The March Through Madness

It's been a wild-and-woolly month. With "the wearin' o' the green" now in the history books, it's time to think of things spring. Turning the clock back four decades, the fledgling weeks of this season were quite exciting. They saw the start of the baseball season, when hope always sprung eternal, even when your team sorely lacked pennant-winning timber. That would apply to my team—the New York Mets—in 1978, managed then by future Hall of Fame manager Joe Torre. The Mets' job was his first. And although it didn't show in the final standings, he did a pretty good job in my opinion with some pretty awful teams. 

Forty years ago, spring also signified the beginning of stickball season. I kept copious records at that time of our stickball endeavors, including the recording of temperature readings taken at game time from the big clock/thermometer on top of the Exxon station on W230th Street. Like so many things, both the Exxon station and its iconic clock/thermometer are mere memories now. And the John F. Kennedy High School—where we long ago played our crazy game—has morphed into a labyrinthine complex of learning institutions that would prohibit playing stickball on the grounds—that is, if anyone wanted to play the game anymore. 

A footnote here: I only recently learned that our stickball playing grounds at John F. Kennedy High School—several blocks from where I lived—were actually in Manhattan and not in the Bronx. Once separated from the Bronx by the wending Spuyten Duyvil Creek, the area in question is considered Manhattan terra firma. The creek was filled in during the early years of the twentieth century. The Marble Hill neighborhood is now attached to the Bronx and separated from the remainder of Manhattan by the Harlem River Ship Canal. So, to make a long story short, our hallowed stickball grounds were once upon a time covered by the waters of the Spuyten Duyvil Creek, which flowed into the nearby Hudson River. Manhattan land remains Manhattan land.

Well, that was then and this is now...

Just my opinion, but Mine Spa is better than Yours.

You know you're in a bad place when there's a ubiquitous pink water pitcher on the scene.

While the Exxon station and its giant clock/thermometer are long gone, the Chinese take-out joint in the old neighborhood endures. It's changed owners and names a few times, but it remains an institution of fine dining and MSG overload.

And it's received an "A" grade from the New York City Department of Health. After getting some flack from harassed and overly-fined businesses, the bureaucracy seems to have backed off a bit.

It seems that Chinese take-out establishments have a thing for both MSG and truth mirrors, which one cannot help but stare into and ponder one's fate while waiting for the shrimp and broccoli and vegetable egg foo young.

Wow, free WiFi and an elevator to boot...

New York City straphangers are slobs. Subway station nooks and crannies tell me as much.

Apparently, there's a magic marker graffiti vandal on the loose at 18th Street.

As soon as his stuff gets wiped clean, he's back and reminding us of Agent Orange and our march through madness.

At the same subway station is the mysterious MR321 room, or is it Mr. 321's private entrance to somewhere unknown?

A surprise for some lucky girl...

It depends upon what your definition of "Is" is...

For some reason, this reminded me of a Monty Python's Flying Circus skit. I'm riding the train with an empty bottle of fruit drink, a ham sandwich, and a James Patterson novel.

Alone in a crowd...

Visiting a nursing home yesterday, I got to see the Super Soup live and up-close. It's what the institution calls its soups. Since they invariably all look like dishwater, I was left to guess what the St. Patrick's Day soup of the day was. I spied a hint of green and concluded it was pea, but definitely not the thick as fog kind.

The Harlem River Ship Canal as seen from the Broadway Bridge. Our stickball playing grounds were somewhere between the two buildings and at the tail of the Metro-North train pulling into the Spuyten Duyvil station.

A malformed delight...

April showers bring May flowers...

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

The Eyes of March

As I write these words, a plainclothes policeman is staking out some local undesirables. He’s parked in the driveway just outside my door, peering down an alleyway into a backyard on an adjoining street. The detective clued me in as to what he was up to and flashed his credentials for good measure. He wanted me to know that he was the good guy looking to ensnare some bad guys. After all, seeing a fellow sitting in a car for hours—and occasionally pacing back and forth on foot—engenders suspicion in a suspicious part of the world (the Bronx).

As to what the bad guys are involved in, the detective left that to my imagination. He did, however, whet my appetite with the foreboding words: “You would be surprised to know what kind of lowlifes are living beside you.” Considering that a year-and-a-half ago, a house exploded on my block—the tragic result of a marijuana farm illegally taping into a gas line—I don’t think I would be. A firefighter on the street was killed by falling debris that day.

I would hazard a guess that the stakeout has something to do with illicit drugs. The odds favor that over a prostitution ring or counterfeiting operation. A certain landlord—a lowlife in his own right—owns the property under surveillance. His sole life purpose is—apparently—the accumulation of money. He actually brands himself a financial “whiz kid.” Trust me: The man’s no kid and carries around an unsightly spare tire to boot. The only exercise he gets is during his monthly rounds in collecting rent checks. Every square inch of his multiple properties is a cash cow. Cars are parked bumper-to-bumper in his backyards. His garages are ever-revolving—but always occupied—doors of mystery. What’s behind door number one? Door number two? I suspect what’s been behind them through the years hasn’t always been on the up-and-up. I remember when a garage was rented to a food street vendor who could be seen slicing and dicing meats in it. Now that wasn’t kosher!

As for the tenants in the man’s various apartments: They come and go and come and go again, leaving in their wake an unsightly mess of cigarette butts on front stoops and in patches of gardens. As a side note, it’s now against the law in New York City to smoke inside three-family homes and up. “No smoking” signs are required therein. Thirty and forty years ago—when people freely smoked in three-family abodes—neighbors knew who lived in the buildings. Sure, there were a fair share of lowlifes in the old neighborhood, but we knew who they were and called them by name. Now, a Walter White-type just might be plying his trade clandestinely in one of those garages.

Fifty years ago, an old woman named Lizzy, who waddled like a penguin, owned the three-family home under surveillance today. Lizzy and geriatric contemporaries from the block would meet and kibitz in that very backyard, which is now a parking lot and the sight of mystifying but nefarious goings-on.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

O Come, O Come Emmanuel

There’s nothing like a visit to a hospital’s emergency room to put life in perspective. I’ve been there and done that as both a patient and visitor. This past week I was the latter on more than one occasion. And working with the assumption that everything has a beginning, middle, and end, I did a little math while vegetating there. I concluded that based on my chronological age—fifty-something—I’m at the beginning of the end. And even that might be wishful thinking.

One stopover found me in the ER waiting room with a never-ending parade of walk-in business. Some of the people turning up looked quite ill and fatigued; others left me wondering what they were there for. A teenager was there with his mother. The entire time—hours—he was playing with his smartphone and jabbering like a car service dispatcher to God only knows.

Sitting in a curtained space in the thick of things a few days later, I momentarily thought actor Jonathan Banks was on the scene and pacing to and fro. As things turned out it was not him, but a dead-ringer for Mike Ehrmantraut. He was a visitor who, apparently, couldn’t stand still. It’s what I get for binge watching Breaking Bad and now Better Call Saul. In my drowsy state of mind in that chaotic environment—with all the bells and whistles—life imitated art or some such thing.

On the ER drama front, a woman in an adjoining space was backed up big-time. Laxatives were the first order of business. When doctors asked her if she drank, she replied, “Moderately.” I took that answer to mean she was a lush. She was also repeatedly calling out for Grace, her sister, and some fellow named Emmanuel. “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” I sang to myself. “And ransom captive Israel.” As a kid that last line always struck me as odd. I can’t say that it is any less so as an adult.

Suffice it to say, the hits just kept on coming in the emergency room. A man a couple of curtains down, I overheard, had a huge blood clot in one leg and considerable ones in each of his two lungs. The doctors attending to him seemed very concerned that time was of the essence. He didn’t speak a word of English and family members were on hand to translate. At one point the medical team was endeavoring to convince him that his lunch demands were out of order. An imminent procedure necessitated an empty stomach. 

