Haul Out the Holly

I’ve noticed outdoor Christmas décor appearing earlier than ever this year. While the recent trend line has been moving in this direction, the wild and woolly 2020 has established a new standard…and why wouldn’t it? Yes, we need a little Christmas, right this very minute. But, first, let’s enjoy a heaping helping of Thanksgiving…even if it is one unlike any other. Despite the myriad warnings, millions of people apparently believe that there’s no place like home for the holidays.

We actually do have a few things to be thankful for this year. For starters, an initial vaccine is debuting in a couple of weeks. That’s encouraging news. And by hook or by crook, Donald Trump will be a private citizen in less than two months. His Keystone-Cop legal team has just about shot its last round of blanks. Historian Michael Beschloss asked on Twitter today for suggestions on a city for the Donald Trump Presidential Library. Columnist Jonah Goldberg offered “Atlantic City.” Works for me.

I am pretty much tired of politicians in general, including my Emmy Award winning governor, who received flack when it was revealed he would be hosting his eighty-nine-year-old mother and two daughters for Thanksgiving. I believe the invitation to his mother—at least—has since been rescinded. I presume Andrew Cuomo gets tested for COVID regularly. So, why would a gathering of four people wearing masks and practicing social distancing cause such a stir? It’s the sanctimonious politician ricochet rule at play. Okay, enough of all that…

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

 

The Big Balls are back in town...

And Radio City Music Hall has, at least, turned on its lights for the season...

"The place is here...the time is now..." But this too shall pass.

"How lovely are thy branches..."

I'm surprised the powers-that-be didn't settle for just the felt banner this year...

They come in boxes, too: the Rockefeller Center Christmas decorations. 

The steam pipes are beginning to belch for the season. Always a welcome sight.

If you're visiting the big city this year: Here's a restaurant/tongue twister near Rockefeller Center to consider.

No, they don't...

If nuts are your thing, you really can't beat New York City in wintertime...

Pandemic or no pandemic: The show must go on...

Granted, it's not the Lunt-Fontanne...

My camera just won't take a clear picture of it...

"Neon signs a-flashing...taxi cabs and buses passing..."

In 1980, New York Mets shortstop Frank Taveras said, "Ding happen." He was right.

There were some visitors in and around Rockefeller Center and Times Square this weekend, but, then again, too few to mention.

Every discarded wig in a Manhattan bike lane has a story to tell...

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Eggs Omelet Style

 

I had almost forgotten about her: Eggs Omelet Style. For identification purposes only—I don’t know her real name—that’s her given handle. I would on occasion see her—once upon a time—in our mutually favorite diner. But I hadn’t encountered her—until yesterday—since the pre-pandemic days: that simpler snapshot in time before all New York City eateries were relegated to takeout and delivery orders only. They can now operate with twenty-five percent indoor capacity—but for how long is the question? I have yet to return for a sit-down meal.

Anyway, I’m happy to report that Eggs Omelet Style is none the worse for wear and has thus far weathered the pandemic. Why, you ask, the curious nickname? Elementary: That’s how this woman wanted her breakfast eggs cooked in the diner. Despite a rather high-strung waitress explaining to her that there was no such choice available, Eggs Omelet Style was unbowed. She would not accept that scrambled, over-easy, sunny side-up, etc., were the be-all and end-all and continued to demand her eggs be cooked omelet style. Her exasperated brother and dining companion vainly attempted to calm the stormy seas.

Full disclosure: Eggs Omelet Style is a bit off, if you will, and prone to turn seemingly trivial matters into high-drama. Not surprisingly, the eggs omelet style request—with an inflexible, harried waitress—inspired an increasingly contentious scene. Fortunately, the diner’s long-time cook, who knew Eggs Omelet Style’s myriad idiosyncrasies, extinguished the fire when he came over to the table and said: “No problem. I’ll make your eggs omelet style. He served her up a couple of runny scrambled eggs with her bacon and all was well.

If I were Eggs Omelet Style’s sibling, I’d take a pass on dining with her in a public setting. She would be on my no dine-list for sure. Going out to eat, for me, is meant to be a pleasant experience, a break from the norm, and free of awkward incidents. Certain people will always find fault with something: the food, the temperature inside the dining room, the noise level. If you want to play twenty questions with the waiter or waitress, forgive me if I stay home and have a pizza delivered. I’d bet the ranch that Eggs Omelet Style has made some special lunch and dinner requests, too. I know this fellow who regularly asks the restaurant staff he’s patronizing if the chef can make him something that’s not on their full menu. Seriously, if you go to an Italian restaurant with a substantive roster of house specialties, do you really need to special request broccoli and spaghetti, which is not among them? No, you don't.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

