call the concrete jungle. It's quaint and is sort of the closest thing to Europe: You're living on the water, you have outdoor cafes and small streets. There are lots of pockets of parks. The entire Hudson River Waterfront has been newly renovated, and the East River Waterfront is being renovated. There's a huge strip where you can take long walks, and there are also bicycle paths.There are endless activities for you, many free, and many inexpensive. There are ways to come by free or cheap tickets to events through friends and connections as well. But the best thing about raising kids in NYC is what your kids will learn. They will be exposed to many different cultures, languages, art forms, and people. They will see crazy homeless people, fabulous musicians, insanely wealthy people, poor people, ingenious kids, survivors of all types, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists. They will eat Chinese food, Greek food, Ethiopian food, and even American food. They will see social engineering and world class architecture. In short, they will grow to be sophisticated, knowledgeable, and (one hopes) mature and responsible humans with a great understanding of the bigger world. They will also have the opportunity to excel in any field they choose: ballet, music, fencing, chess, writing, soccer, etc. Because so many disciplines are done at such a high level here, there are teachers and communities for everything. There is also more freedom for them to be individuals. Without being ostracized, they can be gay, they can be nerds, they can be different, and they can find others like them. You will give up some creature comforts (quality of life) but will be rewarded with fuller and more interesting days.Manhattan also boasts of one of the world's largest theatre scenes and is the dance and music capital of the USA if not the world. If you like the performing arts, you'll find new and original work as well as old work being revived. Plays are also everywhere: from the East Village all the way to Columbia on the upper west side (and of course in the Great White Way Broadway theatre district in midtown). There are soaring skyscrapers and bustling sidewalks paired with winding cobblestone alleys and picturesque parks. It's kind of fun to have the whole New York experience of being in the heart of a commercial area - lots of businesses, business people and big office towers - but there are always those tiny pockets of cute neighborhoods and shops. Billions of dollars have been put into rebuilding and revitalizingSub-cultures abound in virtually every part of the city. Ethnic cultures still flourish in neighborhoods like Chinatown, Little Italy, Little India, and in Astoria (Queens), the largest indigenously Greek population outside of Athens. Gay and lesbian life is prevalent in Greenwich Village and Chelsea, and is growing in what was once a working class, crime-ridden area, Hell's Kitchen. Though not often considered a college town, thousands of students proliferate all over the city, attracted by the vast stores of knowledge kept here and the generous attitudes of some of the best research centers America has to offer : New York University in Greenwich Village, The School of Visual Arts in the Flatiron District, the New School near Union Square, Columbia University in Morningside Heights, and Fordham University in the Bronx: all of the above have ample endowments and extensive access to special collections in art, science, history, law, and medicine.Living in Manhattan can be one of the most exciting and fabulous places you'll ever live! Just like any city, there are neighborhoods which are quiet and less happening, and there are some areas of the city that can be more dangerous than others. Always alive, Manhattan's subway runs 24 hours a day (with the exception of very rare strikes) and there are buses and (of course) taxis to keep you moving. Some folks own a car, but most would advise against it. Besides, all that walking helps you get exercise you need after eating at any of the top restaurants and there are few fat [people in the city.New York’s uniqueness lies in its extraordinary amalgam of different cultures: it is a city quite literally built by immigrants as much as built by tycoons and high rollers. It is therefore difficult to pinpoint one overarching culture shared by all of its citizens. While New Yorkers are famous for their distinctive accent, a walk amongst the city’s multilingual population will expose you to a wide variety of accents and speech patterns. Bottom line, Manhattan - you either love it or hate it: New York City will not, can never leave you indifferent. The city overwhelms you by its giant scope: by population, it is larger than either London or Paris. There are hundreds of theatres, thousands of restaurants, Wall Street, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park and a lot more of cultural peaks. It is the city that never sleeps, because the economy keeps turning 24 hours a day. This metropolis with 10 millions inhabitants is the place where it all happens. Each neighborhood has its own identity. New York or "The Big Apple,” is more than a city. It's an experience.When I lived in Hell's Kitchen after moving to Manhattan I met actresses, models and party girls so I had an active social life. When I worked in Greenwich Village, I walked to many cultural venues, to some of the many nearby very good restaurants, clubs, bookstores, theaters, etc. Access to public transportation was outstanding. On the other hand, my food shopping was restricted to the very few supermarkets within walking distance and my apartments were rather small with small kitchens. However, living downtown is very expensive, I moved to Jamaica, Queens.For more then 10 years I had offices on 34th street in the Penn Plaza office building complex.. On my Penn Plaza block food was everywhere. Whatever or whenever, it was all there. On just my block, I have 2 Halal places, a Chinese place, a Thai place, a papaya dog, 2 delis, a Greek place, Starbucks, a pizza place, and a sushi place. That is just on the block where I work in - more than 100 restaurants. There are that many restaurants on every block, and some are open 24/7, the others close at 3 am. And Bars, if you like bars, they are everywhere - all types, from Juke, Jazz, Sports and Dive Bars, there are hundreds. Man Manhattan is the neighborhood for you for people and interesting experiences. Tons of them everywhere.I used to regularly walk down Broadway to Wall Street from my Penn Plaza office building, going through all type of ethnic neighborhoods. You may not think so looking at a map of the tangle of it, or you may not think so if you’re not, as most New Yorkers are, amenable to walking, but if you, say, walk down Broadway from Herald Square toward its end point in Battery Park, you’ll first walk through what I regard as the larger context of my neighborhood.Those who imagine New York as a forest of tall buildings will find their imaginations gratified by the cityscape there where they abound. Downtown is mostly a low-lying polyglot playground, “polyglot” indeed suggesting different actual languages: in these more affluent human surrounds that means a lot more French, German, Italian and British English than one was wont to hear twenty or more years ago (Europeans have a much larger presence here