AS MENTIONED in an earlier post, I discovered some long-lost slides taken of New York in September 1969. I was on my way home to Australia to be married after spending a wonderful year in Toronto. I was due to fly out in a week, so my brother and I took a whirlwind tour of New York, Pennsylvania and Washington DC.
I had long mourned the loss of these slides which I thought had been swept up in some over-zealous house cleaning exercise. So you can imagine my delight when last year I discovered them in a dusty old box. (Memo to myself: dust more regularly.) Thank goodness for modern technology. I was able to scan them through my colour printer and I admit to spending endless hours pouring over them, marvelling at the fashion and at the vehicles.
These two display windows were in the Rockefeller Centre. You can tell I was a dressmaker's daughter - I had to take a photo of the latest Singer Sewing Machine for my mother to drool over. Such modern technology!
Time for a quick Breakfast at Tiffany's pose. Ah, good to recall that I was a Magazine Queen even back then. My arm to this day automatically goes into magazine carrying mode.
I don't know if Jack Dempsey's Restaurant still exists. Oh, what a shame. I just Googled it and discovered it closed in 1974. Anyway, my brother Anthony and I had a great meal there one evening. I swear they served up a whole side of beef on the plate, with an Idaho Potato balanced precariously on top. I hate to admit this, but if my memory isn't playing tricks, I seem to recall that we squeezed in some dessert.
It was then a quick sprint to see the Broadway production of the Tony Award winning play of the year, The Great White Hope starring a very young James Earl Jones. I daren't tell my grandson (Darth Junior) that many years later he provided the voice of Darth Vader.
I had forgotten that in the Sixties one dressed to the nines to hit the town.
Mayor John Lindsay was up for re-election ...
... and life was so innocent pre-September 11.
I have returned to New York on more than one occasion with my husband and children and have loved the experience, but there's nothing quite like that first time in New York.
