New York City Rides

I love to travel and have been to 120 cities around the world, according to one of those games on FaceBook. The city I go most often for work is New York. When I was getting ready to go there to tape again, I kept pushing down this little bubble of excitement that threatened to overtake me. It's been a couple of years since "Showtime at the Apollo" went belly up and I miss it. Jumping in a cab and directing "125th St and Frederick Douglass" seemed like such a thrill for those six years. When I first went to NYC way back in the day, I nearly got killed because I stepped out in a crosswalk, expecting the traffic to screech to a halt like it does in LA. Happily I was with a friend who snatched me back on the sidewalk before I was mowed down. Lesson learned. A little shell shocked, I adopted a method of sort of lurking around corners until crowds gathered to cross the street so I could slip into the middle of the throng and get to the other side. I still laugh at how long it took me to really know how to aggressively flag a cab in Manhattan and catch it so it was going in the direction I needed to go -- but finally I got it. This past Thursday, I left my hotel and walked for a bit and ended up on the same corner by the Warwick Hotel where I'd caught those Apollo cabs all those years. I was smiling when I jumped in the cab and responded to the cabbie's query, "how do you want to go," I said, "Take me through the Park if it's open." It was and away we went, once again Uptown to Harlem. Call me nuts, but I love New York in the winter. Just the day before when I walked out of JFK, the snow was falling as I made it to my driver. Cabs are great in that town, but for certain things, Towncars are better. Airport trips and getting back out of Harlem are two such examples. There are gypsy cabs that you can catch to get back to Midtown, but who knows what you might also catch in one of them. So when the day was winding down, all the cast and crew were heading out, I got into the SUV which has replaced the Towncar as the ride of choice these days and headed for Midtown, my hotel and some much needed rest. A long day's taping, meeting with my new literary agent and the conversation about editorial for a new magazine, left me weary and happy. Los Angeles called my name the next day and after one more meeting it was me and the SUV to the airport. Call me the traveler, Ruth Adkins Robinson.