: Just back from a trip to New York, so I thought I'd indulge in
: another bit of watch Flaneurism, as Dan christened it last time
: out! Though it will be far less interesting from a Heuer
: perspective than the Munich trip was... And when I say New York,
: I really mean Manhattan and even then only 86th St. and lower!
: Unless the taxi ride through Queens to JFK and walking halfway
: over the Brooklyn Bridge counts!!

: I wasn't really there to look at watches, but as ever, if the
: opportunity presents itself...

: 47th St. seemed like the best place to start, but it just confirmed
: my previous impressions of the place. Just about every watch is
: Rolex and, of those that aren't, they are either Pateks or
: Breitlings. The latest craze for the latter would appear to be
: grotesque, massively wide Bentley Breitlings with custom diamond
: bezels, dials, bracelets, whatever... at least I assume they are
: custom, I wouldn't actually put it past Breitling to be able to
: make hideous monstrosities all by themselves nowadays...
: Original or aftermarket, either way they are several million
: times too rich for my Northern European tastes and probably
: everyone else reading the forum too - unless you have an
: alternative career as a platinum-selling rap artist maybe...
: Full of alternately pushy and offish sellers too, so didn't
: bother hanging around too long, but I didn't spot a single Heuer
: on either side of the street.

: Tourneau is a waste of time - both the one close to the hotel and
: the Time Machine "flagship" (replete with annoying
: tick outside) equate "vintage" with
: "pre-owned". You'd have to get lucky and turn up when
: someone had traded in a nice vintage watch for something new and
: by lucky, I mean really lucky. You can forget a lot of the watch
: "boutiques" too - they may have vintage watches but
: Heuer doesn't really cut it with them...

: Some of the small shops were more interesting. A tiny one more or
: less directly opposite the Public Library had maybe 15 watches
: in total, but all quite nice and interesting - highlight was a
: Breitling chrono from back when they still produced watches with
: some restraint!

: And walking back from a nice Mexican meal (accompanied by several
: fairly potent frozen Margaritas I felt I had to have after
: extensive discussion on the forum!), I chanced upon a jeweller
: that I'd been planning to have a look at anyway - Louis Martin
: on 50th. They had loads of vintage watches - Rolexes were
: refreshingly no more than about 20% of the total, and they had a
: very nice selection of Omegas spanning five decades or so (I
: must ask the Omega guys what the story is with "De
: Ville", seems like a model name now but back then it looks
: like it was a supplementary name on other models?). Some well
: worth looking at if you hanker after a basic three-hand watch.
: Anyway, I took another look when I was less Margarita-fuelled,
: and they did indeed have a Heuer too! A 40s/50s chrono in gold
: (that possibly is similar to the one Shaun was trying to ID).
: The only Heuer I saw on the whole trip and not one I was really
: after, so there was no repatriation of Heuers back to Europe
: this time around...

: On the basis that Heuers have a strong connection to motor-sport
: though, it was a nice surprise to come face to face(s) with a
: racing legend while I was there!

:

:

: For those not familiar with it, that's the (real!) Borg-Warner
: trophy, as presented to the winners of the Indy 500. It was in
: Macy's, apparently only for the day one of the shop staff was
: saying. Pretty impressive trophy - every winner gets a little
: relief of their face added to it:

:

: For some reason, they made Dario Franchitti look a bit like an
: H.R.Giger alien from the movie though!!!

: They had a lot of the racecars on display. Mainly the sort of
: homebrew US cars that competed in the early years (sorry guys,
: it only counts when a non-US driver wins ;)!! Kidding, just
: kidding... nearly 1 in 4, you know? ;) ) but also a car of note
: to the European racing crowd:

:

: An ex-Jim Clark Lotus! A '63 car, mind, when he came second, rather
: than the '65 winning car, but still...

: