Sunday, March 31, 2019

Zach’s 1250


I have filed away my yesterday under the “World We Now Know.” Walking along a Manhattan sidewalk and minding my own business, a young woman with a small dog came up alongside of me. She was jabbering away on her phone—a mile a minute—oblivious to one and all in her path. That’s par for the course in 2019, by the way. I heard her say something about a friend’s son who, apparently, scored “only” a 1250 on his SATs. “That’s not such a bad score,” the lady—in a generous mood, I suppose—added.

Now, I doubt such a reassurance would assuage Zach’s mom or, for that matter, Zach. For they both know that a 1250 score is—ipso facto—the kiss of death. Admittance to the most prestigious of prestigious schools just isn’t in the cards. And, let’s face it, status is everything to the status-seekers. 1250 doesn’t buy too many bragging rights. I don’t why, but Lori Loughlin popped into my head at that moment.

A footnote to my encounter with that annoying woman so wrapped up in an annoying personal phone conversation on a hopping city sidewalk. She would, on occasion, acknowledge the fact that she was indeed in the bright light of day. It happened when her little canine friend passed a spritz of urine and then—lo and behold—a couple of marble-sized poops as we used to say. In the immediate aftermath of both the Number One and the Number Two events, the chatty dog walker excitedly exclaimed in a baby-like voice: “Very good!”

After that stimulating experience, I came upon a stretch of sidewalk with scattered white paper plates on it. For the better part of a block, the grounds were littered with them. Each individual plate had the word “God” scrawled—in black magic marker—on it. The Lord works in mysterious ways, I thought. But, then again, everywhere is God’s Country, isn’t it?

Speaking of God’s Country—New York City—police officers with machine guns can now be seen in front of busy entrances. I spied three of them at a Madison Square Garden entry point. As I passed by, another passerby queried one of the cops. She wasn’t wondering why the man had a big gun strapped to his shoulder. She just wanted directions to the Empire State Building. You see that big antenna in the sky. Follow it like the Three Wise Men followed that Bright Star.

It’s the new normal and I’m happy the police presence is there. I just wish they didn’t have to be. I considered taking a close-up image—of the “World We Now Know”—but decided against it. I’ve heard this subway announcement more times than I can count: “Backpacks and other large containers are subject to random searches by the police.” Ditto the street. Pocket cameras, too, are not off limits. The last thing I wanted was the confiscation of my faithful companion.

In the Land Down Under—the subway—my trip commenced at the Van Cortlandt Park terminal, which is above ground. A homeless man with a cane—whom I’ve seen before—greeted me and asked if I could spare some change. I gave him two dollars. He replied, “You made my day!” I hope I really did. On the subsequent ride downtown, a panhandler entered the subway car requesting “food” or “any cash that you could spare.” While he informed the assembled that he was homeless, his approach was all wrong—no detailed back-story and a somewhat intimidating manner. I gave him a dollar and a woman—with her young son—offered him some food. It was a bag containing cut pieces of grapefruit. While he readily accepted my buck, he turned down the fresh fruit. My advice is that if you are going to ask for food or money—because you are hungry and homeless—accept the food as well as the money. It’s better for business.

Another fellow then got on the train who didn’t appear to be homeless. He didn’t ask for anything and sat directly across from me. Before the man uttered a word, I sensed menace afoot. He just looked incredibly angry. The guy also listened in to others’ conversations and muttered aloud various profane responses to them. All the while his eyes threateningly flitted back and forth. They caught mine for one brief second. I quickly turned away. Can’t let that happen again! A family of tourists appeared concerned. Fortuitously, he exited the train after only a few stops. I noticed, though, that his simmering anger accompanied him to the station platform as he seemingly considered his next move, which I thought might be reentering the subway car. When the doors closed and the man was on the other side of them, I was greatly relieved and so were the folks from Dubuque, Iowa.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)


Monday, March 25, 2019

One Spring Day

Yesterday was a rather pleasant early spring day. There were more tourists in the vicinity of Battery Park than I anticipated. Is spring break or some such thing responsible for the teeming masses? Whatever, there was an overall calm in the relatively speaking—for this time of year—warm air.

Even my two subway rides were rather uneventful—no sense of menace in either of them. The only panhandler I encountered was a familiar face. It was the young fellow who—several weeks ago—was insulted by a smug, very annoying woman who had, in fact, given him a dollar. She expected, though, a little bang for her buck. The lady wanted him on his merry way and out of her personal space toot sweet. Happily, he returned her money. His pitch was the same as before, noting—among other things—that he was embarrassed doing what he was doing and that the price of a breakfast sandwich with coffee was approximately four dollars—the going rate indeed if one purchases said breakfast from a street wagon or standard deli.

