Brands We Love- Flavors of the Past.

Brands We Love- Flavors of the Past.

I was food shopping recently and while half heartedly trying to avoid the cookie aisle, but one label caught my attention, a label out of the past….Stella D’oro, specifically their fudge cookies. The familiar package design, and the equally familiar burst shaped cookies were straight out of one of the cabinets in Mom’s  kitchen. I of course had to buy a package for old time’s sake, and now I can report that they are just as delicious now as they were fifty years ago. The brand actually originated in a small bakery in the Bronx in 1930, and by the 1960’s were on the shelves of every supermarket in town. They were New York’s cookie (along with the famous black and white cookie of course).

Later after I had put a can of Chock Full O’ Nuts coffee in my shopping cart, an idea started to form in my head. By the time I had added the Sabrett’s Hot Dogs and a jar of their onion sauce, the idea was fully formed. All three of those brand names were straight out of New York City, straight out of my childhood. Did I always do that, shop like that? Reach for what I remembered? Was it a trusted name or just comfort food? Did I always gravitate towards the familiar? I guess it’s not surprising that I do, or anyone does,  after all that’s why they call it “comfort” food.  And those three icons of New York City food are not the only ones to be found (miraculously) in grocery stores today. I recently discovered the hallowed Gilbran square Knishes famously sold from pushcarts on almost any street in the city (alongside the Sabrett’s “dirty water dogs”). I spotted them in our local Wegman’s. And what a delight to see an authentic Junior’s cheesecake on the bakery shelf too; I checked the package and sure enough it was right out of Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn!

And let us not forget the sublime Bialy, uniquely New York by way of Bialystok in Poland. An iconic design with that small indentation on the top filled with a savory mixture of garlic, poppy seeds and onions; they are light and fluffy due to the fact that unlike bagels, they are not boiled before baking. They are also absolutely delicious toasted to a crisp. For years, after leaving New York, these were very hard to find; heck most non-new Yorkers had never even heard of them. But thank the Supermarket Gods, a couple of stores near us started carrying a frozen boxed version called Ray’s.

There are plenty of other familiar names from the past that I still reach for, and yes sometimes it’s out of pure nostalgia. Friday nights in our household growing up,  always involved a dinner of fish of some kind, Mom being a good Catholic mother. Sometimes it was a home made tuna sandwich, and sometimes it was something like fish cakes, or fish sticks, and if it was one of those, it was always Mrs. Paul’s. Mom wouldn’t have dreamed of buying any other brand; Mrs. Paul’s ruled the fish stick world and that was all there was to it. We don’t eat too many fish sticks anymore; making our own fried fish sandwiches is better, and probably a bit healthier. It’s kind of silly when you think about it, living in a city like New York, whether it be now or the Sixties and Seventies when I was growing up, you pretty well could get almost any food in the world, fresh, and if you didn’t want to cook at all, heck there were pizzerias, bodegas, delis, and take out of every possible cuisine on almost every corner.

But sometimes it didn’t matter.

I used to love when Mom and Dad would decide on treating us to take out Chinese food; there were so many to choose from, some as close as a block or two away. So why then do I have such a soft spot for another childhood favorite (sadly no longer being made) Chun King’s canned Chicken Chow Mein. But this wasn’t just a can of Chow Mein; Chun King invented a packing design that had two stacked cans, taped together; one held the chicken and gravy that needed to be simmered slowly, and the other held the crunchy vegetables to be mixed in when the time was right. I loved that! Unfortunately even though they still make canned Chinese food – LaChoy being the largest manufacturer now, no one utilizes the stacked can presentation which was so popular then (whether or not it made a difference in the taste of the meal is up for debate). So I would bug Mom to, every once in a while, buy the Chun King Chow Mein in the stacked cans regardless of how many great take out places there were right in our own neighborhood. Before the line was discontinued a few years ago,  I saw the stacked can Chun King at our local Walmart, and you gotta know I was ready to stock up, but I fought the urge (with Leslie’s help of course), and bravely walked away, never to see them again.

The list is long, made up of familiar names and remembered flavors…….Jello, Chun King, SpaghettiO’s, Uneeda Biscuits, Brim, Morton’s Pot Pies…some still around, some gone forever, but not a one of them forgotten, not by me anyway.

-Rob

Real Ghost Stories

Real Ghost Stories

Around this time of year, I always like to walk the Village streets and see all the Halloween decorations people put up in their windows, on their stoops, even their roofs. The residents there take it seriously and some are really quite inventive, some professionally done, and a few downright frightening. And of course there was the now famous Halloween Parade held each year. But there are other equally frightening sites to see, real ones where real ghosts, and real stories of horror that still echo through time. Let’s take a stroll…..

