Apollo Theatre – A Traveling Fool

My second day of the Hop On Hop Off bus tour, I boarded the Upper Manhattan route at Times Square, which then set off for Columbus Circle. From there we went to Lincoln Center (which houses the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Ballet, and the Juilliard School of Music) and into my former neighborhood. When I had lived in NYC, I spent part of my time in Queens (in Elmhurst, then later in Jackson Heights) and part in Manhattan (on West 73^rd between Central Park West and Columbus).

Three of my favorite residential buildings – the Ansonia, the Dakota, and the San Remo – are also in the vicinity. The Ansonia was built in the 1890s as a luxury residential hotel. Now it has apartments and condos – still luxury. The Dakota was built in the 1880s and supposedly called the Dakota because that part of the city was so sparsely populated when it was built. It was even more luxurious than the Ansonia. The San Remo was the newest of the three, having been built in the 1930s. It has also become the most expensive and deluxe of the three buildings.

The building I lived in (right around the corner from the Dakota) was built in the 1870s, so was already there when the other three buildings were built. It was originally a private house later turned into apartments, two per floor over five floors. I cannot imagine what the rental price would be now for my tiny apartment at the back of the fifth floor (formerly servant’s quarters). Most likely three times as much in monthly rent as the mortgage payment for my whole house.

In 1892, construction began on the Cathedral of St John the Divine in the Morningside Heights area of Manhattan. It is still only about 2/3 completed. Even unfinished, it is the world’s sixth largest church. There are several reasons for the building taking so long to complete. One is that ancient, manual stone cutting methods are being used throughout the building. Then there have been a few wars, the Great Depression, changes in what the style of the church should be, ups and downs in funding, etc. What is completed is stunning. I got off the tour bus there and spent quite some time walking around, looking at everything and taking photos. Then I wanted to pop over to Columbia University briefly.

Founded as King’s College in 1754, Columbia University changed its name in 1784, outgrew its Lower Manhattan location and moved farther up the island to midtown (around Madison Avenue) in 1857. In 1889, it moved to its current site in Morningside Heights, a short distance from the Cathedral of St John the Divine. I had attended some music classes at Columbia when I lived in Manhattan, so I was fairly familiar with the school. Hamilton Hall was the building where I wanted to take a quick photo.

When I got back on a tour bus, we rode to Grant’s Tomb. The old joke is “who is buried in Grant’s tomb?” That would be President (and General) Ulysses S Grant and his wife, Julia. It is in quite a nice location with great views of the Hudson River and New Jersey beyond. It is a rather impressive monument besides.

Next, we crossed into the Manhattan neighborhood known as Harlem. This is a part of the city with some really nice brownstones. Originally founded as a Dutch village in 1658, Harlem (then Haarlem) evolved into a mainly Jewish and Italian settlement in the 19^th century, becoming predominantly black and Puerto Rican in the 20^th century.

The area which is now Harlem was occupied by the Manhattan tribe of Native Americans before the Dutch settled there. During the American Revolution, the British burned Harlem to the ground. The village rebuilt slowly, but then began an economic boom after the Civil War. Prosperity ended with the Great Depression when roughly 25% of the population was hit by unemployment. Once again, it was a long recovery.

Harlem is also home to the Apollo Theatre, which opened in 1934 in a former burlesque house. This venue gave a start to the careers of numerous musicians and singers throughout the next several decades, especially through its Amateur Night contests. Jimi Hendrix won first place in one of those contests in 1964.

On our way back down the island towards Fifth Avenue, we passed a group of beautiful townhouses that were built in the 19^th century and are on the National Register of Historic Landmarks. We also passed the Masjid Malcolm Shabazz, a Sunni Islam Mosque which, when a Nation of Islam Mosque (named Mosque No. 7) was where Malcolm X was an Imam before leaving in 1964 for Sunni Islam. We were turning a corner as I was taking a photo from the rear of the upper deck of the tour bus, so the photo looks a bit tipsy.

Along Fifth Avenue, we passed several museums such as the Museum of the City of New York, the Cooper Hewitt Museum, the Guggenheim, the Neue Gallery, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Frick Collection. Then we passed Temple Emanu-El, where I used to attend services.

The Plaza Hotel was someplace that I went to a few times when I lived in NYC – to attend various recording industry events (the industry in which I was working at the time) and to take my mom to lunch in the Palm Court one of the times when she came to visit me.

When we reached Carnegie Hall, I left the tour bus to get some lunch and switch to the downtown loop so I could complete it. By this point, I was getting tired, so I stayed on until after we left the South Street Sea Port. Then we visited Chinatown, Little Italy, Delancey Street, the United Nations, the Chrysler Building, St Patrick’s Cathedral, Rockefeller Center, and Radio City Music Hall.

When we returned to Carnegie Hall, I found that, instead of ending at Times Square, the tour was ending there. Times Square was a bit of a jaunt from Carnegie Hall. I stopped off for some refreshment (ice cream) and set off down Seventh Avenue.

When I got to 45^th Street, I took a detour to Shubert Alley to visit the theatre shop at One Shubert Alley. Then I turned on 44^th to head back to Seventh (my hotel was at 41^st at about the middle of the block between Seventh and Eighth). I ended up going right by the theatre where David Tennant and Matt Smith were doing a “Meet the Doctors” event – they had been the 10^th and 11^th Doctors in the BBC series Doctor Who.

Next time – A very special time among the Scots in and near Edinburgh with a lot of time spent at Hadrian’s Wall