Imperfect Together

While growing up in the Bronx, many neighborhood families vacationed on the Jersey Shore. It was relatively close, covered a lot of ground, and action-packed—lots of boardwalks and amusements. I was also witness to Interstate 80 at long last cutting a course through New Jersey to Teaneck, a hop, skip, and a jump from the George Washington Bridge. This welcome extension turned a three-hour trip to Bangor, Pennsylvania—home of my maternal grandparents—to a much more tolerable hour-and-a-half. The traffic snarls at the bridge were always pretty bad, but they are a whole lot worse now, even with the vaunted E-ZPass replacing human flesh toll takers and speeding up the money exchange. I haven’t soaked up the sun at the Jersey Shore in quite a while, since “New Jersey and You” were “Perfect Together.” Local television was inundated in the 1980s with commercials featuring then Governor Tom Kean extolling the many virtues of his state. Seems like only yesterday and a long time ago.

Sun, take a good look around. This is New Jersey.

I was taught that "fifty-five saves lives." Can't say what "sixty-five" does.

There are four municipalities in Essex County, New Jersey with Orange in their names. William III of Orange has quite a legacy.

When my maternal grandmother and a great-aunt first laid eyes on this building off Interstate 80 in New Jersey, they marveled at its beauty. It was originally a Holiday Inn in the 1970s.

It was an end-of-the-school-year tradition at St. John's grammar school in the Bronx. Seventh and eighth graders were treated to a bus field trip to Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey, home of Bertrand Island Amusement Park. The place had a great roller coaster. But sadly, its days were numbered when we Bronx youth frolicked there in the mid-1970s. After seventy-three years, the park closed in 1983 and is now—what else—a series of townhouses.

The sign on this building reads: "This is no ordinary home." Indeed it's not. If inhaling perpetual car and truck fumes at the George Washington Bridge toll plaza is your thing, check it out.

The views of the bridge, Hudson River, and Manhattan are no doubt impressive, just don't open a window.

Only fifteen dollars...

Always an atmospheric launching pad for those teetering on the edge, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey bureaucrats have put an end to all of that.

The City on the Edge of Forever...

Imagine what the traffic would be like nowadays without E-ZPass...

Just up the river from the George Washington Bridge is the Tappan Zee Bridge. Recently, its original structure was completely replaced and—yes—renamed the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge. Leave it to the politicians to mess with history. The first bridge was named for a local Indian tribe: the Tappan.

Late in coming this year...

Once upon a time my family vacationed on the Jersey Shore. Glad these people weren't there.

The future New York City skyline: Jenga buildings?

The Love Boat at the Statue of Liberty.

"Let it flow...it floats back to you."

Faster than a speeding subway train...it's Super Starling.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

When No Place Is the Better Place

The news of baseball icon, restaurateur, and philanthropist Rusty Staub’s passing a couple of weeks ago landed another piercing blow and supplied a further nail in the coffin of my youth. Almost forty-six years ago to the date, I heard a very different kind of news. My favorite team, the New York Mets, had acquired Rusty from the Montreal Expos. I was nine years old at the time. To say that I was ecstatic at the prospect of Le Grande Orange, as he was affectionately known in Montreal, donning a Met uniform would be an understatement. For my youthful exuberance knew no bounds in what were—for me at least—vastly simpler times.

The announcement of the blockbuster trade was especially uplifting in the wake of revered manager Gil Hodges’ untimely passing. Hodges had long wanted Rusty on his team and had, just before his unexpected death, given the trade his blessing. Some years later, I learned that the Met organization was widely criticized for announcing the Rusty Staub acquisition on the morning of Hodges’ funeral. But I was a wide-eyed kid then interested in baseball, not adult inside-baseball.

In retrospect, death was much less pressing and a whole lot more fleeting to me as a fourth grader. I do, however, remember the news crawl, which reported the passing of Gil Hodges, appearing on the TV screen. It was Easter Sunday, April 2, 1972, and I was staggered. Just as a pizza place on nearby Riverdale Avenue called the New Concept served up a mean Sicilian slice, death was a pretty new concept to me at the time.

Rusty Staub had been a much-loved member of the expansion team Montreal Expos during their first three seasons in existence. The adoration wasn’t only for his hitting prowess, which was considerable, but for Rusty's community-oriented commingling with fans as well. The man learned to speak French and was a indefatigable, redheaded, roving ambassador for the new team on the block. When he came to New York, he fast became a fan favorite, too, and played four seasons with the Mets before he was unceremoniously traded off to the Detroit Tigers for a rotund, past-his-prime pitcher named Mickey Lolich and a prospect who turned out not to be one. It was widely believed that the deal was consummated because of Rusty’s vocal participation in the Major League Baseball labor movement and—yes—potential free agency, which was the new reality. His eventual market worth was more than supreme skinflint M. Donald Grant—who controlled the team’s purse strings—was willing to shell out. Happily, Rusty returned to finish out his career with the Mets. By then the odious Grant—who had single-handedly destroyed a thriving, proud franchise—was living out the remainder of his years in the patrician lifestyle for which he was accustomed.

