Europe 1975: A Throwback Memory

I've been travelling independently for well over half a century. From my earliest trips, I have scattered memories of incidents here and there. This week, I got hit out of left field by a memory from my first independent trip to Europe in 1975, thanks to Instagram's random selection of stories that the software thinks might interest me. That picture so intrigued me that I promptly went digging for more. Here's the photo that IG turned up for my consideration -- a rather unusual sight by anyone's standards.

Let's face it, it isn't every day that you see a passenger train charging across the apron at an airport terminal. The location was the airport at Le Touquet - Paris-Plage in northern France, right on the coast of the English Channel south of the ferry ports at Calais and Boulogne. The scene was the transfer point between two legs of an unusual rail-air hybrid service that used to connect Paris and London three times a day -- "The Silver Arrow."

Since this was 1975, there was of course no Channel Tunnel to speed up rail travel between the two capitals. The available options were using rail at each end to connect with the ferries across the Channel from Calais and Boulogne, or to fly from Paris (Orly or Le Bourget) to London (Heathrow or Gatwick). The all-air option was fearfully expensive, while the traditional ferry crossing would take 5 hours or more (including train times) and laid you open to the notoriously rough seas of the English Channel, one of the most seasick-prone sea crossings on the planet.

I'd just spent four weeks touring on the continent, and would soon be heading back to England for my flight home when I saw an ad (while browsing a bookstore) for the Silver Arrow. I had a vague memory of having heard of it earlier, but wasn't aware of the details. However, the price was right and I booked it with no hesitation, having had my own baptism by rough water when crossing the North Sea from England to Norway several weeks earlier (that ranks as one of the most miserable travel experiences of my entire life).

The journey began at the Gare du Nord, the same station in Paris where Eurostar expresses now depart for London via the tunnel. The train, shown in the first photo at the top, ran express to Le Touquet with only a single stop in the northern city of Amiens. As we approached Le Touquet, the diesel train left the main line on a branch. This ran north-westwards into the airport property, crossed two active taxiways, and then curved around to west and ran right across the apron into a station platform attached to the end of the small airport terminal. The track across the airport has been paved over now, but you can still see traces of the route today on aerial photographs marked here with several "silver" arrows!

As we were rolling into the airport, I was seated on the right-hand side of the train, and so completely missed a grandstand close-up view of the aircraft as we rolled in.

 

Considering that this train would go no further than the airport before returning to Paris, it was far bigger than any possible need. The plane only seated fifty people; the train probably had space for three times that number. And indeed, the train had loaded up with the inbound passengers and departed back to Paris before we'd even boarded the flight.

Check in went very quickly, and so did the security check. And then we walked out to the plane. Ah, the good old days!

The name of the airline was British Island Airways, one of a sizable collection of independent airlines in the British Isles which flew smaller turboprop aircraft like this one in and out of smaller airports at various cities beyond the big metropolitan centres of the United Kingdom. The aircraft was a real rarity, one of a number of aircraft types produced in the 1950s and 1960s by the British civil aviation sector which saw only limited service with non-British airlines. This one is the Handley Page Herald. It was one of several different types built at the same time by various British manufacturers, all seating around 50 passengers, and all powered by the ubiquitous Rolls-Royce Dart turboprop engine. The Herald struggled to make sales, and only 50 of these aircraft were completed.

Oddly enough, one Canadian airline operated the Herald around the same time period. Eastern Provincial Airways, the regional airline of the Maritime provinces, operated this type into a number of smaller airports from their main hub at Halifax.   

The two pictures shown so far were of BIA's final colour scheme, so they must have been taken a few years later on, perhaps on one of the final runs of the Silver Arrow. Here's one more picture which dates from an earlier year and shows the colour scheme as it appeared on my flight. 

 

Attribution:

Ken Fielding/https://www.flickr.com/photos/kenfielding

 

Once we were all aboard and seated (and the plane was not full), the engines were fired up with that memorable plaintive whining tone unique to the Dart engines, and we taxied quickly out to the runway. It was a beautiful sunny day, and the flight to London Gatwick airport took only 35 minutes, a great advance over the 90-minutes-plus that a ferry would take from Calais to Dover. We flew at a fairly low altitude and had a great view.

Why Gatwick? London Gatwick had a feature that was nearly unique in 1975, although it's now seen as more or less essential in Europe and much of the rest of the world. This airport had direct rail access to the city with a station on the main line from Brighton up to London Victoria. Once we deplaned at Gatwick, it was a quick walk through the terminal, across the footbridge over the tracks, and down to the platforms. Our ticket included travel on the premium-priced Gatwick Express service which ran into London nonstop in a matter of 35 minutes.  

I was saddened a few years later to find out that the Silver Arrow was no more. It wasn't the Channel Tunnel that caused the demise of this unique service -- that still lay years in the future. It was something completely different in the world of ferries.

 

 Photo credit: Andrew Berridge, CC BY-SA 2.5 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5>, via Wikimedia Commons  

 

  

Photo Credit: Bachcell, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

 

These monsters, the SRN-4 hovercraft, could carry 450 passengers and 100 cars at a time, "flying" across the waters of the English Channel a short distance above the waves, and (most significant) were capable of crossing in wave height conditions up to 3.5 metres (11.5 feet). The hovercraft service was already in existence in 1975, and I admit it was a tough choice, but the unusual aircraft won out over the exotic hovercraft. I never did get a chance to cross the Channel in this way. Pity.

 

A Quick Apple Trip

No question about it, New York, New York is a wonderful town, and I love the place.

I came here once as a child with my family -- I think I was nine years old. After that, I never came again until just eight years ago. Since that summer visit in 2016, I've been back five more times.

 

One of the biggest reasons for my return visits is the Metropolitan Opera House, one of the great opera theatres of the world. I've been to no less than eight shows at the Met in the last six years, and this week marked the ninth. All in good time with that story.

 

I hadn't really expected to go crazy with photography on this trip, but I encountered a rare combination of clear weather at both ends of my flight down to the  Big Apple, and with that the game was afoot.

 

To start, then, the view as my plane soared past the Toronto waterfront on the way across Lake Ontario. A look at the southern end of the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke...

 

 

 ...and a view of the skyscrapers of downtown and the iconic CN Tower.   

 

But then we approached New York and flew in a loop all around the city, south, east, northeast, and finally west on our final approach into LaGuardia Airport. What a spectacle!  Here, looking south down the East River with Queens and Brooklyn to the left and Midtown Manhattan to the right.

 

Two views of Midtown from the northwest and west. The first covers Times Square while the second features the circular Madison Square Garden and the legendary Empire State Building.

Then, we swung down the Hudson River, passing the Battery at the southern tip of the island. These are the towers of the Financial District and Wall Street, while across the East River you can see the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal and Cunard's transatlantic ocean liner, Queen Mary 2.

 

We then turned east across the Lower Bay; the view here shows both rivers, New Jersey on the left, the Hudson River, Manhattan in the middle, then the East River, and Brooklyn on the right, with the Statue of Liberty small but clear in the Lower Bay on the left.

Once I was on the ground, and after a 40-minute taxi ride, I arrived at my favourite New York hotel, the Hilton at Times Square. It's between 41st and 42nd Streets, half a block off of Times Square. Here's the entrance.

Welcome to the lively, glitzy heart of the Theatre District, where blazing signs many storeys high advertise theatres, restaurants, multiplex cinemas, arcades, cafes, a Tussaud's Wax Museum (just off the left edge of the photo), and numerous fashion stores. In the midst of it all, the hotel is just a doorway. Inside, you walk to the middle of the block through the corridor that goes all the way to 41st Street. There, a pair of express elevators whisk you nonstop to the hotel's working lobby -- on the 21st floor. On that level you will also find the restaurant and lounge, the front desk, and a takeout food outlet. From the lobby, you switch to the main hotel elevators to ride up to your room, somewhere on floors 22-44. 

 

Mine was on the 32nd floor, on the north side. Here's the view from my window off to the northwest to the Hudson River, with the New Jersey side of the river beyond.

To the northeast lies Times Square, hidden by the mass of buildings. The brown brick building with the clocks and the globe on its top, known as the Paramount Building, stands on the west (near) side of Times Square.

Here are a couple of close-ups of the Times Square area from that flyby as I was arriving. This view comes from the moment when we peered right down into the canyon of the Square itself. The modest building indicated by the red arrow is the 44-storey Hilton hotel where I was staying.

Here's another, and clearer view.

The Times Square of today is a world apart from the Times Square of my childhood. My family would never have gone near Times Square in those days. It was sleazy to the max, with porn theatres, strip shows, peep shows, prostitutes, hustlers, organized crime, you name it. It took a great deal of effort and a very great deal of money to clean up the area, through the 1990s and into the 2000s. It was in this time period that the high rise office buildings and hotels which you see in these pictures were built. Brilliantly lit advertising signs which stay lit 24/7 were and are required by city by-law, to help deter the sleazier elements from returning -- indeed, Times Square is unique in New York City in having a minimum limit for the brilliance of the signs rather than a maximum limit.

So let's go have a look at the Square down on the ground, on my morning walk during my one full day in the city. First of all, here's the Marriott Marquis Hotel which stands right on the western edge of Times Square. With a total of 1,966 rooms, this monster hotel looks awesome but is in truth pretty pedestrian. The sheer size leaves precious little room for any kind of connection between guests and staff (yes, I have stayed there and the place made me feel like a number, an item to be processed through the system). The huge advertising signs mandated by law mask the first seven floors of the building. The glass bay window and Marriott Marquis sign are on the eighth floor, the hotel's actual lobby level. I've read that it's one of the most profitable hotels in the entire Marriott portfolio, and given the sky-high rates I can well believe it.

