Saturday, November 27, 2010
Lunch At Jeremy's Ale House
Friday, November 26, 2010
A Huge Cutaway Model of Normandie is Deep in the Bowels of Queen Mary in Long Beach
 |
| Normandie's First Class Dining Room Lower Center |
The Great French Liner Normandie
"Normandie" was the flagship of the French Line (Compagnie Generale Transatlantique) for four short years yet the name has lived on like no other ship , save of course Titanic. Whereas Titanic plunged into the icy North Atlantic in two hours twenty minutes, Normandie's demise, though it took no lives, was dragged out over seven long years. After Hitler's unwise (misguided?, megalomaniacal? I'm convinced he was a nut job) invasion of France in 1939 Normandie was held at pier 88 in New York for safe keeping. There she rested until those other other aggressive nut jobs of the day, les Japonais, bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941. The next morning the US government seized Normandie with the intent of conversion to troop ship. This was not to be, for a welder's torch accidentally set her afire. In trying to put out the fire so much water was pumped on board that she listed to port, snapped her lines and settled into the mud of the Hudson River.
That's where my dad, Morris saw her, half submerged and on her side, as he boarded the already converted troopship Queen Mary later that year. (Eighteen Captains assigned to one first class cabin). When he returned home from war three years later on the Queen Elizabeth she still lay there. Finally in 1946 in what was the then most expensive salvage operation ever she was righted and towed to New Jersey and scrapped. A sad ending for what was the most beautiful, fastest, and largest liner of the day. The good news is that lots of her interior fittings had been removed before, (and after, I presume) the fire, and have over the years made their way into collections and installed in buildings here and there.
Which brings us to the Seaport Museum, located in Lower Manhattan, where currently there is a wonderful exhibit (pictured above) of Normandie artifacts, curated and narrated by Bill Miller, who gave the great ocean liners lectures on board the Mary as we crossed the Atlantic, now two weeks ago. What's particularly interesting looking at the beautiful furniture and tableware assembled is how new and fresh it all looks. Had the ship served a normal 30 or 40 year life, of course, things would have worn out, been replaced, reupholstered etc. and Normandie's triumph of art deco design would most likely have been compromised, much in the same way that QE2 went from a pure expression of 60's modern to shall we say a more confused (though beloved) look in her forty years of service.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
In The Meantime The Gods Have Spoken
 |
| I bought this mug on the Royal Yacht Britannia. The royal family put this out as a poster during the horrific bombing of London WWII |
Meanwhile, Back in Denver, I Hate This Miserable City
I've been back a week now in this wind swept frozen third tier city at the end of the prairie and I wonder why I live here. Every time I come back here I hate it more. It' a boring, dull middle class city, full of self satisfied people. It's tolerable in the summer, when the weather is great, in fact I've even been heard to say I like it. From mid October to mid May however, it's miserable and I hate it. Example, tonight the low is predicted to be 8 degrees. The leaves are off the trees, the flowers are dead, and the lawns are turning brown, the wind is blowing, and it's gotten colder since I got up this am. It will be below freezing every night now till at least mid April. Furthermore, the house where I live is in the shadow of a high rise apt building until mid February, meaning no sunny windows. The lack of sunshine makes me crazy. Don't tell me to buy those special light bulbs, they don't work, I do however run around the house the first thing in the morning and turn on every light in every room, after turning the heat up to seventy. No, I don't care about the carbon footprint. I do have a nice fireplace, but it's really sorry to sit in front of a fire, by ones lonesome self. Come to think of it I do actually have one friend who likes to come over and have a fire. I'm wandering here into self pity, which is always ugly so I'll quit the rant. Except for one more thing. While I was away my idiot across the street neighbor painted his brick house mint green, two shades of lavender blue and white, it looks like an Easter Egg. I'm furious!!! Oh well, cheers!
Monday, November 22, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
New York City!!!
I was off the ship by 9:00 am, with 7 hours before I had to be at the airport. There is currently an exhibition of artifacts from the great French liner "Normandie" at the Seaport Museum in lower Manhattan. The curator of said exhibit is Mr. Oceanliner, Bill Miller, the excellent lecturer on board the Mary, so of course I had to see it.
I bypassed the taxi line at the pier and walked two blocks to catch a city bus (along with one other passenger and his NY daughter who was very helpful to me). It went straight to Borough Hall in downtown Brooklyn, where I had a look about, then caught a Manhattan bound 4 train to Fulton Street, which puts you right in the middle of the madness that is lower Manhattan. You are a block from Ground Zero, in the photos above, which is in full construction mode now. Incredibly noisy, sidewalks streaming with people of all sorts, trucks and taxis and shiny black cars, and steam from the vents blowing about-- and me rolling my (exactly 50 pound) suitcase around, taking photos and exclaiming wow!
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Queen Mary 2 Has Just Completed Her 150th Transatlantic Crossing!
Many hundreds of passengers were up and out on deck to watch the our passage, with feet to spare, under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge this morning at 4:45. We've made our way through the harbor now, passed the Statue of Liberty are are just about docked at the pier at Red Hook. I'll post this then I have to pack up and be off the ship by 9:30 or so. I'll have lots more to post in the coming days, so stay tuned!
Now, that was yesterday, by the time I got back to the cabin to post it, Cunard, ever efficient they are, had already turned off the internet! So now here I am safely back home. Spent a fun day in New York City yesterday, that I will report on, and caught a 5:30 pm flight home to Denver, on trusty Frontier Airlines. Frontier is Denver's homegrown airline and a local favorite. We like the animals on the tails, and perhaps more importantly, most anywhere you fly, from Denver it will be a nonstop. Getting to La Guardia Airport in New York by public transit (MTA) is a breeze and costs all of $2.25. From lower Manhattan, where I was, you just take the 4 or 5 train uptown to 125th and catch M60 cross town bus which is marked La Guardia. Couldn't be simpler, and took 50 minutes.
The Denver experience, however, is different. First off, there's no bus even marked Downtown, I don't know how you would know, if you were a visitor, that the bus marked Cold Spring is the only one that even goes there. I had to wait 50 minutes, pay $10 to go a circuitous route to the downtown station, then wait in the freezing rain (worst by far weather of the trip) for the free shuttle uptown to the Sheraton where I was turned down by two taxi drivers because it would only be a $6.00 fare. The third was really nice and tried to cheer me up, and he did, but all in all it was an annoying experience. All told it took 2 hours. I was already grousing on the RTD bus into town, and a fellow passenger agreed, and noted that in convention planning, the transpo from DIA is found to be lacking. The good news is that ground has been broken for a rail link from the terminal to Union Station. So in five years the story will be different.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)