We spent 10 days in New York City. We
arrived
on Nov. 2nd and commissioned on the 7th. The 5 days between arrival and commissioning were full of events, dinners, tours, and rehearsals. The first big event was our welcoming reception sponsored by the Navy League at the New York Athletic Club... if i was smart, i would have asked to see the Heisman Trophy room, but i didnt... stupid, stupid me. At the reception, our main job was to walk around and speak with the veterans who were there. the singer paul williams performed a song he had written about things. he was a nice guy, and people kept talking while he was trying to sing... so that was kind of annoying, i felt kinda bad for him because people were being rude. it wasnt the crew though, they were all listening politely. and then, after we finished with the reception at the new york athletic club we went and got some pizza at a place, i think called angelinos... and we saw ryan reynolds and scarlet johansson... or rather paul and reese saw them, and i faced away from them. then, after we got outside, paul told everybody they were behind us, and two of the six at dinner ran back inside to get pictures taken...
during the days, we would give tours
of the
ship and do commissioning rehearsal. the lines for the tours were really long, and we crammed people into the ship. this is a picture of the main vehicle stowage area and the ramp up to the upper vehicle stowage. throughout our time in new york we gave tours to somewhere between 40,000 and 70,000 people... depending on who you ask. ship's force, navy pier security, and ports america all came up with three wildly different numbers... 55-60,000 is probably the most accurate. in 3 hours after commissioning, we pushed 6,000 people through the ship... that was a very nervewracking day because most of the sailors were with their families and you couldnt find people to man the tour stations. i walked around grabbing people and pluggin them into holes only to come back and find them gone... so, i'd grab someone else and put them there. there were three or four really important spots, so after those got deserted once, i pretty much stood by them and made sure they didnt leave. and those guys did well. they controlled access to the restricted areas and didnt let anyone in. one of
my firemen stood on station where i told him to go for like 6 hours. i thanked him a lot for that.
some of the tours we gave were to VIPs... the jets cheerleaders came with a few jets players. i wasnt there because i was out with my friends off duty. (to be written about in a later post). when i was standing officer of the deck, one of the marine 2nd Lts brought Miss New York to the quarterdeck on her way off the ship. he had escorted her all around the ship. so, i asked her to take this picture with me. pretty much one of the only people i asked to take a picture with me. not geraldo, not montel williams, not giuliani, not the thai princess, nor sal paolantonio from espn.
the night before commissioning we had our major reception at the new york yacht club... as a child, the pantheon of sports heros in our house was mark spitz, dennis connor, and steve spurrier. so, it was really awesome to get to go to the yacht club and see their room with the models of all the victorious america's cup boats... and half models of famous american warships... including the armoured cruiser NEW YORK (ACR-2), the
Bonhomme Richard, and the CSS Virginia/USS Monitor together on a half mode
l. In addition
to the model room, i got to see the dining room which looks like the gundeck of an old sailing ship... i also went up to the library to sit and read a magazine... they had a great nautical library... i was happy to see some of my books on the shelves in the naval history section. so, hooray me. wished i could have had a few more of them. granted, it kinda seemed like they stopped getting newer books on naval history because alot of them were definitely older, which looks nice, but you have to have the contrast of new and old for proper historical studies. the library itself was all you could want in a library.... dark woods, models of ships, and tons of books about ships and sailing. now, i just need to figure out how to get a membership there, pauper that i am.
arrived
on Nov. 2nd and commissioned on the 7th. The 5 days between arrival and commissioning were full of events, dinners, tours, and rehearsals. The first big event was our welcoming reception sponsored by the Navy League at the New York Athletic Club... if i was smart, i would have asked to see the Heisman Trophy room, but i didnt... stupid, stupid me. At the reception, our main job was to walk around and speak with the veterans who were there. the singer paul williams performed a song he had written about things. he was a nice guy, and people kept talking while he was trying to sing... so that was kind of annoying, i felt kinda bad for him because people were being rude. it wasnt the crew though, they were all listening politely. and then, after we finished with the reception at the new york athletic club we went and got some pizza at a place, i think called angelinos... and we saw ryan reynolds and scarlet johansson... or rather paul and reese saw them, and i faced away from them. then, after we got outside, paul told everybody they were behind us, and two of the six at dinner ran back inside to get pictures taken...
during the days, we would give tours 
of the
ship and do commissioning rehearsal. the lines for the tours were really long, and we crammed people into the ship. this is a picture of the main vehicle stowage area and the ramp up to the upper vehicle stowage. throughout our time in new york we gave tours to somewhere between 40,000 and 70,000 people... depending on who you ask. ship's force, navy pier security, and ports america all came up with three wildly different numbers... 55-60,000 is probably the most accurate. in 3 hours after commissioning, we pushed 6,000 people through the ship... that was a very nervewracking day because most of the sailors were with their families and you couldnt find people to man the tour stations. i walked around grabbing people and pluggin them into holes only to come back and find them gone... so, i'd grab someone else and put them there. there were three or four really important spots, so after those got deserted once, i pretty much stood by them and made sure they didnt leave. and those guys did well. they controlled access to the restricted areas and didnt let anyone in. one of
my firemen stood on station where i told him to go for like 6 hours. i thanked him a lot for that.
some of the tours we gave were to VIPs... the jets cheerleaders came with a few jets players. i wasnt there because i was out with my friends off duty. (to be written about in a later post). when i was standing officer of the deck, one of the marine 2nd Lts brought Miss New York to the quarterdeck on her way off the ship. he had escorted her all around the ship. so, i asked her to take this picture with me. pretty much one of the only people i asked to take a picture with me. not geraldo, not montel williams, not giuliani, not the thai princess, nor sal paolantonio from espn.
the night before commissioning we had our major reception at the new york yacht club... as a child, the pantheon of sports heros in our house was mark spitz, dennis connor, and steve spurrier. so, it was really awesome to get to go to the yacht club and see their room with the models of all the victorious america's cup boats... and half models of famous american warships... including the armoured cruiser NEW YORK (ACR-2), the Bonhomme Richard, and the CSS Virginia/USS Monitor together on a half mode
l. In addition 
to the model room, i got to see the dining room which looks like the gundeck of an old sailing ship... i also went up to the library to sit and read a magazine... they had a great nautical library... i was happy to see some of my books on the shelves in the naval history section. so, hooray me. wished i could have had a few more of them. granted, it kinda seemed like they stopped getting newer books on naval history because alot of them were definitely older, which looks nice, but you have to have the contrast of new and old for proper historical studies. the library itself was all you could want in a library.... dark woods, models of ships, and tons of books about ships and sailing. now, i just need to figure out how to get a membership there, pauper that i am.
