I’M IN A NEW YORK STATE OF MIND! We got home early this morning (3:30 a.m.!) from the first Everson family vacation in six years and we had a blast. We celebrated Shaun’s 19th birthday in NYC, and called it an early wedding anniversary celeb to boot.
In the five days we were there, we managed to hit 3 Broadway Musicals (Book of Mormon, Hamilton and Moulin Rouge) and 3 Jazz Clubs (Birdland, Blue Note and Dizzy’s Club at Jazz at Lincoln Center). We saw Steve Smith, the drummer for Journey in their heyday with his band Vital Information and celebrated Shaun’s birthday seeing Ray Angry, a jazz pianist who plays with the Tonight Show Band, and had members of The Roots and Prince’s New Power Generation show up as guests at his Blue Note show.
We checked out Carnegie Hall, Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building, Times Square, Battery Park, the 911 Memorial, Alexander Hamilton’s grave site, Macy’s, Herald Square, Bryant Park and spent an afternoon walking Central Park, before visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art and standing outside the Dakota Apartments, where John Lennon lived and was killed.
We made the most of our time, even though the city was a sweltering 95 degrees the whole time we were there!
Over 35 years ago, when I was a journalism student at University of Illinois, I landed a magazine internship in NYC and lived one summer at an NYU dorm near Washington Square, so visiting New York is always like a homecoming to me. It was a super fun trip for me to introduce Shaun to NY street dogs and pizza, and some of my favorite places, including The Bitter End, a club I saw bands at when I lived there. Here’s a photo and video dump from our whirlwind “return tour”!
