ABOARD THE CHRISTMAS TRAIN DOWN FIFTH AVENUE
Top ten movie: Miracle on 34th Street. Biggest ambition at the age of seven: ride the escalator at Macy's along with Natalie Wood. Biggest thrill in my forties: taking Emmy as a toddler up 5th Avenue to see the windows at Saks, Bendels, and Lord & Taylor. I'm not sure what Emmy thought. It was cold. She was constrained to her stroller. I'd taken her at night because I thought the magic of the window was enhanced by a night's twilight but it meant she was tired. I wanted her to look forward to it as much as I did. Now she's grown and in school in Wisconsin tethered to the Midwest, preventing her from jumping on my imaginary sleigh to be pushed down 5th Avenue from department store to department store window. I still walk the streets and avenues with a delightful regression to my childhood wonder at the beauty of Christmas in New York. I circle through the red and white striped aisles of the outdoor Christmas markets watching all the fathers with young children in tow. The cold of New York is no match for the biting sting of a Midwest December freeze. A winter scarf and a pair of lined gloves is enough to fight off the chill. If the cold starts to tickle my fingertips and toes making them itch as the temperature drops below freezing I step inside one of the department stores where snow-clad branches twinkle with millions of sparkling lights taking the chill away.
Since I can no longer find the time to write out cards let alone finding everyone's home address my Christmas gift is this folio of pictures without editorial or comment for those who couldn't make the trip ot the city of lights and magic. Let the child or parent in you take a journey on my Polar Express.
Columbus Circle,
The Time Warner Building
Bloomingdales
The Peninsula
Henri Bendel
Grand Central Station
ABC Home, Broadway & 19th Street
Lord & Taylor
Bryant Park
Saks Fifth Avenue
Rockefeller Center
Bergdorfs
Tiffany
Macy's
THE GALLERY
New York City, 1939
Photographer, Unknown
No comments:
Post a Comment