Our Trip to NYC to See Betty Buckley at the Carlyle

Shane and I in New York's Central Park in front of Bethesda Fountain. 

For Christmas, I gave Shane tickets to see Betty Buckley perform at the Cafe Carlyle in New York City. Little did I know when booking the tickets that there would be a world pandemic going on at the time, but we went anyway hoping that it would still happen.

We had planned to drive down after our radio show at WERU on Tuesday, but because we had been out of state already on our cross-country trip, the radio station had asked that we not come in out of an abundance of caution. There are lots of older people that volunteer there, so they didn't want to take any risks. We get it.

Instead, we still left on Tuesday, but were able to get an earlier start. We stayed Tuesday night with Shane's step-sister Cherri, her son Austin and her daughter Meredyth in Connecticut. It was great to see them and they made us an amazing dinner! It was a turkey lasagna in a cream sauce. So good!

Wednesday morning we headed for the big city. We drove in and eventually found a place to park (York and 87th), which was no where near our hotel. Oh, did I not mention we stayed at the Carlyle Hotel? We did, and it was amazing. Luckily, I had booked it when I got the tickets in November, so it was a relatively good deal. We took a cab from our parking place to the Hotel and 76th and Madison.

The Carlyle Hotel

The Carlyle is really a wonderful hotel. They could not have been nicer. The only downsize of course is that you are constantly giving tips and everything there is crazy pricey. We were treating ourselves and splurged a bit. The Stockmarket was falling like a rock and the world seems to be ending, so what the hell.

Shane in the lobby of the Carlyle Hotel

The Carlyle had huge arrangements of Forsythias in the lobby too.

We were escorted to our room and what a room! It was beautiful. If you ever want to pretend you have lots of money, this is the place to go. Below are some pics of our room.

The bar in our room was beautiful, but we didn't dare use any of the items after we saw the pricelist.

The bathroom was spectacular and the shower was worth the price of the room. 

Shane admires the view of the park from our room. 

Even our room had some of the Bemelman artwork. 

Before dinner, we first had a drink at the Carlyle piano bar, Bemelman's. It was very swanky. We first sat at the bar, but then moved to a table to get a better view of the pianist. It was very old New York with the piano man playing Sinatra standards and art by Ludwig Bemelman, who did the classic Madeline books. His art was everywhere in the bar.

I had an Old Fashioned. 

With Nicole at Flex Mussels.

We made plans to meet my niece, Nicole for dinner at a restaurant on the Upper East Side. She lives in NYC and it was a perfect chance to get to see her. We had planned to go downtown, but decided avoiding the subway might be a good idea, so we went to Flex Mussels, a seafood restaurant on the Upper East Side, near where Nicole lives. We had been to the Flex Mussels downtown previously, so we knew it was good. We had the Mussels with Thai sauce, which was so good. After dinner we decided to see if Brandy's was open. It is a piano bar just a few blocks away. It was open, but nearly deserted. We had to wait for a bit before the pianist arrived, but had a great night of drinking and live music. More people eventually arrived after the piano player got there. Brandy's is a super fun place and if you are ever on the UES, I highly recommend.

As you can see, we were feeling no pain at Brandy's Piano Bar. You may also notice someone suffered a wine spill. 

We slept in a bit the next morning (Thursday), but eventually got up and went out to a diner for a big breakfast. It was more like lunchtime, but we had breakfast. We then walked over to Central Park and then back to the Carlyle.

Flowers blooming in Central Park

Visiting with Hans-Christian Andersen in Central Park

We were nervous our show at the Carlyle Cafe with Betty Buckley would be canceled, as that was also the day they cancelled all Broadway shows for a month. Luckily, the show went on and it was so much fun. We had amazing seats. The Cafe Carlyle is a very small venue and it was only about half filled. If you aren't familiar with Betty Buckley, she is a Tony-winning Broadway star who was in the original version of Cats, starred on Eight Is Enough ad Dick Van  Patton's wife, and has been in numerous musicals and movies. Staying at the Carlyle and getting to see a living legend in the Carlyle Cafe was a bucket list item for both Shane and I, so we are so glad we did it.

Inside the Cafe Carlyle. This was taken from our seat and Betty stood at the podium to sing. Amazing seats!

Friday, we got up and had breakfast in the breakfast room of the Carlyle. We were told it was a continental breakfast, so we thought we would just grab a muffin or something. That's not how it works at the Carlyle. We were seated and waited on. We ordered eggs and bacon and it was all beautiful and very posh. There are fresh flowers everywhere and multiple waiters giving amazing service. It was like living in a dream.

Unfortunately, the dream had to end. We checked out Friday morning and went from living in a dream to a dreary and rainy day. We took a cab back to our car and drove back to Maine. The rain only stopped as we arrived at our home in Stonington Friday evening. We made a couple of stops to get some groceries. Now we are back home and plan to hunker down for a couple weeks.

Stay safe everyone!