The PopCulteer
June 2, 2023
Earlier this week your PopCulteer and his lovely wife took a little whirlwind trip to New York City. Our Mission was to see two-time Tony Award nominee and two-time Drama Desk winner Gavin Lee perform a cabaret/tribute to Fred Astaire at the legendary Jazz club, Birdland.
This whole trip was a bit of an experiment. We had learned from our trip to DC a couple of months ago that we really liked the way Alexandria, Virginia was laid out in terms of hotels being within walking distance of the train station.
The Amtrak Cardinal, which goes all the way into NYC, only runs three times a week, which can be rather limiting in terms of how we structure a trip. So this time we took the Cardinal as far as Alexandria on Sunday, spent a night at the Embassy Suites, then got up early Monday and hopped the Northeast Regional for a four-hour trip to the big city.
Once in New York, we got a cab to our hotel, The Hilton Times Square, settled in and tidied up for the short walk to Birdland.
The show was amazing. Gavin Lee captured the grace and elegance of Astaire, and sang so many standards from the Great American Songbook which were originally introduced by the legendary dancer. You can’t go wrong with the songs of Berlin, Gershwin or Porter, and the show was exquisite.
I would go into greater detail heaping praise on Lee, and his backing band, Brian Taylor on piano, Corey Schutzer on bass and Rich Rosenzweig on drums, but while I’m sure he will be doing this show many times in the future, there are no solid dates on the horizon. Lee is off to Chicagoland to star in a production of The 39 Steps.
I will tell you a bit more about his show in the captions below.
We had arrived at our hotel about 1 PM, saw the show at 7 PM, wandered around Times Square and picked up our breakfast for the morning and were back at the Hilton by 9 PM.
Then Tuesday morning, 19 hours after we’d hit Manhattan, we were on the train back to Alexandria, where we would cool our heels until it was time for the Cardinal to drag our happy asses back to Charleston on Wednesday.
This trip was also experimental because we travelled light. We each had one personal bag for meds and chargers and tablets and stuff, and then we shared one backpack. This is a far cry from our usually entourage of rolling luggage. It worked out pretty well, too.
Here’s the photo essay version of our trip…
Alexandria, a great place to change trains, especially since there are four Hilton properties that are a short walk from the train station, and Mrs. PopCulteer is a Hilton points wizard.
The street where our hotel in NYC is. It’s just to the right of the Dave & Busters you see in this pic.
Among the many advantages of being married to “Diamond Mel,” the wizardess of Hilton points, is being able to score a top-floor room with a panoramic view of the skyline, and getting it for chump change.
I mean, this is what you see when you walk into the room.
The Radio Free Charleston Pre-Summer Marathon is happening now on 
Now that we’ve made it to June it’s time once again for your guide to things you can do in and around Charleston. Symphony Sunday is this weekend, which explains the graphic you see at the right.
The Radio Free Charleston Pre-Summer Marathon is happening now on 
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