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| The Chrysler Building from our hotel |
For the first few years of this
letter and occasionally since, March has been the month where I write a travel
letter. Since the Great Recession, my
travel wings have been clipped. Truth be
told, I still have that wanderlust just not the budget or business need. This month I am again writing a travel
letter. My destination is someplace I
used to live for seventeen years: New
York. In actuality, we lived in
Connecticut but I worked in Manhattan.
Most of the time when asked where I was from, I answered New York.
I liked living there. No... I loved living there. The town and country contrast and contrast
really appealed to me. We had a home in
Wilton, CT and my office was on Park Avenue in Manhattan. That never stopped being cool. It is still cool.
It's not like I do not like living
in Chicago now or that I do not relish my time in Detroit. Both places are wonderful... but there is
something unique and special about New York.
Oddly, I was not really sure about moving to New York. While I was born in Boston, I really only
recall living in Detroit and lived there until 1990. It was all I knew. I loved and am quite proud to be from
there.
Moving to New York, while being a
great career move, was iffy. The housing
market was far more expensive and the place seemed too big, complicated, and
obnoxious. Mostly, this impression came
from movies and TV and the very few times I had actually visited. I knew other
people loved it but I was apprehensive.
That all changed when I first got
there. I fell in love with the city the
first weekend I was there. What a great
place. I wondered what the heck I had
worried about. It was both good and
bad. The good simply overshadowed the
bad.
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| While walking around the city |
We were in New York City the weekend
of February 21-23. It was a great
weekend. We flew in and out of LaGuardia
but spent all our time in Manhattan. It
was the longest time I have spent in Manhattan since Aram and Anoush's wedding
in 2009. I enjoyed being in the great city again. I wish, in part that I still lived around
there. But. I know in reality that
chapter is over. The probability of
having to relocate there is not high.
Anything is possible. It is just
not probable.
We were there for a wedding, the
son of close Armenian friends of ours from Connecticut. It was fun to see all our everyone. For us, it was having the old gang back
together again. For them, we were the
only addition.
We walked around Friday and
Saturday during the day. It was good to
hit some spots we used to frequent. It
was not surprising to see that some places were no longer there.
Here are some reflections of the
trip.
An October 31 article in the New York
Post revealed some interesting facts.
It seems there are still about 5,500 pay phones in Manhattan which is
down from 8,260 in 2008. I guess seeing
pay phones in three different locations was not such a rare sighting after all.
While the number of pay phones are
decreasing, the advertising revenue from them is, oddly, up. The city collects 10% of the revenues from
calls and 36% of the revenues from ads.
Ad revenue
from phone booths has risen 18 percent, from $14.1 million in 2008, to $16.6
million as of January 2013, based on data compiled by the budget office.
Ads are the main reason that pay
phones are still around. They form part
of the mini-billboard landscape in the city.
The revenue is worth millions to the city so they are interested in not
only maintaining the revenue but trying to grow it. The city is working with the thirteen pay
phone suppliers in the city to modernize the pay phone concept to include wifi
and smart screens. I would guess fast
charging stations would be a plus too.
Colgate: I visited Colgate. The only person I informed ahead of time was
leaving the day we arrived on a trip to China.
So, I simply called my old friend and partner in supply chain crime Jim
Davis. He was in the office and
available in the late afternoon. I had
not been in the headquarter offices since 2009.
I wanted to see folks in the Latin
America Division of which I was a part of and Global Supply Chain where I had a
functional dotted line. To my delight,
they were both consolidated to the same floor.
It seems Colgate staffing levels have decreased as has been the case in
many Fortune 500 companies since the Great Recession. They now occupy about two thirds of the space
they used to occupy. If they go any
lower they may risk losing their name on the building.
I was lucky to run into a variety
of old colleagues in the 45 minutes I was there. It was more than I thought I would have seen
late on a Friday afternoon for the short time I was there. It was very nice to see everyone. It felt good to be back but most definitely
it was a closed chapter.
Giambelli's: One place I was sorry to see no longer there
was Giambelli 50th a long standing Italian mainstay in Midtown. It was around the corner from Colgate and one
of the first restaurants I saw when I was first there in 1990. I made a note upon first seeing it to try it
out. I ate there maybe six or seven
times. It was very good and it was also
very expensive.
Giambelli
was founded by Francesco ''Frank'' Giambelli, who died in 2006 at the age of
90. He was born in 1915 in Voghera, outside Milan, Italy. Frank came to the
U.S. in 1954 to open Giambelli's Ristorante, originally located on Madison
Avenue and 37th Street; it relocated to 50th and Madison Avenue in 1960. In
1995, during Pope John Paul II's trip to New York, Giambelli's served the Pope
and fifty Cardinals at the Cardinal's residence. The cuisine was northern
Italian. The interior had off-white walls, light brown banquettes, picturesque
paintings, Classical bronze statues, and riotously colorful floral
arrangements. One account said that a long-stemmed rose was given to each
female guest.
Mr. Giambelli was always
there. I knew him mostly in his
80s. He didn't move fast but he was
always there in a suit and tie. It was
his place. He was proud of it and it was
a great dining experience. He greeted me
every time like I was one of his best customers. I was not, but it really made me feel
special.
