A Weekend In New York For The 2007 Online Watch Enthusiast Gathering

Day 2 - Friday, May18th 2007

As many of you know, I've done considerable work with Rolex USA over the past few years with articles I've done about Rolex and their watches in the pages of IW Magazine, CHRONOS, and InSync.  Once I had locked in my plans to go to New York, I notified their NYC office (the US Headquarters) that I would be in town, and asked if my wife and I could stop by to meet some of the contacts I've dealt with for year but never met.  Much to my surprise, not only did Rolex USA make time for me, I was invited on a special tour of their headquarters and service center! 

Rolex USA was only about 10 blocks from the hotel, but given that rain was threatening, we took a cab.  Rolex USA is on 5th Ave. - a very exclusive address indeed:

We rounded the corner and there it was - the Rolex USA headquarters building!.

Unfortunately, there is no photography allowed in the building, and much of the specific details of what I was shown must be held in complete confidence. But what I can tell you is that I was completely blown away by the reception which awaited my wife and I.  Quite honestly, I expected no more than a few contacts which I have at Rolex USA to come out to the public reception area, shake hands, take me on a brief tour, and then be shown the door - 20-30 minutes tops.  What I received was an hour and a half tour accompanied by several key personnel of Rolex USA.  My wife and I were taken into the service center where not only watches are sent for repair, but new watches are inspected before being sent to dealers.  The tour we were given and the things we saw have only been shown to a select few people in the entire world.  At nearly every stop we made in each department people came up to me and introduced themselves and complimented me on my Rolex articles.  One key individual in the service department even discussed my online article about sending my experience sending in my Sea-Dweller to their service center!  It seemed the folks at Rolex USA were as anxious to meet me as I was to meet them.  After the tour was over, Karen and I were brought into a conference room and presented with some lovely tokens of appreciation.  And just when I thought the experience couldn't get any more surreal, into the conference room walked Rolex USA President & CEO Allen Brill!  Mr. Brill chatted with us briefly about the company and some of their new initiatives, and he then pulled out one of my articles and read part of it back to me and we discussed it.  I'm not exactly certain what I said...I can only hope it was intelligible.  Obviously this was an experience of a lifetime which I will not soon forget.  What I can tell you is that the people in the Rolex USA service center in New York are very passionate about what they do and about the brand.  The craft and care taken with each watch goes well beyond the standards which any company could have for its employees.  I met individuals with more experience with Rolex watches than I have years on this planet - it was truly astounding!

After this incredible meeting at Rolex USA, Karen and I caught the nearest cab and headed for our lunch reservation in Little Italy.

Our chosen restaurant was located in the heart of Little Italy on Mulberry street - well know to anyone who even has a passing familiarity with mob movies like THE GODFATHER:

After a short walk down Mulberry street, we found our chosen destination - Il Cortile!

Il Cortile had been recommended by a friend on Timezone (Thanks Larry!). The restaurant has been around since at least the 70's, if not before and has received many awards.

Hey, who can argue with the Sopranos, right?

We asked for a table in their famous garden room, and got a nice cozy table for two:

I ordered my favorite Italian appetizer - Calamari!

I continued the seafood theme with some lobster ravioli:

Karen tried some of their amazing spaghetti:

Neither of us were disappointed as it was easily the best Italian meal we'd ever had. All too soon lunch was over, and we had to catch another cab over to Madison Ave. and the Antiquorum event held in association with CHRONOS Magazine.

Along the way we passed another New York instituion - the world famous Waldorf-Astoria hotel - sorry for the bad photo taken from the back of the cab:

Soon we arrived to Antiquorum's offices and walked in to the watch show:

The event was quite a success and drew support from several manufacturers and collectors alike:

Here's a shot of the guys from Ball watch who were also on hand at Saturday night's event which Milos organized:

Here's Keith Herbert - CEO and Inventor of Worldchronos:

Here I am with Bert Kalisher, Editor in Chief of CHRONOS Magazine:

Karen and I pose for a shot:

It was at this event that for the first time this weekend we met up with Milos, Harry, and Charles from Timezone. After we spent time catching up a bit and drooling over watches, we headed down the street to our next stop:

We spent some time browsing at Tourneau - this was the world's biggest watch shopping locale until Tourneau remodled and expanded their Las Vegas location. This New York location has three floors of watches on display.  Our next stop - Aaron Faber's Watch Gallery where Milos would be, for the first time in public, displaying the watch art from the company he's involved with called Galleria Swiss.  Along the way we stopped into world famous Trump Tower:

The interior has floor to ceiling marble with a fabulous water fall wall:

The shopping inside is amazing! We also ran into this sight which you just don't see every day - hopefully no one I know is waiting for a watch to be delivered UPS which was on this truck:

We finally made it to Aaron Faber's Gallery:

Aaron Faber's store had an absolutely amazing stock of hard to find Rolex, Patek Philippe, and other assorted luxury watch brands. I was looking at the watches, snapping away with my camera, when much to my surprise, some taps me on my shoulder and says, "hello John." - it was none other than the famous "Sweedish Meatball" and fellow Timezone ex-patriate, Jocke!

Jocke came to New York all the way from Sweden for the "NYC GTG" - much to my surprise!  I later found out that his coming to the event was a closely guarded secret.  It was a genuine please to finally meet him - we've known each other online going back several years to when we were both moderators on WatchUSeek.   Several other guys from Timezone and Watch Talk Forums eventually made it to Aaron Faber's:

Here's some shots of the paintings which were on display and would be auctioned off for charity on Saturday:

Many thanks to Aaron Faber for hosting this first-class portion of our weekend event! Karen and I left Aaron Faber's a bit early, as I had some special plans for the two of us in Central Park. We first headed back to the hotel to drop of some things, then started walking and sight seeing:

We then caught a cab and headed over to Central Park, where we had another carriage ride:

Taking a carriage ride through Central Park is a very special and romantic thing that I've wanted to do with Karen for a while:

Along the way we passed Jerry Seinfeld's appartment, as well as John Leenon's house (pictured below) which still belongs to Yoko Ono:

We passed an evening jogger:

After a lovely ride, we ended up at one of Central Park's most famous attractions - Tavern on the Green!

We arrived a bit ahead of our dinner reservation, but we fortunate enough to get seated early.

Here's a shot of the menu cover, which I thought made a nice background for the obligatory watch photo:

We both ordered the New York Strip steak - it was the thickest NY strip I can ever remember having:

We followed it with an amazing penut butter ice cream desert which we split:

After being out late last night, and knowing we had plenty more sight seeing to do on Saturday, we decided to go back to the hotel and off to bed after dinner. But what a fantastic day!!!

 *All text and images contained in this review are the original work of the author, John B. Holbrook, II and are copyright protected. Use of any of the information or images without the permission of the author is prohibited.

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