The Gloves Are Off

At the beginning of this month, plastic bags were the rage. That is: New York State took the bold step at eliminating single-use ones in most stores. Despite being an inconvenience for many people, this action seemed sensible and—the truth be told—long overdue. Riding the subway on its elevated sections in wintertime was a sufficient eye-opener. Gazing out its windows supplied a not-very-pleasing panorama of leafless trees with countless plastic bags entangled in them.

Plastic bags in trees, landfills, and the oceans are—temporarily at least—yesterday’s news. Although most shoppers have transitioned to the reusable kinds, plastic bags are again available in my favorite market. I guess the state has more urgent priorities now, like enforcing its social-distancing dictum. Speaking of which, a short while ago I encountered a neighbor of mine. He appeared positively terrified that I might engage him in conversation. A little small talk from a safe distance—about life in the pandemic—probably wouldn’t have done any harm, but none was forthcoming.

If it isn’t one thing it’s another. Now there are discarded latex gloves and face masks all over the place. And, I fear, coming to a tree near you. The worst of the litter-azzi are these ubiquitous car-service guys, many of whom aren’t acquainted with a trashcan. For years, these inconsiderate slobs have been discarding their lunch remains and lottery ticket stubs on sidewalks throughout the city. Open the passenger door and plop goes the garbage. Sadly, gloves and masks have been added to their curbside waste.

Speaking of the gloves being off, I witnessed an argument between an older black man, whom I’ll call Tyrone, and an older white man, whom I’ll call Morris. From what I observed, the disagreement had nothing to do with race or any such thing. Rather, it concerned a not particularly long pedestrian bench—a two- to three-seater tops—on Broadway. Apparently, Tyrone was there first and the somewhat obese Morris—who had a walker—chose to sit right beside him. Initially, I thought Tyrone’s grievance was that we are in the midst of a pandemic and supposed to stay at least six feet apart of one another, not two feet on a cold metal bench in the great outdoors.

I heard Morris say, “Where do you want me to sit?” Tyrone replied, “There’s a bench across the street!” It seemed that Tyrone’s main gripe was that Morris lit a cigarette. Sorry, Morris, but I’m with Tyrone here for a whole host of reasons. I know you are overweight with ambulatory issues, but Tyrone was sitting there first. And, Morris, have you heard about the coronavirus?

The epilogue to this tale of woe is that after I did my grocery shopping a short distance away, Tyrone was sitting alone on the bench. I looked across the street but saw no sign of Morris. Honestly, Morris seemed a bit off. And, personally, I wouldn’t sit on a bench on busy Broadway—under the noisy El—in the healthiest of times.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Fifty Cents for My Thoughts

On a narrow city sidewalk this beautiful spring morning, a masked man passed me by. As he made a beeline to the entrance of his apartment building, the six-feet social distancing decree proved impractical. I watched him as he put a key in the front-door lock and then it was my turn to pass him by with, I might add, a little more distance between us. He, though, didn’t immediately enter the building’s lobby and called over to me. “Do you smoke?” this mystery person inquired. “No,” I answered without breaking my stride.

I thought it a peculiar question for a normal day, but it was made more so coming from the Lone Ranger during a pandemic. But then it dawned on me: I think that was “Fifty Cents,” an annoying local who roams the area in the best of times—unmasked—panhandling. Fifty Cents is invariably well dressed—he’s not homeless or indigent—and asks passersby for fifty cents, although he expects more. I’ve seen him handed a buck and then hightail it—very literally—to a nearby convenience store to purchase lottery tickets.

If indeed Fifty Cents was that man in disguise, it confirms my suspicions that he has a place to live and in a nice building to boot. I have long suspected that Fifty Cents has some psychological disorder and assorted compulsions, like gambling and invading people’s personal spaces. I regularly give money to the down-and-out and—once upon a time or two—gave Fifty Cents a dollar. But having observed him through the years and experienced one-too-many close encounters, I’ve come not to like “Fifty Cents” very much. He gets on my nerves in good times and in bad.

So, if Fifty Cents was my man, a question remains on the question. Why did he ask me if I smoked, instead of his usual come-on? I can only hazard a guess that it was an initial volley of some sort—a leading question to open the door on the matter of fifty cents. I didn’t give him time to advance down that road and he didn’t pursue it.

