Friday, March 8, 2024

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, Wherever Are Your Lower Branches?

Submitted for your approval: More March Madness. For starters, I’d like to give credit where credit is due. While the New York City bureaucratic morass is typically a sluggish, chaotic mess, it’s also tree friendly. Sidewalk trees protected by makeshift wooden fencing are familiar sights at construction sites and such. Tree guards are required by law.

In seeing the forest for the trees, though, there is one area, I feel, where the city gets a less than stellar grade. New York City trees are “trimmed” every several years, often by contracted companies who dub themselves “tree experts.” Now, I’m not a tree expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I know a non-tree expert when I see one. In my view, the trimming brigades willy-nilly lop off tree branches. Long-standing trees that are unlikely to sprout new growths and branches are hacked cycle after cycle, with no regard for their age. A grandfather clause might help. Over time, the trees assume an umbrella shape—with everything on top and nothing on the bottom. And why, pray tell, would “tree experts” hack off the lower branches of a perfectly shaped pine tree in parkland no less—and one that is decorated each year with Christmas lights?

Permit me to make like a tree and leave this subject—and pivot to the ubiquitous electric scooters, bikes, and mopheads on the mean streets of 2024 New York City. Fueled by the pandemic and repast home deliveries, their numbers have skyrocketed over the past few years. Many of the vehicles are unlicensed and many of the drivers are undocumented—in other words, illegal on both counts. Most of the drivers I encounter—all day and every day—do not obey traffic laws. That is, they don’t stop at stop signs or red lights. They travel well above the speed limits. They zig and they zag to pass, dangerously so sometimes. In other words: They don’t care a whit about the common good or polite society.

Right outside my door this morning, I heard a small bang and spied a delivery guy sprawled on the asphalt alongside his scooter. My initial glimpse of him found him lying in the street near a thermal bag carrying a Dunkin’ Donuts order to a party that was going to miss breakfast. This poor fellow was immediately embroiled in an angry quarrel with the individuals he believed were responsible for his fate: lying prostrate on asphalt next to two spilled Mighty Macchiatos, a couple of Sausage, Egg, and Cheese Wake-Up Wraps, and a dozen Munchkins. What I could make it out in their non-English interplay was that the Scooter-Man went through a stop sign, made a wide turn right, and hit a car slowing in the approach of said stop sign. While awaiting an ambulance and the police—and blocking traffic both ways—the yelling back and forth ensued. The drama lasted almost two hours. Any lessons learned here? Hopeful but doubtful.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Monday, March 4, 2024

The Lord of the Ring

Several days ago, on my way to the Garden Gourmet Market, an SUV pulled up alongside me—an unwelcome act in these parts in 2024. A man behind the wheel shouted out something that I could not immediately decipher. Suffice it to say, he had a poor command of the English language—well, actually, no command at all. Eventually, I got the gist of what this stranger was trying to convey, or at least I thought I did. He was getting low on “petrol” and looking for the nearest gas station. By pointing the way with a few simple instructions thrown in for good measure—in the universal language of road navigation—I figured the guy would hastily make a beeline to this lifeline, a stone’s throw away on busy Broadway.

But, lo and behold, he didn’t. While the fellow claimed to be low on “petrol”—yes—he further communicated to me that he had lost his “Visa card.” He therefore required monetary assistance—i.e., some bread—and was willing to give me the ring off his finger in exchange for some. For show and tell, the chap aggressively dangled the ring outside the driver’s side window. Now, I’m not employed with New York magazine as a financial advice columnist, so I was a little suspicious of the proposed deal. I reasoned that this wayward soul wasn’t quite on the level. 

“Sorry, fella, I don’t have any dinero for the petrol,” I called over to him. The ring man didn’t appear too pleased at my response—let’s put it that way. He angrily accelerated, driving off in search of a riper pigeon, I suspect—a Mourning dove, perhaps, conversant in his native tongue.

