"Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow…"

New York at Christmas time is just great.  The stores are all decked out in their Christmas finery and people are in holiday mood.  The Rockefeller Centre's ice rink is full, there's Christmas activities going on all over.  And as for us, Viv had organised our seeing the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall in their Christmas spectacular.

Rockefeller Centre Christmas Tree

It was a business trip for me but business would last only a morning so I'd asked Viv to accompany me for the weekend.  We wanted to shop, watch movies, go to shows, shop, eat and socialize. Not necessarily in that order but that was just about the plan.

We stayed at the Langham Place Hotel on Fifth Avenue near the Empire State Building in mid-town where the bellhop told us that every store was on sale -- the hangover from the Thanksgiving Sales and the current pre-Christmas sales.

Sales used to be after Christmas and the January sales, nowadays its constant. This isn't good.  Trouble is that the US recovery has been relatively jobless -- at the end of 2012, 75% of US output had been recovered but only 21% of the jobs.  Companies simply aren't hiring enough people and those that are hired are substantially under-employed or on contract.  The headline rate may have declined to 7% but factoring in under-employed and those that have given up looking doubles it -- this is why the discount stores and dollar shops are doing so well.  And why even big name stores are on forever sale.

First thing though was another subway trip to Chelsea Market in the Meat Packing District to eat lobster with Viv and again just like last time it was great… once I'd walked Viv around the block a few times to get my bearings, that is!

Trouble with eating a late lunch like that though was that it pretty much killed any appetite we had for later on.  Still we were able to hit a past favourite restaurant Carmine's at Time Square for a cocktail and appetizer and finish off with some ramen noodles at a place called Sapporo.

So we're ticking all the 'eating' boxes then!

Next day was my meeting just off Wall Street.  It's always a great feeling to be where the action is.  Trouble is after 9-11 most of the big finance firms moved their main offices to mid-town so these days there's a few rep offices on Wall Street as well as the NY Fed and NY Stock Exchange, but that's pretty much it.  Goldman Sachs as usual bucked the trend and built a new building further down Broad Street beyond where my meeting was, but everyone else was in mid-town.

Outside the NYSE with my business partner, Robert

After the meeting we went for lunch to a terrific chop house called Harry's on Pearl Street, all wood panels, starched table cloths and waiters in aprons.  Americans do chop and steak houses really well I think.  Far better than we in Britain but that may be because of the cuts of meat they work with -- particularly steaks -- but also because they give you very large chunks of meat too!

Still ticking the 'eating' box!

But the real excitement was when I discovered that Delmonico's Restaurant was just round the corner.  It may not mean much to some but if you read stories of old NY or watch movies depicting that era, the bigshots always end up in Delmonico's to eat.  I thought the place had closed long ago but no, it had reopened within the last 10 years and was trying to recover its place as the premier fine dining restaurant in NYC and the entire US -- for Delmonico's was the first fine dining restaurant in the US when it opened its doors in 1837.

Be that as it may, the rest of Viv's and my day was elsewhere -- in fact shopping and the crowds, most of whom so it seemed like London were speaking a language other than English. It seems that the great big cities of the developed world have become more and more cosmopolitan.

But first thing first.  It was cocktail time!  After yesterday's debacle when we walked around looking for cocktail bars recommended by the Concierge without luck, we decided to stroll up 5th Avenue as the snow was filtering down and arrived at the Peninsular Hotel where we decided the Roof Terrace was the place for us!  It was freezing however the hotel had set up heat lamps and provided blankets for the hardy cocktail bunch, us included.  The ice in our Negronis did not melt!

The forecast for Saturday was a blizzard and as we woke up we discovered that 'they' had got it dead right.  Blizzard it was!

This was shop till we drop day and we gave it our all to shop at all the big stores -- most if not all were on sale.  Macy's were 50% off with another 20-50% more off at the till.  We did a lousy job though as the crowds were immense and whilst we did buy some things, it was nowhere near what we'd thought.  But we did get to walk in the snow through Bryant Park where a winter Christmas village had been set up.

Very lovely it was too with people skating, strolling and generally getting in the mood.  There was a big Christmas tree too of course.

Bryant Square

The key event of the day though was the theatre, namely a show called A Prairie Home Companion which was the showcase of Garrison Keilor.

Viv's dad loved Garrison Keilor's Tales from Lake Woebegone, an imaginary country town with stories rambling along endlessly but entertainingly.  Viv saw the show advertised so that was it.

The Town Hall Theatre set up for the radio broadcast.