At a brief and emotional press conference, former teammate and close friend, Keith Hernandez, said that Rusty was now “in a better place.” Having been in intensive care for the last two months of his life—and in a lot of pain—no place was the better place. I was—once more—in a hospital emergency room this past weekend. As a visitor and observer—not a patient—I saw more than a few people in a very bad way. One was a psychotic woman who, apparently, was homeless and not unknown to the staff. Asleep one moment and wide awake the next, she had a major meltdown when she couldn’t find her cigarette lighter. Passersby were cursed out as she fumbled for a cigarette. Security guards warily stood by. The woman sobbed, raved, and wandered away from her stretcher bed on multiple occasions. A nurse came looking for her at one point to take an X-ray, but she was nowhere to be found. The peripatetic patient eventually returned and performed an Act II and an Act III of all of the above. All the while, I heard a perpetual wail from somewhere across the ER that sounded an awful lot like a cat. The repeated “meow” sounds turned out to be a cry of “help” over and over and over. As the days wear on and events play out, I think more often of the day when a better place will be no place. Queue up the news crawl!

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

That's the Signpost Up Ahead...

The next stop...

Bizarro World...

Last Wednesday's photo of the imposing George Washington Bridge.

Don't be afraid of The Fog...

The George Washington Bridge connecting Northern Manhattan with New Jersey, which never looked better.

Follow that garbage truck. It's astounding how much trash is picked up daily in New York City. How long will it be before the planet is buried in it?

Ode to men in fluorescent vests who are upgrading our infrastructure.

Have the Sannyasins spiked New York City's water supply?

Nursing home fare: as good as it gets!

First night of spring in the Bronx.

Garbage in...garbage out.

I remember bully boys mockingly calling certain contemporaries of theirs "pansies." Well, the above pansies are as tough as nails. 

 

My favorite diner's bathroom escape hatch.

Sound advice...

A clean toilet in a greasy spoon is like the cinnamon on the rice pudding...

Pretentious Manhattan...

Sign at the Stew Leonard's buffet ($7.99/lb.) goes a long way in explaining New York's obesity problem.

At Stew Leonard's and wondering whatever became of Tobey Maguire.

While ravenously attacking his non-organic BLT sandwich with sides of coleslaw and a pickle in a neighborhood greasy spoon, a friend of mine complained that Stew Leonard's doesn't carry enough organic products for his taste.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

The School Bag Three

Yesterday, I took the subway into Manhattan. An affable Charles Manson-looking guy, and woman who was HIV positive, were panhandling at different times. Both played the grateful part, with the latter exiting the train with a loud “Thank you, New York!” With the Statue of Liberty looming large in the damp and blustery distance, I met a friend in Battery Park—our old stomping grounds. Along with yours truly, he was one of the “School Bag Three,” a trio from the old neighborhood who attended the same Catholic grammar school and high school. And when we began our secondary education in 1976 on the other side of the Bronx, school bags were still the in-thing. I got mine—a black one—in an area luggage store. In the 1970s, Kingsbridge was replete with mom-and-pop stores that specialized in just about everything anyone needed. From luggage to hosiery to deli sandwiches—pets to art supplies to pork—a shop existed within walking distance on the main thoroughfares of W231st Street and Broadway under the El. Nowadays, it’s an unsightly mishmash and unpleasant reminder of what once was.

Interestingly, the school bag—which was quite utilitarian in transporting books, notepads, and pens from Point A to Point B—became increasingly passé in the waning years of the 1970s. One member of our threesome nevertheless soldiered on with his red-and-white CSHS-insignia school bag for all four years. By senior year, its handle had fallen off, but he dutifully carried on with it under his arm. The three of us were something of a spectacle, I guess, as we returned home festooned in our polyester sports jackets, gaudy ties, and school bags at our sides. Suddenly, old-fashioned school bags were the accoutrements of nerds. My older brother was embarrassed that I clung to mine until my last year at CSHS, when I at long last retired it due to intense wear. Ginger, our new pup and addition to the family, ultimately teethed on the legendary bag. It went out with a fitting bang.

By the way, the moniker “The School Bag Three” came to pass when I christened a JPEG shot of the three of us at Christmastime 1978. Unfortunately, we aren’t carrying our school bags in the picture. One of my regrets is not having any photos in my high school uniform, which for the boys back then was a jacket, tie, and dressy pants of their choice. The colorful mix and matches were a special snapshot in time.

Anyway, that was then and this is now. Suffice it to say, the School Bag Three of 2018 aren’t nearly as spry as they were when they stopped in Bill’s Friendly Spot after an unpleasant school day for a “delicious egg cream.” At least that’s what the sign outside read along with an image of the famous frothy fountain pick-me-up. In fact, I—who sport a prosthetic knee—am the most ambulatory these days, with my mates saddled with assorted maladies that impede their walking in the here and now.

Yesterday, I was reminded, too, of a peculiar teenage prediction of mine regarding one of us. As fifteen-year-olds are wont to do, we were cavorting in my concrete backyard some four decades ago. For some strange reason, I proclaimed then that so-and-so would live to be fifty-seven. He will turn fifty-six this month and he is not doing very well. Of course, we were just having a grand old time and mouthing oddball and unpredictable stuff in an age before smartphones. At least my prophecy wasn't recorded! Of course, it's all gallows humor and I know full well that any one of us could drop between now and then. And, really, fifty-seven sounded pretty old once upon a time. As a teen, I couldn’t conceive of being that age. My father was in his forties when I was in high school. Nevertheless, I’m closing in on that unholy number—fifty-seven—and don’t relish being a Teenage Nostradamus or, for that matter, dead as a doornail.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)