I don’t know: Maybe the guy was on the level, and I was being too cynical. Had I accepted the ring and booked an appearance on the Antiques Roadshow, the thing could have been a historical artifact from the Ming dynasty and worth $70,000 to $80,000. And this Bronx tale of mine would then be the story a Good Samaritan, who unexpectedly and immeasurably benefited from trusting his fellow man—a dude in distress—who merely wanted to gas-up, as my father would say. Such is the price we skeptics sometimes pay.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Monday, February 5, 2024

No More Perfect Storms


(Originally published 2/11/13)

My hometown dodged the worst of this recent epic snowstorm. I’d estimate we received eight or nine inches in total, which is more than enough when you have to shovel it—but at least it wasn’t two or three feet. Once upon a time, believe it or not, I used to love snow and snowstorms—the bigger the better as a matter of fact. I was a kid then and wrongfully assumed this heartfelt love would last forever. After all, what wasn’t there to love about snow and its pristine blanket of white? I couldn't imagine a man or woman alive not appreciating the unique hush that big snows engendered—for one brief shining moment at least—when virtually everything and anything came to a standstill.

Actually, a part of me still enjoys watching snow fall from the sky and gazing upon its sprawling, blanket of white aftermath. But it’s an increasingly smaller part of me. Nowadays, any uplifting snowfall moments are remarkably fleeting and cannot compete with the stark reality of shoveling it, driving in it, and—most importantly—walking in it (sometimes for multiple days after the fact).

As a school kid, a lot of snow meant a lot fun and frolic in the great outdoors—and, it should be noted, welcome snow days, too. The Monday, February 6, 1978 blizzard is, for me, my all-time favorite snowstorm. Snow actually began falling on Sunday night, the fifth, and continued through Tuesday morning, the seventh. The seventeen inches or so that fell in New York City amounted to three full days off from high school, a most welcome fringe benefit. So, this was the “Perfect Storm” in my book. As I recall, my high school re-opened its doors on Thursday of that week, but it was rather difficult getting there. Snow-cleanup technology and the New York City Department of Sanitation just didn’t deal with snow removal in the 1970s as well as they do today. Our “special buses” didn’t show up that day and we had to find alternate means of getting from the Northwest Bronx to Northeast Bronx.

Fast forward thirty-plus years and here I am—a middle-aged man, still breathing thankfully, and shoveling snow with a weighty prosthetic right leg. I can still pull it off, which is reassuring—but for how long? There’s a guy up the street from me—an overweight senior citizen who smokes like a fiend, and has difficulty walking even in sunny, warm climes—who was shoveling snow right alongside me a couple of days ago. Several snow-shoveling entrepreneurs offered to help both him and me, but we declined—courteously. I, for one, cannot afford these contemporary snow shovelers' rates. Nobody is shoveling snow for five and ten bucks anymore; it’s more like fifty dollars (or more) for an average job—and I don't blame them. Five dollars buys two slices of pizza around here. Why break your back, or contribute to your chances of having a coronary thrombosis, for two slices of pizza in an over-priced metropolis and rotten, inflationary national economy?

I guess it isn’t just blizzards that aren’t what they used to be; it’s the world—both my personal world and the world at large. Perhaps dropping dead of a heart attack in a snowbank isn’t such a bad way to go. You know—in that beautiful blanket of white, virgin natural beauty, and clean, crisp, cold air. But not this year…some other time.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Friday, January 26, 2024

Tis Bitter Cold and I Am Sick of January

(Originally published 1/15/18)

