Last Thursday I attended a taping of The View in preparation for an interview of Elizabeth Hasselbeck for our next issue. I have to say watching a taping of a live show is an amazing experience, the production crew is flying all over the place making sure things work out perfectly.
I woke up in the middle of the night because it occurred to me that the ABC Studios were just about as far west as they could possibly be on the island of Manhattan. My plan of a train to Grand Central station and walking up was not going to work.
Plan B of taking train to subways and walking west was not going to work either. Plan C of driving in is always fraught with the “what if” there is an accident, or construction on the bridge, or a dead dog slowing traffic to one lane on the West Side Highway (it happened once).
Plan D was train to taxi from 42nd street to West 66th. I knew I had plenty of time even with the morning rush.
New Yorkers have a habit of telling their taxi drivers the route to go, but this time I bit my tongue and just sat back after I said “320 West 66th.” He started off in a boneheaded direction, but I didn’t say anything.
Somehow my taxi driver heard me say “50th and 6th” and that is where he was taking me. He started to turn east on 50th street and I yelled out, and I admit I did holler, “No, No, No…I’m going to 66th and West End, way, way west of here.”
Sadly, he did not stop his turn in time and we were heading east. I was due at the studio in ten minutes. Instead of freaking out, I just said, “I’m going to put my head down and you are going to get me there as fast as you can please.”
It is just too terrifying to look up when your taxi driver is trying to get from point A to point B in a ridiculous hurry. We lurched and screeched our way to 66th and West End.
He dropped me at a corner and there was a huge throng of people, which looked like kids. I actually wondered if it was an American Idol tryout…but remembered that I was looking for ABC, not Fox.
Actually, I was just looking for someone with a clip board, interns always have clipboards. I found a kid with a clip board, who started laughing at my question of where the lineup was for ABC’s The View. She told me I was in the middle of a New York City public school fire drill!
I jogged the block and found another young person with a clipboard, and this time she really was an intern and I found my way in.
At this point in time, I was sorry that I hadn’t taken a piece of advice from Elizabeth’s first book to carry a snack in my purse…I think the adrenaline kicked my stomach into high gear!
As I said it was very interesting and fun to watch the show happen. Look for the interview in Vol 11, #4!
Kendall Egan
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