Finally, there was this eccentric old gal walking around the ER, but unlike Mike Ehrmantraut, she wasn’t the strong and silent type. She was an impatient patient and demanding answers to this, that, and the other thing. At one point she was told to get back to her bed or security would be called. Her persistence paid off when she found a passing nurse to show her how to put on a neck brace. When it was time to take her the blood pressure, the wacky wanderer initially refused to take off her respectable Republican cloth coat. After some coaxing, she consented but then shrieked that the blood pressure sleeve was hurting her. And so it went in the emergency room. I am left only to wonder what became of all of the above.

(Photos one, three, four, and five from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Chocolate Chip Mint, Wet Paint, and Pepperoni Pizza

Approximately a half century ago, a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop opened up in my old neighborhood of Kingsbridge. Affectionately known to many of us as “31 Flavors,” it featured such classics as French Vanilla, Rocky Road, and Orange Sherbet. As a youth more inclined to stick with the basics—chocolate or vanilla—I remember liking their Chocolate Chip Mint, now called Mint Chocolate Chip. Baskin-Robbins, I see, is a global concern in the new century, an ice cream giant that lays claim to merchandising the first ever ice cream cake. I liked Baskin-Robbins ice cream all right, but then I liked the now defunct Sealtest brand as well. As a kid my ice cream bar was quite low.

As a sentimental softie, Carvel ice cream—also with a shop in the neighborhood—was my preferred parlor. Through changing times and faces, the neighborhood Baskin-Robbins somehow survived for four decades before closing its doors. Its packaged product can now be purchased in an area Dunkin’ Donuts. Surprisingly, the Carvel location is still operating, but it’s a shadow of its former quality—in my humble opinion—with smaller portions at not-so-small prices.

If the last two years are indicators: February in my neck of the woods is “A Train by Any Other Name Is a Bus” month. Or is it “A Bus by Any Other Name Is a Train” month.

The stores that best manage to adapt and survive changing times and changing neighborhoods are—without question—liquor stores.

"Where do you come from. Where do you go?"

I played many variations of tag as a youth, including my personal favorite: freeze tag. But I am happy to report, I never "tagged" another's property.

In portions of the Bronx—8.7 miles worth—Interstate 87 is the Major Deegan Expressway, an unpleasant thoroughfare and frequently a traffic nightmare. Looking on the bright side, however, it's not the Cross-Bronx Expressway.

If this is what my discarded coffee grinds, orange peels, and soiled paper towels are becoming, organic recycling is well worth the effort. And a sure sign of spring, too.

But I almost forgot: It's still February...

The first order of business is naming the business...

I'm more at ease in close proximity of a train that is a bus than a training bus...

When I'm feeling thirsty, a quencher "created by volcanoes" doesn't typically come to mind...

Through the years, I've encountered many "Wet Paint" signs in subway stations and at subway entrances. Rarely have I resisted the temptation to see for myself if indeed the paint was wet. So far I've come up dry every time.

This "Wet Paint" sign has been up over a month. I guess erring on the safe side is always prudent.

Many of New York City subway signals are seventy and eighty years old.

Which is why the fluorescent vest trade needn't worry...

Pepperoni doesn't agree with me nowadays. It gives me indigestion and causes my heart to race. Why then do I still order pizza with pepperoni?

"Hello, Buunni, this is Ole Buttercup!"

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Sights and Sounds Are All Around

Approximately forty years ago, Seaside Heights, New Jersey had a boardwalk attraction called Cinema 180. Inside a movie theater-circus tent hybrid, paying customers stood and watched films of speeding cars, airborne planes zigzagging over the Grand Canyon, soaring hot air balloons, and other breathtaking adventures. The barker outside the place piqued people's interests with a lively come-on script that concluded with the punch line: "Sights and sounds are all around." And indeed they were...

I'm afraid it is...

I have always felt that seagulls have a good thing going for them.

More evidence of that...

It's called "thinking outside of the box." Take a cruise up Broadway on the HRYSLER.

See such sights as Broadway Joe's Pizza, established 1969; the former locations of legendary Manhattan College watering holes, the Pinewood and Terminal; Burger King, which originally was a White Tower, and the Marie Antoinette, a walk-up apartment building that was once home to bartender and neighborhood icon Timmy O'Connor.

"Now the children try to find it...and they can't believe their eyes...Yes, there used to be a nuclear reactor right here." 

