Achan & Amma in the Big Apple - NYC

It was the last week of December  1968!

Achan seems to have planned to go to New York by bus as can be seen from a photo of Amma with a caption En route to New York date 29.12.68. 

Though train journeys do have a dream like quality in people’s conscience, Achan and Amma appears to have travelled by the popular interstate Greyhound lines. The available public mode of travel was the Greyhound cross country bus services since the New York - Ottawa slim train services apparently closed around 1954 which could have been the reason for his choice of the mode of transport. I am pretty sure that Achan had established contacts necessary to be in New York from India itself. Hence their stay was not with any hazards even in the middle of winter. From another picture we find that the couple stayed with the son of Mr. Mendez, probably one of Achan’s colleagues.

I am not sure whether they took this humpbacked bus or the 1954 version. Whatever .. but it must have been a long trip done anywhere between 15 – 18 hours. Achan knew well where he was going and I am not sure that his colleagues accompanied him on this trip.

 

Mrs and Mr. K.R.Warrier took a Greyhound bus to go to New York from Ottawa. One or two other bus services did exist… but I haven’t heard of them from Achan’s lips…but Greyhound sure.. it did catch my imagination..and to have an idea   the bus transports, here’s a 1953 brochure -  a vintage find :

On reaching New York on the 29^th of December 1968, to flag off their  tour in the new country, Amma is seen here setting out for the city tour in the morning with the caption: To Conducted tour by the Greyhound Bus. Despite the fact that the Greyhound bus cannot be considered as one of the wonders of the world, an old photo  of a bus for city tours assuredly has an  antique value. In these modern times, when the various means of transports  are undergoing fabulous and  unforeseen changes, and distances, measured in light years,   the bus tour  could be seen as a trifle, but in the 60’s and 70’s it had the charm of a  dream for many tourists. It is not known how Achan had reserved for the Greyhound tour from Canada or from India  but he managed to get seats for both. There seems to be other companies offering such services as can be seen from the detailed brochure by another city tour bus service - the Crossroads Sightseeing Corporation - showing the sights one can hope to see in New York with a bus tour within  a day.

 From the list of interesting icons, to view in New York listed in the brochure, my parents had visited Times Square, the Empire State Building, the United Nations, Lincoln Center, Rockfeller Centre and Radio City Music Hall, the Statue of Liberty, St John’s Cathedral, Hudson Bay jetty and Broadway at night.

    For me, all the photos and slides that I was so adept at showing off, come resurging upon me while finding the brochure of the  Cross Roads Corporation, a rare gift from a historical point of view. From Achan’s reveries and experiences as well as from so many novels, the places seem to be familiar to me; but gorges and voids of the time flow have erased a lot from memories.

The legend of the 1968 brochure for sightseeing bus tours of New York City. Brochure is filled with black and white photos of New York icons: Times Square, the Empire State Building, the United Nations, the Rockettes, and lots more. Tours offered visits to Downtown, Chinatown, Harlem, Lincoln Center, Radio City Music Hall, the Statue of Liberty, and more. “

A two-hour tour cost $4.50, while the 8-hour all-day tour cost $11. The most expensive tour was the "3 Star Night Life Tour" for $21, which included a full course dinner, cocktail, and floor show at the Latin Quarter or the Copacabana, and visits to two other night clubs for a cocktail and floor show at each. (Unescorted ladies were welcome to join this tour, but Gentlemen must wear jacket and tie.) Want to make a reservation? Call LT 1-2828.”

I have only a light feeling that  Amma and Achan had visited the resplendent Art Deco Radio City Hall,in the Rockfeller Center and witnessed the mesmerizing show by the Rockettes, the precision dancers. Choreographer Julie Branam said  that this year 2022, “There’s something for everybody,” says Branam. “There’s the new, the tech and the traditional.” The “everybody” is a whopping 80,0000 spectators annually.

 The tour would have lasted till night because Achan had wound up the  tour with a click of New York city lights ….first let’ see who is on top of the world? 

Apart from a photo there is also a handwritten limerick dedicated to her !
Half an inch half an inch half an inch shorter, 
All the girls’ skirts and dresses grow shorter
When the wind bows, half of it shows
Half an inch half an inch half an inch shorter.

This was inscribed by Achan on the back of this photo captured on the Empire State Building. It was the end of an eventful year.. the 30^th of December 1968 …It shows Madhavi  Ramachandra  Warrier, our dear Amma, in a  special and unique pose on the  then world’s highest  skyscraper - the Empire State Building - a Wonder as it is !  - resembling the picture in the brochure where Empire State Building itself seems to strike a rare pose. In the brochure  during those days the skyline seems unbelievably clear though our Lady, the Statue of Liberty, on the river Hudson is not visible! The empire state building stands out majestically, Lord of all it surveys! The hoard of skyscrapers were yet to arrive !