I provided him half the price of a breakfast and another passenger in the subway car kicked in as well. At the time I was riding in the first car and the guy arrived from the adjoining one. This told me that he had worked the train from last to first. He therefore had no place to go after this final appeal and decided to take a load off his feet. The problem—from his perspective—was that the train was meandering through a work site at the time—track replacement—and its operator was periodically laying on its exceptionally loud horn. “That’s unacceptable!” said the man in palpable agitation as he made an about-face and hurried away from the horn’s epicenter.
In the beginning there is a train operator entering his cab...and let the good times roll.
And a conductor in the middle of the train who must point at a hanging black-and-white striped board—a zebra board—at each and every station.
Yesterday with spring in the air and with a spring in my step, I decided to go back to the basics. To the point of no return!
This has got to be one of the toughest jobs...
To work in perpetually loud, dreary tunnels with a never-ending stream of unpredictable—and often very angry and sometimes unhinged—straphangers.
In just a few months this marina will be full. For now, it's gone to the birds.
I wonder if this birdbrain appreciates that he or she is in a good place...
I believe the Hudson River sea monster migrates north each spring. The In Search Of... cameras can't be far behind.
Modern architecture just leaves me cold.
Yes, here's the hip eatery that never fails to remind me of my hospital stay and being asked to rate my pain on a scale of one to ten. The higher numbers got me two Percocet tablets instead of one. By the way, what's a communal table?
Blue on blue, heartache on heartache.
What goes up must come down. 
One Dalmatian.
That's another one out there.
Even grandpa is scrolling and texting these days.
This was the one and only oddball I observed in my journey. He quietly scribbled along for a bit and then—with no prompting—began raving about how the military stole some of his best ideas. I'll take a conspiracy theorist over a Charles Manson-type any day of the week.
And so it is: another ending.
One day there will be the big ending. Maybe somebody is trying to tell us something.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Saturday, March 23, 2019

Windows on Our World


In an age before Windows, there were windows—windows on the only world we knew. My father, for one, had a catbird seat—a front-window roost—looking out on his world for decades. He enjoyed sipping his morning coffee there and—during his leisure time—beer or wine. The man witnessed a lot of changes through the years from his unique perch, which had been outfitted by him with a one-of-a-kind elbow rest made of stuffed old socks.

For the entire decade of the 1960 into the early 1970s, a sprawling “victory garden” was seen—directly across the street—from that window. In the depths of winter, I remember gazing out of it and spying a glowing fire in the foreground. That meant only one thing in those days: the man my father called “the Greek” was in the stark nothingness of the winter garden. All alone—with a fire to keep him warm—we kids knew him as “Papa.” I don’t exactly know why. He was very old but he wasn’t a papa to any one of us. But then he wasn’t Greek, either, I learned many years later. The Greek was Albanian.

Such monikers, by the way, were commonplace in the 1960s and 1970s. Recently, an individual who ought to know better—who grew up in the same Bronx neighborhood—chastised me for identifying a neighbor by his ethnicity. He said, “That’s so ‘70s!” Since I didn’t know this neighbor’s name—he never personally told me and speaks broken English on top of that—that’s how I distinguished him in conversation. Another neighbor of mine—a “progressive” in good standing—complained to me about a mutual neighbor’s penchant for over-using his leaf blower. He said, “The Asian guy across the street from me was driving me crazy with that thing!” When you don’t know somebody’s name—and he’s not about to tell you—what else can you do?

After that little digression into the crazy contemporary times in which we live, it’s back to the windows of our world. Once upon a time my father dubbed a beer-bellied, sluggish super in the building across the street—on the grounds of the old garden—“Humphrey.” I can’t say how he arrived at the name, but it seemed a good fit. From his catbird’s seat, he watched Humphrey in action—or inaction in this instance—for years. My father would also note the comings and goings of a guy who parked his car in the building’s garage. “There goes ‘Big Ass’,” he would say. The man did have an inordinately large one—in proportion to the rest of his body—as I recall. And finally there was this strange fellow that my father dubbed “P.O. Pete,” who worked the same hours in the same post office—but in a different division—as him. They would often ride home together on the subway after their four-to-midnight shifts. My father, however, preferred not to be in the company of P.O. Pete—who lived in that very building as seen from his window—because he was a certifiable screwball. P.O. Pete looked for trouble, including antagonizing errant youths in the wee small hours of the morning, which is something my father could stand to do without on the mean streets of the Bronx in the middle of the night. He did enjoy catching glimpses of P.O. Pete, though, while safely ensconced in his front-row seat with the window on his world.

