Start: Newark, DE
Stop: New York City – Late Show with David Letterman taping
Finish: Stamford, CT
We woke up early this morning to drive around New York City to take the train into the city from Stamford, CT. We left early in case there was traffic, but we got through pretty smoothly, aside from having to pay about $15 in tolls to go over some bridges. We then went to the train station and caught the train into Grand Central station. Unfortunately, we got on the local train, which made a lot of stops and was about 20 minutes longer than the express train, which just goes from Stamford to Grand Central. Once we got into the city, we walked down 45th street until we got to Broadway, saw Times Square and continued up Broadway until we got to 54th street, where the Ed Sullivan Theater is. We ate lunch at Rupert Jee’s Hello Deli, which is a sandwich place outside of the Ed Sullivan Theater which appears on the show about once a week.
After lunch, we got in line to get our ticket vouchers, and they told us to be back in an hour. So we stopped by the small CBS store, then walked down to Rockefeller Center where the NBC studios are. We stopped by the NBC store, and there was a lot more merchandise to choose from. They had merchandise from nearly all of their current shows (including The Office, 30 Rock, Law and Order, etc) and some old shows (Seinfeld, Will and Grace). After wasting enough time there, we went back to the theater and stood in line to get inside. We were told to laugh at everything, even if we didn’t think it was that funny…and only to clap, cheer and laugh…no “Spring Break woo-ing”. We got to our seats in the balcony and immediately noticed that the set looks a lot smaller than it seems on TV. The warm-up comedian came out and told a few jokes, then he introduced the CBS orchestra. They played a song or two, and Paul Schaffer came out and finished the song out, and then Dave came out. He talked to the crowd for about a minute before it was 4:30 and time for the taping. He seemed in a really good mood, because he ran out when his name was called and hopped over the raised part of the stage where his desk is. Also, after his monologue, when it cut to Paul and the band, he jogged to his desk and put his hands on one of the guest chairs and spun his body around it to hop up on the stage.
We got to see Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, fresh off their Game 6 victory of the NBA finals, Jane Krakowski of 30 Rock and some new American Girl movie, and Martha Wainwright. One thing that was interesting was that, while filming, they took breaks during the commercial break (rather than stopping for a second and going right back to it), and the band played to keep the audience pumped up. We were done at 5:30 sharp and went back on the town. We went to Central Park for a bit, then walked back down to the NBC store to pick up some things. It started raining and we made our way back to Times Square via the Fox News studios, where we saw Neil Cavuto (of Your World with Neil Cavuto) finishing his show and Shepard Smith (of The Fox Report with Shepard Smith) starting his show. We got some rainy pictures of us at Times Square (hopefully we can get better pictures tomorrow), and went to a pizza place on 45th street, near Grand Central Station. We got a big Sicilian pizza, which took about 45 minutes to cook, but it was pretty good. After dinner, we got back on the train and came to the hotel to rest up for our second day in the city tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment