(DON THOMPSON / iNFOnews.ca)

OPINION

I spent a lot of time in New York City during the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. Looking back, it was mostly fun, no, it was more, it was exciting.

I never lost that feeling of awe entering The City…whether by train into Penn Station or Grand Central or by jet to LaGuardia, JFK or Newark…then cab or limo through the Lincoln Tunnel…or over the George Washington or Queensboro bridges…and even once by helicopter landing atop the 58-story PanAm building.

Even with a corporate apartment for three years in the 1980s on East 68th Street…a veritable New Yorker…every day I had a sense of…“Am I really in New York?” All that after an introduction that might have soured a wiser though perhaps less romantic man.

My first trip to New York City was four days in January of 1977. It never got above freezing…not even close…and there was five inches of snow the day before I arrived. I handled media relations for several GE businesses from offices in Washington, D.C., and calling on editors - The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Business Week and The New York Times, among others - meant you went to The City.

Back then the Eastern Airlines Shuttle flew every hour on the hour from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. to and from D.C. National and Laguardia…for $18. No reservations, no boarding pass…you could even pay cash once you were in the air. Full flight? Eastern would roll out another aircraft to take the rest of the passengers…seriously. Eastern Airlines “owned” business travel between the two cities…same between Boston and New York.

I had only been in the job six months…and at 25 years old…arrived in New York wearing a Summer-weight suit with a London Fog trench coat. Sharing a cab with a rat-a-tat-tat New Yorker returning home from business in D.C., we chatted for awhile and noticing my less-than-appropriate apparel…then he gave me his business card and offered with a smile, “You need a Winter coat…not a raincoat.”

He was wearing a cashmere overcoat…double breasted.

“You got $100 cash?” he asked. “Yes,” I said, somewhat defensively. He took his business card back, wrote an address on the back…the name Tony...and $100. “Tell Tony, I sent you…what are you…42 Regular…get the double breasted…black. He owes me.”

We shared the cab to his office in the McGraw-Hill Building on Avenue of the Americas, where he got out and handed the driver a $20 bill. “Take him to the corner of Seventh Ave. and 37th, wait and then wherever he needs to go, okay?” I thanked him. He was a partner in a law firm, according to his card…and I would never see him again.

I met Tony, who said matter-of-factly as he slipped a beautiful black cashmere coat on my shoulders, “You’d pay $500 for this at Bergdorf Goodman.” I handed him a $100 bill…which he pocketed as he nodded. A half hour later I walked into the cavernous lobby of the Midtown Hilton Hotel between 53rd and 54th Streets on Avenue of the Americas…I was smiling…I was new to New York but felt at home all the same.

Other than the weather, everything about that trip went perfectly. My scheduled meetings led to other introductions…often on the spot referrals. I was the beneficiary of terrible weather…the third day in town the high was 12 degrees Fahrenheit…the low — a record minus 2 Fahrenheit — what would be the coldest day in New York City in the last half of the 20th century. I soon added a scarf from Bloomingdale’s to my rapidly expanding cashmere wardrobe.

I made 10 more trips to New York in 1977…trips marked by ridiculous extremes in weather…including a trip in July that saw a record 104 degrees Fahrenheit…the lows barely slipped below 90. Had I been in The City the previous week…I would have experienced the infamous “Blackout” when a lightning storm north of Manhattan put the “City that Never Sleeps,” well…to sleep for 25 hours.

On May 16, less than a month after travelling by helicopter from La Guardia to the top of the Pan Am building (now the Metropolitan Life building), another helicopter tipped over during landing…shattering the rotary blades that literally sliced four people to death on the roof. Another person died from debris falling near Grand Central Station 59 floors below.

I was back in The City two weeks later with a client for a face-to-face interview at Forbes…but the real news that day was a toymaker from Queens named George Willig who became known as the “human fly”… the first and only person to scale the outside of the South Tower of the World Trade Center. It took him four hours with homemade climbing equipment. There was always something going on in The City.

In July I saw Reggie Jackson blast a home run in Yankee Stadium…my first baseball game in the “House that Ruth Built.” I could hear on-again, off-again Yankees Manager Billy Martin rag the home plate umpire from my seat three rows behind the dugout.

Two days after I arrived in NYC during August, police arrested serial killer David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz. He had terrorized New York for a year…killing six and wounding seven others with a Charter Arms Bulldog .44 Caliber Special five-shot revolver. Depending on where you were, even cabbies wouldn’t pull over for a fare after midnight.

Of course, momentous events occurred worldwide in 1977. Forty-two-year-old Elvis died in August. Jimmy Carter was president and inherited Gerald Ford’s recession…trade wars, unemployment and inflation conspired against people worldwide. I was glad to have a good job.

The U.S. gave the Panama Canal to Panama. Quebec made French its official language. In October, soccer’s Pelé played in his final match in New York. Seattle Slew won the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing in June. Also in June, Spain held its first free election in 41 years… Generalissimo Francisco Franco had died two years earlier.

In September, heads rolled for the last time in France when the guillotine was used to execute a Tunisian immigrant found guilty of murdering his girlfriend. In December, Saturday Night Fever premiered in NYC… eventually spawning four Number One hits for the Bee Gees.

New York City was starting to feel like home as the clock ran out on 1977. I made the most of my ten trips to The City…constantly engaging business contacts and even strangers to learn about the Big Apple. I asked about restaurants, plays, museums, parks…anecdotes and little known, non-tourist stuff. I was learning to love New York.

Even as a kid I knew I would make it to New York City, but it was 1977 that the dream became an on-going reality.

— Don Thompson, an American awaiting Canadian citizenship, lives in Vernon and in Florida. In a career that spans more than 40 years, Don has been a working journalist, a speechwriter and the CEO of an advertising and public relations firm. A passionate and compassionate man, he loves the written word as much as fine dinners with great wines.

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