than was true before then). But it’s metaphorically polyglot, too: the language of every culture, every gender and age, expressed bodily and behaviorally, is always at hand and eye. My particular swatch of cityscape has become exceedingly attractive to 20-somethings; restaurants and clubs catering to them thrive: weekends are packed with the gorgeous world-wide oddities of largely affluent youth.It can also be hard to live here. Its very expensive. And while you can find ways to live on the cheap, you often find yourself paying a premium for convenience. When I go to the suburbs with friends, we get weirdly excited to go to malls, giant box stores and supermarkets in cars. The amount of people in such a small space in NYC, and fact that you have to walk everywhere can make doing everyday things like errands really hard. For instance, our grocery stores are excruciatingly small, with narrow aisles and shelves up to the ceiling. If you need to pick up dry cleaning, laundry, ingredients for dinner and a bottle of wine on the way home from work, good luck: you're going to feel like a grumpy pack mule by the time you get home to your 4th floor walk up. Its hard not to justify a cab ride over the subway when you're wearing heels, exhausted from the day and trying to get through a to do list the length of your arm. And while apps like Fresh Direct, Fly Cleaners and Seamless have slowly made it a lot more convenient to live here lately, its for a premium.You can also go months without seeing some of your best friends. The people who live here and choose to stay are busy, they take their careers and success seriously, often at the expense of personal lives. When you ask people how they are, you here a lot of "busy" "tired" "crazy." You know how in the TV show Friends they were all hanging out in that coffee shop all the time? LIES. All lies. But every time I swear I'm going to move away, I get drawn back in. A friend once told me that you have to live here like you are about to move away: take advantage of all the things you would miss. What ends up happening is you change your routine, find new ways to take advantage of the city and it feels completely new again. I feel like I've lived in 5 different cities in the time I lived here. At different times talking advantage of/participating in the art scene, other times reveling in living near some of the most established cultural institutions in the world, joining sports teams to meet new people, taking sailing lessons, going out dancing until 9am the next day, riding bikes to the beach, connecting with the vital community of small businesses and start-ups. I think the only constant in New York is that is will always be evolving, and you can choose to live in whatever NYC you want. So many versions of the city exist in layers on top of each other, its up to you to decide what experience you want with the city.

1970s Cruising Times SquareI was listening to Bernard Meltzer’s call-in advice show. It wasn’t so psychology-based, just heavy on common sense and consumer advice. Women could find out how to get their husbands to pay them a compliment once in awhile, and men could find out how to cancel a scam insurance policy. Meltzer was Dear Abby over the airwaves. Usually I just listened to WABC on the a.m. dial, a top forty station that played plenty of Carly Simon, James Taylor, Harry Chapin and other sentimental singer-songwriters. The one-hit-wonders of the day were often the songs I liked the most. “Alone Again, Naturally,” “Lonely Boy” and “Seasons in the Sun” touched an emotional chord in me that I didn’t yet have a name for. We took the long way in, over the 59th Street Bridge, and I always hummed “Feelin’ Groovy” in my mind. I knew the Simon and Garfunkel song from my sister’s record collection.The mood of the city changed as night began to fall. Times Square was pre-TV screens and only had neon lights and seamy sights to catch a passerby’s attention, but there were plenty of both. Crazy Eddie’s prices were “In-saaaane” and the people on the street seemed pretty whacked out too. Orange Julius attracted a lot of nighttime customers, who stood outside, not a one drinking juice, but everybody making deals. In the heat of summer, sweaty men and women still wore a bit of fur, even if it was just a hint of it on their wide-brimmed hats or feral collars. The folks who did business in this part of town were mostly black and Hispanic, but the white and Asian ones somehow also appeared black or Hispanic, too. There was something about the way the neon lights outside and the fluorescent lights inside the stores cast a sallow glow over all these bejeweled and exciting creatures of the night. It was theatre on the streets. Who needed to go see “Grease,” perpetually playing on Broadway, when the real drama was right under your toes and next to a drunk or dead body?I drove across 42nd Street and up and down the avenues looking for parking. I cruised around and passed paunchy, bald businessmen bringing young girls in stiletto heels into Tad’s Steakhouse and La Scala. Sometimes these same types walked in and out of the Mayfair Bar, making up or breaking up. I couldn’t have been happier back then, sitting like a Buddhist Monk, behind the wheel, lost in my dreams. Squeegee men approached my windshield at what seemed like thirty-second intervals, rags in hand and rank smells exuding from their skin. I would roll up my window to keep them away. Once one was gone, the windows came back down till the next one approached and the trapped-in-traffic dance continued. Yet everybody was cool and knew the rules, and I was thrilled to learn them from a pro. People were terrified by the nocturnal world of crime and danger and other races and vermin crawling out of unknown crevices. Times Square was filled with half naked strutting, prostitutes; creatures of the night, filthy, smelled like a dirty dish rag soaked in piss, neon lights on everywhere, nocturnal, dangerous and I loved it.The movie posters outside the brightly-lit theatres told the story of what adults did after their kids went to sleep. In these black and white pictures, Oriental girls walked on white men’s backs. Their tight bosoms had sparkly nipples, like the fireworks that exploded all over Chinatown on the 4th of July. Some posters just had men playing games with other men. These guys tended to look like Sam Cobra, the mustachioed villain in black leather, who was part of my Johnny West & the Best of the West doll collection. I passed a half dozen fleabag motels walking in the direction of a Castro Convertible Couch billboard, our North Star, on the way to play arcade games.I plugged quarters into my favorite pinball machine, the one that said “Rock and Roll!” and had drawings of mop-topped guys playing guitars. As I racked up points and tried for more, my father walked around, always within sight but somehow keeping his eyes focused outward, on the streets. When I’d done a dollar’s worth of work, I approached him for more money. He gave me a worn green single and told me to ask the man to change it for me. The guy wore an apron and a change machine on his belt that doled out silver. He took my dollar and looked right past me as he pressed coins out with his thumb. His face carried the grizzled look of a lost man, all salt and pepper stubble and bits of grease from his hands, lingering on his lips.1971 Taxi Driver Wild Cat StrikeI visited my Price Waterhouse customer and left the office building drooling over another encounter with Rhapsody Dawson. Right off, while standing at the corner waiting to cross the street, I saw hundreds of taxi drivers clogging 6th Avenue with their taxis. They were protesting the Taxi and Limousine Commission for higher rates and called this traffic jam a ‘job action.’ Not a single car or bus was moving and there was no room to cross the street, pedestrians were blocked by cars and trapped on the sidewalks.A Black policeman walked around trying to get traffic moving while thousands of pedestrians on all four corners of an intersection stood around and watched. Looking west across sixth avenue, there were about 500 people jammed into the intersection I was standing in and the crowd was rapidly growing. Without reservations, we started talking to each other and I struck up conversations with some tall and thin girls who were obviously fashion models, they were all extremely attractive and carried those big black leather folders filled with pictures of themselves in their best poses, the ones they showed perspective clients. There was the blonde from Paris with a ticklish French accent, the sexy bombshell from Russia with deep black eyes and a fully Hooter qualified curvaceous figure, the slinky Black girl from Africa with full lips, wonderful smile, rounded hips and delightful butt, and the one I like the most, the Indian girl, was dripping with sexual intensity and looking like she just came out of a calendar shot for Playboy Magazine.A Pizza delivery guy was lamenting his two large Pizzas had gotten cold, so he passed out free pepperoni slices. Every type of New Yorker was standing there, hard hat construction workers, business people, street characters, every hue of color - Black, White, Brown, Yellow - all transfixed on the scene, engaging in conversation and enjoying the moment of New York City inspired spontaneity. Wearing suits, mini skirts, fashion jeans, or just shorts with braless halters, the people gathered, and enjoyed our newly found comradeship. It was in this way people appreciated New York, meeting fellow travelers in life who, based on these impromptu meetings, would often become friends and even lovers.You would think that a simple thing like a massive traffic jam was frustrating, but it was really providing multiple opportunities to meet new people and share the excitement of being alive. Evidently the policeman thought the same way as he marched up and down 6th Avenue with his arms over his head shouting “Ain’t New York City a wonderful place.” The crowd clapped and cheered. Even the street character with the spear and dressed like a Russian Cossack cheered. Manhattan is a very spontaneous and exciting city that allows people to enjoy life.1972 - Field ManagerAfter serving as a Product Support Engineer for one year, I was promoted to Field Manager in a new office being established in Manhattan. Our first Manhattan office on 2 West 45th Street started with only fifteen people and within a year, there was more than a hundred. We left our temporary office at 2 West 45th Street and moved into new digs at 810 7th Avenue on the 22nd floor. (Us) supervisors sat in a large rectangle office where customers called us directly to log service calls. We would put the call slips on a bulletin board and assign the first available technician. The phones rang off the hook incessantly. Eventually, I memorized all my customers’ phone numbers and could punch them up in a second, my fingers would just fly over the ten key unit. In New York City, hand speed was critical, even the people making sandwiches in Manhattan’s Delis had fantastically high hand speed and to this day that is one thing I notice wherever I go.Our office on the 22nd floor of 810 7th Avenue, the 41-story glass tower is located on the 53rd Street side of Seventh Avenue with Broadway at the buildings back. Two of our customers, Blue Cross - Blue Shield and Reuters, had their corporate headquarters next to us on 53rd street. Behind our building on Broadway was a Disco where Clint Eastwood was filmed. Telly Savalas and his TV production crew filmed street take scene outs for his detective TV show there too and I was in several of the back ground scenes. Gorgeous Brown and Black women were always found on the elevator going to the floor above us. They were singers for Mo Town which had a recording studio there. They invited us up to watch them record and we invited them down for our office parties. You can imagine what a blast that turned out to be.I was a field manager directing computer service efforts for a gang of engineers. It was very - New York - busy and I was on the phone all day trying to solve major customer crises. It was so busy I had to piss in the waste basket, only a major dump would allow me to the bathroom. Sometimes when I needed to quiet my emotions and have a mind break, I would go out on our 22nd floor fire escape and smoke a cigarette and from my small perch, like being on an overhang rock on a 400-foot cliff, I could look up and down Seventh Avenue and into the Americana hotel rooms across the street. It was scary looking down 22 floors, and this was only a narrow steel fire escape attached to the building by bolts and I wondered if it would stay in place if a bunch of people tried to use it. I was amazed on how crooked the brick wall was that formed the exterior of our building. In the course of a few hundred feet, it seemed to wave in and out about two feet.Nothing undermines business as much as feather bedding New York style unions. Because our building did not allow Digital to use the elevators during the day for non people stuff, my computer part’s orders would be delivered by Parcel Post at night exactly at 5:05 P.M. We are not talking about heavy stuff. All our computer parts could fit easily in a suitcase or on a small dolly. Just for one five-minute use of the passengers’ elevator, the building’s union demanded a full staff who would be paid overtime for an eight-hour shift. They wanted a dock receiver plus a loading supervisor, a security guard, and an elevator operator. Remember that this is for one small box of computer parts, or the building superintendent wanted a one hundred-dollar bill under the table. Using my personal finances, I cashed a hundred-dollar check and solved my problem. At the end of the week I used my Travel Letter to recoup my expenses. Corporate Digital did not understand the corrupt operation of New York City unions.Nubian PrincessesOne evening, after working late, as I walked out of the lobby of 810 7th Avenue, I ran into two of the most exotically beautiful Black women I have ever met. They were both tall, slender and built like the wall of China, and they immediately attracted my attention. They were outside the entrance to my office building on 7th Avenue trying figuring out where a good coffee shop was and being the gallant soul I am, I offered to take them to a coffee shop around the corner. We sat and talked for hours and I discovered they were sisters and African princesses from Nigeria and their father was Nigeria’s ambassador to the United Nations. I gave them a ride to their hotel, The Opera Hotel, on 77th & Broadway where I found one of the best hideaway bars in the city. Although decrepit, it was where many Broadway performers hung out and developed new material for the public on the full sized sound stage in the back. They put me onto another hangout for the performing arts crowd, Sweetwater's on 67th and Amsterdam Avenue.Gunfight on 8th AvenueOn a sunny day while I was walking back to Port Authority, I heard a series of gun shots directly in front of me. It sounded like fire crackers, but I knew they were gun shots. I hit the ground while only a few yards away, a major gun battle was going on. Immediately, within seconds the police swarmed, filling the street and blockading people from getting near the gun fight. The Tactical Squad was there in a minute with shots guns, helmets and bulletproof vests and they were not firing back. I was kissing the sidewalk and could not see all the action, but soon the police calmly stopped the gun fight between Irish Hells Kitchen gangs and got them into Paddy Wagons. In a little while, I walked past the spot where the gun fight had taken place and saw no blood stains, so I took it that no one got hurt.Honey Suckle DevineHoney Suckle Divine, a prominent model often featured in Greenwich Village’s ‘Screw Magazine,’ was walking down Eighth Avenue wearing a long white dress. She was directly in front of me as I walked toward the Port Authority Bus Station. Honey was tall, a blond, large breasted, with legs up to her neck, and she was swinging her butt suggestively. At that time I did not know who she was, but by the way she carried her self, it was obvious that this was a woman in show business. Men turned around to stare at this beauty and I heard her chuckle with every adoring look. All of a sudden she pulls her dress over her head and wearing only a G String, walks down Eighth Avenue swinging curvaceous hips. I was right behind her and could not help but goggle at her voluptuous and beautiful rear end and those long legs. Suddenly she brought her arms up embracing the sky and wiggled her butt vigorously down the street, this lady was putting on a show. It was strange, but now most people were embarrassed and avoided looking directly at her. Then I noticed she was being followed by a camera crew, they were taping a promotion for Screw Magazine, and it was all a publicity stunt.The Manhattan ProjectIn the 1970s working in Manhattan within the explosive growth of the computer industry, we never had enough technicians to install the more than one hundred systems per month for our Fortune 500 customer base. Even though I had a very talented crew, many of my computer engineers came from military weapons programs or were Brooklyn Poly, Steven Institute, Harvard, MIT and Princeton engineering graduates, we needed help. So I put the word out to our international company - "We need technicians, come to Manhattan for a few weeks and we will put you up in a nice Midtown hotel, provide $100/day diem, tickets to Broadway plays and lots of high tech computers to install." It was called the "Manhattan Project" and it when on for several years. We were setting new standards for urban operations and people from all over the world were coming to visit our Manhattan office and see how we did it. They came from all over the Western world and from the USA to experience the "Big Apple" and have some fun while installing the latest computers that seldom were found outside of Manhattan's high tech data base applications in major headquarters accounts.I put our temporary workers up at the Parker Meridian Hotel located on 7th avenue and 54th street. Workers were constantly coming and going and each week we constantly had more than 25 technicians in town to help us. Often, I stuck around at night to manage their service efforts while I played cards with the off duty workers, after all, they had the best poker games in town. Most of these guys were from small towns across mid America or from our manufacturing plants in the Northeast. At first, they were afraid of Manhattan, but soon they would be hanging out in any one of hundreds of Mid Town bars or night clubs. After all, there were more than 13,000 Bars in Manhattan, so they did not have to walk far. Within a few blocks of the hotel, you could find more than a hundred bars, dance clubs, night clubs, theaters and restaurants . . . anything in your wildest imagination your heart desires.Of course the Europeans spoke English and were anxious to see Manhattan's bright lights up close. I became good friends with the men from England and Holland and spend much time with them carousing the night clubs and exciting streets of Manhattan. It seems they were more interested in that aspect of the big City than our field operations. They felt their London and Amsterdam operations were nothing like Manhattan, not even close, and our operational skills were not transportable back home, we were just too different. Basically, we operated on New York time . . . fast and furious! Europe was set in a slower pace with much smaller systems in smaller applications. Those from small mid western towns were amazed at Manhattan's diversity and cosmopolitan ambiance. They liked being around where there are big buildings and lots things to do, dance clubs, restaurants and shops. Those from California, Chicago and Boston felt right at home. The most disagreeable bunch was from the South - a region still segregated and backward with horrible opinions of New York buried in their southern cultural minds. They were aghast at the hundreds of integrated bars/night clubs within a few blocks of the hotel, the equality and mixing of the races at work and customer sights, and in New York they couldn't use their evangelical religion to justify their horrible racial views. I had to send many of them back home for there constant use of the world "Nigger" and disrespect to our black employees and fellow engineers.Southerners came from racially segregated environments where there were very limited social activities. Most of them just couldn't get used to the social integration Manhattan life represented. What made it worse for them, just within two blocks of the hotel I put them up in were hundreds of integrated bars and dance clubs, the DEC office was loaded with both black and white secretaries and sales people. It drove them nuts! These red necks were used to the separation of the races, blacks being at the bottom of the totem pole in all things and used to talking down to blacks and calling them a "Nigger" and getting away with it.I would go over to the Midtown Parker Meridian Hotel where I put all the temporary workers, sat and played cards with them, told them the things to do in Manhattan, where to go and how to conduct themselves. Some of the southerners used the "N:" word profusely and I sent them home - we couldn't have that in New York. It was for their own safety too, because many blacks would take them to task and beat the holy loving shit out of them for a lark and leave them in the street bloodied and unconscious.Willy was this small, diminutive, innocent looking black man in my engineering organization who was ex military, he was Green Beret and took no shit from anyone. What fooled people into thinking he was just a smiling, nice, small black man was his pleasant demure, he was quiet and friendly, but what they didn't know was that he was very smart, spoke multiple languages, was proficient in all types of squad