The Tablet Kid and Related and Unrelated Thoughts

The past few weeks, I’ve noticed this kid zigzagging to and fro the immediate area with a tablet in hand. I’d guess that he is a teenager—late high school or early college age. At my more advanced one, determining other people’s no longer comes easy. Anyway, the kid seemed especially interested in two nearby apartment building parking lots. He appeared to be zeroing in on the cars entering them and recording some sort of data and/or snapping pictures. As he crossed from one side of the street to another and then back again, he occasionally looked to be surveying the nearby surroundings

My initial thought was that this peripatetic young man worked for Google or some such interloping enterprise. But witnessing him—time and again—covering the same grounds and doing the same things made me reconsider. During my latest sighting, I observed the kid scurrying—upon a car’s approach to an entrance—from one parking lot to the other. This hurried act inspired me to take my Columbo raincoat out of mothballs. Perhaps this individual was a special needs kid, I posited, with a peculiar compulsion—recording makes of cars or license plates—who was presently without access to in-classroom learning. Once upon a time, I charted cars in the Bronx. If this is indeed the case, it’s sad to contemplate the many kids—particularly those with special needs—completely without or with limited access to in-person learning. Then again, this nomadic youth could be studying engineering and merely doing his homework. Whatever the case, it’s kind of unnerving watching somebody with a technological device in hand—day after day after day—behaving like a proverbial pinball on these city sidewalks, busy sidewalks.

Speaking of schooling: New York City closed its public schools today. It seems that the arbitrary citywide COVID-positive testing benchmark of 3% was reached. Doesn’t seem to matter to the powers-that-be that the in-school COVID-positive testing rate is 0.29%. In the meantime, the Big Apple’s private and charter schools remain open. The losers: kids, parents, and teachers. When the dust settles on all of this, it isn’t going to be pretty.

And now for something completely different: Somebody posted on social media this food for thought question: “Which 1970s, 80s, or 90s sitcom characters would be into QAnon today?” I encountered many interesting answers, including Kramer and Newman from Seinfeld, Wojohowitz from Barney Miller, Joey from Friends, Frank Burns from M*A*S*H, Chrissy and Ralph Furley from Three’s Company, and Schneider from One Day at a Time. Fred Sanford of Sanford and Son got a few mentions, but I would beg to differ here. Not his kind of thing. For what it’s worth, I offered up Sanford and Son as my favorite TV show in Mr. Tursi’s seventh-grade Values Clarification class. What exactly this particular line of questioning clarified remains to be seen forty-five years later.

A final note on the week leading up to Thanksgiving: Rudy, it’s really time to go into assisted living and flush the hair dye down the toilet. To quote my one-hundred-year-old aunt: “He’s not right in the head.” Speaking of which: Regarding Lou Dobbs, could it possibly be the hair dye? As for the president, if the last two weeks haven’t convinced you what the next four years could have wrought, then nothing ever will. A healthy dose of Old Joe tranquility—and a vaccine—in the near future, I believe, is just what the doctor ordered.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Gentlemen, A-Pizza!

Many, many, many moons ago, while working at a mom-and-pop shop called Pet Nosh, an oh-so-vital decision was called for each and every day at approximately the noon hour: “What are we going to have for lunch?” When the owner, Rich, was on the scene, he would dutifully recite the alternatives, which ranged from deli sandwiches to burgers to pizza. The latter and popular option always merited a distinct query: “Do you want to get a-pizza?” The “a-pizza” was enunciated in an exaggerated Italian accent with the “a” more-or-less silent.

As with countless other words, dialects, and sounds, Rich relished saying, “a-pizza!” Among our many customers at the time was a bona fide Italian guy from the old country, who raised parakeets. In his exaggerated Italian accent—the genuine article—the man would regularly request “a fifty-pound bag of para-KEET”—with the emphasis on the last syllable. In the rough and tumble of the retail frontier—where you repeatedly encounter the same people with their singular idiosyncrasies—it was not surprising that “para-KEET” assumed a life of its own. It was fun to say for a spell and Rich, more than anyone else, ended up with “para-KEET” on the brain and on a recurring loop on his tongue.

I vividly remember this saleswoman setting up a then state-of-the-art—now extinct—credit card machine for the store. Rich and I were the only others inside at the time. Hovering quietly nearby, he suddenly let loose with a very loud and pronounced “para-KEET!” Assuming it was directed at her—nobody else was around after all—the saleswoman pivoted, but immediately determined that Rich was there but not there. The “para-KEET” cry—whatever it represented—remained a perplexing mystery to her as she returned to the job-at-hand.

