Paul Roosevelt: The Americans Are Coming!!!

Standing in front of the American Museum of Natural History with the statue of Theodore Roosevelt sitting astride a steed:

8TH GRADER FROM TEXAS:  Theodore Roosevelt was a PRESIDENT?!

ROBERT:  Yes!  He was one of the most important.  He was a two-term, almost three...he's on Mount Rushmore!

8TH GRADER FROM TEXAS:  Oh, I thought he was just the guy on the horse.

ROBERT:  A Rough Rider?

8TH GRADER FROM TEXAS:  I thought he was the one who rode the horse to warn the British.

ROBERT:  Do you mean Paul Revere?

8TH GRADER FROM TEXAS:  Oh, yeah.

ROBERT:  And he didn't warn the British...he warned...never mind, I don't know where to start.

The funniest (or most terrifying) thing is that this group met Sarah Palin on Liberty Island and Sarah Palin also just went on record in Boston saying (or blundering) that Paul Revere warned the British too.

 

"These Are Fancy Coffee Stirrers"

 

 

 

Chopsticks, actually.

Four from Seth, a Sixth-Grader from Alabama

The group takes a flight from Montgomery to Memphis and then boards another plane for New York.

TEACHER:  Is this your first time on a plane, Seth?

SETH:  Naw.

SETH'S DAD:  What are you talking about?  You've never been on a plane before.

SETH:  I just flew from Montgomery to Memphis.

*****

ROBERT:  So I heard today was your first time flying?

SETH:  It's my first time on a plane, it's my first time on a subway, it's my first time above the Mason Dixon Line. 

*****

11:00 at night.  Crews are busy paving Seventh Avenue.  Horns are honking, there are shouts and all kinds of noise.

SETH:  Is this why they call it the city that never sleeps?  Because it's too loud?

*****

ROBERT:  Why are you tossing your peanuts in the grass?

SETH:  I'm feedin' the soil.  It's nitrates. 

ROBERT:  Hm.

SETH:  George Washington Carver didn't invent the peanut.

ROBERT:  Didn't think so.

SETH:  But he found three hundred things you could do with a peanut.

ROBERT:  Such as?

SETH:  Well, you can feed the soil.

ROBERT:  That's one.

SETH:  Um.

ROBERT:  What else?

SETH:  You can make peanut butter.

ROBERT:  Hm.

SETH:  And a whole bunch more.

Um...the Revolution?

After discussing Civil War monuments in New York City, I recap an article by Adam Gopnik in the New Yorker in which he calls the Statue of Liberty the city's best Civil War memorial.  A woman in my group speaks up.

WOMAN:  I love history.

ROBERT:  Me too.  (So happy to find a kindred spirit.)

WOMAN:  I really like that one when all the British came over here and tried to take over.

ROBERT:  Um...the Revolution?

WOMAN:  YEAH!  THAT'S IT!  We saw a video of that with the snow coming down.  (Turns to fellow tourist.)  Where were we?  Where were we where they showed us the video of the war with the snow falling down?

FELLOW TOURIST:  Mount Vernon.

WOMAN:  YEAH!  THAT'S IT!  They showed us a video at Mount Vernon of the war with all the snow...

ROBERT:  Valley Forge?

WOMAN:  YEAH!  THAT'S IT!

(Punchline:  this woman grew up in Boston!!!!!!!!! where practically every field trip you take...oh, never mind.)

Um, Good Try, But No...

From Cayce:

A couple of weeks ago we asked, "Who was the towering French architect who designed the interior support for the Statue of Liberty?"
One very sweet girl was quick to answer:  "Hitler!"

An architect of an entirely different nature...

Malaprop at Ellis Island

Friend, fellow guide, and Little Byte alum, Janice Goldberg, was touring a group of eighth-graders through the third floor at Ellis Island, pointing out the beautiful clothing in the Treasures from Home section.

"Someone did this by hand?"  one of the boys asked, especially enamored of the lace.

"That's right."

"Wow!"  he exclaimed.  "I can't even croquet."

 

NY Video Friday: Episode 23

Sometimes being passionate about something can get you into trouble. Let's watch as Robert finds a way to calm Elizabeth down. Marta, once again, tries to regale us with a lovely song.....

Wait'll I call my agent!

