Dalton High band, choir students take trip to New York City
A group of band and choir students and their chaperones recently took a trip to New York City.
When the 88 Dalton High students and chaperones who went on an April 3-5 trip to New York City are asked about it, a common question is: “Did you feel the earthquake?”
Students, part of the DHS choir and band programs, were shopping or site-seeing in small chaperoned groups near Rockefeller Center on April 5 when they received an emergency alert on their phones at 11:01 a.m.
“4.7 magnitude earthquake has occurred in the NYC area. Residents are advised to remain indoors and to call 911 if injured.”
But by the time the earthquake happened, the local party, almost at the end of its trip, had already seen a Broadway show and many other NYC landmarks.
Arriving to the hotel on Wednesday around 4:30 p.m., they ate pizza and got ready to load the two buses again for New Amsterdam Theatre in Times Square to watch “Aladdin.”
“The stage was cool with all the spinney things and how much more advanced it is than high school productions. The costumes and stuff were really good,” said Myah Lehman, a sophomore at DHS.
During the show the audience gasped audibly when the magic carpet ride started and was mesmerized when it appeared to be floating and flying all over the stage with stars shining in the background.
“You can see musicals at other venues and traveling shows, but seeing it on Broadway is just amazing Broadway magic. There’s just so much history here,” Dalton Band Director Randall Kaserman said.
The next morning the group loaded up for a day full of attractions.
The first stop was a ferry ride to Ellis Island and by the Statue of Liberty. Participants had about 45 minutes to tour the museum on Ellis Island, and many took pictures of the ceiling in the building that processed over 12 million immigrants. There were old passports and pictures of people who had come to the U.S.
In the afternoon the students went to Battery Park and walked through parts of the Financial District.
The tour guide tried to emotionally prepare the group for the next stop — a visit to the 9-11 Memorial. He said it is like visiting a cemetery and that people living in the city still have close loved ones who died that day. He said one man said he could still hear the sound of bodies hitting the cement and they don’t like to talk about it. He also asked the group not to take selfies at the memorial.
“The 9-11 Memorial was really big and a really important thing that allowed people, especially in our generation, who never got to witness it and to be there,” said Carsten Nussbaum, a freshman. “It kind of takes all the newsreels and what you learned about in school and it hits you harder, and it’s good to learn about that. It was, I would say, not exactly dark, but it was a more serious part of the trip.”
Next the group went into the World Trade Center building, and Jamee Wenger played a song on an open piano there, with her music filling the enormous space.
Several of the students were excited to see the horses pulling carriages in Central Park and to see nature. The stroll through Central Park was contrasted with the next stop — Times Square. The large group stuck together as best as they could with street crossings and all the people.
“I loved it at night. I loved going when it was dark,” student Lexi Zaleski said.
That night the group walked to the Top of the Rock Observatory at Rockefeller Center, where they could see the city skyline at night.
The next morning students had the opportunity to go to a Broadway workshop called Broadway iMAG!NED. Two female actors who had performed in the “Aladdin” show shared about their lives and how they got to Broadway. Each sang a song, and the piano player also shared about his life.
After this, the students and chaperones loaded the buses to return to Dalton.
“It was cool to see things from TV — the Disney Jesse show building and the bridge in Central Park from ‘Elf.’ It looks bigger in real life,” student Lane Barnhouse said. “I learned how much bigger the world actually is.”
“The trip was eye-opening,” Lehman said, “and it makes me grateful for little Dalton.”