Back to “a-pizza”: While in Manhattan this weekend, I recalled another seemingly trivial moment from the past. For some unknown reason, my brothers and I found ourselves at a pizza place in the Dunwoodie section of Yonkers. We ordered a whole pizza to eat inside and the owner told us to have a seat and relax. He would personally bring the pie to our table when it was ready. And the proprietor did just that, presenting it to us as such: “Gentlemen, a-pizza!” Some thirty years later, I’m happy to report that the shop still exists. There’s something uplifting about neighborhood pizza shops that adapt, endure, and thrive through changing times, tastes, and demographics.

Speaking of “a-pizza,” I see that the phrase pays homage to the Italian “Neapolitan” immigrants responsible for bringing pizza to American shores. It seems uniquely attached to the style of pizza made famous in New Haven, Connecticut, the kind with the thin, oblong, and charred appearance. Whatever, I encountered a variety of pizza joints in my recent travels that ranged from a place called “Artistic Pizza” to “99 Cents Fresh Pizza” to “Ben’s Pizzeria,” dubbed “The Most Famous Pizza In The World.” The dollar pizza place had a fresh pie in its window that looked pretty tasty and worth the bargain price. But looks can sometimes be deceiving. While these establishments didn’t appear to be technically “a-pizza,” by Rich’s definition they very definitely were. I even passed by a pizza shop with a sign that said, “No mascara…no entry.” Spanish for “mask,” I reckon.

The Little Caesar’s guy says, “Pizza…pizza!” I say, “A-pizza…a-pizza!” with the “a” silent. And, all the while, I remember when…

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

The Odd Couple: 2020, 1975

While living in a fast-paced technological age has its pitfalls, it also has its benefits. Information, for one, is at our fingertips. It’s a moment, for instance, when people can broadcast the most trivial bits of nostalgia and strike a resounding chord with those of us who remember a slower-paced, less technological time. A time when Los Angeles PI Jim Rockford had a rare telephone answering machine at home and, while on the road, pulled over to street pay phones to retrieve his messages.

Today, by the way, is November 13th—Friday the 13th if you are keeping score—the day that “Felix Unger was asked to remove himself from his place of residence.” And in case you’ve forgotten: “That request came from his wife.” Although it never did especially well in the ratings, The Odd Couple, starring Tony Randall and Jack Klugman, was nonetheless a classic 1970s television series that lasted five seasons. In my opinion the show’s humor holds up rather well. Yet, it rarely appeared or appears in syndication. The opening theme and montage of the lead characters, Felix Unger and Oscar Madison, out and about on the streets of the Big Apple gave the show a real New York feel, despite it being filmed before a live audience on a Hollywood sound stage.

When The Odd Couple ran in prime time, New York City was a gritty metropolis slipping and sliding towards insolvency. Crime was up and services, like sanitation, down and it certainly showed. I’ve heard some contemporary talking heads compare the goings-on of the 1970s with the present decline. Short and hapless Abe Beame was the mayor when the excrement finally hit the fan in 1975, the year the last episode of The Odd Couple aired. Tall and hapless Bill de Blasio is the mayor when the most recent excrement hit the fan—and it's splattering all over us as I speak. But there the similarities end.

There’s a great photo site on Facebook called “Dirty Old 1970's New York City.” It’s a pictorial tribute to the New York of the 1970s and, too, the early-1980s, which—you guessed it—was dirtier in look and feel than what came before and what came after. A friend of mine remembers his father’s reaction to what New York City had become in the 1970s. Born in 1915 Manhattan, this man moved north to the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx in the 1940s, which was then positively quaint—an urban enclave with empty lots and a distinctive small town feel. New York City subways were clean and relatively efficient back then. By the 1970s, the very same subways were prone to breakdowns and covered in unsightly graffiti. So, understandably for a man of his generation, he felt palpable despair. The city he lived in for his entire life had morphed into a veritable sewer on life support.

I, on the other hand, was a teenager in the 1970s. I noticed the graffiti on the subways and just about everywhere else. I noticed the parks were rundown, filthy, and not being maintained. There were a lot of muggings and break-ins in the neighborhood, too. But I found it a great time to be a kid growing up in New York. When many of us look at pictures of Dirty Old New York City, we remember when—when, for one, The Odd Couple was on the air and Shea Stadium stood proudly in the flight path of LaGuardia Airport. I recall an episode when Felix and Oscar’s apartment was burglarized. It was the 1970s, after all, and that was a fitting plotline for a sitcom fictionally situated in New York City. Food for thought: Murray the cop was on the same police force as Theo Kojak, while Jim Rockford independently plied his trade three thousand miles away.

Let’s queue up the opening themes now: The Odd Couple, Kojak, and The Rockford Files. Listen, this is precisely why there is no comparing 2020 New York City to its 1970s predecessor—or Los Angeles in Jim Rockford’s case. Dirty Old New York City unofficially marked the beginning of the end of old New York. It was often coarse, sometimes scary, but very, very colorful. Look at all those mom-and-pop stores, luncheonettes serving up egg creams, and neighborhood bars with Schaefer Beer neon signs in the window. “But he also knew that someday he would return to her”—and he did. Happy November 13th!