weapons, had great martial arts skills and killed a huge number of Viet Cong in Vietnam. He could take you down just with his thumb and rabbit punch you death in two seconds. I had a large number of such fierce ex military types in my organization.Well, while playing cards one night, Bubba, this one red neck, a big bellied man from South Carolina, got into with Willy, called him a dirty Nigger and dared him to do anything about it. I went wild . . . this racist jerk was going back home tomorrow. Willy said "Cool it Jerry, I will take care of this now." He took a beer bottle and told the red neck that he expected an immediate apology or he would shove the beer bottle up his ass, and if he was nice he would shove it up the narrow neck end first. The red neck laughed and went for Willy, after all he was a big against a small man.In a second he was pinned on his stomach with hurt body parts screaming his head off, his pants down and the beer bottle slowly going up has ass. He cried out an apology and begged for respite. Willy said "Got me a slave tonight, get me a drink Bubba, call me 'Sir' and otherwise keep your mouth shut." I had Bubba on a plane the nest day with a note to his boss. that we didn't want this type of help in New York.I have spent many years in New York City and learned quick that you never know who you are talking too and what their capabilities are. Tough men come in all colors and sizes and beware if you anger them. So, rule number one , , , be nice; rule number two, don't get into some ones face, it may mean a fight that you won't win. And bring a gun out and you will do at least 18 months in jail at Rikers.Many of the technicians who came to Manhattan eventually came to love New York City and they wanted to transfer here. The biggest problems about working in Manhattan were the quality of life and commuting issues, which typically were costly housing and long hours on trains or buses, even the subway from Queens or Brooklyn could be a 1 ½ hour ride. But the work was on the most advanced computer systems and technology in the USA and one year of experience in Manhattan was like ten years anywhere else, in fact, in most cases, they would never see the advanced applications such as found in Manhattan. The kinds of people who really liked New York City tended to be high risk oriented urban adventures who wanted to live a colorful life full of excitement in the Big Apple and during the first year of the Manhattan Project, 27 technicians transferred to Manhattan. No southerners transferred to Manhattan. They lived an entirely different culture that didn't suffer multi culturalism, racial integration, ethnic diversity, where religiosity supported their legalized Jim Crow segregationMo Town Recording Studio - Building FireBelow our 22nd floor office was a MoTown recording studio and often we could feel and hear, through the cement floor, their vibrating music being recorded. We met hundreds of famous artists on the elevator and even had them attend our infamous office parties. One night, a bunch of us was working late and we smelled pungent smoke coming from the air-conditioning vents, it quickly worsened so I called the fire department. No one had any idea where the fire was and heavy smoke was now entering our office through the air vents and eliminating good breathing air. We were told by the fire department not to use the elevators nor the fire escape because the fire could be anywhere. The fire department said they would call me once they got there and discovered where the fire was. Soon, the smoke got so bad and it was suffocating us now, so I threw a steel chair at one of our big plate glass windows. At first, the chair just bounced off, but when I used the chair as a ball peen hammer, it broke and fresh air rolled in allowing us to breath. When the fire department got there, they discovered the fire was directly below us in the MoTown recording studios. By that time, the smoke was blinding us, you could not see beyond a foot and we had to stick our heads out the 22nd story windows for breath, but once the firemen got there, things improved fast. One of favorite “After Work” Happy Hour hangouts was the 21 Club, which we referred to as simply 21; it is a restaurant and former prohibition-era speakeasy, located at 21 West 52nd Street (off of 5th Avenue). The bar tender said Frank Sinatra owned the place and brought his cronies there and we would see celebrities there often. It was kind of a Las Vegas - Hollywood hangout. You know when celebrities drink, they turn into just regular people.Homeless Guy Attacks Me - Charley’s BarI was walking to my hangout, Charley’s Bar on 51st off of Broadway when, what looked to be, a homeless guy walked up and asked me for a cigarette. I gave him one from my shirt pocket, he asked for a light, and as I was getting out a match, he pulled a small hunting knife and demanded my wallet. I looked the guy in the eye and saw a desperate man, who was drunk or high on drugs who smelled like he hadn’t taken a bath in a month. I told him to beat it. The knife was in his right hand and he lunged for my stomach with it, but I was able to push his thrust away with my left hand. I kneed him in the balls and with my right hand, grabbed his throat, squeezed and threw him against a wall. He gasped and tried to talk but couldn’t and I squeezed some more. His eyes were rolling over and going blank so I released my grip enough for him to talk and he pleaded with me to let him go. He cried that he was just trying to get some money for some more drugs. I reminded him that he tried to kill me while I looked around for a cop, but there were none to be seen any where. I wanted this guy arrested but there were no police around anywhere. There were a few people on the street and I called out to passers by and asked them to call the police but they ignored me.NYC Lunch - Relaxing at Bryant ParkLocated at 40th and 42nd Street and Between 5th and 6th Avenue, I spent many lunch hours in Bryant Park I had many customers in Midtown, the CUNY University system, Pfizer and the Daily News. I could spend the day in the area fixing computers but when it came for lunch, I would head to Bryant Park, a fascinating place, it's next to the New York Public Library with its sculptured stone Lions sitting out in front, a place I go to when I want to relax and meditate. It's a very large park, four large Manhattan style blocks square, with a lovely green lawn in the center. There are Delis all over the place, so there are plenty of choices for food. With a minimum of crime, the park is filled with office workers on sunny weekdays, city visitors on the weekends, and revelers during the holidays and has become a favored setting for film and television productions. Daily attendance counts for lunch often exceed 800 people per acre, and there are over ten acres, making it the most densely occupied urban park in the world. One of the park's most impressive features is a large lawn that is the longest expanse of grass in Manhattan south of Central Park. Besides serving as a "lunchroom" for midtown office workers and a place of respite for tired pedestrians, and world class chess contests, the lawn also serves as the seating area for some of the park's major events, such as the Bryant Park Summer Film Festival.1974 My Long Weekend at the Jersey ShoreI don’t like to get drunk, it is embarrassing and I don’t like the way I feel, especially if I am feeling nauseously sick and start throwing up. So, I usually take it easy when drinking and stick with beer, something I know and can handle. But there are exceptions. Like the last time I went to the Jersey Shore with some of my motley gang from the New York support group. We got rooms at a motel right on the beach, a dingy, old, smelly, dirty thing, but it was on the beach and close by was the broad walk and all those dance clubs and juke joint Dive Bars the Jersey Shore is famous for, the ones that cater to the New York City wild man types, you know, the crazy fun living and damn the torpedoes kind of weirdoes. Not that the Jersey Shore is all about drunks and audacious times. In fact, what I have always loved about the shore was how much it has to offer. If you wanna just chill out all day at the beach and call it an early night, well, that’s there for you. There are great food and fishing and rides for the kids and the young at heart. However, there is no denying that drinking plays a major part in the allure of Jersey Shore. Don’t ask me to explain, it just is. There’s not one person reading this right now who can’t at the drop of a hat recite a blow-by-blow account of a night that started with three cases of Miller Late. “And how about stories your secretary, “Mary actually was wearing a can on her head and we all went out to Casino Pizza.” And so it is when the DEC folks from Manhattan get together, it usually means mayhem on the beach.After a 60 to an 80-hour work week, going to the shore is like taking a trip back in time. Down at the shore, its OK to funnel Miller Light or shotgun a can of low grade lager and listen all night to Bruce Springsteen on the Boardwalk. It’s OK to hang with your buddies or business teammates and get dirty. We are deadly serious during the week on our high tech - high stress jobs, but young professionals can succumb to peer pressure, acting more like high school seniors than the leaders of tomorrow. Whether its LBI or Asbury Park, people come to the shore to forget about the working week and have fun. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” and for a bad summer and an even worse existence. It seems in order to get ahead today, you need to put in at least 60 hours a week and sometimes a trip to the shore can remind us who we were, who we are, and why we work so hard. There is so much going on at the shore, college kids, locals, Manhattanites, Long Islanders, Upstaters, tourists, conventioneers, and have you ever noticed how many young workers at the Jersey Shore speak with heavy accents? The pizza workers? The balloon game barkers? The boardwalk sales clerks? Well, there's a good reason why, they are foreign college students here on work visas for the summer. Think of it as studying abroad for a semester, but instead of studying, they sell Hermit Crab shells.It was a grinding week, and after work, four of us drove down from Manhattan and had just gotten into Sea Side Heights on a hot Friday night in July. We are going to meet more of the group later, it’s only 7:00 p.m. or so. We were in Tommy’s Volkswagen red convertible enjoying the weather and the warm breezes coming off the sea shore. We went to a party in Dimsum’s (he’s Russian) Sea Isle condo that had already been broken up by the police for loud Vesuvius noises and disorderly conduct. Well, if you can call one of the girls running around in the parking lot in her panties disorderly - we thought it was funny since she weighed more than 300 pounds and gulped down booze from two peanut butter jars half full of vodka as she ran. We knew it was vodka because she had the White Gold Vodka, Black Edition, Russian labeled bottle tucked into the rear of her panties. And she wasn’t even part of our group, probably one of those crazy college kids from Columbia U., but we were cheering her on when the police came and broke it up! So we turn the car around and head downtown when we got pulled over on Central. At this point we were completely sober, but in fairness to the police, I would have pulled us over too. We LOOKED like trouble. However, the police quickly realize that we are straight and are just about to let us all continue on our way, when one of the officers, looking at the license of Tommy, the driver and says, “And you’re Thomas Briglow, right? And Tommy replies, “That’s what the license says, doesn’t it, genius?” Bang. Pow. The next thing you know all four of us are being locked up and you know what for? PARADING WITHOUT A PERMIT. That was all they could really get us on.We went to the judge quick and were on our way after paying a $35 fine each. And believe me, we were using credit cards and didn’t have a $35 cash between us. Tommy didn’t learn his lesson and insulted the Mouse McCourt judge and ended up spending the night in jail. And he was driving and now we were walking!I called Dimsum who picked us up and took us to his condo in Seaside Heights where his buddies, Cardiff and D'Milz, were hanging out smashing a case of Red Bull. There was a crowd there, all from my New York Support Group waiting for us: there was me (Lutz), Vince Kaminski (Weed), Tom Wilder (Surfer), Ed Hubbard (Shooter), Ben Battle (Brownstown), his girlfriend Sinbad, Dave Shea (Eat Me) his girlfriend at the time Ram, Dan Lucky (Ukraine), John Fischer (Burpy) and the support group’s two acquaintances, Robo and Roxy from the Seaside Heights Diner. Dimsum had a completely stocked bar and we got a few drinks before going to the 5 O'clock Somewhere Bar on the Broad Walk which offers signature boat drinks to Land shark Lager beer. The lively vibe of the bar features “flair bartenders” whose cocktail serving performances are only overshadowed by the cocktail creations they serve. Next door is D'Jais, well known for its diverse atmosphere, which different kinds of music seven nights a week. From there it’s a short jump to the Crescent Bar where the Bikers hang out for a taste of the real nightlife. It was right next to Braca’s the movie theater where James Candy is playing now.The Crescent Bar welcomes motorcycle riders. A pool table hides in the back, while an open spot just the right size for a Country - Western band is left by the door. Christy, the bar tender, says the stereotype of the "wild biker bar," she said, just isn't true. "Everybody thinks that this is a rough place because bikers come here," she said. "But we've had so many people that will come in by themselves, or with their friends, and love it. "They say the men are the most respectful, they feel safe, and the women say that this is the only place they'll come to by themselves," she said. A bouncer is on hand on the weekends to help with crowd control, and no "colors" (a biker's vest, which is adorned by club patches that identify the group of club the biker rides with) are allowed in the bar to avoid possible confrontations. Because the colors identify what club a person belongs to, they can quickly lead to trouble if rival gangs show up at the same spot. Christy says that riders are allowed to leave their colors on their bikes, turn them inside out, or put them in the back room; many outlaw clubs' members, however, are not allowed to take their colors off, and so will go somewhere else.Last month when we were here we went to Braca’s to see a Mel Brooks