One famous haunted spot dates back to the 1790’s on Barrow Street in the heart of the Village. Now an elegant restaurant, One if By Land, Two if By Sea. The building it is housed in was the former carriage house of Aaron Burr. It is said to this day, while enjoying a fine dining experience; you may catch a glimpse of the former Vice President as he ascends the stairs to his balcony. More likely though, you would run into his daughter Theodosia, who was tragically lost at sea on the way to visit him in that very building and has been spotted by scores of diners over the years. Alas, I tried more than once to meet the ghost of my favorite founding father and get a first hand look at his very active daughter, but had to settle for just a superlative (though expensive) dinner instead. Maybe next time.

If you go from there and walk down Sixth Avenue until you get to Spring Street, you will be walking on what in 1799 was known as Lispenard Meadows. And it was in those meadows that a young woman, Gulielma Elmore Sands was found dead at the bottom of a well owned by the Manhattan Company, which coincidently was founded by our friend Aaron Burr with the purpose of bringing much needed fresh water to that part of the city. It was a sensational story in the city at the time, the first murder case tried in court in the new nation, and the suspect Levi Weeks, owing to some powerful connections was defended by two up and coming lawyers, Alexander Hamilton and you guessed it, Aaron Burr. Weeks was acquitted; with a legal team like that, there was little doubt of the outcome. But what makes the whole thing spooky, and eerie still, is the well where Gulielma’s body was found, is still there, the city having grown up around it. You can see it today in the basement of a high end clothing store at 129 Spring Street, guarded by a couple of mannequins (who look pretty darn spooky too). And if you don’t get a chill down your spine looking at that, you are made of sterner stuff than me!.

From Spring Street, walking up Broadway to Washington Place you will find yourself in NYU territory, and one particular building, the Brown Building, is home to classrooms and chemistry labs for the students. But in 1911 it housed the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, employing hundreds of immigrant workers, mostly women.  And on March 25^th, a fire broke out in the top floors of the building, and when the workers there tried to save themselves, they discovered they had been locked in by their employers. With only one fire escape, and elevators that quickly stopped functioning, the top floors became an inferno. Desperate workers jumped from the windows to the sidewalks below, the same sidewalks you can walk on today. In all, 146 workers perished that day; the owners of the business were charged with criminal negligence. Try walking pass that building today, on those same sidewalks and not feel history reaching up to grab you.

Now for one more ghostly sighting: walking west on Eighth Street will bring you to number 12 Gay Street, a speakeasy in the 1920’s and owned by the city’s flamboyant mayor Jimmy Walker. It is where he kept his mistresses. Many a curious pedestrian has looked up at its windows and spotted a tall figure in top hat and tails looking down on the city, his city. It attracts folks to this day who want to catch a glimpse of his honor, the mayor; it is considered one of the most haunted buildings in the city. And a curious note: later Frank Paris lived there also. And who is Frank Paris, you ask? Well in that very building Frank created the rather famous puppet Howdy Doody (those of you of a certain age will surely know who that is!).

Ok I don’t know about you but after this walk, I could use a drink. Just head west on Bleecker till you get to Hudson, and there you will find one of the most haunted pubs in the city, the famous White Horse Tavern, a perfect place to end this excursion into New York’s haunted past. And heck we didn’t even get to the Merchant House, the Jefferson Market Library, the Cherry Lane Theater or the Waverly Inn, all respectably haunted for many years.

One thing is for sure: no haunted hayride is needed with all the ghosts you can meet taking a walk through Greenwich Village.

Happy Halloween.

-Rob

Monsters of the 1960’s

The 1960’s were the golden age of Monsters, and all of us who were kids during that decade were very well aware of it! Growing up in the city of New York, this golden age of Monsters was intensified by the enormous number of kids living in the city neighborhoods that embraced this new fascination.
It actually started in 1957 when a group of classic Universal Horror movies were released to television.
This put Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Dracula, and the Mummy into American living rooms for the very first time!
Then in 1958, a magazine named Famous Monsters of Filmland hit the news stands. It was edited by a guy who was a huge fan of the monster genre, Forest J. Arian. It was not long before kids all over the city were hiding this magazine inside their schoolbooks! (I was one who was not smart enough to hide it well enough, so I had it confiscated once by a teacher in fourth grade.) Then, in 1961 Aurora Plastics Corporation released a model kit of the Frankenstein monster. It was such a huge seller that Aurora quickly followed up with Dracula, the Wolfman, and the Mummy!
I remember spending hours at our small kitchen table covered in model glue and water color paint putting together Frankenstein and Dracula! (Mom was not particularly happy with the mess that I made)
Then came 1962 and a new singer named Bobby Boris Pickett released an iconic song called “Monster Mash”. (Anyone reading this remember that classic?) Picket even did an incredible Boris Karloff impression in recording the song ! It had a great beat to it and it hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 that October! ( October? how appropriate,eh?)
I think every kid I knew in school loved the song and it was even featured in our school Halloween play that very year! I would wager that it played at every school party or dance for the rest of the decade!
Television soon joined the movement.
The Munsters and The Adams family both premiered in the fall of 1964. I, like many others, became a big fan of both of these shows. These “Monsters” were not scary like the movie ones; they were fun and pleasant…. they became our friends.
Yep, being a kid in that decade allowed us to not only be scared of monsters, but we also made friends with them, and we collected them on our small shelves in our bedrooms. We even danced to their music! (Thank you Bobby Pickett)
Oh, and on Halloween, we tried to be them!
(Pretty unsuccessful attempts on my part, but it was fun anyway!)
My Uncle Tony , who visited us at our apartment every Thursday evening showed up one evening right before Halloween wearing a Wolfman mask
that he intended to give me to wear for Trick or Treating. It didn’t work out too well in that the mask frightened the “you know what”out of me and I ran screaming to Mom.That’s the year Mom decided that I was going to be Davey Crockett and not the Wolfman.

The Pooper Scooper Law.

I saw an obituary in the p

The Pooper Scooper Law.

I saw an obituary in the paper a couple of weeks ago and its headline immediately grabbed my attention. The obit was for one Edward Lehner, who left this world at ninety three years years of age, surely a good run. He was a lawyer, assemblyman and judge but the obit headline heralded something he did that directly affected us living in New York City, for in 1978 he was responsible for passing Public Health Law 1310. And what might you ask is the importance of Public Health Law 1310? Well we knew it by its other more popular colloquial name, the Pooper Scooper Law!! It made it mandatory for dog owners to clean up after their pets and not leave steaming piles of poo on every sidewalk in the city (which is exactly what they did). He even backed it up by introducing the “Dogmatic”, made up of a rod about three feet long with a disposable plastic bag at the end which snapped shut after picking up the offending pile. The Pooper Scooper was born!!

It of course was immediately met with derision, and some legitimate questions: how exactly was the law to be enforced? How could it be determined just which was the guilty dog without catching them in the act? On any given afternoon, an average block in the Village could host scores of dogs and their walkers. But with all its problems, and with all the expected snickers, I remember thinking it was legislation long overdue. At the time, the average sidewalk was a mine field of poo piles; you had to always be alert as to where you were walking, and be ready to change course fast should you come upon one. It made an average stroll into a defensive combat course, and the worst was at night, especially on those small winding, poorly lit streets of the Village, and more especially if you had had a few, or had enjoyed a toke or two and you weren’t at your sharpest. I remember it was a long standing ritual that when we got home or had someone over, before entering the apartment, there was the poop test; a thorough examination of shoes and pants.

It was bad when for instance you met up with a group of friends to take in the matinee at the Waverly, and you all got settled in for an afternoon of film, when out of the darkness you would hear that tell tale sniffing sound. You knew immediately where this was going; more sniffing, then the smell, then the confirming voice in the darkness: “Shit!!”, and indeed it was. Whomever the victim was would disappear into the lobby, maybe to return, maybe not.

Or going to a friends house for drinks, and settling in the living room, looking forward to that first sip, and the host does the sniffing thing (even after the door inspection). Damn! So much for a relaxing drink.

But the all time worst was the time I was meeting this girl I really liked and we were going to talk a walk through the Village, and grab a bite at John’s Pizzeria and hopefully make a night of it. There she was, waiting at the corner of Bleecker and Seventh Avenue, like we planned. I came up from the subway and in my enthusiasm started to run across the street to her. And I almost made it. But just a few yards away I felt my right foot slide, and I heard the familiar squishing sound, and I knew right then, in an instant, poof, just like that, there would be no “night of it” for me.

It was that bad back then. Whole plans could be derailed with one wrong step (literally).

There were those that said New Yorkers would never accept such a law, they would simply ignore it (wouldn’t be the first time!). Indeed at first it got off to a slow start, many still not taking it seriously. But getting a $ 100 fine went a long way to helping people take it seriously. Mayor Koch made it clear, this wasn’t a voluntary thing, it was the law, and he instructed the NYPD to enforce it vigorously. The effects were noticeable within weeks, and even the skeptics starting believing. You could actually walk down the sidewalk with no bobbing and weaving necessary. Many large cities quick adopted it. Today you will see plastic bag dispensers in every city park. It was a very real and effective action that benefited the city, its businesses and its people. 

So here’s to you Edward Lehner, thank you and may you Rest in Peace, secure in the knowledge that you made a difference in people’s lives. It’s never been easy to get anything done with all the red tape a bureaucracy as large as New York City generates, but you did it, and we can all walk more confidently down our sidewalks, because of it.  

-Rob

Saying Goodbye to our Beloved Cat, Owen.

 

It was September 8^th when we had to aid this adorable, wonderful cat across the Rainbow Bridge. 