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

People Will Do What They Do

“It ain’t over ‘til it’s over,” the philosopher Yogi Berra proclaimed in the late summer of 1973. As always the man was on to something. The team Yogi managed that year—my all-time favorite—was in last place, the proverbial basement, at the end of August. But the baseball sage knew full well that his Mets were still within striking distance of first place with a whole month to play, a first-class pitching staff, and formerly injured players back in healthy form.

Indeed, it wasn’t over—not by a long shot—as Yogi’s Mets won the Eastern division of the National League and then the pennant against the heavily favored Cincinnati Reds. When they came up one game short in the World Series against the heavily favored Oakland A’s, it was, at long last, over. And with no apparent indications of widespread voting fraud or irregularities, Election 2020 is, too, over. Saints be praised!

From what the preponderance of polls were saying, though, I—like many others—assumed this year’s presidential contest would more or less be a slam dunk for old Joe Biden, which, I fervently believed, was for the best. While not especially impressive in his prime, he seemed just what the doctor ordered while considerably past it—i.e., when the viable alternatives proved not viable at all. But the wily, wacky Orange Man bedeviled the pollsters and the mainstream media once more. When I went to bed on election eve in a state of high anxiety, the race was too close to call.

I’m happy that things turned out as they did. When the Associated Press officially christened Biden the president-elect, I was outside sweeping up autumn leaves. Suddenly, I heard loud cheers, banging pots and pans, and honking horns. It was reminiscent of our daily seven o’clock salutes to the frontline health workers back in the spring, which seems eons ago. I nonetheless put two and two together what all the fuss was about—yes, it was over. Saints be praised! What follows are some random thoughts and assorted snapshots on the recent election, miscellany, and the uniquely bizarre time that is 2020.

As a matter of fact, I was more than happy with the election results. I was rooting for a Biden win and the Republicans maintaining a majority the Senate. And the odds at this moment favor that they will.

Why, pray tell? See the above title of this essay. It's what Nancy Pelosi said when asked to comment about summer rioters unlawfully pulling down a Christopher Columbus statue and dragging it into a nearby river. Her reaction was typical of feckless Democratic politicians at the time. Really, I think one can simultaneously support a just cause and maintaining the peace. It's like walking and chewing gum. This is why a divided government works for me. Not too many Americans are pining for another revolution. Warren Harding campaigned on the slogan "A Return to Normalcy" in 1920. Joe Biden more or less campaigned on the slogan "A Return to Relative Normalcy" in 2020. That works for me.

I came upon this food cart yesterday in Manhattan. Not quite the best name for the here and now, I thought.

It's sad to contemplate, but the neon lights are not going to be bright on Broadway for many, many months...

While that sobering fact isn't good for the business of show business, it's not good for countless other businesses as well. Nor is having to worry about people doing what they do with impunity.

While 7 Eleven has its welcome mat out come hell or high water, city businesses were preparing for the worst on election night. Yes, Trump is behaving true to form, claiming he couldn't possibly lose a fair election, which he did. But I wonder what would have happened if the shoe was on the other foot? After all, some prominent Democrats were claiming before any ballots were cast that they couldn't possibly lose a fair election. 

In a normal year, the Stardust Diner girl would be lording over a long and winding line of hungry tourists on a mild November Sunday morning.

But this is not a normal November Sunday morning...

One year ago today, the Radio City Christmas Extravaganza, Rockettes and all, began its two-month run and the holiday season had officially begun. That was then and this is now...

While the Hot Spot moniker isn't quite right for the zeitgeist, the In & Out Deli strikes a resonant chord.

I can't say where this takeout came from, but apparently a certain customer didn't think he got his money's worth.

You know, considering how close the election was: If Donald Trump had behaved like a quasi-rational man during the pandemic, he might very well have won reelection. 

But, as has been said time and again, you can't change a zebra's stripes or ask an orange not to contain vitamin C.

And now for something completely different: The block immediately behind this station entrance—28th Street between Sixth Avenue and Seventh Avenue—is the last vestige of Manhattan's Flower District.

Yes, it's been an especially colorful fall here in the Bronx. Somewhere along the line, I believe, the city fathers and mothers planted trees with seasonal foliage in mind. On second thought, maybe it just happened by osmosis. 

Halloween 2020 was on the nippy side in these parts. Trick-or-treaters were non-existent this year...

And it wasn't the weather that kept them home...

What are seven seemingly full bottles of vodka doing in the middle of a city sidewalk? A pandemic, a contentious election, social media, etc., etc. Why only seven?

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)