Fifty Cents is no doubt facing a big dilemma. His in-your-face appeals were bad enough in the pre-coronavirus heyday of a few weeks ago. But now telling Fifty Cents to bug off is a matter of health and safety. Then again, it could have been somebody else under that mask, a guy merely looking to bum a cigarette. After all, these are strange times in which we are living. I never would have guessed at the beginning of this month that must-see TV would be watching Governor Cuomo’s daily news briefings.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

From a Distance

Running an errand for an elderly relative of mine yesterday—on a beautiful early spring day with blooming daffodils all around—I called on a local drugstore and found its front door locked. Initially, I assumed the place was shuttered—perhaps cutting back hours as other essential businesses have. But then I noticed a handwritten sign on the door, which said the drugstore was letting in a maximum of three to four people at a time. Fair enough, I thought. There was a second handwritten note, which listed all the things that were not available inside, including masks, gloves, thermometers, and—you guessed it—toilet paper.

Now, this family-owned establishment has—even on its best days—been a cramped environment, with men and women both sitting and standing by the front counter awaiting their prescriptions. If the present social-distancing recommendations—of maintaining at least six-feet distance from our fellow human beings—were applied therein with, say, four customers plus the staff on hand, a few of us would be across the street in the bodega where I get my toilet paper. That business, by the way, is a confined space, too, with individuals hanging around awaiting sandwiches instead of medications.

In the pre-coronavirus days, one didn’t give much thought to loitering in the company of strangers in close quarters for several minutes at a time. But that was then and this is now. Upon being let in by a young masked-and-gloved woman who works in the drugstore, I handed over an empty prescription bottle to be refilled to another young masked-and-gloved woman who works in the drugstore. Meanwhile, the former masked-and-gloved woman—who unlocked the door for me—frantically sprayed the air with some sort of disinfectant.

An actual pharmacist then called out to me from the back. She would give me ninety pills, instead of the thirty refill listed on the bottle, and fill another prescription—if I desired—that wasn’t due until next week. This change in policy was so that I would not have to return anytime soon and run—as it were—the coronavirus gauntlet. Naturally, I jumped at the opportunity. Being in this drugstore—with men and women picking up meds for ailments unrelated to the virus and behaving more bizarrely than the norm—felt a little too close for comfort.

There were ubiquitous signs inside the drugstore importuning the clientele not to touch this or that, including the electronic signature machines. In the summer of 1969, the Apollo 11 astronauts were quarantined for three weeks after visiting the moon. Science wasn’t taking any chances with the unknown—i.e., sprinkling moon dust in one’s hair could wait. In 2020, I was quarantined in a drugstore for ten minutes that felt like three weeks. The staff couldn’t wait to get me out of there and I couldn’t wait to oblige them.

Outside on the street and above the street, buses and the subway—as always—ran. But subway ridership is down 88%. Passengers now enter only the back doors of buses, which look pretty empty as a rule, and are unable to sit in the front. This reasonable measure is to protect the drivers from the infected masses. It’s kind of surreal watching all of this play out in real time. Trains and buses pass by as usual, but there’s nothing usual about it. And let’s give the mail carriers their due, delivering as ever—uninterrupted: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night nor coronavirus stays these couriers from their swift completion of their appointed rounds.” My late father—a postman—would be proud.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Market

It’s hard to believe that on March 3rd, there were no reported cases of the coronavirus in New York State. Just two-and-a-half weeks ago, the big news on the street was the single-use plastic bag ban, which went into effect on the first. I patronized a gourmet market in the fledgling hours of the ban. This particular place was fully prepared with customized paper shopping bags and reusable ones for sale at fifty cents and a dollar.

We adapted to this earth-shaking change to our usual routines without much fuss. Today, I found myself in the very same market, an essential business open for business. The plastic-versus-paper debate was not on shoppers’ minds this morning. Rather, there was an entirely different feel in the air—figuratively speaking, but many people were taking very literal precautions.

En route to this grocery-shopping adventure—it merits the moniker now—a young black woman stopped and offered me a pair of sanitized disposable gloves. She left her house with a spare. I’d hazard a guess that this individual deemed me among the most vulnerable population and thought, in this instance, that I merited a hand. It was a friendly gesture for sure. I thanked her, but didn’t put the gloves on my exposed hands.

