Let the Sun Shine

Seeing Hair tonight was definitely the highlight of our trip to New York City. It’s uncanny how relevant the story is 40+ years after it debuted on Broadway.

We met up with Anna, the beautiful blond 16-year-old who stood in line to get our tickets today, at precisely 2:00 at the Teddy Roosevelt statue in front of the Natural History Museum. She freed us up to be tourists on one of the best weather days of the summer.

This meant we were able to visit Steve, who gave us a tour of the New York Times, where he works. I was most impressed with a long corridor containing pictures of all the Pulitzer prize winners over the last century. He greeted us with a plastic bag containing a marvelous souvenir of tonight’s musical, the hooded sweatshirt above.

The musical was performed in the open-air Delacorte Theater in Central Park. Most of the cast hadn’t yet been born when the original came out, but they were definitely onboard with the story line and the music. By the end the audience was on “stage” singing and dancing to “Let the Sun Shine”.

We spent another day eating our way through New York, starting with bagels and lox at Barney Greengrass, the Sturgeon King. We enjoyed lunch in the NYT cafeteria, at the table next to the current editor-in-chief, Bill Keller.

Dinner was at Tenzan, a Japanese restaurant on Columbus Avenue. It was as good as it looked.



A few other random shots around the city:

A sea of fabric in the garment district.

The new Broadway, which now contains pedestrian seating in what used to be the center of the street.

A reminder that conspiracy theory is still alive and well.