I'm finally getting a chance to write about the
Crossdressers International Sightseeing Bus Tour of New York that I went on Wednesday night. Actually, I more than went on it. I organized it.
For several summers CDI has been taking a cruise on the
CircleLine "Harbor Lights" tour. With numbers varying from 3 to nearly a dozen, we joined the tourists on a large boat (capacity in the 100's). It was a chance to get out of the "tranny ghetto," mingle with the public, and let some of our more fearful members see that you can do this without being attacked or harassed. In the early years people did occasionally take our picture, like we were just another tourist sight. But otherwise there were never any problems. Sometimes we'd talk with some of the people around us, but mostly we just sat and watched the scenery go by. It was an opportunity to show that CDs do "normal" things and aren't all just a bunch of crazies or hookers.
But after 6 years of this, it was getting pretty boring. The first four times we had the same tour guide, and after a while I could almost repeat his spiel (with all his lame jokes) by heart. The last couple years we had a different guide, but I was learning his talk, too.
So this year I suggested something a little different: we'd stay on dry land, and take one of those double decker, open-topped tour buses for our sightseeing excursion. A little research found the
Gray Line Night Tour. It was more expensive--maybe a little too expensive for our more financially challenged members. So I got the other officers to agree to a small CDI subsidy.
There was confusion about the departure times of the tour. Their website seemed to indicate there were three, 6:00, 6:30 and 7:00, but that seemed rather early to me. I e-mailed them to ask if this were correct, but I never got a reply, and I was too lazy to try and call. I just assumed it was correct. My mistake.
But I proceeded with my incorrect assumption, and called for people to gather at the Gray Line office at 6:30, so we could make the 7:00 o'clock tour--the Gray Line website said you should arrive 30 minutes ahead, and that would give us time to purchase the tickets, and for the usual latecomers to still make it.
So Wednesday afternoon I went to the CDI apartment to change my clothes (it does take me a while to transform). The CDI founder, Kristine James, was there, waiting for the tour, and a visitor from West Virginia, Toni, arrived. She had seen the event on the website, was in town on a visit, and wanted to take the tour also. She changed her clothes. But everyone else who arrived just wanted to stay at the CDI apartment for the Open House.
At about six the three of us left and walked the eight blocks to the Gray Line office. We were early, as I wanted to be, so I could be on the lookout for anyone who came directly. The others bought sodas (well, Toni called it a pop) and sat down to wait. I enquired about the departure time, and found out that the 7:00 o'clock tour was the
first not the
last. Oh well, next time we'll know--we might be able to get more people with a later departure.
No one else showed up. It was just the three of us (and I, amazingly, was the youngest at the age of 56!. But unfortunately there isn't a senior discount). At 6:45 I bought the tickets, and we went across the street to board the waiting bus. The dispatcher (maybe it was the driver) punched our tickets, and welcomed us aboard. We climbed the narrow stairs to the upper deck.
There were already a few other people up there, including a British family occupying the front row (see my previous post, below). We settled in right behind them, taking some souvenir pictures of each other.
Shortly after the appointed time we departed, with only a few empty seats, at least upstairs. Our tour guide, Andrew, standing in the stairwell right behind us, took his microphone and started his talk. He talked. And talked. And talked. Almost non-stop for the entire tour, Andrew used his mild New Yawk accent to point out the various sights. Was the accent real? He said he was a native New Yorker. But he had no trouble shifting into other accents when appropriate. So who knows?
He started pointing out this building and that, trying to make connections that out-of-towners would appreciate, such as the soup stand used as a model for the "Soup Nazi" on Seinfeld. There were a lot of references to television shows.
The first thing I noticed were the traffic lights. The bus cleared them only by about a foot. Andrew warned us not to stand up when the bus was in motion, and the warning was real--at one point Toni rose a little in her seat to take a picture, and Andrew immediately pressed her head down. There was a traffic light coming right at it.
Andrew explained that with many in his audiences not speaking English, he needed a good way to tell everyone when there was a photo opportunity. He said he had found "Click, click" to be the universal indicator. He also said he once had to do one of Gray Line's foreign language tours when the guide suddenly fell ill. But he didn't speak the language. So all he said the entire trip was "Click, click," "Click, click."
But taking pictures from a moving bus, especially at dusk, is rather difficult. I soon gave up trying. It was lovely night, still in the low 80's with very low humidity. I just sat back and enjoyed the trip.
I won't bother with a detailed description of the tour. Take it yourself if you're really interested. We went up Eighth Avenue a bit, turned right for a block, then headed downtown. Eventually we got down to the Manhattan Bridge. Andrew warned us of high winds on the bridge, saying we should secure any "packages, purses, or significant others" that we didn't want to lose. I was wondering if he was going to add wigs, but he didn't (though I'm sure he made us). I was actually worried about that-- I made sure I had a scarf in my purse before I left, so I could tie things down.
But it hadn't been very windy at all up until then, so the scarf had remained unused. As we started across the bridge I made sure my wig was on securely, and got ready to hold it down if need be. But it wasn't a problem at all.
The view from the upper deck of a bus going across the upper deck of the Manhattan bridge, a little before sunset, is worth the price of the whole tour.
After seeing a bit of Brooklyn we returned across the Manhattan Bridge and went back uptown. A second pass through Times Square, this time after dark, was included. Then we returned to our starting point. As we departed we each gave Andrew a couple dollar tip, and he said to each, "Thank you, honey."
As a New Yorker of over 30 years, I am always interested in what the tourists are told about my city. Most of what Andrew had said was correct--with one big exception: He said that Mayor Giuliani was in his emergency bunker in 7 World Trade Center on 9/11, evacuating only minutes before the building fell. Totally untrue. Giuliani never was in the bunker that day, and it was evacuated in the morning, hours before the building collapsed. See
Time Magazine's account.
Andrew had remarked several times how light the traffic was that evening. The tour, advertised as 2+ hours, only took 1:40. So we had plenty of time to return to the CDI apartment for a late dinner. The fresh striped bass, caught by Wendi Darling, and cooked by Rochelle Nicole, was lovely.