Officially, we New Yorkers are permitted to go outside for solitary exercise, dog walking, and necessities like shopping and banking. I see and hear Andrew Cuomo in my sleep. Give him his due: the guy's shown real leadership. It’s the first full day of spring, too, which feels more like June around here. The start of this season of renewal has certainly gotten lost in the coronavirus shuffle. It was only last week that I was planning on buying and planting some pansies. But accessing the garden shop of this place that also sells groceries proved a fool’s errand. I have to tip my hat to the hoarders, who are typically ahead of the curve and the first on line. They leave no roll of toilet paper unturned and probably dumped their stocks, too. Luckily, I’ve found a toilet-paper supplier in a local bodega. I wouldn’t, though, want the word to get out.

I wonder how the take-out food business is doing? I’ve been thinking a lot about the men and women in my neighborhood who—once upon a time—patronized this local diner every single day. I hope they’re getting deliveries. Diners have historically attracted a fair share of sad sacks—and hungry ones at that. Hopefully, when all is clear, their doors will be reopened and the sit-down dining and back-and-forth banter will resume.

Until that day, I will get take-aways—as the Brits would say—and shop in grocery stores. The latter, though, are living laboratories of everything we are told to avoid—cramped spaces, crowds, and social-distancing impossibilities. But thank god for the markets and the people who work in them! My cashier this morning was masked and wearing gloves—like the ones I was given—and she was periodically sanitizing the conveyor belt. I can’t imagine being in that environment all day long.

Finally—and most importantly for my health and well-being—I will be engaging in regular solitary exercise, walking in the great outdoors with social distancing foremost on my mind. This, by the way, doesn’t require me to make too many adjustments. Less has always been better and now even less than that is my rule.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Lessons From the Cheese Sneeze

Several hours ago, I found myself standing next to a woman on a street corner. She sneezed. Not, by the way, into her elbow, which is now the favored approach. At least that’s what the coronavirus precaution sheets hanging in the drugstore—as well as the subway station announcements—advise. In this instance, a strong south wind blew, taking—hopefully—the sneeze discharge downwind from me.

In this unique snapshot in time—this surreal moment—one can’t help but see a sneeze as something more than a sneeze. I once had a friend who, every time he sneezed, left a fragrant calling card—a cheese-like odor wafting though the ether. Looking back on it, his sneezes were simultaneously gross and proof that their airborne residue can carry a fair distance. Today, my old friend would be at risk of being attacked in a subway car—with the emergency brake pulled—because his sneeze’s comet-like trail was so far-reaching.

With all the closures in New York City—not the subways as of now—and surrounding areas, the last few days have been increasingly fantastic. My paternal grandmother saw the Spanish flu kill her only sister and a young niece—and hundred of others in the town and millions the world over—but that was 1918 and this is 2020. I’d just assume, though, trust the health experts than some of the ignorant airbags on cable television and talk radio.

Still, life goes on. I was in a crowded space this morning—a specialty market—with longer lines and bigger wagon-loads than I had ever witnessed there. Perhaps it’s going a little overboard to buy seven cartons of eggs, twelve jars of Ragu tomato sauce, and twenty-four rolls of toilet paper. Save some toilet paper for the rest of us! I actually looked into the place beforehand and decided that it wasn’t overly crowded compared to the nearby supermarket. It turned out that almost everyone was on line and I was, by then, trapped therein with my full basket. There was no turning back.

I suspect shopping in cramped grocery stores with lengthy lines might be an even greater risk than attending a St. Patrick’s Day parade in the great outdoors or taking a subway ride. I don’t know. In a local diner yesterday, the veteran short-order cook came out from behind his stove and griddle to shake my hand. This was before he prepared my breakfast and I was not carrying any hand sanitizer. Later, I noticed a bottle of the stuff on the diner’s countertop when three women came in and rubbed enough of it on their hands to sanitize a commercial garbage dumpster. Of course, I could have gone into the bathroom and washed my hands for twenty seconds. But I’d been in there before and thought better of it.

Unfortunately, in this Strange New World that we call home—with the likes of Twitter and Facebook—the worst of people is too often revealed. Who would have guessed that so many of the folks from the old neighborhood were biologists, epidemiologists, and virologists! They must teach those subjects in the School of Hard Knocks. And while I know that the Earth and virtually everything in our solar system revolve around the sun, what’s with this Orange Man thing? Does even a worldwide pandemic revolve around him? Granted, he’s orange like the sun, but there the similarities end.

If nothing else, something like this—that we’ve never before experienced or imagined—brings us all closer together, even while we avoid one another. The wayward sneeze knows no race, ethnicity, or gender. Only a short time ago, a black man and white man—me—agreed that we are going to wash our hands a lot more and more thoroughly, too, and be ever-vigilant of where we are and who around us is coughing, wheezing, and sneezing. After all: We’re all in this together. Aren’t we?

