New York City (2011)

A Weekend in the Big Apple

We have long wanted to go to New York City for the annual U.S. Open Tennis Championships. When a brochure arrived in the mail last spring offering an all-inclusive U.S. Open tennis package weekend, we were quick to sign up, joined by our long-time global traveling companions, Gay and Ron Baukol.

What we hadn’t considered at the time was that the Open weekend coincided with the 10^th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center. We had also forgotten that it was our wedding anniversary, as well. The combination of the tennis tournament, the 9/11 memorial events and our 53^rd anniversary made it a very special occasion.

National Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows Arthur Ashe Stadium

U. S. Open Tennis Championships. Played at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows (not far from where I was born many, many years ago), the U.S. Open is the biggest tennis tournament held in the United States each year. The tournament is played out over a two week period with 128 men and 128 women working their way through six rounds of tennis hoping to be one of the two players that make it into the championship finals. The grounds are spectacular with over thirty courts available for matches and practice. Our package included a “behind the scenes” tour of the facilities during which we rubbed shoulders with several of the players relaxing before their championship matches.

The women’s and men’s finals are played on back-to-back days. Both are played at the Arthur Ashe stadium, the world’s largest tennis stadium with a seating capacity of 24,700 spectators. On Sunday we watched an Australian, Samantha Stosur, upset Serena Williams in two sets for the women’s championship. On the following day, we watched the No. 1 ranked player in the world, Serbian Novak Djokovic defeat the No. 2 ranked Rafael Nadal from Spain in one of the most exciting matches we have ever seen. Rallies routinely went 20 shots or more and the crowd was constantly leaping to their feet in stunned appreciation for the superhuman efforts of the two warriors. It was a great spectacle.

September 11^th Anniversary. The tenth anniversary memorial services for those who lost their lives in the destruction of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center on Sep. 11, 2001 were led by President Obama, New York Governor Pataki, New York City Mayor Bloomberg and numerous other dignitaries and officials. The ceremonies were only open to the survivors of 9/11 and the family members of victims. We had been able to catch a glimpse of the memorial from a nearby building during an earlier tour. The memorial centered around two rectangular waterfalls, which cascaded water down into the footprints of the missing towers. The falls are each surrounded by bronze plaques on which the names of the nearly 3,000 victims are inscribed. We were impressed to find that the new One World Trade Center tower is already 60 stories tall and rising at the rate of one new story every week. When completed in 2013, it will be the tallest building in the United States measuring (not coincidentally) 1776 feet in height.

Perhaps predictably, a “credible, but uncorroborated” terrorist threat warning against New York City and Washington, D.C. was declared for the 10^th anniversary weekend. Security was intensified. Uniformed police were everywhere - on the streets, in public buildings and manning checkpoints throughout the city, searching rental trucks, vans and any other suspicious vehicles. Other than bringing city traffic to a standstill, it really didn’t affect our visit to the city. With all of those cops on the street, we actually felt pretty safe.

Statue of Liberty by Day Immigration Center, Ellis Island Statue of Liberty by Night

We used our free time to see as many of the city sights as we could. We took an all-day city tour, cruised to the Statue of Liberty, visited the immigration museum at Ellis Island, rode the elevators to the top of Rockefeller Center, tried out the subways and even did a little shopping on Fifth Avenue. Of course, one cannot come to New York City without taking in a play or two on Broadway. Our choices were the Tony Award winning “War Horse” at Lincoln Center and Cole Porter’s all-time favorite musical “Anything Goes”. Both were wonderful.

September 13^th Anniversary. With the Baukols joining us, Val and I celebrated our wedding anniversary with a three-hour dinner cruise out on the New York harbor. We had seen the sights from the harbor during the daytime as part of our city tour, but they are even more spectacular at night with all of the lighted skyscrapers silhouetted against the night sky.

From Lower Manhattan, our ship crossed the harbor to Liberty Island. As impressive as the Statue of Liberty is during the day, she is even more beautiful at night her massive structure illuminated by a battery of floodlights. As we approached the statue, perhaps moved by the memories of 9/11, the passengers on the cruise ship broke out into a spontaneous chorus of “God Bless America. It somehow felt right to join in.

However, the most dramatic sight from the harbor was the two batteries of 88 searchlights placed where the twin towers once stood, shooting their blue, vertical beams up into the clouds and the night sky. At exactly 8:46 pm (the time on the clock the next day when the first plane hit the North Tower), the lights were extinguished - disappearing from view in an instant. The symbolism was stark and dramatic.

Anniversary Dinner Cruise Twin Towers Searchlights, 9-11 Eve

At the end of a nice buffet dinner complete with champagne, we were surprised with a dessert plate with “Happy 53^rd Anniversary – Paul and Val” inscribed on it, and then even more surprised out on the dance floor, when the singer dedicated her rendition of Cole Porter’s “Easy to Love” to us.

The other couples on the floor stopped dancing momentarily and applauded us. I expect that the applause was more in appreciation for our long marriage than any of my dance steps. When the music stopped a young man came out of the crowd, congratulated us and asked us for the secrets of our successful marriage. There are a lot of possible answers to that question, but I told him that I had just been lucky enough to have been married to a woman who, for the last 53 years, has been “Oh, So Easy to Love”!!!