January has long been my least favorite month. It's thirty-one days, on the cold side, and sometimes snowy. It's also the month when the Christmas decorations come down and countless sorry-looking trees end up at the curbside. Returning to school after the New Year and Christmas vacation was, as I recall, psychologically grueling. It was a powerful one-two punch: the party's over locking arms with an extended stretch of nothingness. The school year's "mid-winter recess" or "winter vacation" wasn't until mid-February, and that always seemed like a long way away in early January. As a youth, the snow possibility was about the only thing that recommended this time of year. But now an adult long removed from even a second childhood, snowfall is the stake through the heart of January. 
Blizzard-like conditions still supply a great visual. But I make that statement on a conditional basis.
After their time has come and gone, Christmas decorations are sad sights indeed.
Neither snow nor rain nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of  delivering Amazon Prime packages.
For more than a quarter of a century, my father worked at the mega-post office with the unofficial postal motto emblazoned on its facade. He, in fact, worked the four-to-midnight shift, coming home on the subway in the "gloom of night."
I can't think of anyone more deserving of being a canine chew toy.
If you don't demand the best and will settle for okay, this is the place for you...
On Manhattan's other Restaurant Row...
In the vicinity of Times Square on New Year's Day, the garbage cans were closed but the barbershops were open.
If you can't throw your trash in a can, a non-working, dinosaur telephone booth is the next best thing.
If you've ever wanted to visit a DVD, take down that address.
Price Harry's favorite place for a sandwich and a smoothie when he's in town.
Donald Trump has been wont to refer to 9-11 in speeches as "7-Eleven." This is perhaps why.
Yesterday I ate lunch at a place with this sign on the wall.
And here it is...
The January saga...a picture is worth a thousand words.
I wonder what the "souvenir" is?
An abandoned women's prison? No, a permanently locked subway bathroom.
As a kid I always associated New York City steam pipes with Christmastime and a good kind of cold. Times change.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Saturday, January 6, 2024

Poet for a Day...In May

(Originally published 5/1/13)

Thirty-two years ago in the waning days of my freshman year in college, I wrote a short poem entitled, “School’s Out.” What’s memorable to me about this piece is not that I got an “A,” but that I made the cut and landed on my esteemed English professor’s august mimeograph sheet. After each and every one of our poetry assignments were turned in, he would select what he considered the best works from his two freshman-year poetry classes. Previously, I had found myself on the mimeograph sheet—uncredited this time—with a poem the professor used as Exhibit A to point out glaring errors in execution or some such thing. And I actually liked that one better.

With the honor of being on the mimeograph sheet came—unfortunately from where I sat—a live reading. The poem’s author was asked to read his or her poem aloud in class, unrehearsed, and await a critique. I somehow pulled it off on this day in May. When my professor said, “Mr. Nigro, you read that very well,” I beamed internally in my guise as “Poet for a Day.”

As I further thumbed through my college ephemera on a recent trip down Memory Lane, I was struck, foremost, by the general pedestrian quality of my writing—largely uninspiring and very unmemorable. And I got the sinking feeling I wasn’t always giving it my best shot. Although I look back fondly on my collegiate years at Manhattan College, I nonetheless wrote a poem about being happy when the school year ended. The punch line: “Three cheers for this day…In May.” On the other hand, I was not in the least bit fond of my high school days, but, I suspect, “Three cheers for this day…In June” would not have gotten me on that prestigious mimeograph sheet. A great honor, but no poetry anthology forthcoming.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Make Like a Tree and Leave

(Originally published 5/4/13)

Barbara Walters once famously asked legendary actress Katharine Hepburn, “What kind of a tree are you?” She was subsequently mocked for posing such a juvenile question and its ridiculousness became the stuff of legend, even before things went viral. But now the rest of the story: Walters’ tree query was actually a follow-up to Hepburn saying how she was a tree or some such thing. And naturally, she was a very strong, very pretty oak tree. What else?

I thought about this blast from the past only because I stumbled upon an article about human beings and trees. Specifically, about how we can live on in our next incarnation as a tree or perennial plant of some sort. Yes, I can become a tree after I pass by having my cremated ashes placed in a biodegradable urn made of coconut shells. After adding the appropriate seed, compacted peat, and whatever other growing materials are required—Voilia!—I am a tree in the making as the nutrients of my ashes are absorbed into all of the above.

So, I can be eternal after all. Well, not quite. Said tree, first of all, has got to take root and grow. And if it does, the Tree Me will ultimately die at some point in the future. Pests might do me in, wild and woolly weather, or old age if I'm fortunate. It is nonetheless life after death—and a rather uplifting one at that—even if it is fleeting under the best of circumstances.