 

 

Compared to the Marriott, the much smaller Hilton features staff who take the time to listen to you and make sure your needs are met. The server at the bar, as an example, remembered my entire order from the first night and got it to me super-express on the second night, when I placed the same order because I had to hurry to make an early curtain at the Metropolitan Opera. I can't imagine any of the staff I encountered at the Marriott managing or even trying to do that.

 

Here's a ground floor view looking north from 42nd Street along 7th Avenue into Times Square.

 

Farther north, turn around and face south. This is where you see the iconic view of the tower where the ball has dropped ever since 1907 on New Year's Eve. It's known as the New York Times building, more officially as 1 Times Square. It dates back to 1901, and was originally built as the headquarters of the New York Times newspaper. 

 

 

I know, it doesn't look that old. We're actually looking at two different buildings. If you check just above the Kia sign you will see the famous ball. That's the top of the New York Times building. The glass-walled building behind it, called simply Times Tower, is on the next block south. The old brickwork of the original Times building is totally hidden by the full-length advertising sign.

Times Square is a challenging place to photograph, because of it's weird hourglass shape and because of the crowds. It's said to be the most-visited single visitor attraction on the entire planet and I can well believe that. But I did manage to do one panoramic sweep with my phone to show some of the illuminated advertising signs.

From Times Square, I walked north to 50th Street, and then turned east. At 6th Avenue I came to the world-famous 5960-seat Radio City Music Hall, renowned for its spectacular shows featuring the Rockettes dance troupe. It's the first piece of Rockefeller Center which you come to as you approach from the west, hence the name "Rockettes." When opened in 1931, this was the largest stage theatre in the world. I've only ever gone there once, on that family visit back in the 1960s, when the combination stage and film show featured the new musical film, Bye Bye Birdie.

 

 

Across 50th Street from the Music Hall is the entrance to 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the iconic skyscraper which features the deluxe Rainbow Room restaurant on the 65th floor and the observation deck, now called Top of the Rock, on the 66th floor. Notice how the original Art Deco signage, here as on Radio City Music Hall, has been carefully preserved. The entire central portion of Rockefeller Center, with its tall buildings and landmark underground shopping mall, is a textbook of Art Deco design and art carefully preserved as a heritage site.

Here at 6th Avenue is is where I began to encounter multiple traffic barriers along and across the streets. I was taking this walk on the morning of December 4, and that night was the date set for the spectacular illumination of the giant Christmas tree in Rockefeller Plaza. This event draws enormous crowds from all over the northeast region of the country, and perhaps even farther afield. This helps to explain why all the hotel rooms anywhere remotely near 50th Street and 5th Avenue were either sold out or horribly expensive. Here are two pictures of the unlit tree.

The security measures in place meant that I could neither get a clear view of the famous golden Prometheus sculpture (you can glimpse it in the background of the second photo) or of the outdoor skating rink which lies in the courtyard below Prometheus.

Out onto 5th Avenue at 49th Street, you can look north and see the shapely spires of St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Cathedral in between office buildings. It's located on the northeast corner of 5th Avenue and 50th Street. The glowing appearance of the Cathedral, even on a cloudy day, is due to the exterior being entirely clad with white marble -- also extensively used in the interior.

Due to all the modern buildings around it, getting a good view of St. Patrick's is difficult. However, here is an archival photo from the Cathedral's website showing the church as it appeared when newly finished. 

 

 

This trip marked the first time I visited the interior of St. Patrick's Cathedral.

I was much struck by the great collection of sculptural figures throughout the church -- plainly modelled as much as the building itself on the High Gothic of medieval Europe. The sculptures, though, have a realistic air which avoids the statuesque rigidity of the Gothic era and speaks of a more recent artistic sensibility. I've had no luck in trying to trace the name(s) of the artist(s) responsible.

Leaving the Cathedral, I noticed that I still had an hour to spare before my lunch date with a good friend who lives in New York. I decided to walk. From 50th Street south to 14th Street wasn't impossibly far, but I ended up being a few minutes late because I managed to miss pretty much every traffic light -- and that meant a pause at pretty much every intersection from 50 all the way on down. Do the math! I'm just not fast enough. You can tell the real New Yorkers; they know exactly how fast they have to walk to get all the way downtown or uptown without ever having to stop!

 

One thing is for sure, walking like that over a fair distance is a great way to get a feel for the varying tone of the city's different neighbourhoods as you go, provided you pay attention to the shifting composition of the crowd of people around you.

After that lunch, I resorted to New York's extensive subway network. Unlike some of my previous visits, it's no longer necessary to buy a special fare card. You can just tap your own credit or debit card on the reader to be admitted. Many cities worldwide have adopted this sensible approach.

The climax of my day came in the evening, when I finally got a chance to attend a live performance of Richard Strauss' epic opera, Die Frau ohne Schatten ("The Woman Without a Shadow). It's a real rarity of the operatic world, and I felt privileged to see and hear this piece with such a top-flight cast in the long and challenging principal roles. I didn't try to take any night time pictures but here, from a previous visit, is an exterior shot of the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. It was a spectacular way to wrap up this short visit to the Big Apple.