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Braking Bad

Governor Cuomo has officially advised his large and diverse constituency to avoid “crowded spaces,” like the subway. This is no small order, especially for New York City’s nine million inhabitants, many of whom use mass transit on a daily basis. Well, despite my esteemed governor’s counsel, I opted to venture out this weekend and descend into the underground—and so did a lot of other people by the looks of things! Without them, yesterday’s ride wouldn’t have risen to the level of a “crowded space.”

While I fully appreciate that the coronavirus is not to be taken lightly, I couldn’t help but reflect on the recurring electronic announcements in subway stations, which told us to wash our hands frequently for at least twenty seconds and sneeze or cough—should the need arise—into our elbows. Surprisingly, I didn’t spy a solitary soul wearing a mask in my travels, but did see a discarded one on the sidewalk.

The highlight of my downtown train ride was not the stuff of sneezing and coughing in a subway car. It was idly sitting for about twenty-five minutes at the 191st Street station. The reason: Somebody—or somebodies, actually—activated the emergency brakes on the two trains ahead of the one in which I was a passenger. Now, that doesn’t sound like a coincidence to me. I know there are times when these mysterious brakes are pulled in real emergencies. In my personal experience, though, the braking was courtesy of lunatics and punks.

Anyway, after finally reaching my destination, I ventured out into the great outdoors—on a pleasant post-clock change morning—and encountered a very, very angry man on his phone. He was informing a passerby of the wind beneath the wings of his rage. What was all the fuss, you ask? His civil rights were” violated,” he said, by a mall security guard with, naturally, no “proper cause.” And this fellow wanted to “press charges.”

I suppose the man called 9-1-1, because New York’s Finest materialized in short order. Initially, two officers spoke with him for several minutes. At one point an officer got into the guy’s face. This made me happy for some reason. Honestly, the complainant sounded to me like an annoying whiner—a victim poseur. From what little I could glean, the security guard wanted to look inside a shopping bag of his from another store, which can be humiliating, I know, if you’re an innocent party. But making such a big stink about it…

Eventually, the two policemen went inside the building where the violation purportedly occurred. They came out a couple of minutes later with some security detail, who watched with interest further interaction between the cops and the complainant. This tête-à-tête went on for more than a half hour and a couple of more officers even joined in the conversation. But nobody on the scene took out a pad or notebook and wrote anything down. They were more than likely trying to convince the fussbudget to forgettaboutit. Less paperwork for them and, honestly, civil rights violations and pressing charges should—when push comes to shove—be the real thing or nothing. Of course, I’m only guessing here and filling in the blanks. Perhaps I’m violating this crybaby’s civil rights by reporting what I saw and what I didn’t see. I just don’t know.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Everything Old Is Old Again

When I was growing up in the Bronx, the two- and four-legged alike of all ages sat outside—sometimes on their front stoops, the sidewalk, and in their backyards, too. They gazed out their windows a lot, as well, observing the goings-on of that unique moment in time in that one-of-a-kind place. I remember this old man—who lived with two of his rather old, unmarried daughters—passively sitting in a rocking chair beside his bedroom window. For hours upon hours—with no perceivable expression on his face—he watched us playing the games that urban kids played in those bygone days. This inscrutable old geezer seemed glued to that rocking chair, which didn’t do much rocking and was far enough away from the window to make him appear ghostly. He was—from my youthful perspective—an eerie wax figure with an ancient pair of eyes that lorded over us morning, noon, and night. Yes, even in the evening hours, I could see him—from my bedroom window—still in his rocking chair and staring, inertly as ever, into the darkness.

Really old people in multiple family homes housing extended families were quite commonplace in the 1960s and 1970s. There was, for instance, this old lady’s mother, who was, as you can imagine, even older. She sat out in our communal concrete backyard with nothing much to see but concrete, garage doors, and underwear hanging on an extended series of clotheslines. Even in the dead of winter, on the coldest of days, this woman sat—covered in multiple blankets—gaping at the barren landscape from dawn to dusk. I suppose she took lunch and bathroom breaks every now and then, but I must have missed them.

Other than being a little creeped out, I didn’t give this recurring spectacle much thought when I was six and seven years old. Now, I can’t help but wonder what that old lady—who had come to America's shores from an impoverished Italian town—was thinking as she whittled away the hours in a beach chair in a cobbled Bronx backyard. It’s quite evocative, actually. Of course, the really, really old folks from my youth were, in many cases, not that prehistoric at all—certainly not by contemporary standards. Looking back, that bundled-up senior citizen was probably about the same age as the main presidential contenders in 2020.