Now I can ponder Barbara Walters’ question for real and make like a tree and leave. This leafy green way to go—and the only avenue I know to live on for a little while at least—is certainly better than a boring tombstone, which hardly anyone will come to visit anyway. And I think I’d like to be—when all is said and done—a Weeping Willow, even if the species has little appeal to Walters. A tree grows in the Bronx. Who knows? Maybe someone will carve their initials in me.


Sunday, December 31, 2023

My Walkie-Talkie Christmas

(Originally published on December 15, 2013)

In my youth the anticipation of Christmastime and Christmas itself was very exciting. So, the aftermath of the holiday and returning to school was—it stands to reason—extremely depressing. Seeing decorations and lights lingering in people’s windows—while knowing that Christmas wasn’t on the horizon but a memorable fait accompli—was an awful feeling. But it was a microcosm of life, I've since learned, where all good things come to an end, attached—quite often—to an ugly payback of some sort.

Anyway, in January 1973, upon my melancholic return to St. John’s grammar school in the Bronx’s Kingsbridge, religion teacher Sister Therese queried each and every one of her students as to what his or her favorite Christmas present was. Except for the fact that my answer was “walkie-talkies,” I might not have remembered this banal Q&A. For Sister Therese repeated my words in a somewhat befuddled tone. It was as if she was unfamiliar with them. “Walkeee…talkeees,” she said or possibly asked with a question mark.

It was a simpler time when one wanted walkie-talkies for Christmas. A neighbor of mine had a pair and we established contact times, where he would initiate a Morse code—something that his more advanced walkie-talkies were equipped with but not, sadly, mine. I recall my mother talking with his mother on the walkie-talkies as if it was big thing—a grand technological moment akin to the very first phone call. Of course, they could have called one another on the telephone—and gotten better reception—or walked down a flight of stairs and met one another on our adjoining front stoops.

My “walkie-talkie” Christmas—1972—assumes an even a higher importance to me because they were number one on my “Santa Claus” list that year. I was absolutely certain that ol’ Saint Nick would come through with them, but he disappointed me big time. But forty years ago, I had a very generous godmother who always bought me a Christmas gift—a real one, something that I coveted, and definitely not clothes—but I didn’t typically see her to New Year’s Eve. Albeit a week later than expected, my godmother got me those walkie-talkies. Evidently, Santa Claus had arranged it with her. The pair was coolly trimmed in blue, quite hip looking, and individually packed in form-fitting Styrofoam compartments—worth the wait and then some! They had that wondrous transistor-radio plastic smell, too—something a 1970s kid appreciated. Suffice it to say, walkie-talkie fun ensued.

For sure, there will be no commensurate walkie-talkie gift this Christmas. It’s just not in the Yuletide cards anymore. There will be no Morse code chatter with a neighbor, either. Such is life as time marches on and on and on.

Sunday, December 24, 2023

Christmas Eve Traditions and Memories

(Originally published 12/22/12)

For a lot of people, Christmas comes attached to a healthy dose of melancholy intermingled with all the colorful lights, festive music, and hustle and bustle. As a boy I could never conceive of why one single person wouldn’t welcome Christmas with open arms and a happy heart. For me, its one-two punch of anticipation and excitement truly made Christmas “the most wonderful time of the year.” But now with my youthful exuberance pretty much spent, and so many key Christmas players no longer on the scene, the season just isn’t what it once was—and I understand completely.

Once upon a time Christmas Eve meant gathering with the cousins, exchanging gifts, and enjoying a traditional Italian dinner featuring Spaghetti Aglio e Olio—garlic and oil—and multiple fish dishes. I believe the official tradition calls for seven, but we never quite reached that number with fried eels, baccalà (salted cod) salad, boiled shrimp, and calamari (squid) in tomato sauce rounding out the menu. Honestly, I can’t say I ever relished this particular fishy mélange, but my grandmother had a knack for making just about everything as good as it could possibly be—really. Fish, in fact, were very hard to come by in my grandmother’s hometown of Castlemezzano in the rocky mountains of Southern Italy. Her village was pretty poor and accustomed to the humblest of fish fare, and the tradition crossed the ocean. There were no swordfish steaks, lobster tails, or sushi on our Christmas Eve tables. Actually, her spaghetti was more than enough for me on this one night a year. I would sample an eel or two, which were peculiarly edible, and a few benign shrimp as well—but that was the long and short of my seafood intake.

