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Visiting a Kinder, Gentler, New York City

Visiting a Kinder, Gentler, New York City

Publisher’s Notebook

by Ted Owen

I just returned from a whirlwind trip to the Midwest and eventually New York. Wow! Is traveling an experience or what?

I was interested in seeing how the travel and retail business sectors were doing in respect to the lingering economy. You can read all the column inches you want on what the experts say, but until you see it firsthand you really don’t get the true picture.

To begin with let me orient you to our itinerary. We flew to Atlanta in order to get to Cleveland for a family and high school reunion for my wife.

I don’t believe you can fly directly to Cleveland from anywhere. Then the trip went from Cleveland to Atlanta to get to New York. It was business and pleasure , mostly pleasure. Then the trip went from New York to Atlanta to San Diego.

I know the airlines have cut back on some of their flights, but all of ours were packed, some even oversold. Airport security has increased but it’s smoother than the last time we flew.

I don’t know what prompts inspectors to check a passenger, but I do know that you have to make sure you don’t wear socks with holes because that probably increases your risk of being checked. I did see twice as much security, but the people were generally more friendly and the lines moved swiftly.

Once we arrived in New York I noticed immediately that the taxi drivers were really friendly; they still don’t speak English too well, but a smile and a nod does go a long way toward making the trip nicer. There was much made about sending cabbies through PR training a few years ago; I don’t think they need it now.

At nearly every major intersection, no matter what the time, you could see police officers. New York is one of those old-line cities where horse-mounted officers still exist. The cops were friendly, nearly becoming tour guides for the non-New Yorkers like us.

The general business climate there was robust, to say the least. Our hotel, the Marquis Marriott on Times Square, was a beehive of convention business , so much so, the elevators couldn’t even handle the traffic at times. Getting a taxi was a long wait.

We walked what seemed like hundreds of blocks, about five or six hours each day, and got a chance to see the Big Apple up close and personal. Street vendors with moderate prices, stores with bargains and elbow-to-elbow walkers. If any industry is booming in New York it has to be the transportation businesses. The city has captured the market on black Lincoln Town Cars. Nearly every third car on the road is a four-door Lincoln. Literally thousands of them, and full of people.

One thing the city has not lost is its reputation for good food. The eateries we visited were crowded and you needed a reservation to avoid long waits. Lines were long and the prices were not reduced. We ate in one place near our hotel, Angelo and Maxie’s Steakhouse. It had been open only two years and was packed wall-to-wall with diners. The impact of Sept. 11 didn’t keep it from making a go of it. We traveled one night to the Upper East Side of town and ate at Nino’s. The same thing occurred: lots of diners, and reservations made it much easier. Neither place was about to close its doors. They do allow smoking, and it is awkward at first to remember to ask for a non-smoking seat.

We traveled to Ellis Island to see my wife’s parents’ names on the wall of Immigrant Honor. They both came by ship in the early 1900s to America.

The Statue of Liberty is a stop on the ferry ride to Ellis, but it is not open to the public since the Sept. 11 attack. The gift shop is open, but nothing else.

The only overt example of really beefed up security was dockside as we boarded the ferry to Ellis Island. In addition to a half-dozen regular New York cops, two body-armored, automatic weapon-toting security guards were present at all times. A helmet-clad SWAT team at the dock does bring your heart rate up a beat or two.

We visited Ground Zero as everyone does, but it really only looks like a large construction site. The memorials are across the street and not overwhelming. We did see two banners from our neck of the woods , one from Temecula Valley and another from El Cajon. They were both hanging from a fence around a church across the street from Ground Zero.

Overall I believe that New Yorkers have weathered the last year or so very well. The atmosphere appears back to normal, but a dash of kindness and a slower pace have been added.

We all need to get away and recharge the batteries.

If you have a chance to travel someplace in the next few weeks and months, my sense is that you will find that the country, while reeling some economically, has a recovery underway; we just don’t read about it much. After all, we have the bad economy, a war on terrorism, corporate accounting shenanigans, and fear in our hearts. Get out and check it out.

To the balance sheet:

Credit: To Berkman Communications for winning five Bernays Awards from the Public Relations Society of America, San Diego chapter. The Edward J. Bernays Mark of Excellence Awards are the Oscars of the PR world. To win just one is special; to capture five is amazing.

Jack and his team won in a variety of areas: Business to Business, Consumer Product Launch, Editorials and Op-Ed Writing, Press and Media Kit Design and Interactive Communications-Web Sites Marketing/External Communications. I’d say Berkman Communications is truly an award-winning full-service firm. Congratulations to his team of all stars.

Credit: To San Diego for winning four International Economic Development Council awards of excellence. Two IEDC awards went to developer William Jones for Citizen Leadership for his City Heights project, and to Dr. Harold Brown, associate dean and director of community development at SDSU for his dedication to economic development education. He was awarded the Richard Preston Award. The city’s Economic Development Department won two honorable mentions for outstanding economic development work and for the Business Matters newsletter they produce promoting economic development. Congratulations to Hank Cunningham and his team.

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