NYT: For Sailors, a Calmer Shore Leave in N.Y.
The New York Times
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May 30, 2006
For Sailors, a Calmer Shore Leave in N.Y.
By ANTHONY RAMIREZ and KATE HAMMER
After being cooped up for months in giant rolling tin cans in the Persian Gulf, the sailors dock on the West Side piers of Manhattan and stay for a few days. New Yorkers see them move about in groups or in pairs, their crisp summer whites against the gray of the asphalt.
The city they are visiting is different from the city New Yorkers live in, even different from the city as experienced by other tourists. But it is also nothing like the one experienced by the untold thousands of sailors in untold thousands of ships who have come before them over the decades.
Once it was strip clubs and bars and tattoo parlors and girls. And while there still may be some of that, sailors who sauntered around Midtown on Memorial Day gave some surprising answers when asked how they experience New York City in the two or three short days they are here.
They mentioned frozen cappuccinos, and Off Broadway, and the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, and architecture — specifically, terra cotta facades.
And they said they range far and wide away from the West Side blocks — once very seedy, now less so — and Times Square — also once very seedy, now completely not so — that used to be their first ports of call. Part of the reason is that they get to ride the subways free.
For the men and women of ships like the U.S.S. Kearsarge, a 40,500-ton amphibious assault ship docked at Pier 88, near West 48th Street, the New York of shore leave in 2006 is different.
For one thing, many are married or are in relationships, so if there is carousing to be done, it seems to be low-decibel and over shortly after midnight. Besides, the wives and girlfriends are sometimes here.
Petty Officer First Class Brian Shonyo, 31, from the Kearsarge, was here with his wife, Ginnele, 27, who came up from Norfolk, where the ship was last stationed. "Usually I only get to hear about these places," she said. Still, she said she was shocked to see a man dancing in his underwear in Central Park.
William Hamb, 34, a petty officer first class on the Kearsarge, was planning on having a frozen cappuccino at Serendipity 3 on East 60th Street. Geoffrey Roediger, 22, a boatswain's mate third class from St. Matthews, S.C., went to see the Off Broadway musical satire "Burleigh Grime$." And Jason Kinsey, a boatswain's mate first class on the Kearsarge, wanted to visit the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art on Broadway in SoHo for its exhibition "She Draws Comics: 100 Years of America's Women Cartoonists."
Boatswain's Mate Kinsey took a circuitous subway ride to Gowanus in Brooklyn to find American Legion Post 1636, at Ninth Street between Third and Fourth Avenues, where a tombstone in the basement dates to the Revolutionary War.
"I'm a history buff, and I got a great picture of it," said Boatswain's Mate Kinsey, 35, referring to a relic of the Maryland 400, a famed band of citizen soldiers in the Battle of Brooklyn. He was born in Hagerstown, Md. "I love this stuff to death."
For other sailors, their concerns are more traditional. Craig Smith, 27, a seaman apprentice on the U.S.S. San Antonio, a 25,000-ton amphibious warship, said he just had "one of those fancy burgers, you know, with Swiss cheese and mushrooms."
For sailors, traditional and nontraditional, New York has been their fried pork dumpling.
Max Johnson, 28, a damage controlman second class on the U.S.S. Anzio, a 9,600-ton cruiser, met his wife and her sisters in Manhattan to see the tourist sites. His sailor's uniform prompted officials to put the Johnson family at the head of the line for the Empire State Building.
Midshipman Scott Clark of the Kearsarge, originally from Los Angeles, was especially lucky. On Friday, he and three friends were given Yankees tickets. A man in a suit stepped out of one of the tall buildings near Times Square and gave them the tickets, three rows behind third base, he said. At the game, "I was within talking distance of A-Rod," Midshipman Clark said.
First Class Petty Officer Jason Loftin, a radar technician on the Kearsarge, got a free sightseeing flight over Manhattan. The prize was donated by a local businessman and Petty Officer Loftin was the first to volunteer to take it. The flight left from Staten Island. "I'm glad to get away from everyone else in uniform," he said.
William Hamb, petty officer first class on the Kearsarge, said he did not need anything half that spectacular. "I don't have to do anything special. I'm in New York. Look at me, I'm in an elevator and it's in New York. I'm in a taxi, in New York. I'm in a subway and it's in New York. You can't go around the corner without bumping into a landmark."
For Boatswain's Mate Kinsey, the history buff, he said even the buildings that have no special designation are interesting. "We spent the day on a bus tour mostly looking for nice architecture, so I'm in seventh heaven when I see brownstones."
"You remember the terra cotta surfaces," said Boatswain's Mate Third Class Ryan Bily, 23, of Cincinnati. "Oh, I forgot, you fell asleep."
And the sailors all laughed.