The image of my grandmother preparing Christmas Eve dinners, with a mother lode of cooking oil at her disposal, is seared in my memory. Interestingly, though, it isn't olive oil I recall but peanut oil—in big gallon tins. It seems that during World War II, olive oil was pretty hard to come by and—when available—too expensive, so my grandmother substituted with Planter’s peanut oil. It was comparatively cheap and, as it turned out, tasty enough to pass muster. She purchased it at the Arthur Avenue retail market in the Bronx’s "Little Italy." Times have changed. Peanut oil is now hard to come by and pretty expensive when you do find it.

The Christmas Eve tradition endures—I think we’ve even reached the magic number of seven fish—but the memories do too of genuinely exciting times from the past and the people who made them so. There is a definitely a downside in having exceptionally fond memories of what once was and is no more.

(Photo from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Sunday, December 17, 2023

Man, They Were Out of Sight

(Originally published 12/6/19)

Man, they were out of sight. They, of course, were Dune Buggy Wheelies, by Remco, a popular toy manufacturer once upon a time. I was the elated owner of one in 1970, when Richard Nixon was president. I distinctly recall playing with my favorite Christmas present of that year on my grandmother’s dinette floor. If memory serves, two D “flashlight” batteries were all one needed to get this modest vehicle hopping, including performing rather extraordinary wheelies. The remote control sprouted two wires, I believe, which were attached to the Dune Buggy Wheelie. I could steer the thing and make it go either forward or backward. What more could a 1970 kid want?

As with many cherished Christmas gifts from my youth, I have often wondered—looking back now all these years later—how long it physically lasted and whether my interest in the Dune Buggy Wheelie waned before this battery-operated toy’s inevitable death knell? Did the Dune Buggy Wheelie make it until the following Christmas? Somehow, I doubt it.
Leave it to a Mockingbird in Manhattan to pose for a Christmas picture.
Wall Street's got the Christmas spirit.
I must disagree. The best way to see New York is on foot.
Or, by air, if you have the wings for it. Riding a bicycle on the mean city streets is not for the faint-hearted.
When the Abominable Snowman isn't available...
This is how you place a star atop a big Christmas tree. By the way, this is the New York Stock Exchange tree, which takes a back seat to the one at Rockefeller Center. Yesterday was the 96th annual lighting. It's actually a better decorated Christmas tree than the one in Rockefeller Center, which only has lights. 
From what I've read, there are a whole lot of tourists in New York City at this time of year. More than ever before. I remember walking on the Brooklyn Bridge and getting chided by a bicyclist for being in the bike path. Last weekend the bridge walkway and bike path were overrun with Homo sapiens from all over the world. 
No matter the time of year nowadays, the bridge is teeming with tourists and peddlers alike. I'm happy, at least, that the Circle Line has somehow endured the vicissitudes of time. Its nautical cousin, the Day Line, which ferried passengers to West Point and Bear Mountain, is only a memory.
A helicopter tour of Manhattan Island is, from my perspective, a viable alternative to taking an overly crowded boat to Liberty Island. Of course, it'll cost a tad more than $18.50 for the privilege.
Sit on it, Potsie, he said, and not a Millennial in earshot knew what he was talking about.
They certainly have changed the place and, at the end of the day, not always for the better.
New York City neighborhoods used to have real character with mom-and-pop businesses able to survive and thrive. The hot dog vendors, at least, are still around. But I suspect their cost of doing business is—not unlike the Dune Buggy Wheelie—out of sight.
Fifth Avenue isn't the same and neither is Ninth Avenue.
This is known as modern art. If you can make a roll of packing tape something other than a roll of packing tape, you've created a masterpiece worthy of a window on Ninth Avenue.
What a difference a "D" makes...
Christmas is coming...
The geese are getting fat. Well, actually no, they are not.
Even stop lights, blink a bright red and green...Ring-a-ling...It's Christmastime in the city.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Monday, December 11, 2023

