Flying Solo on The New York Times Flex Desk, Then Scoring a Sunset View of the Statue of Liberty

Today marked the first time I worked solo on The New York Times Flex editing desk for a few hours. This meant that any editing requests that came in from across the newsroom were all mine to handle. I tweeted beforehand that it’d be nice if the world — and, unlike in Indy, I meant literally the entire world — would keep it calm for the next few hours. And, of course, then Washington, D.C., blacked out. Sigh.

But the good news is that after that one Zionsville homicide-Richard Lugar death-all the racing content solo producer Saturday morning in late April at The Indianapolis Star, I’m ready for anything. And at The Times, I’m just handling the editing side of things, not also running Twitter and Facebook, sending alerts, building galleries, managing the homepage, and other miscellaneous producing tasks.

It’s always fun to work weekends because you get to chill out in a cleared-out newsroom. It’s still The New York Times, but without the journalists (well, they’re there, and still filing plenty of copy, just not *there* there).

After work, I had a few ideas for evening plans tonight. Plan A: I headed to the “Chicago” Broadway box office to see if I could get a cheap standing-room ticket for tonight. The theater doesn’t offer rush tickets on Saturday nights, but does sell standing-room tickets when the show is sold out.

Unfortunately, no luck there — there were still seats available, and for much more than I wanted to pay. I may still see this show before I leave, but I only have one or two evenings left that I can potentially see things because I work nights from here on out, excluding one other day shift next Saturday, so it’s not super likely.

Next, Plan B: I took a train uptown to the Delacorte Theater, which is home to “Coriolanus,” the current Shakespeare in the Park production. Tickets are free, but you can only get them via a ticket lottery or by lining up first thing in the morning (some people camp out at 4 a.m.!). I haven’t yet managed to win the ticket lottery (it seems to be much tougher to win than the one for the first production I saw in June, “Much Ado About Nothing”), but you can also score tickets if you wait in a standby line that forms in the evening (any unclaimed tickets are given out just before curtain). However, there were already about 40 people in line for tonight’s show when I arrived (it is a Saturday night, after all, the most popular night to see a show), so I wouldn’t have gotten a ticket, especially considering the gorgeous weather didn't exactly lend itself to no-shows.

So, on to Plan C, which, it turns out, really should’ve been Plan A. I took the 1 train down to the South Ferry Station to catch a ride on the free Staten Island Ferry. It runs 24 hours per day between Battery Park and Staten Island, with departures every 15 minutes during the week and every 30 minutes on weekends. I arrived at the terminal around 7:45 p.m., and lined up for the 8 p.m. ferry.

I may never match the perfection with which I unintentionally timed this departure. The 8 p.m. ferry turned out to be tonight’s sunset ferry, and I got a picture-perfect view of the Statue of Liberty glowing by the light of purple-and-pink canvas. My heart might’ve stopped a bit when I pulled up this photo — it was so gorgeous!

The ferry ride to Staten Island is about 25 minutes, and I was surprised — the ferry really moves! That makes sense in hindsight considering some people take it as part of their daily commute, but it was much faster than I was expecting. Since it runs every 30 minutes, the next ferry (the same boat, actually) to Manhattan left at 8:30 p.m., so I quickly climbed off the boat and swung around to the entry line to re-board. I got some nice night views on the way back, but nothing compared to the stellar sky on the way over.

Then I took my first bus in New York (you really would think I would’ve done that by now, especially considering I have an unlimited MetroCard) uptown to Minus10 Ice Cream. Minus10 sells Thai-style rolled ice cream, and the construction process is an engrossing experience similar to the one offered by SubZero in Indy. You get to watch them roll out your ice cream like dough, then shape it into the very photogenic rolls.

I ordered the S’mores Galore (there's a single size), which had chocolate ice cream rolls, chocolate syrup, whipped cream, graham crackers, and a freshly torched marshmallow on a stick (it was fun to watch the guy don a mask and torch my marshmallow garnish!). As for the rolls, they pretty much taste like regular ice cream (and melt just as quickly!), but the experience of watching them take shape is rather cool (no pun intended).

Back to work again tomorrow (hello, more weekend editing)!