Pipkins -- "Gimme Dat Ding" (1970)

How can you ever hope 

To know just where you are?

I know just where I are, even if you don't.

I are sitting in front of the state-of-the-art 2 or 3 lines superdupermegacomputer, putting together another fabulous post for my award-winning (and wildly popular) blog!  (Wow -- that was a mouthful, huh?)

But where I was a couple of weeks ago was in New York City -- specifically, the Edison Hotel, an absolutely divine 1931 art deco hotel (i.e., it's old and kinda crappy):

Hotel Edison

The Edison is located smack in the middle of the theatre district -- just steps from Times Square.  

Directly across 47th Street from the front door of the hotel is the Ethel Barrymore Theatre (c. 1928), currently home to a production of the 1978 Harold Pinter play, Betrayal: 

Ethel Barrymore Theatre

Betrayal is directed by the legendary Mike Nichols, one of the very select group of people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, and Oscar, and a Tony.  (The twelve members of the "EGOT" club include Richard Rodgers, Helen Hayes, Audrey Hepburn, Marvin Hamlisch, Mel Brooks, and  . . . Whoopi Goldberg?)  It stars Daniel Craig (best known for his James Bond movies) and his real-life wife, Rachel Weisz:

Directly across 46th Street from the back door of the Edison is the Richard Rodgers Theatre (c. 1925), currently home to a production of Romeo and Juliet, starring Condola Rashad (daughter of The Cosby Show star Phylicia Rashad and ex-NFL'er Ahmad Rashad) and pretty boy Orlando Bloom.

Richard Rodgers Theatre

The Edison Hotel's famous "Art Deco Lobby" features several murals.  This one depicts Joe DiMaggio:

This one features the legendary Harlem nightspot, the Cotton Club:

And this one depicts the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline:

The morning after my arrival, I walked into Central Park.  There's a lot to see in Central Park, which covers 840 acres in the heart of Manhattan and even has a skating rink:

My favorite of all the things I saw that morning in the park was the statue of Balto, an Alaskan sled dog:

Balto's statue in Central Park

The residents of Nome, Alaska, were stricken with a horrific diphtheria outbreak in 1925.  (Diphtheria is an upper respiratory tract illness that has essentially disappeared in industrialized nations thanks to childhood vaccination.)  Balto, a husky was one of the lead sled dogs who pulled sleds loaded with antitoxin 674 miles from Anchorage to Nome.

Balto's statue was unveiled later that year, and Balto himself was present for the ceremony:

No doubt you're wondering what the hell "Gimme Dat Ding" has to do with my trip to New York City.  Well, I'll tell you.

Tony Burrows was an English pop singer who had four almost simultaneous top 40 hits under four different band names in 1970 -- "Gimme Dat Ding" (the Pipkins), "My Baby Loves Lovin'" (White Plains), "United We Stand" (Brotherhood of Man), and "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes") (Edison Lighthouse).  

Edison Lighthouse, the Edison Hotel . . . sure, it's a bit of a stretch, but feel free to ask for a full refund if not satisfied.  (And feel free to kiss my big black *ss while you're at it!)  

By the way, Edison Lighthouse was not named for "The Wizard of Menlo Park," Thomas Edison, but for the Eddystone Lighthouse, which stands on the Eddystone Rocks several miles south of Cornwall, the southwestern-most English county.

Eddystone Lighthouse

Here's "Gimme Dat Ding":

Click here to buy the song from Amazon: