What’s a better way to celebrate an eight-year-old’s birthday than to take them and their friend on the train to New York City? (I’ll tell you a better way: the Monster Truck show, which we did the year after the NYC trip. My child walked away then exclaiming “This is the best day of my life!”) That’s understandable, considering what happened in Times Square the year before.
Kids love the train, especially when one of them has never made the trip and the other narrates along the way as a veteran of the tracks. The forty-eight minute Metro North from Stamford to Grand Central went fast as Nova and Steven exchanged rapid-fire observations about WWE wrestlers, what they got for Christmas, and anything that began “My brother says” or “My sister says” delivered as gospel truth. The grandeur of Grand Central always captures my fascination, but upon deboarding and minding the gap, I noted Steven’s transformation from giddy to terrified boy as we hit a wall of commuters heading in every direction. At this age, we couldn’t hold hands, so I did the invisible-hand-cradling-you-near-to-your-shoulder-so-we-don’t-lose-you-and-piss-off-your-mother routine as we shuffled through the crowd to 42nd Street.
On this bitter cold but sunny February Saturday, we competed on the sidewalk with shoppers, Broadway patrons, and regular New Yorkers tolerating the shoppers and Broadway patrons. “Are we going to take a taxi?” Steven asked, clearly not knowing how I operate when our day is based in midtown. We three trudged along 42nd past the public library on the left and the curved Grace Building on the right. I considered sharing historic anecdotes to move us along (“Hey, you’re walking on the sidewalk where composer Percy Grainger’s mother jumped to her death a hundred years ago!”) but refrained so as to keep in the birthday spirit. Soon, we arrived at our culinary destination: Jekyl and Hyde’s in Times Square.
Jekyl and Hyde’s was a theme restaurant tailor-made to entertain young children and to separate loads of cash from parents’ wallets. NYU students and wannabe actors worked in dark lighting as costumed servers in character as werewolf, vampire, or mummy. The twenty-dollar hamburger was frightening enough for me, but, surprisingly, Steven expressed genuine fright. “Mr. Gregory, I don’t like this,” he said and, despite my child assuring him it was all in fun— “Steven, the kitchen is right over there. See the cook?” he finally asked that we leave. Nova, my child, was visibly annoyed as we Beat a hasty retreat to the streets of Times Square, one of our main items for the birthday celebration now squelched. As we walked along the windswept street, it hit me: the old standby, Olive Garden, at 2 Times Square.
What could go wrong with Olive Garden?
We three nestled into a cozy booth on the second floor, surrounded by fellow tourists enjoying this oasis on a bitter cold day. As we sipped water, I noted the family in the two booths behind and to my right. One 20-something adult sister sat with her mother, and in the adjacent booth sat the other sister and two little girls who were out with their mothers and Grandma. The little girls clutched, excitedly, at their American Girl shopping bags.
Moments later, I sensed movement and turned to see one adult sister standing over her other sister, telling her, “I don’t like the way you talk to Mama!” As the other took affront and stood up, I instinctively stood and swung around to shield my kids as the two sisters came to blows and let the expletives fly. One pushed the other into a shelf of glasses, sending shards of glass all over. Olive Garden personnel converged on the scene; one barreled toward me with his head tilted to his shoulder microphone, radioing for help, and another cradled one of the little girls who had been hit in the fracas and was now wailing. “Let’s go,” I told my kids, nudging them away from the area and toward the exit where two policemen were rushing past us. As we exited a Times Square restaurant yet again, Steven volunteered, “I’m never going to Olive Garden again!”
Back in the cold again we wandered a bit, successfully navigating around Elmo and the Cookie Monster as well as the pre-Broadway matinee crowd, me wondering what to do next. I stopped the children at one point, ostensibly to get a photo of the two, but really to use their heads to frame the real star of the Square: The Naked Cowboy, then a novelty act. performing in the February cold and wearing only his signature white briefs while strumming a guitar.
Retreating to the nearby TGI Fridays to finally get some lunch, the children were excited, the sting of two traumatizing events barely registering. After touring Ripley’s Believe It or Not, where Andrew called his mother to say he was never going to Olive Garden again, we walked next door to the Marriott Marquis to ride the glass elevators twenty-five stories up and down, up and down, before trekking to Grand Central and the ride home. Looking over, I saw my two young charges bantering back and forth about everything and nothing, enjoying each other’s friendship. And I was bringing them home safely!
It wasn’t a Monster Truck-type day, but it was damned close.
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