Now we hadn't realised this was to be a recorded live radio broadcast for PBS stations and the US Overseas Armed Forces Network.  The 1,377th such weekly show in fact!  Our first such live broadcast. It was a fabulous show even though choreographed into 2 one-hour blocks.  There were singers, great music and musicians, an opera singer, comedy skits and of course Garrison Keilor's weekly update from Lake Woebegone.  Great stuff!

As the show started at 5.45 pm to be ready for the 6 pm live broadcast, it was over by 8 pm so I'd booked a table at Delmonico's for 8.30 pm.  Being so far downtown, this meant a long subway ride but we made it although the snow was immense.

Great steak too but as we came out, the snow had ended as the temperature had gone up 10 degrees so it was now hammering down with rain!  Talk about getting wet!  But what a great day.

Our final day was all around the Rockettes at Radio City.

Viv had booked the 11.30 am show -- they do 5 each day!  My goodness they have to be fit… or have 2 sets of Rockettes.  Located near Rockefeller Centre, Radio City is yet another magnificent piece of 1930's art deco Americana.  It looks nothing much from outside alongside the other skyscrapers but when you get inside it is immense!

These days everything's in 3D

If you like singing and dancing and lots of fun, you'll love the Rockettes.  It is a real institution as our show was jammed like all the others Viv had tried to book us into and everyone in the audience was really into it.  Great stuff again.

The wurlitzer guy in Radio City

As our flight was at 5 pm, we only had time for lunch at Cipriani's in Grand Central Station before heading for the airport and home.

Grand Central Station from Cipriani's on the balcony

Wonderful time.  Merry Christmas New York!

Combination of the Two

I had a day on my own in New York before the board meetings so wanted to make the most of it.  The concierge in the hotel suggested I take in the High Line Park and Chelsea Market in the Meatpackers District.  I'd seen it on Anthony Bourdain's TV programme too so thought I'd do just that.

I'd also made up my mind that as I was staying in the Big Apple I'd do something I'd never been able to do by now, namely understand the subway system and only use that mode of transport during my stay. So I bought a 7-day pass at the 5th Avenue/53rd Street subway station for $31 and headed off on the E train to the 8th Avenue/14th Street station.

The NY subway is messy. I like public transport but most other countries' subway stations I've traveled on are cleaner and with more advertisements, trash bins, signs and generally aesthetically pleasing stuff.  In addition there were usually helpful maps around advising where you should be aiming.  However the NY subway has a buzz all of its own too.

I found Chelsea Market on 9th Avenue and expected something along the lines of St. Lawrence Market in Toronto or Granville Island in Vancouver -- which really are havens for foodies.  For sure there were food shops but also others as well and as it was near Halloween most was covered in fake cobwebs, funny masks and those yellow pumpkins so beloved over here -- I don't understand that really, but folks in the US go crazy about the day and the pumpkin.

However I did find a lovely place called the Lobster Place and found all manner of wonderful things.  A helpful young man busy shucking oysters suggested I take a bimble around before ordering anything which is how I found the lobster shack and the steaming fresh lobsters themselves.

It was now 2 pm and I'd made up my mind I intended to have a decent dinner so felt I couldn't go totally over the top but wisely settled on a lobster roll and a dozen oysters which were just terrific.

I took the lobster roll up to the High Line Park nearby -- which is an old elevated railway system of some sort that some clever people thought they'd turn into a park -- i.e. just let the plants grow, I think they were all wild flowers, grasses and weeds actually -- dump in a few benches and leave alone.

Nice job too.  It has certainly become a focus for tourists too as there were lots of people like me strolling about (on a Tuesday afternoon) taking photos.

I wanted to take in a movie so promised I'd return in a day or so and headed on the subway again to Times Square where the movie theatre was.  I like Times Square.  Gaudy certainly.  Chic, elegant, sophisticated … not really!

As I was walking over to look at the half price ticket booth, I saw the Lyceum Theatre had "A Night with Janis Joplin" playing that night.  Well, I like Janis so this was a no brainer.

This left just enough time to head down to the movie theatre to see "The Fifth Estate" -- the Wikileaks movie -- and head back to Times Square to a restaurant across the street from the theatre that I'd seen before called Bond 45.  It was a big Italian restaurant and was pretty darned good too.

The Janis play was pretty good too.  It didn't cover some of the yuckier parts of her life, glossed over the fact that one of the songs she'd 'covered' -- supposedly an Etta James song -- was actually Janis' own composition, and generally gave us the Hollywood sanitised version, but in the absence of the real thing it was pretty good to hear 'Ball and Chain' played live.

The actress playing Janis was really good -- but check out the real thing here.  This is the incandescent version from Monterey 1967.  The one that introduced Janis to the world!

This was a really good day!