Circle Line Tours

Ferry Princess

~ DIRNDL SKIRT

Summertime, and the livin’ is easy. Unless you are five years old and miss having your daddy around to jump in the ocean or shoot water pistols with. Well, today I got a splash of cold water in my face. My whole life I thought that my first visit to New York City was on a school field trip in 1970, when I was a junior in high school. I discovered evidence to the contrary—an old box of slides taken by my paternal grandfather includes one with me on what appears to be a Circle Line ferry with my “Mammaw.”

Yep, that’s me—pixie cut and plaid dirndl skirt. Why do I have no memories of this? Didn’t I know right then and there that NYC was my destiny?

Mammaw and me NYC

*****

Circle Line schedule copy

 

Meanwhile, I had discovered something of interest right on the boat: a dazzling specimen of a human, Che Guevara only sweeter, with high cheekbones and windswept hair that lifted off and touched down on lithe shoulders enveloped in a dramatic Peruvian-looking cape. Tessa also got wise to his aura, and we nudged each other, giggling. The Brooklyn Bridge, the United Nations, Tudor City, Hell’s Gate, Harlem—all became a backdrop eclipsed by this alluring stranger as we tried to guess who or what he might be—surely a poet!

Or—maybe a drug dealer? Every once in a while, an imposing black man with a bald head and draped in a white shearling maxi-coat strode over and exchanged a few words with him. When the tour ended, the mysterious couple left the boat separately and then met up on the West Side Highway. Like two Nancy Drews, we followed them east. By the third corner, while waiting for the green light, the Isaac Hayes character arranged the cape around Mr. Exotica’s neck and shoulders a little snugger, nuzzling him with an air of possessive intimacy. Tessa and I looked at each other and groaned.

“Oh no! He’s gay!”
The nature of the relationship, previously in our collective hormonal blind spot, was now more obvious, cutting through all the intrigue. What a waste of male beauty was the provincial thought bubble that popped into my growing worldly consciousness.

We stopped in Smiler’s Deli to assuage our sorrows with Drake’s Cakes, and retreated with our bounty to our room at the Y.

Nov. 71
Dear D____ ,
It seems really weird hearing you talk about frats, etc. It’s so far away from my life up here. Tessa & I took a Circle Line Tour of Manhattan 2 Sundays ago. We discovered a beautiful, exotic-looking guy about half way around—dark, long hair, in a long cape, & alone. We physically were in no condition to attract his attention [referring to our fat shame, not our gender] , but we decided to keep our eyes on him. And we saw our first transvestite. He-she was definitely a male in face—complete with wig, make up, mini-skirt, nylons, boots, & pocketbook. Kind of a pity if you’re a “woman” trapped in a man’s body. —Hell’s Kitchen and Couture Dreams

copyright Sharon Watts

More from the Circle Line Tour chapter

September 11 & the Unfinished Towers

~ DIRNDL SKIRT

1971 marked my first September 11th in New York City. A few days earlier, I had uprooted from suburbia and moved into the Laura Spellman YWCA on 50th Street and Eighth Avenue. I was instantly in love with my new life. I started writing letters immediately to share the wonder of my new home with my mom, who had dropped me off on this tattered street corner, and went back to Pennsylvania in tears.

Sat. Sept 11, 1971

Dear Mom,

There’s just so much to see & do, you can’t get bored. It’s so neat to see famous places you heard of. Like ritzy clubs & restaurants. I just found out today that around the other corner, at 49th Street, is “Hair.” And the famous Italian restaurant “Mama Leone’s” is there too. We decided to splurge today on a Ho Jo double dip.

Well, I have to go. Write soon.

I didn’t see the World Trade towers immediately. It wasn’t until my roommate and I decided to take the Circle Line Tour that I made my acquaintance.

Advertised in all the neighborhood souvenir shops was the Circle Line Tour, a three hour cruise that lassoed the island. It seemed a perfect way to embrace my new home, as well as get some perspective on where, exactly, my dreams had deposited me. On a brisk, sunny day in early November, my roommate and I shelled out $3.50 each for tickets and boarded the boat of tourists docked at 43rd Street.

We settled into deck chairs on the upper level, and, pulling away from the magnet of Manhattan, churned down the Hudson. The guide was expert and entertaining, pointing out neighborhoods and buildings as he embellished with tidbits of cultural and historical interest. Snapping photos with my Kodak Instamatic, I documented the journey.

At Battery Park the cityscape came to an abrupt halt. What seemed to stop the buildings from toppling into the harbor were two unfinished vertical towering blocks, reaching higher into the sky than anything in the world ever before built by man, their facades flat and without charm. — Hell’s Kitchen and Couture Dreams

wtc-1971

One day I decided to walk down to where they were rooted.

Only to the far south was there any evidence of the future, a double exclamation point to the city’s evolution from the days of Dutch commerce. The World Trade Center was nearly finished, looming mirage-like, our own Oz. One afternoon I decided to walk down West Broadway from Houston Street, until I was standing just below the towers. Along the way, quiet brick-surfaced side streets crowded my peripheral vision with ghosts of factory workers hurrying to punch the clock, and massive buildings, once proud dowagers of the industrial age, loitered as shadows of their former selves. Dumpsters were attached in front like aprons, overflowing with fabric scraps from sweatshops, and perched high above were water towers—tiaras from another time. It was the eeriest, emptiest walk I could remember, with the end always a bit further away than it seemed, just out of reach. Iconic—but of what? I didn’t know, in 1972. — Hell’s Kitchen and Couture Dreams

copyright Sharon Watts