  Is it not the photo click of the Seventh Wonder in which Amma posed ? Ok, now let us enumerate the many wonders of the world she has seen so far and Achan has caught on camera -  to start at the very beginning…

 First, Amma got photographed before the Splendid Wonder of Taj Mahal before flying over to the African Continent from Asia to be clicked in front of the Egyptian Wonder - the Great Pyramid at Giza and the Sphinx. Across the Mediterranean Sea to the European continent and the magnificent sculptures and paintings of the Sistine chapel in Rome followed by the historically dominant edifice of the League of Nations in Switzerland, going on to early 20^thcentury’s concrete dam structures. 

Wonder dam constructions which had formed  part of great historical events  of the Second World War in France….

Then off to gay Paris …standing  on top of the Notre Dame Cathedral, the magnificent iconic edifice of Renaissance, broken Arches and buttresses…

And a hop across the English Channel to be photographed before the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge..

Next flying from the European Continent to the North American Continent,  to Montreal across the huge expanse of the Atlantic  Ocean. Amma gets be snapped in the Winter snows and sports in front of Notre Dame Basilica,

From there now through Ottawa, the Capital of Canada, nestled among the huge expanse of open and unpopulated spaces, to the skyscraper thronged supremely busy and wonder cosmopolis of New York!!

And here’s the post card showing New York of the fag end of the 1960’s from the air. Achan had glued it conscientiously in his postcards album for the future

 Then he added a Flapper’s limerick to the back of the very photo where Amma’s saree was flapping away .. he caught that exact flapping to add the Flapper’s limerick. By that very fantastic legend, the photo travelled from one hand to another and lost its way in the passing of Time. Here’s the original of the Flapper’s Limerick!! I wonder from which search engine he had discovered this one and tweaked it to suit his photo of Amma trying, in a maidenly manner, not to fly away with the saree or super expose herself!!

He was not carrying a Cambridge Dictionary or self-help English learning books to search for a limerick to describe Amma’s flapping saree! How on earth did he find this of the 1920s, an admonition as a funny comment  .. on Flappers - the fashionable young women of the World War I --1920’s flouting conventional standards of behavior by wearing shorter dresses compared with their earlier generations? Who were more maidenly… especially one showing independent behaviour and which exactly suited Amma’s character !!

Half An Inch Shorter - A Flapper Limerick

Half an inch, half an inch, half an inch shorter
The skirts are the same for Mother and Daughter
When the wind blows
Each of them shows
Half an inch, half an inch more than they oughter.

It was on the second  day of arrival that  Amma and Achan  were on the Empire State Building, the highest edifice of that time in the world. Technically and symbolically they had achieved the fulfillment of their dreams as far as their trip is concerned. New York and Montreal with only a difference of 0.49degrees in longitudes [Montreal – 73.57°Wand New York -74.06°W] and India at 77.2°E they had covered roughly half a hemisphere, half the distance around the world. So justifiably, it was a moment of splendid achievement and a celebration of   attainment of dreams, of amazement and of realization to be on an iconic edifice! 

         

Was Achan aware that it was named after the Empire State, nickname of the New York state or that it was built as a docking point for airships of the 30s while the concept of transatlantic airship traffic was in the air or that its 1576 steps, 381 meters and102 floors of Art Deco  style was built in a record breaking time of a year and  45 days?

Figure 2Blimp near the mooring mast. (Credit: New York Daily News Archive / Contributor)

Over the years, in the collective conscience of our family the Empire State Building  has been ever present because for the simple reason  that our Dad and Mom stood on top of it….For others, in spite of other skyscrapers being speedily constructed,   the renown of the Empire State Building has grown and remain unchanged as a symbol of New York and Manhattan from its opening in 1931 possibly due to its presence in films ( the first among them being… King Kong, the giant gorilla climbing to the top  in the year 1933…  “which raised the building to the mythical symbol of the city”- says Christine Barrely in the Little Book of New York.) or the innumerable references to it in the everyday life of the Newyorkers through references and cross references. Furthermore  annual sports events like  climbing 1576 of its steps for the first ever and the most famous  tower race which the champions make in 10 minutes…have sustained its glory throughout the last nine  decades and underlined its modern mythical nature!

Figure 3https://www.runguides.com/event/8514/empire-state-building-run-up

           In spite of it being dwarfed by a bunch of  higher tech skyscrapers of the Manhattan including the latest by One World Trade Centre -it still stands out – identifiable by almost by everyone  and definitely by all Americans…through the subconscious of   an entire  nation and its people. In 2017, our short visit to the One World Trade Centre was hallowed not only by the 9/11 fallout but also by the personal  and  historical   moment  of  having traced our parents’ footsteps to the Manhattan.