Post by Admin on Nov 15, 2014 12:49:50 GMT -4
The Duchess of Cambridge will tour a children’s center with the first lady of New York City. The Duke will, in the spirit of royal opacity, attend “a technology themed event, hosted by a New York-headquartered technology company,” an announcement said.
Both will take in a basketball game in Brooklyn, where the Nets will welcome an opponent known as “King James” (first name: LeBron).
For three days next month, beginning on Dec. 7, Prince William and his wife, the former Kate Middleton — now Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge — will traverse the city for the first time “in any capacity,” according to the announcement posted on the couple’s official website on Friday.
There will be a visit to the Sept. 11 memorial and museum, a stop at a youth organization and an event celebrating “the wealth of British talent” in New York’s creative fields.
Prince William is also scheduled to travel to Washington to attend a conference at the World Bank to discuss the illegal trafficking of ivory. The duchess is to stop at what was described as a local child development center with Chirlane McCray, the wife of New York’s mayor, Bill de Blasio.
It is unclear where or when Mayor de Blasio, Ms. McCray and their visitors might otherwise interact. City officials declined to provide additional details.
“From everything I’ve seen, they seem like very good and charitable people,” Mr. de Blasio said on Friday. “I’d enjoy meeting and see how we can work together.”
The prospect of a royal rendezvous offers a striking contrast to the de Blasio family’s homespun image as Park Slope parents who ascended to Gracie Mansion.
A year ago last week, the mayor’s team played the song “Royals” by Lorde, a New Zealand teenager, as Mr. de Blasio took the stage for his victory speech on election night. The choice of the tune — whose chorus proclaims “We’ll never be royals” — was intended to signal that the de Blasios “are not fancy billionaires,” a spokeswoman said at the time.
While the duke and duchess last traveled to the United States in 2011, for a trip to California, members of the British royal family have been to New York many times over the years. Diana, Princess of Wales, made visits to the homeless on the Lower East Side and the sick in Harlem Hospital Center, browsed the toys at F. A. O. Schwarz and took in an opera at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
At the opera, in 1989, Mayor Edward I. Koch apologized to Diana from the stage for greeting her in a business suit.
“Your Royal Highness,” he said, “I’m out of dress code because of a town-hall meeting in the Bronx.”
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