Depart 1930 Broadway – June 9th

One hundred years ago today, Alice Ramsey departed from 1930 Broadway — and so have we! It ended up raining buckets, but appropriately enough it was the same weather for Alice so many years ago.

Rich drove the Maxwell in with Tim and Barb (our amazing mechanic husband and wife duo) over the Williamsburg Bridge, through Times Square (across 42nd st) and we made sure to pass the Eastern Terminus of the original Lincoln Highway and parked it out front of 1930 B’way at 7:30 a.m. all shined up and ready for the drive.

Slowly we had a great crowd of onlookers, family and friends show up. The Ramsey family showed up in full force from Grandson’s all the way down to Great Grandson’s. Peter, Isabel and Andrew Ramsey were going to be riding the entire day with Emily and Christie as well as a woman from Californina, Kaye Gamper. It was a very special morning to say the least.

True to the history of the drive and the morning itself, the drivers, Emily and Christie showed up in their dusters just as the sky grew green and black, clouds heavy with rain. Alice had the same weather issues on June 9th, 1909. Minutes later it began pouring. But for both Alice and our team the show had to go on, rain or shine, there are a lot of miles to cover and no use in being afraid of a little weather. So with some speeches and fan fair, some gift giving and tears, they gave the Maxwell a crank start and piled in.

Escorted by the documentary team, (lead by Emily’s brother Bengt) the Maxwell, the Spyker (driven by a team from the Netherlands joining us for the whole trip) headed up Broadway and to nearly 150+ stop lights and morning traffic. Oh what a difference 100 years makes.

After getting out of the city, we traveled into Yonkers and stopped for our first gas stop. The kid pouring gas had no idea where to find the gas tank, which was a pretty funny moment. We let him search around for a bit before Rich lent him a hand.

To read more about the day check out our blog and our twitter stream

Thank you to everyone for supporting us in this amazing cross country adventure and check back for regular updates and photos.

All photos on this page shot and provided by Todd D’Addario. Thank you Todd!