Well, that was then and this is now. There are some old timers from the old country who, I see, are carrying on the tradition. They sit out on the sidewalk in front of their homes in every kind of weather and in every season of the year. It’s been a remarkably mild, snow-free winter in these parts, but on one of the coldest mornings—with temperatures in the teens—the oldsters were spotted soaking up the sun and kibitzing like it was a warm summer’s day.

But a new day has dawned for sure! Recently, I’ve encountered this elderly woman racing around the busy Bronx streets and shopping in her motorized scooter. I’ll call her “Mrs. Green” and ponder if those really old people from my past, who sat endlessly for hours both inside and outside, would have preferred dashing around town instead? It might have made their sedentary lives a little more interesting. Who knows? Then again, it also would have detracted from a very special snapshot in time that—in my opinion—was a whole lot more lively in its deceptive lifelessness than it is today.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

No Plastic For You

Remember: Today is the first day of the rest of your life. It’s also the first day of the New York State single-use plastic bag ban. Wondering what lie in store for me in this new world order, I ventured out into the chilly early morning air and to a local market. The place was ready with its customized paper shopping bags that cost a nickel each to those who didn’t have or want a reusable one, which were readily available at each checkout.

This sudden break from the recent past reminded me of a more distant past’s garbage and waste situation. Not too long ago, I watched a documentary on YouTube chronicling New York City’s sanitation highs and lows. A historian who specialized in refuse, as it were, noted that the Big Apple was pretty disgusting in the nineteenth century into the early twentieth century. Think about it: Horse-drawn wagons for everything from transportation to freight delivery to construction. The streets weren’t paved with gold in those bygone days but something else entirely. It was rather startling seeing garbage trucks dumping unadulterated trash off piers into the Hudson River.

And so, looking on the bright side, some things have gotten better. When I was young the nearby waterways—the Hudson, Harlem, and East Rivers—were considered dirty jokes. While they were picturesque in the grand scheme of things, one didn’t want to look all that closely or breathe in the brackish air, which didn’t always reek of the sea. My father swam in the Hudson River and remembered—when the tide turned on him—pushing away human excrement.

Since household plastic bags weren’t around in my youth, our garbage—like most people’s—was placed in paper bags, typically souvenirs from grocery shopping. They could get pretty gross, as I recall, and taking out the garbage was an unenviable chore. Oh, and the garbage cans out on the street were made of metal then. It's fair to say that the garbage men of the day did a lot of heavy lifting. Nowadays, we have to pull our cans—which are predominantly plastic—to the curbside or the trash won’t be picked up. So it goes: On March 1, 2020, another new day is dawning.

By the way, the nickel charge for paper bags does not go to the retailer. Three cents go into a state environmental fund and two cents into the city's coffers.

I wonder what this plastic-bags-for-gloves delivery guy—whom I frequently see—is going to do down the road?

Hopefully, with the passage of time, there will be more pleasing views off the Major Deegan Expressway than this.

I fear, though, that it's going to take a long time.

Life is too short to sit in a traffic snarl Monday through Friday. But a lot of people do just that.

And, I might add: Please keep massive amount of tape off tree.

As a little kid, visiting the rocks overlooking this local subway yard—a half-mile away—was an adventure. I can remember packing snacks for the journey—in paper bags, of course. 

The rocks, by the way, are still there, but on the other side of a fence.

I have a memory of an abandoned car down in this brush. It remained there for years. I always wondered whether somebody crashed landed or ditched it down there. As a boy, I was more inclined to believe it was a crash with a body trapped inside in perpetuity.

Here's a morning shopper with her reusable bags on each arm.

March 1, 2020: Day Moon over Van Cortlandt Park.

It was a nice day to kick off plastic-busting March and the remaining three weeks in the Winter-That-Wasn't.

Happily, the Van Cortlandt Park flats have been a constant through it all: still flat.

And so has this water flow from Van Cortlandt Lake into New York City's serpentine sewer system.

Then there's the Van Cortlandt Park stadium and track. The former could use a face-lift; the latter has gotten one.

This is the nearest thing I have to a Yellow Brick Road. No Emerald City at the end of it.

Here's that face-lift, which includes synthetic, all-season turf.

Time and garbage disposal move on. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)