The Old Man from Leftfield

Road trip#1 New York City - 12/31/99 The Daily Double Philadelphia - 1/1/00 Participants: Rich Keyes Rocky Billela Neil The first big question of the 21st Century was: will the computers crash when the clock strikes 12:00AM on December 31st 1999? Will they accept the four-digit change in the year? If it doesn’t, that will screw everything up. We’ll find out. I can’t think of a better place to go than New York City at Times Square to witness what happens. I can’t miss this, but if I go, it won’t be easy. I had been to many New Years eves watching the ball come down at midnight in New York at Times Square, but none bigger than this one, the year 2000 the millennium party. Yes, I was going. Plan A: Get hotel reservations and take the train to New York. That was not possible. I had tried for months to get hotel reservations, but they kept telling me to call back later. I kept calling until one week before New Years Eve; they told me that I would have to stay for three days if I wanted a reservation. God knows how much money they wanted for that. It would also be impossible to get a train. So much for plans A. So I went with B. This plan involves two other participants, Richie Keyes and Rocky Billela. Richie is my cousin and has a van and he loves to drive it, Rocky I’ve known many years, mainly as a neighbor at my apartment. Plan B: We would drive up to Staten Island in Richie’s van, park it, then take the Staten Island ferry across New York harbor to Manhattan, then take the subway to Times Square. At 4:30 PM on Friday December. 31st, Richie and Rocky picked me up at my apartment in Strafford for the ride to New York. We got on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, drove west to the New Jersey Turnpike, drove north, and then took the Staten Island exit. We crossed the Goethels Bridge, then drove north on Victory Blvd to St. George, home of the Staten Island ferry. After much trouble finding a free parking place, we found one on the street between the police station and the ferry parking lot. That parking space would be our hotel. We walked down to the ferry (the best bargain in New York, its free) where we caught the next boat to Manhattan. We arrived at South Ferry then walked to the #9 subway station at South Ferry Terminal, boarded the train, then we got off at 42nd St. Station a short time later. We popped up on the street and we were right smack in the middle of Times Square. But there was one problem, it was only 9:30 PM. Decision time: do we want to stay in this insane crowd? or do we get out of Times Square and try to get back in later. We chose the latter. Richie, Rocky, and I exited Times Square then walked north on 8th Ave. We stopped into a Japanese restaurant where we sat at the bar just to relax, have a few beers, and to kill some time. We exited the bar, then tried to get back into Times Square, but the cops wouldn’t let us in. So now the search was on to get a view of the Ball coming down at midnight. While we were on 8th Ave., on every side street we would turn right and try to get on 7th Ave., but the cops would always stop us. Finally at 59th St., right at Central Park South, we got to 7th Ave. from where we had a clear view of Times Square and the ball. The only problem was that we were 17 blocks away from the action in Times Square, but we could see the ball clearly, we did maneuver into a nice location. I’m not ashamed to be in the cheap seats. Back in the old days for a couple of years they had a red apple instead of a ball dropping. Also back then security wasn’t so tight, you could walk around Time Square with an open bottle of booze in your hand. But times have changed there were no terrorists then. There was a huge crowd there at 59th St. and 7th Ave. where there was a very festive party going on. The clock was starting to get close to midnight. While we were standing there we were talking to a guy and we told him that we were in Times Square but left and we couldn’t get back in. The guy said, “ Its better here because in Times Square there are $25.00 cover charges in the bars and the beers are $8.00”. If we did that we’d have been out of money before midnight. Finally the clock struck 12:00, the ball came down then all hell broke loose. Fireworks went off in the park; streamers and confetti were raining down from people in the trees. I know we weren’t in Times Square like we were a few hours earlier; it was good enough for us, especially after hearing about those cover charges. Richie got a picture of us all just as the ball was coming down. I guess the computers didn’t crash because the lights in the city were still on. We did see the ball come down to start the new century, so it was worth the trip. Shortly after the ball came down the party was over. Richie, Rocky, and I walked south straight down the middle of 7th Ave. to Times Square, no problem getting in there now. The weather was great, it was probably about 40 degrees, which is downright balmy for New York in January. As we were walking we agreed that Plan B was working out well than Plan A. If we had a hotel we probably would not have gotten into Times Square, I think that the only way in was from the 42nd St. subway station. the Plan B way. Yes, I think Plan B was the way to go, it was certainly a lot cheaper. We arrived at 7th Ave. and Broadway and it looked like the aftermath on a battlefield, there were piles of trash but nobody was around. It reminded me of Mardi gras, on Bourbon St. after 12:00PM on Fat Tuesday, the same thing. Richie, Rocky, and I thought we’d get out of Times Square; we weren’t going to any of these expensive bars. We over to the west side, I think they call it Hell’s Kitchen, where we stopped into a nice Puerto Rican bar where we had beers and sampled the black sausage. After that we thought we better start heading back to our “hotel”. We walked back to 42nd St. Station where we caught the next southbound #9 train to South Ferry. While we were riding the train, Richie was saying that this was not the real turn of the century, 2001 will be. Maybe he’s right but all I know is that all of the numbers in the date changed and that hasn’t happened in a thousand years. While this discussion was going on I guess we weren’t paying attention to where we were, we forgot to get off at South Ferry Station. There was no one else on the train but us, and then the train started going north. Oh shit. We got off at the next stop, which was Rector St. Station, then made the long walk south back to South Ferry Terminal. The next ferryboat arrived at 3:00AM, so we had a little bit of time to kill. There was a small pizza place nearby where we got slices of pizza. In the terminal there was some live entertainment going on, some kids were putting on a great break dancing show. The ferryboat arrived on time, then we boarded, it was pretty cold on the outside deck so we spent most of the 45-minute ride inside. The boat pulled into St. George dock at about 3:45, and then we walk from the Terminal through the parking lot then up a hill to our “hotel”.