I’ve been to most of the major cities in the United States, and have visited cities in Canada, Europe (Rome, Paris, London), and Dublin in my beloved Ireland. I wish I had traveled more internationally and toured cities like Melbourne, Tokyo, Jerusalem, Madrid, Athens, and Dubai.

But I doubt that any city can surpass my favorite city, which is New York, New York, USA, a metropolis so large that it consists of five self-governing boroughs, allowing one to experience the majesty, sights, and attractions of Manhattan, drive or walk cross the iconic Brooklyn Bridge to the cultural and ethnic sections of Brooklyn, ride on trains that run underground to the Archie Bunker neighborhoods of Queens or to the Bronx home of the greatest baseball franchises ever, and take the Staten Island Ferry to the home of Pete Davidson. 

Although I’ve been to all five boroughs at one time or another, most of my visits to New York City have been to the wonderful island known as Manhattan. Whether you arrive in Manhattan via a taxi ride from Laguardia or JFK airport, by bus to the Port Authority building, by train to Penn Station, by car driving through the Lincoln or Holland Tunnels or over the George Washington, Brooklyn or Triborough Bridges, by ferry from Staten Island, or by helicopter on heliports at the Hudson and East Rivers (my favorite arrival point), the thrill is always the same for me. At no matter what age I was, I have experienced senses of excitement, adventure. awe, and wonder when stepping foot in Manhattan and becoming part of the hustle and bustle of the city. I especially liked driving through the busy city streets, mastering the ability over time to drive where there really are no separate traffic lanes (which was frightening to my wife), and walking (yes, I once enjoyed walking) among the crowd of people, trying to keep pace with them, and remembering at every intersection the insight that my son Chris gave my wife and I on our first visit to him at NYU, which was that in Manhattan the “walk-don’t walk” signal is just a suggestion.

I was a young child when I first visited Manhattan, and I never saw anything remotely liked it before. The tall buildings, the busy street traffic, so many people, the activities at Times Square, and the bright lights of Broadway. I distinctly remember staying overnight in a hotel room that seemed to be a one-minute elevator ride from street level and waking up in the morning to look out the window at all these yellow cabs, hearing so many of them honk their horns. Where is everyone going, what’s going on, I asked myself. For lunch that day, in the midst of our tour of Manhattan, my father took me to a Horn & Hardart Automat which displayed sandwiches, salads, desserts, and other foods through separate windows, and all you had to do was drop a coin in the slot to open a window and obtain your selection. This was in my mind a totally innovative food service system, and it’s too bad such Automats are not still around today, as I believe they would be cheaper and quicker than fast food franchises. For dinner we went to Tad’s Steakhouse on Times Square which offered a steak, baked potato, and salad for $1.39. My goodness, I thought, and it all tasted fine.

I saw a different side of Manhattan when I served a three-month internship there with Arthur Andersen & Company during my senior year in college. That involved spending days in busy offices of the financial district and often (probably too frequently) hobnobbing at the end of the workday with Wall Street types. Three years later I returned to Manhattan for the wedding of two law school classmates. Their wedding day featured three iconic New York locales – a wedding ceremony at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, followed by the wedding reception at The Playboy Club, followed by a post-reception gathering at The Plaza Hotel. How I wish I had known Claudia then, because the happenings of that day would have blown her away!

I had a number of solo business trips to Manhattan, primarily for meetings with my wonderful client and friend, Dr. Norman Scott. I usually stayed at the New York Athletic Club on Central Park South, a membership facility which encompassed hotel rooms, swimming pool, gymnasium, other athletic facilities, a fine dining room, and a lounge where members gathered every night for a drink or two. It was always a special feeling for me to hang out there with what was a group of contemporaries, although they were greatly more financially successful than me. On those various visits with Dr. Scott, I’ve had the opportunity, among other things, to bump into Tom Brokaw at Dr. Scott’s apartment building, sit less than ten feet away from Woody Allen and his daughter at Madison Square Garden, and dine at the same table with Cardinal Dolan.