I have two great memories of this
classic and classy restaurant. First, I
went there for lunch with a Colgate colleague from Mexico. Even though it was not an expensed lunch, we
just wanted to go someplace nice and Italian.
This was to be my treat to thank my friend for something he had done for
me. We walked in and Mr. Giambelli
greeted me, as usual, like his best customer and my friend was impressed. I was feeling very good. Mr. Giambelli personally seated us and told
me of a very special appetizer he wanted me to taste. He told a waiter to bring us some. Cool.
It was very very good. We had our
lunch which was equally good. I asked
for the check and when it came, I reviewed it.
Holy smokes, the appetizer was like $40... for lunch. Here I thought Mr. Giambelli was being so
nice. He was but he also deftly got me
to raise my ticket. Well done Mr.
Giambelli.
Another time, when I was working
in Global Procurement, we had a Global Meeting of the Procurement leadership in
the company. The meetings were held at
the Piscataway Technology Center. One
evening, we all piled in a bus and were not told where we were going. The bus trundled into Manhattan and we were
supposed to go to on a dinner cruise. It
would have been a great evening except for the fact that they dinner cruise
boat had no record or knowledge of our reservation. Yikes.
There were like fifty of us, it was dinner time, we were hungry, and we
had no reservations. There were not a
lot of nice places where you could just drop in with 50 people.
Jack DiMaggio called Mr.
Giambelli. No problem. By the time the bus got there, the tables
were arranged in the loft and we had a prix fixe menu that was fabulous. What a restauranteur. Well done Mr. Giambelli.
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| The Waldorf Towers from our hotel |
The restaurant is not only closed
but gone. It it torn down. The Lost New York blogspot informed me that
the site was taken over by the MTA for a construction project. The invoked the Eminent Domain law in 2009
and took it over. Both the restaurant is
closed and the building is gone. It
exists in the memory of its patrons. In
reading the blog, the memories are strong and heartfelt.
Nothing lasts forever. This may be more the case for local stores
and restaurants than other businesses.
They are dependent on several things for their survival. There is the, first and foremost, the energy,
vision, drive, charisma, and business acumen of the owner. The owner breaths the spirit into these
places and gives them personality. It is
this personality with which customers make their relationship with the business
and the owner; there is often no distinction.
Needless to say, that product and service also must delight customers.
The second factor is the
market. The business landscape is always
changing. Chains operate more
efficiently than sole proprietor stores and restaurants. Small businesses find it harder to
survive. They are more able to do so in
large cities especially in New York where chains have a more difficult time
with their model because of both property and labor costs.
Mayor de Blasio: New York has a new mayor: Bill de Blasio. He is a different than the past two
mayors: Giuliani and Bloomberg. He is a democratic and from what little I
have read and seen, he seems like a pretty left wing Democrat. It will be interesting to see where he takes
the city. I understand his desire to
help the lower economic strata. I am
sure that the benefits of the resurgence of the city did not trickle down to
them enough. I am certain their lot has
been worse since the Great Recession.
It is almost certain that he will
steer the municipal ship in a different direction than either of the last two
mayors. The fear is that he will
alienate the wealthy tax base of the city.
They will flee the city if they are too concerned about taxes and fiscal
policies. If they are powerfully rich
enough, they may take their companies with them to Connecticut, New Jersey, or
perhaps even out of the Northeast altogether.
The loss of this tax base, which my anti de Blasio friends already say
is happening, could have the city returning to what it was in the 70s and
80s. That would be horrible.
I will have to wait and see how
this plays out. I must say that his
rhetoric is not conciliatory or inclusive thus far. He criticized Bloomberg in his inaugural
address. Most people in my demographic
and wealthier took that as a rude harbinger of things to come.
In New York this weekend, there
was a news story about de Blasio. It was
not about what I have just expressed. It
was about how he ate pizza. It seems
that the media was taking exception to him eating pizza with a knife and fork
whereas real New Yorkers simply eat pizza with their hands. Really?
At that moment, I was on de Blasio's side.
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| Not to be confused with the New York State of mind |
That New York state of mind:
This notion of the New York state of mind is something captured in song,
literature, and film. There is that
certain something, the I can’t define it but I know it when I feel it, air
about the city. It is as much of what
ties people to the place as all the exciting places to go. It is the romantic allure of the city, but a
romantic allure that is a bit gritty and tough.
I am not sure if I really ever had
that New York state of mind. I thinking
I would have actually had to live in the city to have it fully. I am also sure that people that are always
talking about it probably don’t have as much of it as they profess. But, it is there. It is real and however much infected me, I
enjoyed it.
It is a rat race. It can be crazy. But, the people are better than their
reputation in other parts of this country.
Sure, there are folks that are pure caricatures of what one expects, if
all they know is the New York of sitcoms and movies. It is actually exciting when you meet these
characters.
I want to say it was my city. But, it wasn’t. I felt like a passerby, an observer. Maybe it was more like I was part of city for
the time I lived there. There was a lot
of history before I was there, and there will be a lot more. I am sure people in other great cities of the
world feel the same way.
There was such a wide range of
poverty and wealth, obscurity and celebrity, all around. Yet, I was comfortable with my lot. There were always people infinitely richer or
poorer either in wealth or character and they were all about.
There is a New York state of
mind. However much of that I have, I
value. It was good to be there. I would love to visit more often.
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