A Subway Subscriber

MIDDLE SCHOOLER FROM CENTRALIA, MO:  How much does a subway ride cost?

ROBERT:  Two twenty-five.

MIDDLE SCHOOLER:  Each time?  But you ride it a lot, so you probably have a membership.

An Eighth-Grader Meets Luis Vuitton

8th Grader:  Ooo, that's a pretty key chain.  How much does it cost?

Salesman:  Three twenty-five.

8th Grader:  Oh, okay.  (Takes out wallet)  One, two...

Salesman:  Three hundred twenty-five.

8th Grader:  Oh.  (Returns wallet.  Exits store.)

Tourist Gives Westfield a New Name

7:00 am.  Park Central Hotel.

ROBERT:  Okay, I need my group over here.  The group flying out of Newark tomorrow over here.  JFK group over there with Michael.  The Newark group over here.  Good morning, everyone, my name's Robert, and I'll be with you today and tomorrow...

7:15.  Seventh Avenue and Fifty-First.

MADISON FROM OREGON:  Excuse me, how do you pronounce your name?

ROBERT:  Robert.  Very easy.

MADISON FROM OREGON:  I thought your name was New Ark?

Californian Takes an Umbrella to the Top of the Empire State Building

He's from Los Angeles.

How would he know that an umbrella you buy on the sidewalk during a New York City rainstorm won't last to the corner if you don't know how to work with the wind?

And how would he know that, under no circumstances, do you open that kind of umbrella on the 86th floor observatory deck of the Empire State Building?

 

 

Please Don't Tip the Hasid

While walking another group through Central Park, I overheard two of the chaperones notice a Hasidic couple walking in front of us.

CHAPERONE 1:  What are they?

CHAPERONE 2:  Well, he has to be some kind of street performer.  Look at his hat.

John Lennon and the Dakota...or "Why Do I Bother?"

Last week I took an eighth-grade group from Minnesota for a stroll in Central Park.  In the subway station at 72nd, I used a map to give them an idea of where we were walking and told them that they were about to see the Dakota, one of the first luxury apartment buildings in the city and, yes, the place where John Lennon was shot in 1980.

When we reached the top of the stairs and cameras were raised, I heard a boy behind me tell his friend, "That's where Jay Leno was shot."

An Overheard Tibetan Tid-Byte from Cayce

New York is full of various forms of graffiti, some of it is actually "art" and some of it is political. While walking my group through Chinatown, we passed a spray painted plea:

FREE TIBET!

High School Girl:  Who's Tibbit?

I love my job.

PS - Recently one of my adults asked about the new Joan Rivers show on Broadway.

Impressionism starring Jeremy Irons and Joan Allen.

A Byte of Balto

 

To continue the top dog theme of the week (not including yesterday's Lincoln tribute) here's our Balto blog, originally posted on March 27th:

While giving tours, I sometimes yield the floor to a specialist in the group--an engineer, architect or historian--or to a student who might have just finished a report on the subject for school.  On a recent stop at the statue of Balto in Central Park, an eighth-grader volunteered to tell the story.  Since she was from Ohio, I thought it possible that she was an authority--the real Balto lived out his life at the Cleveland Zoo and was subsequently stuffed and put on display at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. 

Judging from her lecture, quoted below, her research was clearly not conducted at a museum but came exclusively from the 1995 animated movie.

"Balto inspired the Iditarod race, because he brought medicine through a snowstorm all the way to a far part of Alaska.  They needed it or people would die and nobody thought he could do it.  The other dogs made fun of him and there was a rival dog who didn't want him on the team and there was a lot of prejudice because he wasn't a purebred, he was part wolf..."

I cut her off before she got to the love interest or Balto's comic sidekick, Boris the goose.  I had to explain that there were some differences between the movie and history and pointed out the well-known fact that, besides humans, only reindeer make fun of each other.

 

Arkansas Group Bound for the Inauguration with a Stop in NYC

I'm not writing with a snow-covered quill, but I am typing with frostbitten fingertips after three days of touring in some of the coldest weather New York has felt in years.  This weekend I worked with high school students from Arkansas who were on the east coast for a New York-DC trip focused on the Inauguration.  (They were able to get tickets for all of them through their senator as well as one from Utah who happened to have a few extra.)

