I Love New York

[DudeAsInCool]

Perv-fect day for out-o'-towners

BY JOSE MARTINEZ

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Frank and Cathy Anderson enjoy soul food at Sylvia's after action-packed second day in city, including run-in with flasher.

Frank and Cathy Anderson were flashed by a pervert downtown, pegged as marks by a subway hustler in midtown and treated to culinary delights uptown.

"It's like the city has a pulse," said Cathy Anderson, a Kentucky delegate to the Republican gathering. "What an amazing place!"

On day two of their New York adventure, the first-time visitors to the city discovered they were a long, long way from Owensboro (population 54,000).

Their day began yesterday with a horrifying encounter at South Ferry, when a man dropped his pants in the subway.

"I wouldn't mind being flashed if he was good-looking," Cathy Anderson said with a laugh. "But this guy was disgusting."

Undaunted, the couple yesterday accepted the Daily News' invitation for a three-hour walking tour of Harlem, a neighborhood where few GOP delegates elected to venture.

Within seconds of disembarking from the subway at 125th St., a local gently quizzed Cathy Anderson on what she was doing so far uptown. But her husband managed to find a little bit of home on a street corner.

"There's a famous Kentuckian right there," he drawled, pointing up at the billboard at 125th and Lenox Ave. "Muhammad Ali."

He marveled at the mango and pineapple on a stick sold by sidewalk vendors and at the colorful African outfits he spotted.

"There's just not too many neighborhoods like this in Kentucky," said Frank Anderson, 42, president of a large window company in his home state.

His wife admitted that she expected Harlem to be more menacing.

"Every time you turn on the television, they don't ever tell you anything nice about New York," she said.

While they weren't too familiar with the rappers whose photos hang on the wall at Sylvia's soul food restaurant, the couple gave a thumbs-up to the place's ribs, green beans and iced tea.

"This is real Southern tea," gushed Cathy Anderson, 43, the vice-chair of the Second District for Kentucky's GOP.

But the dyed-in-the-wool Republicans weren't about to come around on the neighborhood's best-known politician.

"I don't have any respect for him," she said of former President Bill Clinton, one of the many notable newcomers to 125th St.

Frank Anderson also showed some big-city savvy, too, telling a Times Square subway entrepreneur peddling MetroCards supposedly stocked with $90 worth of rides to "go find someone else."

"I might be country," he said, "but I'm not a bumbling idiot."

Originally published on August 31, 2004

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/227510p-195338c.html

[moonglow]

Iced Tea

[slum_goddess]

"I wouldn't mind being flashed if he was good-looking," Cathy Anderson said with a laugh. "But this guy was disgusting."

i find this amazing but totally in tune w/rethugs and their ilk.

[DudeAsInCool]

I thought the comment was odd, but amusing

[Warflower]

The city's a madhouse at this this time...rallies everyone...protesters are out of control (1/2 don't even live in the city)...I've never seen so many cops, it's ridiculous. I won't go outside...

[slum_goddess]

on the day of the march (500,000 and i don't give a fuck about the police 'count') i found myself wishing i was back in the city for the first time since i left.

that particular insanity passed quickly enough