And now for something completely different: a back window view with a rather different perspective of our world. It’s where mothers hung out their wet wash in a time when most families didn’t own driers. Our back windows looked out at concrete backyards, which are now used—exclusively—as parking lots. But back then they were our playgrounds. The back windows are what my dog “Ginger” peered out of when she very much wanted to be in the Great Outdoors—and playing—with the rest of us.

These extraordinary windows—both front and back—were upgraded through the years. The newer models, though, didn’t appear to have the staying power of their predecessors. In short order the most frequently used windows could only remain open with a piece of wood or some improvisation holding them up. This fact of life proved worrisome. I didn’t want my mother, Ginger, or me to be decapitated. Fortunately, that never happened. But this reality reinforced a familiar theme of the older generations. You know: “They don’t make things like they used to!” True, because there was nothing quite like the windows that would frost up on the inside in wintertime. Of course, there was nothing like looking out all of them in all seasons—the windows on our world—when there was actually something to see.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Friday, March 15, 2019

Seeing Daylight Savings

It's been a week now and I’m just about acclimated to Daylight Saving Time (DST). While I know it's controversial in some circles, I believe that—in the big picture—it makes sense. It certainly enhanced the summers of my youth. The longer summer days—sunlight-wise in the waking hours—supplied us with more usable time in the Great Outdoors. More time to play the games that little people had played for generations, which they, sadly, don't play anymore. Nowadays, kids don’t actually need that additional sunlight, which was so very precious to us. They can stare into their mind-numbing devices anywhere, during all four seasons, and at any time of the day. Since this is the last week of Winter 2019, I thought I’d tie up some loose ends and gaze with anticipation at the prospect of spring. It was seventy-five degrees in New York City today!
I'm still on the Pizza Trail here. In my old neighborhood—Kingsbridge in the Bronx—during the 1970s and 1980s, a fiery debate raged. Who had the better pizza: Sam's or Riviera just down the block? I was a Sam's guy, but Riviera's pizza was quite unique and very tasty, too. There was a period of time in the late-1980s when I thought Sam's had lost a little of its former luster, with pizza makers—for one—undercooking the pizza pies. So, I patronized Riviera for a spell. Typically, my pathway home would have found me walking directly past Sam's Pizza with its elongated picture window. The one with a bird's-eye view of sidewalk passersby. But I chose a detour in this instance. I didn't want the staff at Sam's to spy my grease-stained white paper bag, the evidence of my treachery. Sam's used brown paper bags.
Once upon a time, in the early-1980s, I labored at a mom-and-pop shop called Pet Nosh. It was located on Northern Boulevard in the Little Neck section of Queens. There was an excellent pizza place called Sal's a few doors down. Sal himself was there every day and the shop endured for another twenty-five years. They don't make 'em like Sal's Pizza anymore.
In the late-1970s my family vacationed in the cozy shore town of Lavallette, New Jersey. The Oven Pizza filled in admirably—during my vacation from Sam's—for a couple of weeks in the summertime. It's still in the same location—on Grand Central Avenue—and called The Oven Pizza all these years later. As the late Mel Allen would say, "How about that!"
Forty-one years ago this summer, my mother, brothers, and I passed through the town of Sag Harbor on Long Island. Proof that pizza assumed an important role in our lives, a picture was taken of the place where we stopped for lunch: Conca D'oro Pizza. I Googled the name and was surprised to learn that it survived in the same spot—with the same ownership—until 2017. Conca D'oro had opened its doors in 1975 and we dropped by 1978. It lasted another four decades. That's time for you! Now it's a totally remodeled hip pizza place with hipper than hip pizza selections.
In a photo album scrapbook of the Summer of '78—that had nothing to do with a Barry Manilow album—a manual typewriter was employed to identify the pictures therein, including Conca D'Oro Pizza and the fact that "Carol Bellamy worked there." Carol Bellamy was a prominent New York City politician at the time and her doppelganger, a waitress in Conca D'Oro.
The waning days of winter in Van Cortlandt Park. Its swimming pool is in the backdrop. A friend of mine, who regularly drank in the park on summer evenings thirty years ago, remembered watching youths scaling the closed pool's fencing at night. His most vivid memory was the sight of an expectant mother making the climb. 
This is a barbecue pit section in the sprawling park. I prefer its stark winter look to its littered summer one.
This is the very field where we would "hit some out" on a summer's night. DST lent a helping hand.
When I snapped this picture the temperature was in the high fifties. At this time of year, that's a freakin' bone.
I've tried to capture an image that includes planes, trains, and automobiles—or even planes, trains, and school busses—but always come up short. It's a plane problem that I intend on solving.
Life is all about endings and beginnings and so is the Van Cortlandt Park, W242nd Street, subway terminal.
I've seen this mysterious Number 13 on the Number 1 train on one other occasion and can't for the life of me figure out how it got there. There is no Number 13 train in New York City.
If it's the work of the practical joker vandal, I'd really like to know how he does it.
This is the kind of blue I like feeling.
 