This group was also lucky enough to get Ellis, a very experienced driver from Richmond, who not only knew how to navigate the blocked roads and detours of Washington this week, but who was also the official bus driver for Barack Obama whenever he campaigned in Virginia.  A picture of Ellis and our new president hung proudly from his rear view mirror.

 

Everyone seemed to be excited about this trip and they appreciated the history that they were going to witness firsthand.  Several were journaling about the trip and this provided my favorite line one morning on the way to breakfast.  I was talking to seventeen-year-old Kayla (the age is very important to keep in mind) that by journaling they would be able to remember and process a lot more of the trip. 

Robert:  It's a really historic moment in our country's history and you'll be able to say you were there.

Kayla:  Definitely.  I'm journaling so that when I'm thirty I can sit down and show my grandkids.

Besides thirty-year-old grandmothers, this group also included a 6'5" football player with size 18 shoes.  Here's a picture of one of my shoes (size 11) next to one of his:

 

And here's a shot of his size 18 boot unable to fit in the large stirrup of his carousel horse.

 

 

 

Even More Elevators--Another Byte of Elevator Captivity

First posted in the summer of 2006: "On May 25th, a tour group from Minnesota, led by my good friend and shining star, Tessa Derfner, visited the new Apple store (on Fifth Avenue) after their Broadway show.  While trying to leave, part of the group took the elevator and these five soon found themselves completely trapped inside the glass cylinder.  Employees of the store tried but could not rescue them, so the NYPD had to be called and the hydraulic fluid had to be drained.  For forty-five minutes, they were stuck in the middle of the illuminated cube, in the center of the plaza, objects of "public ridicule and contempt" to the surprising amount of people walking by at midnight. They spent their time in captivity recreating numbers from Chicago, until the elevator was lowered, the doors were pried open and they climbed up to safety, but not without two of them burning their hands "enough to blister on the hot lights in the shaft."  Click here to read one of the student's accounts.

Bytes of the Ridiculous: Wall Street, Alcatraz and Homes West of L.A.

All of these come from one of my most memorable groups of 2008:

 

On meeting the group.

ROBERT:  So where exactly is your school?

STUDENT:  We're forty minutes west of L.A.

ROBERT:  West?

Arriving at Ellis Island.

STUDENT #1:  Have we been here before?

ROBERT:  No.  That was the very first day we ever took a boat.

STUDENT #2:  Is Chinatown on this island?

ROBERT:  No.

STUDENT #3:  Isn't this place also called Alcatraz?

ROBERT:  No.

STUDENT:  #4:  Is there anything here about Elvis?

ROBERT:  ...........

At the Empire State Building.

STUDENT:  Where's the Eiffel Tower?

ROBERT:  That's in Paris.

STUDENT:  No, it's in New York.

ROBERT:  Are you thinking of the Statue of Liberty?

STUDENT:  No!  The Eiffel!  Tower! 

On Wall Street.

ROBERT:  ...a massive explosion that killed thirty-three people and wounded four hundred.  Pieces of the horse that pulled the wagon with the TNT were found up at Trinity Church (almost a hundred yards away).

STUDENT:  Did the horse die?

On bus, after discussing Leo, the world-record-breaking cat.

STUDENT:  Robert, do cats really have nine lives?

ROBERT looks at her, trying to figure out the question.  Is she serious?

STUDENT:  No, no, I didn't ask that.  No, no, never mind, never mind.

ROBERT resumes the tour.

STUDENT (quietly, to a friend beside her):  I KNEW that was a myth!

Tourist Bloopers from Fellow Guides, Part Two

From the archives (originally posted on July 3, 2006):

On a better day, Jeff had a group that was inspiring--intelligent, attentive, and curious.  They sat on the steps at Federal Hall, and as he spoke, they leaned forward, listening, nodding, absorbing, and so he continued.  For thirty minutes, he spoke of the early days of the republic, of Washington and Hamilton and Jefferson and Burr, of the Bill of Rights, of the transfer of the capital, of the John Peter Zenger trial and the freedom of press, of the New York Stock Exchange, of J.P. Morgan and the birth of the corporation.  At the end of a productive, eloquent session like this, the teacher usually comes up to you and, knowing how difficult it can be to keep the attention of seventh and eighth-graders (a.k.a., ritalin monkeys), pays you a compliment which you return ("They were very well-prepared.") and the two of you share a moment of satisfaction.  As this group stood, the teacher approached, put his hands on Jeff's shoulders and whispered:  "Your fly's open."

