The Polar Local

One of my fondest childhood memories is Christmas shopping “downtown,” as we called it. It was an annual tradition in early December during that colorful snapshot in time: the 1970s. My brothers and I would accompany my aunt on a subway ride to 34th Street—yes, where the miracle occurred. We would exit on Seventh Avenue directly across the street from the main entrance to Macy’s, the “World’s Largest Department Store.”

We would then commence our long, but exciting day by descending to Macy’s renowned Cellar, a wonderland of pleasing sights, sounds, and smells. After plowing through many of the store’s upper levels as well, we would make a beeline to nearby Gimbel’s, not the world's largest department store, but pretty big. Later, we would visit the “big Woolworth’s” on Fifth Avenue, which was, in fact, quite sprawling with an unforgettable fragrance—a peculiar amalgam of scents from the kitchen, candies, soaps, and everything else in the store, which covered a lot of ground . There was Brentano’s bookstore with its winding wooden staircase, a book “superstore” before there was such a thing. S.H. Kress’s, a Woolworth’s clone, was the place we would chow down—hamburgers and fries at a circular counter with barstools. What more could a kid ask for? Post-repast would find us at Korvette’s department store and ever-closer to St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Rockefeller Center with that—must see—big tree. Our trip was meticulously timed for us to lay eyes on the tree as the five o’clock hour approached and darkness set in.

While the first leg of our journeys from yesteryear, Macy’s, and the last leg, the Rockefeller Center tree, remain, just about everything in between has changed. There are no more stores like Woolworth’s, S.H. Kress’s, and Brentano’s. Where we once tread is now quite gentrified and the shopping choices reflect that. I wasn’t retracing my steps yesterday or last week for that matter. Instead, I ventured to lower Manhattan, which we rarely visited as kids. Christmas in New York is still something to see, but it’s worth broadening the field a little. There’s a lot more to New York than mid-town.

Then as now, I took the Polar Express—actually, the Number 1 local—into Manhattan these past couple of weeks to sample New York at Christmastime. And while there always has been homeless, assorted lunatics, and panhandlers on the trains and in the stations, the numbers of them have skyrocketed. Yesterday, a fellow entered the subway car with two Santa Claus-sized sacks of recyclable bottles and cans. He didn’t appear homeless as he talked and texted on his smartphone, but he came across as unsavory and more than a bit off. This guy didn’t concern his fellow passengers until he lit up a cigarette. When a person does that in a closed underground setting, the oxygen level dramatically plummets. Coincidentally, another chap popped in and likewise lit up—the perils in riding in the last car on an uptown trip. As there was a menacing air about him, I exited the car and waited for the next train. Who needs all that?

Across the station from me during this eight-minute interval between trains was an individual rambling on a phone to someone or babbling on to himself—it was hard to tell. He was, however, saying the darndest things. I won’t go into details, but he had a lot to say about drug use. The man had sampled them all. After hearing a Whoopi Goldberg COVID-19 public service announcement alerting us that masks were still required while riding New York City mass transit, he changed course. Suffice it to say, he didn’t approve of the comedienne’s appearance and wouldn’t you-know-what with her if she was the last woman on earth. In fact, he would seek out a gentleman before her. Granted, it wasn’t quite on par with the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, whose remaining shows have been cancelled due to a major spike in the citizenry testing positive for the virus. But it’s nonetheless unavoidably part of my Christmas in the City adventures in 2021.        

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)