At least that is how the song goes. But the reality is a bit different. Just before the University of Denver outsourced the DU Bookstore, where I was the Finance Manager for almost 30 years, to Follett Higher Education Group, I flew to Boston, toured the city, and then took the Amtrak train south, with stops in New Mystic, Connecticut, New York City, and Washington D.C. When I was in New York, I stayed at the Super 8 in North Bergen, New Jersey, which was just a short bus or jitney ride from midtown Manhattan. I had planned on staying at the Algonquin, but as I recall, it was closed for renovations at the time. I bought some sort of museum pass, which is how I wound up taking a sightseeing boat around New York Harbor and up the East River in the fog and rain, as seen in the photograph on the left.
I also took the Staten Island ferry a couple of times, as seen in the photo on the right. Coming from Chicago, which was referred to as the "Second City" when I was growing up, I was always pretty disdainful about New York. After all, it was the New York newspapers that originally called Chicago "the Windy City," a reference to all the bragging the city fathers did about the 1893 World's Fair held there. And I must say, New York might be an interesting city, but I found it to be dirty, and frankly, kind of ugly most places. Chicago, on the other hand, has parks all along it's Lake Michigan waterfront, great architecture, wonderful neighborhoods, and friendly people, which New York definitely does not. On the other hand, North Bergen, New Jersey did have a lot of positive qualities. New York could take some lessons.
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