In certain parts of the country, the word haggle has a colorful idiom:  to Jew them down...as in "When we go to Chinatown, can we Jew them down?"  Each guide approaches this question differently.  Some, especially the Jewish ones, are very direct.  I have three techniques.  One is to pretend I've never heard the phrase in my life and ask them to repeat it several times, growing more and more appalled as if I just can't believe a human being in this day and age would use such a phrase.  The second is to give a brief lecture on the Jewish philanthropy that supports so many of our city's cultural institutions.  And the third (a two-pronged trick) is to point out that it's a bit ironic to imply Jewish people are cheap when, at the end of the tour, it's usually the WASP groups who neglect to tip their guide.

This spring, Travis faced a dilemma--to correct or not to correct--when one of his people asked, "What's the best way to chew them down?"

And from Tessa:  Having just pointed out St. Paul's, the oldest building in continuous use in Manhattan, she gave the chapel's opening date of 1766.

Inquisitive Boy:  Whoa!  Whoa!  1766?  When was the Revolutionary War?

Tessa:  1776.

Inquisitive Boy:  Okaaaaay.  And when did Columbus come over?

Tessa:  1492!

Inquisitive Boy:  Wait a minute.  Wait...a...minute!  What happened between 1492 and 1776?

Tourist Bloopers from Fellow Guides, Part One

From the archives (originally posted on July 3, 2006):

From Bob:  There was a student who met the rest of her group on the front steps at Ellis Island and complained that, though she had gone through the entire museum and read everything in sight, she hadn't found anything at all about Elvis.

While on the way for a tour of Grand Central, Doug Nervik stumbled onto the Madison Avenue street fair.  He was thrilled and gave his group some free time to shop and eat. One very sweet woman on the trip gazed up the crowded street lined with booths as far as the eye could see, turned to Doug and said:  My goodness, I always thought the Grand Central Station would look different than this! I thought it would be inside!

Occasionally, what our American students don't know can be depressing and, when we bring them to the United Nations where international docents take over for an hour, a little embarrassing.  The docents come off the elevator at the end of the tours and look at me with glares of recrimination as if I were responsible for the bottomless ignorance of the country's youth.  I get defensive, explaining:  "I don't know them.  I just met them at the airport yesterday.  Come back! "  To avoid this, I usually cheat by giving the kids some of the answers to questions I know they'll be asked inside.  I'm not the only one.  Jeff P. was quizzing his group on the bus as it drove up to the U.N.

Jeff:  So the flags of the member states are in alphabetical order.  The last flag is easy, starts with a z, Zimbabwe.  What's the first?

Group:  AMERICA!

Jeff:  No.  And that's not the name of our country.  Ours starts with a u.  We're near the end.

Group:  ARIZONA!

Jeff:  No.  No.  That's a state.  What I'm looking for is a country.

Group:  AFRICA!

Jeff:  Oof.  I'll just tell you.  It's Afghanistan.

A couple parents in the back:  BOOOOOOOOOO!!

And then he had to explain how we're not actually at war with Afghanistan.  It's not an easy job.

(COMING TOMORROW...PART TWO)

A Frenchman in the Village

On Thursday, I was walking to Thanksgiving dinner in Greenwich Village when I came upon a man holding a map of the city.  He looked up at me and said in a very thick accent:  "I am lost!  I am French!" 

I almost didn't stop to help, because it sounded less like a plea for directions and more like a statement, an existential conundrum.  All weekend, I've been repeating it, and it becomes more profound by the day.

"I am lost!  I am French!"

Gertrude Stein, Chattanooga, Pearl Harbor and the REAL Broadway

Here are more of my favorite quotes from the archives (originally posted on May 29, 2006):

Robert (at the eastern end of the Channel Gardens):  Do you all know Gertrude Stein?...Well, she was a great modernist...a poet, novelist, playwright...you might know one of her famous lines--'Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.'  Anyway, after Gertrude Stein first stood here, she said, 'The view of Rockefeller Center from Fifth Avenue is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen ever seen ever seen.'

Baffled boy (raising hand):  What was wrong with her?