The Charlie and Mama Christmas Miracle

(Originally published 12/17/16)

Nineteen years ago, a possible miracle occurred in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. To set the stage, my favorite local eatery had sadly changed hands. After refurbishing the place, its new owner—a man named Nick—reopened its doors. Many of the old customers returned for this second act, including a remarkably cranky old couple. No, not a husband and wife, but a seventy-year-old man and his ninety-nine-year-old mother. My frequent dining companions and I nicknamed the pair “Charlie and Mama.”

Witnessing a dutiful son lovingly caring for his aging and ailing mother is often uplifting, but it definitely wasn’t in this case. In fact, it was downright deflating, even a bit creepy. You see, very, very old Mama was the embodiment of mean—looked it, sounded it, and acted it. She scolded her septuagenarian son as if her were a five year old. But this was all going down in 1997—not the Roaring Twenties. Son Charlie, however, merited very little sympathy and understanding because he was an incredibly fussy, inconsiderate, and annoying man. Mother and son were frequently spotted walking the streets arm-and-arm, with antiquated Mama looking like she was a light pat away from crumbling into the dust from whence she came.

Suffice it to say, the entrepreneurial-minded Nick didn’t acclimate very well to the diner milieu and its colorful cast of characters, which included bothersome eccentrics like old Mama and her insufferable son. Charlie regularly ordered a burger for his beloved mother sans the bun. Despite it saving him a hamburger roll, this request really got under Nick’s skin. But it was the three or four French fries that Charlie wanted for his mother that irked him to no end. When Charlie informed the diner's put-upon proprietor that old Mama couldn’t possibly eat a regular order of fries, he didn’t say it nicely and, too, expected the sparrow’s portion to be on the house.

Eventually, the mere sight of the approaching Charlie and Mama sent Nick into spasms of rage. They came to embody everything he hated about diner irregulars, if you will. Nick desperately wanted his place to be a bona fide restaurant and not a neighborhood greasy spoon. And Charlie and Mama with their bunless burgers and three or four French fries just didn’t fit into his grand plan. Then one day, Nick overheard Mama’s anything but dulcet century-old tones saying aloud, “He’s not going to make it.” His body furiously shook, but the man uttered not a word to them. Instead, he beamed hate—the genuine article—their way.

Come Christmastime, I spied a row of cards taped atop the refrigerator accommodating the Jell-O, rice pudding, and apple pie—from various food suppliers and even a handful of customers, I supposed—despite the fact that Nick was the epitome of ineptness, irascibility, and miserliness all rolled into one disagreeable package. The man had raised all the prices and reduced all of the portions in one fell swoop. The formerly considerable and otherworldly hamburgers of the previous ownership had become McDonald's-sized, flavorless, and much pricier.

While I wasn’t about to send Nick a Christmas card, I nevertheless thought it would be warm and fuzzy if he received one from his worst tormentors—Charlie and Mama. And so he did. The miracle—the Christmas miracle, actually—was that I was present when the postman delivered the card, when Nick opened it, and when he read it. I witnessed the expression on his face as he came upon the sender’s names: “Charlie and Mama.” Nick expressed uncharacteristic glee, immediately showing it to his staff. He just couldn’t believe he had received this holiday goodwill from such a sinister duo. I heard him repeat several times—to no one in particular—these two words: “Charlie and Mama.” And, I can honestly say, he had a big smile on his face the entire time.

I have long believed that my being privy to the fruits of this endeavor was divine intervention, or maybe it was because I often had breakfast there at around the time the postman knocked. Still, I’d rather believe that miracles do happen on occasion. And, as things turned out, old Mama was prescient concerning Nick’s fate. He didn’t make it.

(Photo from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)