The USS New York

USS New York

It was built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center ..

It is the fifth in a new class of warship - designed for missions that include special operations against terrorists. It will carry a crew of 360 sailors and 700 combat-ready Marines to be delivered ashore by helicopters and assault craft.

Steel from the World Trade Center was melted down in a foundry in Amite , LA to cast the ship's bow section. When it was poured into the molds on Sept 9, 2003, 'those big rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence,' recalled Navy Capt. Kevin Wensing. 'It was a spiritual moment for everybody there.'

Junior Chavers, foundry operations manager, said that when the trade center steel first arrived, he touched it with his hand and the 'hair on my neck stood up.' 'It had a big meaning to it for all of us,' he said. 'They knocked us down. They can't keep us down. We're going to be back.'

The ship's motto? 'Never Forget'

From the 1939 World's Fair....

What a treasure this is! Click to embiggen, and view a "conn-clave of champions" as it says, of boxers, taken at the 1939 World's Fair in New York. Mr. kenju's father was a security guard at that fair. This copy of the original, sent to us by a relative, was among a group of family photos dating back to the early years of the last century. I will be posting them from time to time.

Live from New York........

Edit: I discovered that if you double-click any of the names in this post, you will get the Wikipedia listing for them. All except for mr. kenju, of course....LOL

The Stanner Alumni Association Hall of Fame dinner and award ceremony; held at the New York Athletic Club in March. The high school is Mr. Kenju's Alma Mater, Archbishop Molloy in Queens, NY. The top photo is Tom Westman, an alum of the school, who won a million dollars on the CBS TV show Survivor, when he was a NYC Fireman.

The name "Stanner" is a contraction of Saint Ann's, which was the name of the school in earlier years.

Second: Louie Carnesecca, former coach at both Molloy and St. Johns University.


And last, but not least, Mr. Kenju, accepting the award for his undefeated team (32-0..... 1957-58). The man behind him is holding the plaque that was presented to members of his team. I will show it to you soon.

NJ and the Big Apple ~ Part 3

On Friday, the four of us (Mr. kenju, me and our 2 daughters), took the PATH train from Jersey City, NJ into NYC. It comes into NY right at Ground Zero (former site of the World Trade Center). The top photo is where I was peering in between a pillar and the construction mesh, to see some of the present work in the area. When we got to the main sidewalk, we heard beautiful music from a choir. They were singing the Star Spangled Banner and America the Beautiful. I had to snap a shot of them, but I have no idea where they were from.

The photos got out of sequence when I scanned them. The next one is a fortune from a cookie in the restaurant we ate in on Friday night. It is so apropos of mr. kenju, that I HAD to save it!

www.China46.com
This is the place we ate on Friday night. My brother-in-law met us back at our hotel in NJ, and took us here for dinner. It was a pretty good meal; abundant and tasty. We had a few things I had never eaten before, such as bok choy and some kind of tofu. I tried a little bit of everything, and my favorite was the beef and broccoli. The place is not fancy, but the service is good - and it is clean.
If you are looking for dishes, glassware and other ceramic or glass dinner wares, go to Fishs Eddy, at 88 Broadway and 19th St. or 122 Montague St., Brooklyn. They have some very different and interesting stuff, which you can see on their website as well:

www.FISHSEDDY.com

Across the street from Fishs Eddy is ABC Carpet and Home, which is a good place to shop for small gifts (as long as you have plenty of moolah!) We heard that an actress likes to shop there (I think it was Goldie Hahn, or maybe it was her daughter).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Have you seen the knock-off purses in NYC? There are vendors along the streets, who at the mere mention of a policeman, will pack it all up in a bedspread and haul it out of sight. It is illegal for them to sell the purses, but there are hundreds of them in NY. The better ones, the ones you can generally get for less money are in "secret" stores. My daughters and I walked along a street in Chinatown and before long, a young woman asked in broken English if we were interested in bags; mentioning Prada, Gucci, etc. We said yes, and were instructed to follow her. We walked around the block and into a boarded-up building, following her down a series of hallways in what appeared to be an unoccupied building. Soon we came to a room that had purses hanging from floor to ceiling on four walls. We looked at most of them, and asked the prices, which seemed reasonable to me, except that the bags all had very high-priced names on them, like the ones mentioned above, as well as Kate Spade. We saw some we liked, but we decided to look elsewhere. As we walked out, the woman called us back and asked what we would like to pay for the purses. We settled for $10 to $15 less than she originally wanted, and walked out with our new purses in black plastic bags. Mine is Gucci.

I Met a Survivor!

Go here to read all about Tom Westman:

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivor10/survivors/bio/tom.shtml

Tom attended Archbishop Molloy High School, the same as mr. kenju (but much later) so he was there on Thursday night for the Hall of Fame Ceremonies. When Miss kenju#2 and I got back to the NY Athletic Club after seeing the show, we were invited upstairs to the tap room, for an after-party. I felt a little self-conscious since I was not dressed for a party, but it turned out okay, because most of the other women were not dressed up either, except for daughter #1, who looked beautiful. (no I cannot show a photo of her - she won't let me.)

Mr. kenju knew what a fan of Tom Westman's I had been when he was on Survivor. He played with integrity and intelligence, or so it seemed at the time. So at the first opportunity, he dragged Tom over to me and introduced us. Tom was very gracious and friendly, and we discussed Survivor for a bit. He said that most castmates in the previous Survivor shows do not stay in contact with each other, but his group is in touch, and some of them have even visited NY and stayed with Tom and his family. He said something to the effect of: I now have a whole group of 20 somethings as friends.

He told me that he lost 30 pounds while he was on the show. Previous to the show, he had been training for a marathon, and was in the best shape of his life when he started on Survivor. Imagine being in great shape and then losing 30 pounds. Since that time, he has put on 20 of the pounds he lost. I thought he still looked great, but he says he needs to lose it again.

After Tom won Survivor, he retired from the New York Fire Department, and now works as a financial planner (I think that is what he said). And that was my little brush with fame last week!

Tomorrow, I'll show some pics and tell you about our Friday in New York.

NJ and the Big Apple, Part 2

We saw The Drowsy Chaperone, billed as the funniest musical on Broadway. It was in the Marquis Theater; in the Marriott Marquis Hotel. I have included the photos of the cast, taken from the playbill. The gist of the plot is: a guy who lives alone and is devoted to musical theater, re-lives an earlier Broadway show named The Drowsy Chaperone, by listening to the old LP record of the music from the show. As he listens, he imagines the action of the play, which is acted out in his apartment, and he narrates.

"Playbill.com: The Drowsy Chaperone is about a theatre fan called Man in Chair telling us about his favorite old show, and giving behind-the-scenes dirt about the performers who created the roles back in 1928. You and your fellow actors are really inhabiting two roles. The Chaperone in the silly musical about a wedding is played by a diva of the Golden Age of musicals…Beth Leavel: My character is informed by this woman who inhabits her — her name is Beatrice Stockwell."

If you are interested in reading more about it, go here:

http://www.theatermania.com/content/news.cfm/story/7942

And for more info on Beth Leavel, a native Raleighite, go here:

http://www.meredith.edu/mcnews/beth-leavel-wins.htm

Some of you will remember Georgia Engel (third from right on top row) from her days on Mary Tyler Moore and other television shows. In this play, she is the essential Georgia, and you are reminded of her character on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. This show is very funny and I do recommend it. One character is particularly amusing to me: Danny Burstein (second from left on top row) plays Aldolpho, a larger than life Latin Lover (with a capital L)! Every linehe said had me convulsed with laughter, much to miss kenju#1's dismay.....LOL

We bought our half-price tickets, and had 90 minutes to spare before the show, so we went into the Marquis for dinner. If you go to NYC, do go into the Marriott Marquis. It is a very interesting location, and they have several restaurants; the one on the top revolves and gives you excellent views of the city while you dine. We chose a smaller, less formal cafe and sat down. Not far from us was an older couple, who were chatting with their waiter. He asked them where they were from, and they answered Raleigh, NC. I laughed and marvelled at the coincidence, but I didn't go to their table and tell them. Mr. kenju would have!

As we left the theater, we heard a band playing. In the drive-through at the Marriott, the West Virginia University marching band was playing. They were happy because they had won their game in the NIT that night. I mention this for Jennifer at Open Book, a very proud WVU grad.

After the show, we walked back to the NY Athletic Club, to meet mr. kenju, daughter #1 and My BIL. The party wasn't over, and we were invited upstairs to the tap room, to meet old and make new friends. Guess who I met?

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivor10/survivors/bio/tom.shtml

I'll tell you about that tomorrow!

NJ and the Big Apple, Part 1

The Woolworth Building (on the right). At one time, it was the tallest building in NYC.

We left here Wednesday afternoon, with daughter #1, at 3pm, after the plumber worked his magic mojo and stopped the leak under our house. We stopped in DC to spend the night with daughter #2, and continued on Thursday morning to NJ. Our #2 decided to take the train to NYC later in the day, and she was to meet us at the New York Athletic Club about 6 pm.

Daughter #1 has a GP system on her car, and I became a devotee almost immediately. She programmed it to take us to NJ by the quickest route without tolls. We were routed through Pennsylvania Amish country, an area which none of us had ever seen before. I want to go back sometime when we can stop and sight-see! The rolling hills are lovely, and the wide valleys with picturesque farms are quaint and beautiful. We saw some dark red barns, with large round hex signs on them, and silos, and grazing cattle and horses. I would love to see it when the trees are leafed out and flowers are blooming. When we left Raleigh, it was looking like spring had sprung and the farther north we went, the more it appeared to be winter again. Going that route (from DC through Harrisburg and Scranton) put extra miles on the car, but we paid NO tolls and the traffic was light, compared to Rte. 95 (the hellhole).

We arrived in West Orange, NJ at our hotel, the Marriott Residence Inn, and were pleasantly surprised to see that it looked like a fairly luxurious hotel (both inside and out)! Our rooms were spacious and well-appointed, and the stay included a free breakfast. This was a full buffet - not just continental fare - and it was good!

We had to hurry, as mr. kenju had to be at the NYAC by 5:30 pm, for a photo session prior to being inducted (along with his whole team) in his high school basketball hall of fame. His team went undefeated in the 1957-58 season. His brother arrived to drive us into the city and we made it with about 5 minutes to spare, despite the problem of a flat tire. My BIL asked the parking attendant to change the tire for him, and lo and behold when we went back at 11:30 pm to get the car, it had been changed. We were lucky!

Miss kenju (daughter #2) arrived from the train at 6:20pm and we left the NYAC on a quest for half-price tickets to a Broadway Show. Tomorrow, I will tell you all about the show we saw, plus other possibly interesting tidbits about the evening.