We woke up to a beautiful Saturday morning. It had stopped raining and we ventured out in search of our staple New York breakfast of bagels and cream cheese. We found a bagel shop on Madison and 61st and I ordered my favorite garlic bagel with chives cream cheese.

New York is famous for its bagels and locals believe it has something to do with the water used to boil them, which is naturally soft and with low mineral content, making the bagels chewier and more flavorful. New York City’s water originates from the Catskills watershed in upstate New York, so it is as good or better than those bottled spring waters you get at the grocery store. But enough of the geography lesson, we had a big day ahead and we made our way to Midtown Manhattan after breakfast.

We walked along Fifth Avenue, one of the city’s most famous streets and home to high-end boutiques like Tiffany’s, Louis Vuitton, and Gucci, and landmarks like St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Rockefeller Center, and the Empire State Building. The barricades had been put up for Sunday’s Memorial Day parade but since it was only 10 a.m., the stores were still closed and the crowds were just starting to build up.

We passed by Trump Tower which has been permanently barricaded with concrete barriers since Donald Trump’s first term in 2016. There is a permanent police outpost on the corner manned 24 hours by New York’s Finest. Trump used to hold office there whenever he was in New York and it was the site of daily protest rallies until he moved to the friendlier confines of Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.

Every time we are in New York, we never fail to catch a Broadway show. Before becoming empty nesters, we would take our two boys to watch a musical or a play whenever we vacationed in the city. We now made our way to Times Square at a leisurely pace, window shopping for the most part, until we reached the public library at Bryant Park where a flea market had been set up.

Our ultimate destination was the Wilson Theater on 52nd Street to watch a revival of Cabaret with Fil-Am and multiple Tony Award nominee Eva Noblezada playing the lead role as Sally Bowles. Marilyn was able to score tickets to the matinee show for a modest sum, and we were very excited to get our Broadway fix for this trip.

Filipino performers have made a huge impact on the Broadway scene and apart from Noblezada, there are currently several Pinoys and Fil-Ams starring in major Broadway productions. Lea Salonga is starring alongside Broadway icon Bernadette Peters in Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends; Nicole Scheringer just received a Tony nomination for her current role as Norma Desmond in the revival of Sunset Boulevard; Darren Criss plays a lead role in Maybe Happy Ending; Marc dela Cruz is covering multiple key roles in Hamilton; Don Darryl Rivera is continuing his role as Iago in Aladdin; and Red Concepcion plays Amos Hart in Chicago.

There are many more Fil-Ams in supporting roles and as cast members, further proof of how Filipino talent has made its mark on the Great White Way.

Well, Cabaret did not disappoint and Eva Noblezada is indeed a phenom. A tempest of talent wrapped in a small frame, I wouldn’t be surprised if she eventually gets a Tony. She has been nominated twice for best actress in lead roles in the revival of Miss Saigon in 2017 and in Hadestown in 2019.

It was close to 5 p.m. when we stepped out of the theater and we were quite famished. Our dinner reservation at Serafina’s, our favorite Italian restaurant chain with a location on the Upper East Side, was still about three hours away so we looked for the nearest hot dog stand. There is nothing like a New York hot dog, especially when one is starving. It is the staple street food of all New Yorkers. I was surprised that a hot dog now cost $5, I guess depending on where you buy it. I remember that it cost only $1 back in the day. But I devoured it with no regrets, with mustard and ketchup, and a can of Coke. I cannot leave New York without eating one.

We decided to head back to my brother-in-law’s apartment to freshen up before dinner, walking along 8th Avenue up to West 57th and crossing onto Fifth Avenue now teeming with the weekend holiday crowd. New York City attracts over 60 million tourists a year, but international tourist arrivals have reportedly declined by as much as 17 percent so far in 2025, apparently influenced by the current political climate in the country.

This is a bane for New York City, equating to hundreds of millions in lost revenue for its businesses — hotels, restaurants, shops and, yes, hot dog vendors and cabbies too. I am reminded again that every time this city has met adversity, most notably when it was brought to its knees on 9/11 in 2001, how resilient it is. “New York Strong” is the resounding motto, uniting all New Yorkers of all races and religions.

New York City has a population of close to 8 million and an estimated 160,000 Fil-Ams live in its five boroughs. Filipinos have deeply permeated all aspects of New York life, from the arts and entertainment, to healthcare where Filipinos make up a large percentage of the city’s nurses and healthcare workforce, to the culinary scene where Filipino food has gone mainstream.

Looking back, when I decided to leave the Washington DC area in 1989, I was picking between Los Angeles and New York City. I did not think I could survive the hustle and bustle of New York — it intimidated me. I eventually settled in Los Angeles, a city I ended up leaving five years later to return to Virginia. If I had chosen New York, would I have made it there? Would I have stayed? I have always regretted not being a New Yorker, and that’s what keeps me coming back. Billy Joel’s song harps at me. I’ve never stopped being in a New York state of mind.