THE WALDORF AND ME

A marriage made in heaven!

I had a master plan since it was so cold, we would take the subway and then strategically use it to get to the Waldorf from Penn Station. Caesar, or Napoleon, or Ike would have though the strategy brilliant, yet simple. Take the ‘E’ train from Penn Station, walk under ground to 51^st Street and cross the street to the Waldorf. Nice, simple and pretty direct. TLW didn’t want to pay for parking for two days, and so it was the LIRR for the weekend.

There was one tiny problem when we got to the token booth. No ‘E’ trains were running because of work on the tracks! Being it has been years since I rode the darn thing, I make a big mistake and take the ‘C’ train which leaves me off across town, and now we have to walk across town, but not without paying a price. TLW (The Little Woman), wanted to take the subway, I offered the taxi, but no, it had to be the subway.

We enter a crowded subway car and the train does 95 mph on all the sharp bends, while I am awkwardly holding onto a crossbar with TLW holding onto me. I wrenched my knee from that experience, which I felt the next few days!

Not realizing how long the walk in the cold was, we trudged through the Sunday afternoon pedestrian traffic, joggers, baby strollers and cabs manned by retired Kamikaze pilots while people on suicide missions wishing to do it in their cars on a Sunday Morning in Midtown Manhattan.

Finally we arrive at the Waldorf, on the Park Avenue side of the hotel. Entering this place is like entering a grand palace, with tuxedoed attendants all over you, just standing there! Large vases, gold gilded trim, marble floors, inlaid mahogany covered walls and more gold, and that’s just the revolving door!

We finally find the registration desk and sign in. The gal behind the registration desk then begins the process and discussing the rules, what I get and how I get it, what is available and the magic of the key, like getting the elevators to work. By the time she is done, I’m seriously wondering if we should book the room for an extra night since this day was being shot to hell with this registration process!

We get into the elevator and the doors close on two country bumpkins. We push the 41 floor button, but nothing is happening! I push, then TLW pushes, nothing. Suddenly the doors slide apart opening for this woman and a fellow in a tuxedo shirt (guests) who enter and TLW states our predicament.

“Oh! Did you use your room key?”

Me: “Room key?”

She pulls hers out and in it goes and asks what floor and does it again for us.

“Where are you guys from?” she asks.

I hesitate and want to say ‘Port Washington’, not ‘Holbrook’. (After all, this IS the Waldorf, and HE is walking around in a tuxedo shirt)

I figure “Hey, we’re old, let them get over it”. We part and I find our room. We enter and this place is beautiful, there is an outer room with a bathroom bigger than my den to our left, overlooking the north side of the building with its large waist to ceiling window, on our right is a wet bar, with gold fixtures and shelves and mirrors with silk wall paper and them we enter our bedroom with a window on the north side and one on the east side, overlooking what else, but the east side of Manhattan, and you can see the east River. This is on the 41^st floor, a view that knocked my socks off that evening.

We check it all out and I realize we need to leave now for the theatre to see Mamma Mia at the Winter Garden.

WE were suddenly royalty!