September 15th

Our plan was to go into the city and start our day at Times Square, enjoy a part of Central Park, then go to Greenwich Village, where Terra Blues is, get a bite to eat then head over to Terra Blues and see Hazmat Modine.

We Ubered to Times Square from our hotel.  The Lincoln Tunnel was the closest way for us to get to and from Manhattan.  We had no desire to drive in Manhattan and it was always going to be an Uber or a taxi.  Our Uber dropped us off at 34^th St. and 5^th Ave.  We walked up to 42^nd St. and then walked up toward Times Square.  This being a Saturday they had a large section of 42^nd St. blocked off for street vendors.  It was an interesting walk.  People watching was fun, the street vendors were selling everything you could imagine, souvenirs, clothing, jewelry, all kinds of food, etc.  We walked over to Times Square, walked around a bit and then we were off to Central Park.

On our way to Central Park we kind of stumbled on Broadway.  We happened to walk by quite a few of the major theaters including the Late Night with Steven Colbert at Radio City Music Hall.   When we got to the southern end of Central Park we walked in a little bit and then walked out to Park Ave.  After looking at our map we decided to go to the Boathouse Restaurant and Bar here in the park.  The Boathouse is pretty famous as it overlooks the lake where you can rent a boat and row around with your sweetheart.  It has been in many movies and tv shows.  It was Saturday afternoon and we didn’t expect to get in but just as we entered 2 people were leaving the bar and we grabbed their seats hoping that we could eat at the bar.  We couldn’t eat at the bar but our seats had a perfect view of the lake and all the row boats.  We had a couple of drinks and had a great time.

We left the Boathouse and walked towards 5^th Ave. and Strawberry Fields.  Strawberry Fields is a memorial to John Lennon.  Yoko financed it.  It was cool.  When we left the park and we were on 5^th Ave. we caught a cab to Greenwich Village.

Once we got to Greenwich Village, major traffic in Manhattan on Saturdays, we walked over to Terra Blues to get our bearings and then began looking for somewhere to eat.  We knew we wanted to have pizza because New York is famous for its pizza crust (we learned that is because of the water).  We settled on a pizza place about 2 or 3 blocks from Terra Blues.  They had an interesting pizza called A’Salute which consisted of garlic cream sauce, mozzarella cheese, arugula, green onions, lemon juice and some chili powder.  We tried it and loved it – and the crust was the best ever.  After a couple of beers and the pizza we left for Terra Blues where we had reservations at 6:30 for the 7:00 show.

Cover charge was $20.00 each and we had great seats.  I’m guessing that capacity at Terra Blues is about 70 people.  This is a tiny place.  At 6:30 the band was doing sound checks and even practiced a new song.  We ordered Rye Manhattans, which were fantastic and settled in for the show.  Hazmat Modine is an 8 piece Blues/Jazz band, a fiddle, a guitar, a tuba (the bass), drums, a trumpet, a saxophone, a trombone and the lead singer, and it appeared the band leader, who plays harmonica, guitar and other things.  They played 2 sets, each set was an hour.

During the intermission they announced that they had CD’s for sale.  Diane went up to the stage to see if they had any CD’s that we didn’t already have, which they didn’t.  Diane then started a conversation with the band leader.  She wanted to know why they never tour the west coast and particularly Southern California.  He said because it’s too expensive to get an 8 piece band out there.  They had a great and jovial conversation.  For their final song of the evening the band leader dedicated it to the “lovely lady from California”.  The song was their signature, Bahamut.  After the show, Diane also talked to the trumpet player, Pam Fleming, who we saw in the 80s at Reggae on the River paying with Burning Spear.  Diane has been a fan ever since.  We bought a CD of hers – she is a very talented horn player.

We had an absolutely fantastic time.  We couldn’t have asked for anything better!

We were wandering around that part of Greenwich Village enjoying the evening and looking for a nice place for a nightcap when we stumbled on Blue Note, a famous jazz music venue.  The show was sold out but I was able to go in and buy a t-shirt and take a picture of the venue.

While buying the t-shirt in the Blue Note I asked the nice lady that was taking my money where there might be a good place for a nightcap.  She said a lot of people from the Blue Note go to The Red Lion.  So that’s where we went.  Unlucky for us we paid the $10 cover charge and went in when the band was on a break.  We ordered a couple of drinks then the band came back on stage.  The band was an 80’s cover band and if that wasn’t bad enough they played really, really loud.  We guzzled our drinks and called it a night.