movie! We buy our tickets and, thanks to the 15 minutes of previews, haven’t missed a frame. The air conditioning is barely working, but each of us has two bottles of Red Bull. What could be better? Well, I don’t know if it’s the heat or the fact that we have been drinking for hours at that point, but the next thing I know were being woken up by an usher. The movie is two thirds over. The usher appears to be 15 years old and he’s ticked off. He sees the Red Bull bottles on the floor with his trusty flashlight and says to us with an all knowing smirk, like he really nabbed us, ”Uh, you didn’t buy that wine in here did ya? LIKE THIS THEATER SOLD POPCORN, GOOBERS, AND MD20/20! We got thrown out, but the story lives on. That usher today? I think he is working for the CIA.Tonight we are going to hang out all night at D'Jais - the bars are open until 5:00 A.M. - on the wooden dance floor right next to the beach. With sounds ranging from live classic rock & roll, reggae bands and the TriState's best DJ’s spinning the latest dance music. Few can resist the urge to jump up and boogie when Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” starts pumping through the big sound system’s speakers. There's an indoor restaurant, a food court, outdoor raw bar, and an outdoor bar/restaurant overlooking the beach with live music during the day and almost every night in the summer. A cool stage is built on a pier out over the surf. The Jersey Shore is famous for its population of Guido's (Italian Americans). They are a strange lot, and I couldn’t understand why guys would want to tan until they were orange and would wear their hair in spiky, absurd, Brylcreem product saturated styles, all while boasting about their Italian heritage and steroid use. Even more confusing is the fact that girls found these weird guys attractive.Granted, they weren’t the types of girls I’d be particularly interested in – high heels, fake boobs, and, like their male counterparts, plenty of tanning and smoothed back cream hair products. If you’ve ever been to Long Island or, obviously, the Jersey Shore, then you know just the type of Guido or Guidoette I’m referring to. What kind of people make themselves look like that? What kind of subculture is this? How can you take seriously anybody that struts around like this. But you see everything here.Sea Side Heights is a mixed bag of nationalities, but for the most part, the majority of its summer help hails from former Soviet countries. One of the guys at DEC operates a family owned boardwalk businesses and find themselves becoming friends with their workers, and hanging out with them all summer, so when our support group go down for a few days in the summer, we are bombarded with a new slew of Olgas, and Ludas, and Soushas, and Natashas, whose names and faces I have to try to remember. But never before have I witnessed something like I did tonight. And Oh My God was it "different." First of all, they were not lying . . . besides the bar tenders, my six friends and I, were the only Americans in the place. And trust me, you could tell, just little things like the clothes and the hair styles were just . . . different. There was loud House and Techno pounding through the sound system, and a thin layer of fog machine smoke filled the air. Bodies threw themselves across the dance floor in odd and awkward movements there were no fist pumpers here and the stage and speakers were stood on by both guys and girls who attempted to entice the crowd with bizarre dance moves. When the Russians come to dance, they come to DANCE! They were spinning and jumping and skipping and sweating and they just never let up, it looked more like a slam dance pit in the late 70's than anything close to what we're used to.Ukraine was pissed because he didn’t like Russians and was on one of his ‘try anything shooter all night vibes and he was filling his mouth with anything ranging from vodka to some fairy stuff that tasted sweet, like a Singapore Sling. Well when Ukraine gets all liquored up on shots, he becomes the most generous person in the world and buys rounds for everyone and rounds were bought. I’m sure some lucky, unsuspecting bastards standing next to me got a few shots and a hug from me during the night. Basically I got drinking – I had three Long Islands, two Sex on the Beach, and after that I was totally drunk barely walk out of the bar. Anyway, at this point, I’m flying on a new previously undiscovered drunken cloud. Then came that unavoidable feeling. I walked to the bathroom and sat in front of the toilet. Two orange, chunky pukes later, I walked out back into the bar. We sober up a bit and head out on the beach with the sand crabs for a swim, to cool off sober up a little. Then soaking wet, it’s to the nearest bar on the beach. There was this really hammered dwarf who would repeatedly stagger over to the bar, get a bartender to lean all the way over to hear him and then whisper, "I'm sorry I'm a little drunk" before exploding with laughter and then staggering back to the dance floor. A coworker and I were chatting about something on the news and I said "Yeah, at least it's not Russia!" Suddenly from the end of the bar a massive woman with a thick accent yells, "VAHT YOU SAY ABOUT RRRUSSIA?" She then started regaling the entire bar with stories of the Soviet glory days, babbling on in a crazy Bond villain accent about how great everything used to be. She proceeded to finish her margarita, left a $10 on the bar, and walked out. We then noticed that she'd peed all over the stool. We ended up throwing away the stool. I can think of crazier stories that happened that night, but this one stands out as one of the funniest scenes. I’m leaning against the bar talking to Brownstown and Ukraine about something unimportant when some girls sitting down next to us start laughing. We turn to check out what was so funny when we see this goof ball dancing it up on the dance floor. This guy was wearing some weird pants, a sparkling silver shirt and a skull and crossbones bandana. Even as hammered as I was, I knew this guy looked ridiculous. So without much thought, I made my way over behind him and started dancing behind him in a mocking way. My dancing is a mockery in itself but the fact it was geared at this guy had my friends laughing hysterically by the bar. Pretty soon a few others took notice in this ugly scene and found it funny. Sure enough, my target eventually caught on and kept trying to catch me doing whatever was making these people laugh around him. Like the idiot I was, the second he’d turn to me I would stop moving completely and scratch my head as if I had some intense idea I was trying to wrap my brain around.Keep in mind we were in the middle of the dance floor so I just looked like I might have been retarded or maybe gay. The night wore on. Sometime between that last round of shots and dancing on the bar, I have become a stand-up comedian and a first-rate politician. Well at least in this bar I can go out side and pee on the beach sand. I come back inside and toss another Red Bull. I can’t believe that I used to think that Red Bull was the most destructive invention of the past 50 years.Closing time was around the corner so we got out of the bar and went to a pizza place on the Broad Walk. I managed to order a slice of pepperoni and bumped into an old buddy from my days