I know my wife enjoyed our trips to New York as much as I did. The ice-skating rink at Rockerfeller Center and the Tavern on the Green restaurant in Central Park were favorites of her, but more than any other attraction she loved to see plays on Broadway and I think especially the Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall, with the precision dance performance of the Rockettes and the Nativity scene. And for me, kid that I can be, I loved the marvelous Big Apple Circus and the unique FAO Schwarz store. On one trip, where we had tickets to a Saturday afternoon New York Knicks game, courtesy of Dr. Scott who was the team doctor, Claudia wanted to first go to the original Macy’s at Herald Square. I let her be to ride the famous wooden escalators for her floor-to-floor shopping, while I decided to go down to the basement floor to see what men’s apparel might be on sale there. To my pleasant surprise a bar was located in a corner of that floor and it was opened, offering Rheingold beer, a popular New York State beer which I remember my father and uncle buying when their cousins from Buffalo came to Scranton for a visit. So, at 10 a.m. that Saturday morning, I happily imbibed glasses of Rheingold until my wife finished her shopping. 

A very memorable weekend in Manhattan occurred in the early 1980’s when I was offered the opportunity to conduct a tax and estate planning seminar at the Marriott Times Square Hotel. Marriott was opening a new nationwide hotel chain to be known as Courtyard by Marriott and held a convocation of about twenty young executives chosen to be the managers of those hotels. As part of the week-long assembly Marriott set aside the Saturday morning session for my seminar. Marriott provided Claudia and me with a beautiful suite at the hotel for the weekend, upscale dining at the rooftop restaurant, and tickets to a Broadway production, all gratis. I think it may have been that weekend that Claudia decided loving me was not such a bad thing.

In the late 80’s or early 90’s Claudia and I had another special visit to Manhattan. The occasion was a formal party at an exclusive club on the East River in honor of the engagement of Dr. Scott and his wife. I was honored to be among the invited guests. Since Dr. Scott was the team doctor for the New York Knicks, its coach and players were also invited. After the cocktail hour segment of the event, we headed to our pre-assigned table. One of the Knicks players, Louis Orr, was seated at our table. After looking around the room and noticing the seating arrangement, I commented to Louis that “it looks like they’ve put one of you at each table”, meaning one Knick per table. But since all of the players were black, Louis responded “well, it’s better than putting all of us at one table in the back”. I profusely apologized and told him that’s not what I meant by my observation. Fortunately, we just kept drinking and got along fine the rest of the evening.

An unforgettable trip to Manhattan was over a Thanksgiving holiday. Claudia and I always wanted to spend a Thanksgiving weekend in the Big Apple, seeing in person the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and attending the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular Show. Dr. Scott and his family were going to their New Jersey home for the holiday weekend, and he generously offered my family the option to stay at their Manhattan penthouse apartment. On a cold Thanksgiving Day, we walked through a snowy park from the East Side to the West Side to view the famous parade and the awesome floats and balloons, and we saw the Radio City show on the next day or two. That weekend truly is a special memory.

The occasion for the last time Claudia and I were in Manhattan was to attend the wedding of Dan Scott’s daughter (Dan was Norman’s brother). It was an afternoon wedding and Claudia took a brief walk in Central Park that morning. An entrance to Central Park was directly across the street from the New York Athletic Club where we stayed that weekend. When she returned to the room, she commented on the horse and buggy carriages she saw on her walk. I said, “you know, in all the times we’ve been here, we’ve never done that. So, let’s do it now”. She readily agreed so we hired a horse carriage for a ride in Central Park and down Fifth Avenue. It started to drizzle a bit halfway through our ride, but neither we nor our driver nor the horse cared. And as we swung back towards the New York Athletic Club, seeing the Plaza in the near distance, I swear Claudia began to hum the tune from “The Way We Were”. 

Is it any wonder then why New York is my favorite city? Folks say, “New York is a great place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there”. As for me, though, if one has the financial means, I can’t imagine there is any other place you can live where you could be so alive.