First NYC Receipt?
This is probably the oldest receipt I have from New York City. I probably received this receipt when ordering a pizza for delivery on Monday, October 29, 1990. I left Florida for New York on October 20, 1990, staying first with a college friend in suburban Philadelphia, then taking a memorable train ride from there to New York where I stayed with another college acquaintance on West 57th Street. He was a French Horn player studying at Juilliard. It was he who said “Welcome to New York” as we met in the lobby of that institution. I remember feeling dismissive of his welcome, inappropriately so considering his generosity. I think I felt that New York seemed too big and indifferent for pithy welcomes. And despite his hospitality, I really did not know this guy very well. I felt I was taking advantage of him in some way, however small.
I don’t know that I have any paperwork from that first week in New York, save perhaps for business cards from potential employers, interviewers, and time-wasting liars at employment agencies. I stayed with the French Horn player on West 57th Street for a few nights before going back to the Philadelphia suburb for the weekend of the 27th, returning to New York on Monday, October 29th. For that week I stayed with a college friend on West 91st Street, where this large pizza with half pepperoni and half sausage was delivered. I remember the night this pizza arrived, for it was the first time I ever heard the voice of Clayelle Dalferes, the sultry-voiced classical radio announcer at WNCN and later at WQXR. I took something of a special interest in the sound of WNCN and WQXR because radio was supposed to be my so-called career path after college. Alas, infinite streams of rejection letters from radio stations in cities, states, villages, hamlets, and nations far and wide eventually gave way to me never fully entering the field. In retrospect I am certain this was for the best. Traditional terrestrial radio would have chewed me up and spit me out, and bored me to pieces along the way. I would have failed at commercial radio.
My friend with whom I stayed on West 91st Street was a trombonist studying at Juilliard. He was a good guy. We laughed hard at things. I have no memory of his name. I don’t know if he knew this but it was he who directed me to the Parc Lincoln. I asked him if he knew of any place where I could stay, and he could only say that he knew of a hotel on the Upper West Side in the 70s. He knew that some Juilliard people stayed there, but he knew not the name or the exact location. Armed with only that information I walked the streets of the Upper West Side and, through process of elimination, deduced that this Parc Lincoln on West 75th Street was the hotel to which he referred. It may well not have been the exact place he meant, but it proved fateful nonetheless.
I entered the hotel with my bags over my shoulder. The Parc Lincoln front desk dudes indicated that they were filled to capacity, with no vacancies now or ever. I stood there, not trying to be pitiful, and asked if they of any other places in the area. I noticed that one of the front desk clerks took a second look at me, somewhat sympathetically it seemed. He asked if I had any place to stay. I said no, which was basically true (I could have returned to the place on West 91st, and even back to the Philadelphia suburb, but I wanted not to overstay my welcomes at those places). The front desk clerk produced some papers from a metal box, shuffled them like flash cards, and somewhat glumly revealed that he could find a room for me. He indicated that I could only stay a short while, and that I should seek out another place. He did not want me staying there long.
This was the “Welcome to New York” that I expected. Brusque, rude, even insulting, this hotel clerk treated me like an adversary. He put me in room 1422. My first night there I ordered Chinese food, discovering at the point of delivery that I had only 10¢ left with which to tip the delivery guy. He laughed at me, not in a happy way, and all I could do was shut the door. I regretted that incident, but what was I to do? That was my last dime. It was also my first night alone in New York.
