Last weekend, New York at Night host Nimet Habachy had her final ever shift on WQXR after 42 years of spinning records for the city's classical music-loving insomniacs. For four decades, she's lulled you to sleep with the Brahms lullaby and woken you up with Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries — a loyal companion on a nightly journey through music that spans the centuries. Nimet would like to bid you farewell with a letter, plus you can listen to her final sign-off on-demand. Dear, dear WQXR Night Companions: I don't know how to begin to thank you for writing me so many kind notes on the occasion of my leaving WQXR's overnight program. I'm not sure I deserve them, but I certainly have enjoyed them! Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You have very much taken me by surprise from the very beginning of this enterprise. I never imagined the night show would fly. I thought there'd be no one to share the nights with, and the show would wither and die. You see, I was such a long shot; a most unlikely all-night radio announcer. I was born in an Egypt that was nominally under the influence of Napoleon Bonaparte, and still under the thumb of the British. I negotiated the playground swings in English, lost the battle in French, and went crying to anyone who would listen in Arabic. Or, I battled in French, won the swings in Arabic, and gloated in English. The polyglot nature of the playground and an English school left me with an English accent. Henry Higgins says it best in Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady, "Her English is too good, he said, that clearly indicates that she is foreign." That was 42 years ago. The show flourished. You and I became friends through the wiring and the ether. You wrote letters welcoming me from the start. New York at Night became company to many on the nightshift; cabbies, the Entenmann delivery truck drivers, some of New York's finest, and many in the medical world. I took musical requests from you all. We not only heard the music of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, but we began to share details of our lives. I soon became riveted to news of the book one of my listeners was writing in the good company of the music. I worried about the health of another listener, and followed the progress of his recuperation closely. I think I played Beethoven's 9th Symphony for him when he was all well again. Then there was another gentleman who was serving a prison term for "juggling the pans in the prison kitchen instead of the books." One gallant listener offered to be at the ready with a baseball bat should I ever need protection on Times Square. I knew we had a permanent bond when I started to get the family holiday letter. That's how it began. We are all the richer for enjoying the most beautiful music on this marvelous station we are lucky enough to call home. Here's to WQXR! Sheherazade told her tales to one measly Sultan for a mere 1001 nights, but I've spun records, tapes, and CDs for New Yorkers for 10,001 nights and more. My, but did I ever luck in. Thank you. Nimet Saba Habachy
