New York City 2003

For 15 years the Rally had been planned in a city where one of the main planners resided. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Austin- the rule was that one of the planners had to live in the rally home base for reasons of familiarity and expense. California had been picked over so completely by 2003 that Suzanne Bogert and I were determined to take it to a new level: out of state. At first it was Lake Powell, Az., with its houseboats, but it turned out the quote we thought we had for five boats was really just for one, and $6,000 x 5 was way over our budget, and probably still is. So we looked to the East Coast where we had our good friend Mark Shuman still living in Brooklyn. It was a huge undertaking, but with Mark's knowledge of the local areas and his apartment as a base, we took the step.

Imagine flying into NYC -JFK at Thanksgiving 2002 and having to canvas Brooklyn and Manhattan and still scope out the mansion in the Hamptons that you were going to be renting. We covered each square foot of Broadway, the village in Brooklyn on the shores' view of where the Twin towers had once been, the bars and public art of Wall Street. Manhattan; what a glorious place, the bistros of Soho, the streets walled in by canyons of skyscrapers, the windswept beaches of Long Island. Suz and I developed seven teams along New York themed lines - Gangs of New York, Dog Walkers, the Immigrants, etc. We used our good friend Otis to help them board the Long Island Railroad. Not the easiest thing to switch from cars from before, to subways and taxis, and then to a train.

It is an extraordinary thing when people take a risk and are paid back with success. Yes, there were clues that were not found, bartenders that were not there, clues that were written wrong. However, there were the clues that worked: the butcher at the Gangs clue site, that carved up a rabbit just for the team; the pasta clue in Little Italy when the team spelled out their next destination with macaroni, the Stockbrokers' tongue-in-cheek Martha Stewart video, the Five Points insignia on the pavement near Chinatown, not to mention the Chinatown shop lantern which contained the next clue.

In the end, the trip to the Hamptons clinched the deal, an enormous house with a swimming pool and a tennis court, both which we enjoyed.

The NYC Rally paved the path to the future.

Planning

Planning

Transportation

Most of the rally was conducted via subways starting with the L from Brooklyn. Teams had the option of using cabs or limos, and one team did rent a sizable limo to take them to their First Place win in the Hamptons. It was all good, though most teams showed up at their appointed time at the Penn Station LIRR, where Otis Banks escorted them to the train for Long Island. The party started early.

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