| AUGUST
7, 2004 --
The following
are some points of interest for Delegates to the Republican National
Convention, in New York City, August 30 to September 2.
You will likely see the Gray Line's red tour buses, when you are in midtown.
The tours start on Broadway and 47th Street. These buses are not your regular
public service transportation.
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Not
the ordinary way to get around Manhattan....
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How "The
Circle" got it's name.
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Victory
over Columbus.
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Columbus Circle
is just a few subway stops away for most Convention delegates --
and also within walking distance for many delegates.
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The
TV Studios known as the CBS Broadcast Center, where CBS
News broadcasts nightly.
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The CBS Broadcast
Center is a few blocks west of Columbus Circle, on 57th
Street, and ABC and the Regis and Kelly Show just a few blocks north of Columbus
Circle, on Columbus Avenue (and just a couple of blocks east of Lincoln Center.)
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ABC
Studios, home of the Regis and Kelly Show.
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Good news for
GOP delegates. You will be able to see the Broadway Show League
championship which will be
played on September 2, the last day of the GOP Convention. To get to the Hecksher
softball fields, go to Columbus Circle, which is marked by the Statue of
Columbus, and enter the park through Victory Gate.
(After a lifetime in NYC, LPR is not sure if that is the name of the gate,
but it looks like a Statue of Victory on top of the column. If GOP delegates
learn the name of the statue, they will likely be ahead of
most New Yorkers on that point.)
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Blue
Man Group holds third.
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42nd Street, Beauty
and the Beast, and Neverlander are the division champs this season,
but Blue Man Group has a strong nine and The Producers is a perennial
threat.
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Have
a bite to eat at the Ballfield Cafe, after the Broadway
Show League Softball Championship game.
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Amy,
a dancer working as a waitress, is in green with Lion
Kings.
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Rocco
Landesman, producer of Caroline or Change, throwing a
pitch.
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After the championship,
delegates can stop at the Ballfield Cafe, between Fields 1 and 6,
and near the Carousel.
Another strong
team is Lion King, and that is one of the shows GOP delegates
are scheduled to see on August 29, the evening before the Convention
gets
underway.
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The
popular Lion King, a show which will be seen by the GOP
Delegates.
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(For more on the
Broadway Show League playoffs and game results, please take the LPR
link to the league, at the right.)
LPR WOULD ASK CONVENTION
DELEGATES TO KEEP IN MIND THAT ORDINARY SHOW-GOERS PAY AS MUCH AS $100 OR MORE
A TICKET TO SEE THESE SHOWS.
Hairspray,
at the Neil Simon theater on W. 52nd Street, is one of the popular
musicals not on the GOP's approved August 29 list.
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The
Delegates will not be see ing "Hairspray," at
the Neil Simon Theatre, during their stay in the Big
Apple.
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Hugh
is Huge, but not with the GOP Delegates...
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Another show
not on the GOP list is The Boy From Oz and that is too bad, because
it is a great show with a super cast. |
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Audiences
from lots of shows, not just The Boy From Oz, gather, before
curtain rises and after curtain falls, at the stage door of the
Imperial Therater, on 46th Street, for a glimpse, and possibly
an autograph, of the Boy From Oz star, Hugh Jackman.
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The
popular Restaurant Row on 46th Street.
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Delegates
will find good restaurants on 46th Street, including west
of Eighth Avenue, and, indeed, thnroughout the 40s and 50s,
for proximity to the theaters.
Those 46th Street restaurants will be
convenient for GOP delegates going to Movin' Out, at the Richard Rodgers
Theater, whose entrance on 46th Street is next to the Imperial's stage door.
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Movin'
Out, at the Richard Rogers Theater, featuring the
music of Billy Joel and the choreography of Twyla
Tharp.
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For delegates
wishing to see the bridges of Manhattan, the gem, of course,
is the Brooklyn Bridge. The photo on this page shows the
Municipal Building behind the
bridge roadway. This building houses city offices including the Finance Department
which tends to view New Yorkers the way the British Crown regarded the colonies
in the 1760s.
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The
Brooklyn Bridge with a great view of the skyline
and the Municipal Building.
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Brooklyn
is more than just concrete.
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The loveliest view of the Brooklyn Bridge is from the Brooklyn Heights side
(but delegates are cautioned: there are liberals lurking in Brooklyn Heights,
and also political pronouncement personalities like Norman Mailer, LPR believes.)
Close to the Brooklyn Bridge is the Manhattan Bridge, appealing in its own,
if homely, way, and after the Williamsburg Bridge, there is the 59th Street
Bridge,
linking Queens to mid Manhattan.
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The
59th Street Bridge.
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(All these bridges span the East River, the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg
bridges link Brooklyn with Manhattan. The
59th Street Bridge, also called the Queensborough Bridge, crosses above York
Avenue on the Manhattan side.
The accompanying
photo shows the Roosevelt Island tramway along the north
side of the 59th Street Bridge. The United Nations complex
is about 15 blocks south of the bridge, on First Avenue.
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A
panoramic view of the United Nations Complex, the
Chrysler Building and the MetLife Tower.
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The USS
Intrepid is anchored on the Hudson River, near 42nd Street.
Drivers heading south on the West Side highway see great
cruise ships, including the new Queen Mary 2 at piers in
the West 50's.
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A
massive cruise liner on the Hudson River.
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Further
up the highway, near 145th Street, there is a sign reminding
drivers that lots of people don't vote. Convention delegates
might keep this point in mind when they hear political analysts claim the
election will be decided by a small number of undecideds. Perhaps a landslide
might be
had by stirring the interest of current nonvoters.
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Convention
delegates take note...
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Gas
prices in Torrington, CT on August 6th.
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The wholesale
price oil reportedly hit record levels on August 6. Yet on
that day, the price of gas at a Mobil station in Torrington,
Connecticut edged down a bit, LPR believes that there goes
the election -- depending whether or not there is a continued
squeeze on voters at the gas pumps.
LPR does not know for sure, but also does not doubt, that liberals are cheered
by economic developments, like higher oil prices, that might cause more discontent
with President Bush.
Liberals, in LPR's view, are thumb breakers. Conservatives, unhappily, tend
to be thumb- suckers. Pundits who attack their political adversaries, calling
them "populists," (meaning ":panderers" or "demagogues")
kick over the meaning of populism, which probably was most clearly defined
by President Lincoln, at
Gettysburg--governmnent of, by and for the people.
The thumb-breakers have no interest in inclusive government, nor, probably,
do the thumb-suckers.
If either party were guided by the wisdom of the Founding Fathers and the
definition of populism given us by President Lincoln, that party would win
by a landlside.
Still, it is not to be expected that Republicans, as they assemble in New
York City, will realize why the electorate is so closely divided and how
the voting deadlock can be broken.
The political America of some insiders and many outsiders is likely
to continue this election, with victory going to ... well, the GOP might
consider the expression: like father, like son --along with the single term
precedent of the other father and son presidents:
John, and John Quincy, Adams.
That would put a thumb-breaker in the White House. With a thumb-sucking Congress?
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