Comment of the Day

From Upstate Johnny G, regarding the recent 1978 Times Square photos I posted:

The plethora of orange in the photo Brooks posted might be due to color fading over time. Most of these might have been red in reality, except for the HoJo, which was famous for using orange. Great photos Brooks! Reminds me a trip I took with one of my high school classes, back in 1972. Our teacher was pretty young and hip and had gone to Columbia for his MA so he knew the city. There were only about 15 of us. It wasn't an "official" school trip, just a bunch of us going to the big city with our teacher. He let us make the calls as to what we did and if I remember correctly we went to the Empire State Bldg, saw a first-run movie (my town only had a second-run theater), walked around Times Square, and had dinner at a restaurant beneath the Hotel Taft called Enrico and Pagliarulli (or some such) where we enjoyed a great pasta dinner. In those days the drinking age in New York was 18 as opposed to the 21 it was back home. SOME of us were actually 18 but not all, by any means. We were pretty nervous about getting served, but what's an Italian meal without wine? The waiter was young and hip and when he told us he had to card us he said "just show me some kind of a card with your name on it. I don't care what kind." I showed him a library card!! We had a great time, no one got drunk, and the strangest person we saw all day was a guy in OUR group who sported a huge orange (all natural) afro and snow-white skin. He was intrigued by the recruiting station at Times Square, and, using a rolled up rock poster as a rifle, he pretended to mount an assault on it. He didn't even draw a glance from anyone except laughs from us, which perhaps shows how different the world was then. Thanks, Brooks, for tripping that memory switch.