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Printer Friendly Format Sponsored By
May 30, 2006
For Sailors, a Calmer Shore Leave in N.Y.
By ANTHONY RAMIREZ and KATE HAMMER
After being cooped up for months in giant rolling tin cans in the Persian Gulf, the sailors dock on the West Side piers of Manhattan and stay for a few days. New Yorkers see them move about in groups or in pairs, their crisp summer whites against the gray of the asphalt.
The city they are visiting is different from the city New Yorkers live in, even different from the city as experienced by other tourists. But it is also nothing like the one experienced by the untold thousands of sailors in untold thousands of ships who have come before them over the decades.
Once it was strip clubs and bars and tattoo parlors and girls. And while there still may be some of that, sailors who sauntered around Midtown on Memorial Day gave some surprising answers when asked how they experience New York City in the two or three short days they are here.
They mentioned frozen cappuccinos, and Off Broadway, and the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, and architecture — specifically, terra cotta facades.
And they said they range far and wide away from the West Side blocks — once very seedy, now less so — and Times Square — also once very seedy, now completely not so — that used to be their first ports of call. Part of the reason is that they get to ride the subways free.
For the men and women of ships like the U.S.S. Kearsarge, a 40,500-ton amphibious assault ship docked at Pier 88, near West 48th Street, the New York of shore leave in 2006 is different.
For one thing, many are married or are in relationships, so if there is carousing to be done, it seems to be low-decibel and over shortly after midnight. Besides, the wives and girlfriends are sometimes here.
Petty Officer First Class Brian Shonyo, 31, from the Kearsarge, was here with his wife, Ginnele, 27, who came up from Norfolk, where the ship was last stationed. "Usually I only get to hear about these places," she said. Still, she said she was shocked to see a man dancing in his underwear in Central Park.
William Hamb, 34, a petty officer first class on the Kearsarge, was planning on having a frozen cappuccino at Serendipity 3 on East 60th Street. Geoffrey Roediger, 22, a boatswain's mate third class from St. Matthews, S.C., went to see the Off Broadway musical satire "Burleigh Grime$." And Jason Kinsey, a boatswain's mate first class on the Kearsarge, wanted to visit the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art on Broadway in SoHo for its exhibition "She Draws Comics: 100 Years of America's Women Cartoonists."
Boatswain's Mate Kinsey took a circuitous subway ride to Gowanus in Brooklyn to find American Legion Post 1636, at Ninth Street between Third and Fourth Avenues, where a tombstone in the basement dates to the Revolutionary War.
"I'm a history buff, and I got a great picture of it," said Boatswain's Mate Kinsey, 35, referring to a relic of the Maryland 400, a famed band of citizen soldiers in the Battle of Brooklyn. He was born in Hagerstown, Md. "I love this stuff to death."
For other sailors, their concerns are more traditional. Craig Smith, 27, a seaman apprentice on the U.S.S. San Antonio, a 25,000-ton amphibious warship, said he just had "one of those fancy burgers, you know, with Swiss cheese and mushrooms."
For sailors, traditional and nontraditional, New York has been their fried pork dumpling.
Max Johnson, 28, a damage controlman second class on the U.S.S. Anzio, a 9,600-ton cruiser, met his wife and her sisters in Manhattan to see the tourist sites. His sailor's uniform prompted officials to put the Johnson family at the head of the line for the Empire State Building.
Midshipman Scott Clark of the Kearsarge, originally from Los Angeles, was especially lucky. On Friday, he and three friends were given Yankees tickets. A man in a suit stepped out of one of the tall buildings near Times Square and gave them the tickets, three rows behind third base, he said. At the game, "I was within talking distance of A-Rod," Midshipman Clark said.
First Class Petty Officer Jason Loftin, a radar technician on the Kearsarge, got a free sightseeing flight over Manhattan. The prize was donated by a local businessman and Petty Officer Loftin was the first to volunteer to take it. The flight left from Staten Island. "I'm glad to get away from everyone else in uniform," he said.
William Hamb, petty officer first class on the Kearsarge, said he did not need anything half that spectacular. "I don't have to do anything special. I'm in New York. Look at me, I'm in an elevator and it's in New York. I'm in a taxi, in New York. I'm in a subway and it's in New York. You can't go around the corner without bumping into a landmark."
For Boatswain's Mate Kinsey, the history buff, he said even the buildings that have no special designation are interesting. "We spent the day on a bus tour mostly looking for nice architecture, so I'm in seventh heaven when I see brownstones."
"You remember the terra cotta surfaces," said Boatswain's Mate Third Class Ryan Bily, 23, of Cincinnati. "Oh, I forgot, you fell asleep."
And the sailors all laughed.
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on Tuesday, May 30, 2006 at 10:08.
