Category Archives: NYC

The 411 on the Four-One

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Yesterday, after we left Harry’s, we drove downtown to State St. It was hot! We did a tour down memory lane through Nickel’s Arcade. Our first stop was the Caravan Shop, purveyor of small porcelain animals and Advent calendars. This store like Harry is celebrating its 99th birthday.

1014 Homes Street, Apt. 3C

Today, we toured Gallup Park in the morning, before heading over to Harry’s. There we were treated to another journey down memory lane. Harry grew up in the Bronx, in an apartment on Homes Street. He lived a few blocks west of the Bronx River, which he called the creek. Sandwiched between the Hudson and the East River it really was just a creek. Homes lies about a mile south of the Bronx Zoo, which was free to visit every day except Tuesday, when the rich people had the place to themselves. Growing up there in the forties, he referred to his neighborhood as the Four-One. 41 being its police precinct number. A favorite pastime was stickball. It was played by neighborhood boys in the street with a Spaulding ball and an old broom stick for a bat. Occasionally, a hit ball would break a window. When that happened everyone would scatter, because the police would be sure to arrive soon and if they caught anyone with a broom stick, they would take it away and snap it by looping it through a fire hydrant’s chain and twisting it around until it broke in half.

Later today, Anne and I had dinner at Homes, the west Ann Arbor microbrewery. Anne and Bill joined us for a drink. Wherever you go there is no place like Homes.

The Ice Man Cometh

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Harry

Yesterday, Jane and I celebrated Harry’s 99th birthday. Anne was stuck on Logan’s tarmac in Boston. She had to endure an epic four-hour delay on the runway and didn’t make the party.

Did she ever return? No, she never returned and her fate is still unlearned. She’ll ride forever beneath the streets of Boston. She’s the woman who never returned.

Anyway, she did eventually land at Metro, but not in time for dinner. This morning, we were all again visiting with Harry. This meeting was our handoff. Jane will spend the coming week at the cabin, entertaining “The Friends,” for a well-deserved R&R, while Anne and I care for Harry in her stead. While we were gathered, Harry proceeded to regale us with tales from his NYC childhood. In his many years, he has seen many professions come and go. One such job was that of the iceman. Back in the day, old Italian men would deliver the ice door-to-door using truck, not horse drawn wagons. He’s not that old. If a customer only wanted to buy part of an ice block, then the vendor would wield his ice pick, to cut the block to size. Stabbing the ice with the pick would send shards into the gutter from which Harry and his friends would fish them out to suck on during those hot Bronx summer days. It is amazing that he made it to nine, let alone 99.

Rainy-Laundry Day Post

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I can See Clearly Now that the Lake is Winning

When the going gets tough, the tough do laundry. We have to do something, because it’s not a beach day. Last night, I wanted to watch the Knicks game, but only the part where the orange dumpling got booed. We missed that part and ended up watching another New York story, the Disney movie Miracle. I got my happy ending, cried, and all the red hat baddies went to the gulag. USA! After last night’s NYC basketball extravaganza, I found the following online:

You are only a real New Yorker if you grew up in the city sewers with your Italian-named brothers and were raised by a mutant Japanese rat and martial arts trained.

I messaged this to Dan, our Real New Yorker, who responded, “There’s so much ‘What makes you a Real New Yorker’ discourse because of that J Lo interview.” He followed it up with, my favorite version is still: “You have to find a spot, a bar, a restaurant, a café. Fall in love with that spot. Then it needs to close, you’re heartbroken and sad. A new place opens in the same location.  At first, you’re upset about it. It just reminds you of the place you lost.  Begrudgingly you decide to try it, eventually find you kinda like it. Finally, you love it. It becomes your new spot. And then it closes. And that is when you’re a real New Yorker.”

I later found the J Lo interview, part of Kareem Rahma’s Subway Takes series, where J Lo contends that you have to be born in NYC to be a Real New Yorker. Rahma even argues that much like Dan has that he was told that if you live in the city for ten years then you can call yourself a Real New Yorker, but J Lo was adamant. What does Native New Yorker Britt think?

Life and Trust

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Life and Trust Still by Stephanie Crousillat

Life and Trust is a spin on the Faust story by Emursive, the immersive theater company that reworked Macbeth in the style of Hitchcock for Sleep No More. The German legend of Faust tells the tale of a dissatisfied alchemist who makes a pact with the devil for success, riches, and love. But when your soul is for the taking, the deal is bound to go sour. In Life and Trust, Faust is Mr. Conwell, a banking magnate. On the evening of a big celebration at Conwell Tower, a bank built upon the fortunes of a magic syrup that cured his ailing sister, the wearied executive learns the stock market has plummeted. His entire fortune disappears in a blink, delivered to the audience members in his office with a mix of casual venomous disdain. Before he tries to take his own life, one of Satan’s minions offers him the chance to return to his original sin. From there, audience members follow various characters in their pursuit of pleasure, power, and legacy.