Christmas 2017 seems like a long time ago. Yet, when Christmas 2018 arrives, it'll be like Christmas 2017 just happened...

Just a short year ago this age-old midget entrance to a Van Cortlandt Park baseball field endured. The portal was there forty years ago when my crouching friends and I regularly passed through it to "hit some out." 

But this portal proved to be mortal after all. And a venerable rite of passage is no more. 

If vans could talk...

I don't know what it is but there's something about subway track sparks...

Mike Quill was one of the founders of the Transport Workers Union of America (TWU). He was deemed a "Red" by some back in the day. Now he's got a corner all his own.

Whenever I see graffiti in places like this I think of Robert Shaw frying himself in The Taking of Pelham 123...a movie classic from the 1970s that holds up quite well in my opinion.

I went to high school in the East Bronx and remember some classmates arriving via the "Dyre Avenue" line, which always sounded dire to me.

Walking in a winter wonderland...

McMann and Tate ain't what they used to be...but then what is?

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

“Eee…Snow?”

I know this fellow who is into “good stuff”—really into it. He once said to me, “Thoughts give rise to other thoughts—gotta be helpful!” Well, yeah, the first part’s a no-brainer. For example: I woke up this morning and wondered if it would be snowing outside my window. It wasn't but soon after was. The previous evening’s forecast had called for the white stuff to begin falling just after sunrise. It was expected and did transition to sleet, freezing rain, and then plain old rain in a matter of hours.

Well, the first thing that popped into my head as I rolled out of bed was this—and I said it aloud, too—“Eee…snow?” Why, you ask, did I say that? It’s actually a query lodged in my brain from—oh, say—thirty-five years ago. I was patronizing my preferred pizza parlor, Sam’s, on a winter’s day sometime when Ronald Reagan was president. And it began to snow outside. The counterman at that moment was a young chap that my brother and I had christened “Unis”— not Eunice, but Unis. He was an employee who materialized out of the blue and became a pizza-making fixture there for several years in the 1980s. But upon his arrival we were accustomed to seeing the same familiar faces: George, Andrew, and even "Eeeno." Eeeno, by the way, received his moniker for shouting to a neighborhood friend of mine, “Eee not for you!” My pal had committed the grievous mistake of assuming the greasy pizza bag placed in front of him by Eeeno was his takeout order. We never did learn Eeeno’s real name.

Anyway, back to Unis. He turned up as a completely unknown quantity in a business of very well-known quantities. And since the place was owned and staffed exclusively by Greeks back then, he was the Unknown Greek to us—or Unis for short—even after he became quite known. You see how thoughts lead to other thoughts. As for the process always being helpful—well, that remains to be seen.

While on this fascinating subject, I stumbled upon a sign this past weekend in the vicinity of Wall Street that read, “Danger…Open Pit.” What came to mind were two competing and somewhat diverse thoughts. One was of the barbecue sauce brand, Open Pit, and the second was of the Joker as played by Cesar Romero. It would have been just like him to invent a dastardly contraption to do away with his nemeses Batman and Robin. I can see the Dynamic Duo now dangling over a percolating pit of steamy barbecue sauce. 

Some more of the same: A fellow passenger on the subway this weekend resembled—as far as I was concerned—the actor Denver Pyle in his later years. He was wearing a Gray Line sightseeing tour-guide red satin jacket and nervously fiddling with his meds. I couldn’t help but wonder what his story was. I sat across from still another oddball, whom I’ve spied before on the train. He’s a dead ringer for the Monty Python guy—the hermit who appears in the opening credits and cries, “It’s!” When Eeeno the pizza man said, “Eee not for you!” he was really saying, “It’s not for you!” The Monty Python Guy, as I dub him forevermore, exited at Times Square. Perusing a local tabloid, he typically sits quietly for the ride. So, imagine my surprise when he got up to exit this past Sunday and bellowed, “Open the [expletive deleted] doors!” Apparently, they didn’t open up fast enough for the uber-impatient Monty Python Guy, who then headed off to somewhere unknown looking—for all the world—like the Monty Python guy…

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)