Beatles Land to Infect Our Young
By Gerald Kessler and William
Travers
Daily News
August 14, 1965
The Beatles staged their third
invasion of the American colonies yesterday, and despite persistent rumors of
waning popularity, managed to infect New York with the customary symptoms of
the virus-- Beatlemania.
At first, it appeared that an immunity had
been built up among the city's screaming teenagers, mostly girls, against the
mophead infection. Fewer than 100 teens were at Kennedy Airport when the B-707
jet, bringing the Mersy men from London, sat down at 2:35 pm. But when the
wealthy foursome reached the current command post, the Warwick Hotel at Sixth
Avenue and 54th Street, about 3:30 p.m., at least 10,000 noisy, panting
youngsters, again mostly girls, strained behind police barricades to greet
their rock and roll idols.
The barricades had been put in
place at Seventh Avenue and at Fifth Avenue and 54th Street. Others were at
53rd and 55th streets on Sixth Avenue. Havoc threatened briefly when mobs of
teens broke through the barriers at 53rd and Sixth Avenue at 2:10 p.m., long
before the quartet's arrival, but the 130 cops on hand quickly restored order.
The greatest concentration of the young fans was on the west side of Sixth
Avenue, between 54th and 55th streets.
The Beatles-- Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney,
John Lennon, and George Harrison start a nationwide tour Sunday at Shea Stadium,
where a capacity crowd of 55,600 is expected. While here, they will spread
themselves over the 32nd and 33rd floors of the hotel at a tab of $302 a day;
their quarters will be in the entire layout, the Governor's Suite. A private elevator leads from the lobby to
their rooms.
The lack of enthusiasm and crowds
at the airport stems from tight security arrangements and advance notice that
no one would get to see the mopheads. The plane, with 91 passengers, including
the Beatle party of 16 touched down on runway 13R about two miles from the main
arrivals building. While some passengers
fumed at the 25-minute delay, the
Beatles party deplaned, held a brief press conference for the 75 newsmen and
photographers behind barricades, and then entered several caddies for the trip
to Manhattan.
Above the roar of air traffic, few
of the Beatles' precious words were heard. A few keener ears managed to learn
that they had a good trip and that their specialty requested film, Operation
Crossbow, had been enjoyable.
Approaching the hotel, the Beatles
were driven the wrong way on 54th Street, West from Fifth Avenue on an
eastbound Street to avoid the screaming teenagers. They emerged smiling from
the cars and speedily ascended to their rooms. The lobby had practically been
scrubbed clean of people.
The only girls who got near the
Beatles were three young ladies who had the foresight to reserve rooms for
themselves and three girlfriends. But when they showed up to claim the rooms,
the management refused to honor their letter of confirmation.
The girls were not too crestfallen.
They were Linda Scheid, 18 of 264 Avenue L, Brooklyn, Lorraine Tighe, 19 of
4113 Park Avenue, Union City, New Jersey, and Kathy Spinner, 17 of 10, 67/84
Street, Brooklyn. The management
apparently did not know the room reservations were for teenage Beatles fans. Linda
did get one dividend. She kissed Paul and Ringo as they ran to their elevator.
Even after the Beatles had made it to their
rooms, the teenage crowd stayed on, screaming every time a bushy head poked
from a window. Two hours later, however, the crowd of 10,000 teenagers had
dwindled to a few 100. A police official
summed it up this way, “They're tired. I'm tired, everybody is tired.”
There was one sour note on arrival. One of the
plane's passengers in economy, classified, “This is a damn outrage. All this
attention being paid to four screwballs.”
No comments:
Post a Comment