During a conversation over coffee with a mother and daughter from Alabama, I was told that New York was by far the largest city the girl had ever seen.  She had almost gone to D.C., but her school canceled that trip after 9/11.

Girl:  Instead we went to Chattanooga.

Robert:  That's nice.  I've never been to Chattanooga.

Girl:  YOU'VE NEVER BEEN TO CHATTANOOGA?!?!?!?

Robert (trying not to spill my coffee):  No, but I'd like to go.  What's in Chattanooga?

Girl:  Well, um, there's this building where all these fish swim around.

Robert:  An aquarium?

Girl:  That's it!  You have been there.

In front of the Customs House, an eighth-grader from (state withheld for the sake of the history teacher) asked me about the different places I grew up.  When I mentioned Hawaii, specified Pearl City on Oahu, he jumped up and down.

Excited boy:  Were you there?

Robert:  Where?

Excited boy:  Were you there when the Chinese bombed Pearl Harbor?

Robert:  ?????

And the last comment comes from Daniel, a high school student from Arizona.  His line has become a personal favorite for the simple reason that I haven't been able to stop using it since April.  There's a moment in the musical, Spamalot, when, with the boom of a cannon, there is an explosion of colored confetti that swirls throughout the entire theater.  After the paper finally settled over our audience, Daniel turned to me, nodded slowly, and with great critical authority, announced:  "Now that's real Broadway."

Crickets, Botox, Monkeys, and Death

These come from the archives (originally posted on May 29th, 2006) and are some of my favorite tourist quotes:

The first few come from three generations of Mississippi belles:

Thirteen-year-old:  "One should always use a straw when drinking Coke, because it's unladylike to tip your glass."

Thirty-eight-year-old:  "So if your wife tells you that she thinks she has a cricket in her ear, then you best believe her, cuz she probably does!"

Sixty-six-year-old:  "Old Miss might not be the smartest campus, but it's the beautifullest."

And from an Orange County twelve-year-old (relieved to be on a warm bus, running her fingertips over her cheeks and forehead):  "It's so cold out there, I feel like I just had Botox."

A young Georgian presented a point to ponder when she asked from the back of the bus, "Why do people always gots to be dyin' before the good stuff?"  At first, I had no idea what in the world she was talking about, but then thought back over some of my commentary.  There was Edgar Allen Poe who died in the gutters of Baltimore unaware of his literary legacy.  There was Emma Lazarus who was never able to see the Statue of Liberty with which her poem, The New Colossus, is eternally associated--returning from Europe, she was too sick to be brought on deck and died two months later.  There was also the story I told at Ellis Island about Christina Jansen who, just days away from reuniting with her fiance after three years, died on her third trans-Atlantic voyage.  Finally, what prompted the outburst on the bus, was the information that though U.S. Grant was able to complete his memoirs while battling throat cancer, he died before they were published.  Hers was, in fact, a valid question that has stuck with me:  At least in my stories, why do people always gots to be dyin' before the good stuff?

A mother from Minnesota came to New York in March with her oldest son, leaving behind five-year-old twins.  Knowing how disappointed they'd be that she was flying on an airplane and sightseeing in New York without them, she had kept her destination a secret, telling them that she had to go somewhere with their brother "for school."  The day before she left, she took the twins to a dollar store and bought them each a stuffed animal.  "Now whenever you miss mommy, you just hug the monkey."  On the second night of the trip, her husband informed her that while one of the twins missed her very much, was sleeping in her robe with his stuffed animal, the other had unfortunately learned the truth.  "I know where you are," said the five-year-old when given the phone.  "And I'm not hugging the monkey!"

 

CLARIFICATION OF THE WEEK

(On the edge of Battery Park.)

ROBERT:  That Starbucks right there was in the news after September 11th, because firemen on their way to the burning towers were charged for water.

STUDENT:  The fire department gets their water from Starbucks?

Pause.

ROBERT:  Bottled water.

STUDENT:  Oh.

A BAFFLED GIRL FROM ORANGE COUNTY

On the subway down to Battery Park.

Girl:  I run track.

Robert:  Do you?

Boy:  I bet I’m faster.  I can run a three-minute mile.

Robert:  Impossible.

Boy:  Maybe if I’m going straight down a hill.

Girl:  How can you do that?  Don’t miles go in circles?