The View From 30 Rock
By Steve Smith -- TWICE, 11/5/2001
New York — In a place where extraordinary things seem to happen on a regular basis, the last Tuesday evening of October 2001 was typical for this city in both pre- and post-Sept. 11th terms. Basketball icon Michael Jordan began his second comeback as a member of the Washington Wizards versus the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden on opening night of the NBA's new season.
In the Bronx, President George W. Bush visited Yankee Stadium for the third game of the World Series, which pitted the Yankees against the upstart Arizona Diamondbacks. He threw the ceremonial first pitch to backup Yankee catcher Todd Greene, which The Times called a strike, and received a hearty and prolonged standing ovation. (Amazingly he is the first president to throw the first pitch of a World Series game at the stadium. What took so long?)
Around those two venues possibly thousands of city, state and federal security personnel were on guard to make sure both events went off without a hitch. Around the city that night, in fact around the entire nation, security was at the highest state of alert due to a second terror alert issued by the Justice Department the previous day.
And on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in Lenox Hill Hospital, a 61-year-old woman who came to this country from Vietnam in 1977, Kathy T. Nguyen, was lying in what would become her deathbed the next day from inhalation anthrax.
Upon entering the Pegasus Room, 64 floors above the Avenue of the Americas, if you had the notion you could view Madison Square Garden, Yankee Stadium and Lenox Hill Hospital in the crisp, clear autumn twilight that would soon be highlighted by a full moon.
Many of my colleagues gravitated to the obvious sight, the altered view downtown of where the World Trade Center used to be. Seven weeks later, more than a few just shook their heads. We were in 30 Rockefeller Center, a few floors above Tom Brokaw's office where one of the first anthrax cases was reported.
The press was there for CEA's annual briefing to beat the promotional drum for the International CES, which will take place in Las Vegas Jan. 8-11, 2002 (see story on p. 1). You would think the atmosphere would have been subdued, but strangely enough, it wasn't. The usual suspects were there, both from the New York metro area and out of state (see pictures on p. 37). As I made the rounds, the subliminal message seemed to be that all were glad to be there in the face of this twilight time, when "Be vigilant, but continue to live your day to day life" is now a mantra.
CEA president/CEO Gary Shapiro reminded everyone that "there are bright spots" for CE, despite the gloomy economic picture. He quoted from a recent eBrain report that 77 percent of consumers polled in October plan to buy a CE product as a gift this holiday season. DVD and DTV sales continue to build, and the pending merger of EchoStar and DirecTV could provide more HDTV programming.
But the larger message of the evening, I think, was that all these people stepped out in midtown Manhattan at a traditional industry event, doing their jobs. During this "new kind of war," I guess this was as normal an evening as you can get in the Big Apple.
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