Another New York City trip

Second trip to New York: not as many days as the first, but the days themselves are longer to make up for that. We start at 10 a.m. (after walking a few blocks from the hotel to arrive at the school where the auditions are held a little after 9 so we can sit around and talk and get our table set up and so on), go until 1 watching one person every minute and a half come on stage and either sing and do a monologue or do two monologues if they are not a singer. There’s an hour lunch break, and then Monica and Kelly went back to the auditorium while Lynne, Josh, Doug and I stayed in the room upstairs to do call-backs. Another hour break at 6, and the dance calls tarts at 7 for about 1 ½ hours, then more call-backs until about 10, and walk back to the hotel. The auditions are in 1 hour segments with a few minutes break between each. Some of them there were quite a few possible people, but some there were only one or two and by Saturday Monica and Kelly were down to sending only one or two people up and one session they didn’t call back any! Some of the kids have no business trying to be in this business. Monica blames it on the schools, the colleges taking their money for theatre studies. I guess that might be some of it, I think it is a combination of that and the kids themselves just not being realistic, or maybe getting pushed from other outside forces, parents or who knows what. I just know that there were some Simon would have a field day with on American Idol.
Saturday night we did quit a bit early and went out for food at our traditional place, The Paris, down by the Seaport. A great old building, and you can imagine the fishermen coming in for a draught after unloading their catch.
Sunday morning I walked over to the World Trade Center site, I went there last year and wanted to see if I could tell what the progress has been. There is some, buildings are started and up a few stories. There’s a church, St. Paul’s Chapel, across Broadway from the site, with old, old gravestones - from the 1700’s around it. There’s also a bell that was a gift to the U.S. from England after 9/11. I walked around the church yard a bit, and on the way out noticed a gravestone of a woman who ‘Joined the Lord’ on – September 11 – 1796. That was a little spooky. I also went back to the memorial that is on the side wall of the firehouse across Liberty Street from the site. The bronze mural is stunning, there is also a large poster with photos of the firemen lost; people have left bouquets of flowers, candles burning, notes and cards, words of encouragement. One figure on the mural is a fireman on his knees, with his hand reaching up, with two other firemen behind him, each with a hand on his shoulder. Someone has hung a rosary on his hand. That gave me shivers.
It’s a nice part of the city, way downtown. There are still some cobblestone streets, the streets are the narrow size they were back in the 1700 and 1800’s, some of the original buildings are still there. It’s slower and quieter than the more midtown areas, although probably not so much on a weekday when the Wall Streeters and all are around. There is a 9-11 memorial center, and a nice timeline of the day and afterwards on the terrace of the church, I think there was also something inside the church but I didn’t have time to look. Maybe I’ll take a trip down there and poke around sometime. When you get on one of the little side streets, walking on the cobblestones and seeing the old buildings it does take you back to another age.
And that was our second trip to NYC.