And remember, too, there is always light at the end of the tunnel, just don't fall down in front of it...
In this day and age in particular, I highly recommend this dying art...
I appreciate the extra light of DST and the darkness, too, when we return to standard time. Christmas, after all, wouldn't be the same without it.
 Vis-à-vis the weather, it's been a tolerable winter, but I still say good riddance.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

The Time of Your Life


Once upon a time I could switch on the family’s black-and-white television set—with my youthful adrenalin flowing—and hear these immortal words: “Meet the Mets…Meet the Mets…Step right up and greet the Mets…Bring your kiddies…Bring your wife…Guaranteed to have the time of your life.” They were lyrics to the catchy tune that opened—along with a fast-paged montage of action shots—1970s New York Mets’ games on WOR-TV, Channel 9.

Listening to games on the radio in those days was as equally satisfying as turning on the TV. Perhaps even more so because so much was left to the imagination as broadcasters Lindsey Nelson, Bob Murphy, and Ralph Kiner so effortlessly painted the word picture. Sadly, now, they are all gone as is the long-time home of the Mets, Shea Stadium. Believe it or not, it was considered a state-of-the-art ballpark when it first opened in 1964 in the shadow of the New York Worlds Fair. It didn’t take very long, though, for the place to sink into utter disrepair and earn a reputation as a sorry spot to both play and watch America’s favorite pastime.

Despite its obvious flaws, I loved Shea Stadium. It was an incomplete circle in design—totally open beyond the outfield—and in the flight path of nearby LaGuardia Airport. Drafty and noisy, it seemed—on some days—that you could almost reach out and touch the passing jets. Listening to planes’ crackling engines from such a front row seat may have annoyed some spectators—and ballplayers on the field—but I thought it was all rather cool and added to the suspenseful ambience. Youthful exuberance has a knack for turning lemons into lemonade.

A kid could really lose himself in the game of baseball back then. He could immerse himself in the reality of what was occurring on the field and let his imagination take it from there. It was certainly a less complicated time—an era before over-analyzing broadcasters, boorish sports talk radio, and social media forever altered the landscape. Ballplayers, too, weren’t cosseted filthy-rich celebrities. Somehow, we fans identified with them and there was still vestiges of a thing called team loyalty.

Well, that was then and this is now, 2019, the fiftieth anniversary of the 1969 World Champion Mets—the “Miracle Mets.” It’s hard to believe so much time has passed. Its passage has surely done a number on people, places, and things. Both the 1969 Mets and my favorite team of all-time, the 1973 National League Champion Mets, featured Bud Harrelson, Ed Kranepool, and Tom Seaver on their rosters. “Tom Terrific” was my childhood idol, the only one I ever had. Naturally, the games he pitched in assumed an even higher meaning. I proudly wore my “Property of the New York Mets” gray T-shirt, with the number 41 on its back, around my Bronx neighborhood of predominantly Yankee fans. There was only one local—with an adjoining backyard on the next street—who, like me, was a bona fide Met fan. I’m sure it annoyed those in earshot, but he and I would sometimes yell across to one another in the cover of night after an exciting Mets’ victory. And we both revered Tom Seaver and worried about his ERA. If he gave up three runs, it was considered a bad outing for him. This Hall of Fame pitcher once completed 21 games in a single season and amassed 231 of them in his career. It ain’t the same game today.

In what was a competitive world of competing baseball fans, I remember my older brother telling me that I was a Tom Seaver fan and not a Met fan. Well, the unfolding long-term picture proved that comment inaccurate. For when my idol was traded away in what came to be known as the “Midnight Massacre” of June 15, 1977, I remained ever-loyal to the Mets. It wasn’t easy watching a pompous, parsimonious patrician named M. Donald Grant, who was calling the shots, run a lucrative and once respected franchise into the ground—and in pretty short order, too.

But how can you mend a broken heart? Bring Tom Seaver back—as new ownership did in 1983—to finish out his career on the team and in the place he never, ever should have left. That reunification was an incredibly exciting time for me. But when management mysteriously left him unprotected—in a free-agent compensation pool—at the end of the season, Tom Seaver was snatched away from me once more.

This past week, the Seaver family announced that Tom has been diagnosed with dementia and would be retiring from public life. It was sad news all around and a real gut punch. This was news in the wake of scrappy shortstop Bud Harrelson’s revelation that he is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and Ed Kranepool publicly seeking a kidney donor. Once upon a time I imagined my ashes being sprinkled over Shea Stadium—tossed out of one of those spewing airliners. It would be fitting ending, I surmised. But Shea Stadium isn’t there anymore and neither am I.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)