at the New School in Greenwich Village, shot the shit (maybe he understood some of it, who knows) while they heated up my slice, made my way up the six stairs to join my buddies on the deck over looking the street and tried to sit down on a flimsy plastic chair. Now, at this point, everything went into slow motion. I sat on the plastic chair, which could not handle my drunken way of sitting, propelling me backwards. My slice of pizza went airborne, and in the middle of my fall, a convertible filled with four smoking hot girls drove by. I landed on my backside next to my slice of pizza and the sound of four of the hottest women I had ever seen laughing their asses off at me as they drove off in green Mini Cooper car. This upset me. What the hell kind of chair is this? Unfortunately, most of my angry remarks were directed at a bunch of police officers about ten feet away. Someone managed to hail a cab before I really got us all into a bucket of shit and started us on our way back to motel. As it turns out, we didn’t have enough for the full fare and this jerk off cabbie didn’t trust us enough to let us off at a bank (I might have played a role in that). He dropped us off a good ten minutes from our motel. I got out of the cab and promptly passed out on someone’s lawn.Now, this is the last I remember from the night. I blacked out the moment I stepped out of that cab. The rest has been told to me or I pieced it together. I woke up the next morning completely reclined in the passenger seat of a minivan parked in a random person’s driveway. I had no idea whose van this was, I didn’t recognize the house that was towering in front of me and I barely recognized the environment. What was even more alarming was that I was wearing nothing but my boxer-briefs and my socks. Where the hell are my clothes and it’s nearly 7:00 A.M. On the front steps of the house are all my clothes, neatly folded. My shoes are placed together right in front of my clothes with my wallet and lighter sticking out of them. Everything seemed to be carefully placed and handled with the utter most care. I am perplexed, how did I neatly fold my clothes and check for unlocked minivans to fall asleep in? Imagine the horror on the owners face had he opened the driver’s door to find a half-naked drunk passed out in their own vehicle? This was by far one of the weirdest places I had ever woken up in after the madness of a full-blown drink fest. That’s why I hate drinking and don’t do it. Except a little socially, but I never get drunk, well, except on my DEC canoe trips, but you are supposed too then! Brown Town is trying to be celibate and even Burpy gets no loving when the lady he picked up at Karma is found to be indisposed for that time of the month. Shooter gets one of the Princeton DEC secretaries to come down and they hook up. After few more nights in Seaside Heights there were no more drunken episodes or trips to the police station.Its Sunday morning, I rented a Jeep and I am heading home and it’s pouring down rain, I’m lost out on the edge of the county proper (only Jersey marshland beyond) somewhere near Perth Amboy and I’m just trying to find the way back to the Garden State Parkway and I think I almost have. I make a slow right turn on a slick surface street and WHAMMO! Out of nowhere this other car comes right at me and I plow into the ditch and I start to see jail in my very near future. I stagger out of my rental car, my forehead bleeding from an open cut above my eye and I look like I’ve just gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson. This next part is a bit of an illustration into why alcohol in the system from the previous night, combined with a naturally outgoing personality can be a problem.So the cop (all I remember was one Highway Patrol officer) asks me if I’ve been drinking. I slur out my denial in obvious screwed-up tongue-tied fashion, the crash has taken its toll on my senses. He asks me a couple of more times. I admit to having drinks the night before, and he whips out the Breathalyzer, but remember, I haven’t been drinking for at least eight hours, I’ve been driving around now for a while, I’m a fairly big guy at 180 lbs. so the Breathalyzer likely doesn’t go off. They ambulance driver tries to “good cop bad cop” me into admitting any drugs I’ve taken because he’s “just wants to know.” They load me into the back of an ambulance and take me to the hospital where the dreaded blood test is done. Then I go to sleep for a few hours. When I wake up, I am alone in a hospital room. I am craving a Bettie Jean (my wife) toasted cheese sandwich with bacon and tomato and am still pleasantly buzzed from the percoset pain killer they gave me, I can see a long year of lawyer’s fees, hassles with my license, and having to drive a cheap car that will make me look like a jerk, and having no farther CAREER prospects whatsoever. But there are no COPs here waiting to take me to jail. I walk out of the hospital about 3:00 P.M. and call Tommy at his motel, maybe he is out of jail now. I drive home to East Orange and feel into bed.Monday morning my hung-over head and dilapidated body was rudely awakened by Bettie who asked me “what the hell had I been up too?” I mumbled something about being with my “boys” at the Shore and we drank to much.” Well, she knew I was there but to come home in this condition worried her. She told me that thieves had stolen a bunch of stuff from our garage last night. The kids bikes, a cheap lawnmower, a foot scooter and some sound equipment someone had been storing there were taken. I ran downstairs in a panic to find my garage doors wide open, it looked like the thieves had done us in. Except for the kids bikes, the stuff that was stolen was no real loss. That was a hell of a way to cap the weekend off. Must have happened after I came home? I was terribly dehydrated and still feeling queasy and drank lots of water and had a big breakfast with bacon, potatoes, whole wheat bread and eggs. I was still to messed up to drive to work so I took the buss into from East Orange to Penn Station. Vince was sitting in my One Penn Plaza office waiting for my appearance and he got some hot black coffee for me. I asked him about Roxy, the waitress from Sea Side Heights who got drunk with the rest of us. He said she did get drunk but didn’t have a drunk driving story, she wouldn't do something like that. Vince grinned! Now, giving a blow job to the driver, driving while switching places behind the steering wheel with her boy friend while they were both are undressing while going 60 mph, THAT she has done . .Damn, why do I worry so much about people? It's my Irish heritage I think. Only 1/4 per cent but it can be dominant when I feel for people. I still feel wasted and know that exercise is good and plan on walking down to our Wall Street office this morning. I will stop off along the way and get something to eat at the my favorite Greek Dinner on 14th street.P.S. I get the police report about two weeks later. The box he’s supposed to check if you’re drunk isn’t. And the box your supposed to check if there are drugs in your system isn’t. And the box that he’s supposed to check if you had an open container isn’t checked either. The box you check for racial ethnicity I wrote in Irish. Officer O'Herlihy winked when he handed me the ticket. I love those Jersey COPs. "Hath and begonia"