He was not young at 12 years old, but I thought that we would have at least three or four more years with him. 

….. and then that weekend came… he was obviously in much pain. We rushed him to the Vet twice; once at 3 a.m one morning and then 1 a.m the other morning. X-rays showed the issue to be with his spine rubbing tail bone. They tried everything; pain shots, steroids… everything. Nothing was working. Then, when we saw him unable to walk, having to crawl to get to his litter box, which he could not even climb into; we knew. It was time.

What an agonizing decision it was, but it was the only fair one for our baby.

It was about 1:30 a.m when we got to the Emergency Vet location. I sat in the passenger seat and Owen let me hold him in my arms the whole car ride there. He laid there in my arms simply looking into my eyes. I wonder if he noticed how wet they were?

This emergency vet was incredibly caring and concerned. We did not feel like customers… we felt like family.

I continued to hold my baby as we sat in the room that would be the “Crossing the Bridge” room. He continued to look up at us with those beautiful eyes.

As I stared back at him through my watery eyes I recalled all the moments, all the times he had been with me when I had needed him most. Though all my cancer treatments and all the follow-up appointments, Owen had been there for me. When I felt too fatigued to move, he laid with me looking at me with those same, beautiful eyes, telling me to relax and to just pet him. When my anxiety levels climbed to disturbing levels… there he was, looking at me and reminding me that he needed me to be ok. He knew when I was anxious and frightened, I could see it in those eyes…. those same eyes that were staring at me in this heart wrenching moment.

Our eyes never left each other as he drifted off, peacefully. I held him for a few more moments … we kissed him goodbye again before giving him back to the very loving vet.

The drive home was brutally quiet. The house was brutally quiet, and when we saw his favorite toy on the floor, the tears flowed again.

 

A month later and the house is still noticeably quiet.

 

“I still look for you in all the little places because my heart has not learned you are gone….

The house feels different, the mornings feel quieter, and every familiar corner still reminds me of you.

You left my sight, but never my heart.”

 

 

The Department Store

The Department Store

They had everything, from clothing to appliances, from furniture to dry goods, paint to hardware, electronics to baby products, books, jewelry, cameras….you name it, the Department Store stocked it. And in their glory days, they just didn’t sell stuff; they hosted concerts, lectures, classes, displays, and art shows. They became cultural hubs in the cities they inhabited. They sprang up along with the Industrial Revolution, and they literally transformed city life. The suburban mall was way off in the future; heck suburbs were way off in the future! They sprouted up in every major city in the world, from Harrods in London to Printemps in Paris. But no city had as many as New York. The first was Stewarts which opened its doors as early as 1846, followed by Macys in1858, Bloomingdale’s in 1861, B.Altman in 1865, S.Klein in 1905, Ohrbachs 1923 and Korvettes in 1948.
Over the years, many stores that started elsewhere, moved to mid town as well: Gimbels, Nordstroms, JC Penney, Sears and Montgomery Ward saw the advantages of having a branch in what was an increasingly lucrative market.

Growing up, a few square blocks around Herald Square on 34th street, boasted five of the largest: Macys, Gimbels, Korvettes, Ohrbachs, and Montgomery Ward. If you couldn’t find what you were looking for in one, all you had to do was walk a half block or so, and check out another one. Need less to say, you could spend a whole day just bouncing around sampling all these establishments had to offer. There were of course differences in both the quality and quantity of what was offered. When Dad would take us on one of those clothing expeditions, when new sports jacket was required, we often would start at the more affordable JC Penney or Korvettes; then if we struck out there, the next tier up was Gimbels or B.Altman, and then if we still hadn’t found anything suitable, we would kick it up a notch and enter the sacred halls of Macys, where invariably we would be successful (of course all this was after we had checked out the Howard Clothes store first, as that’s who Dad worked for!!). Macys also had a first rate Kitchen ware department that Mom loved to peruse each time we went, not to mention a food court with some to die for pastries, and a classic tuna salad on cranberry bread sandwich!

The holiday season of course was huge to these stores; a successful season could make the bottom line for the whole year. At that time of year, all the stores decorated their windows that looked out onto the street, and it was a fierce competition (hey it’s New York after all), to be the best, to attract the biggest crowd, clogging the sidewalk, spilling out into traffic. Over the years, we saw some pretty imaginative displays, some depicting a story for instance, like A Christmas Carol, or Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer, some just dazzling with color, and sparkling lights displayed on mighty fir trees that somehow fit into the window space (they looked “mighty” to a kid anyway), and some just highlighting the products the store wanted to move that year – a brand new television, or a radio, or heck even one of those brand new waffle irons, or for the homemaker, what better gift than a new iron to make the daily chores easier? (try that today and see how it goes).

But as fun as those sidewalk displays were, for a kid, there was nothing like visiting the toy department. Each store of course had one, but they could be quite different from each other. And at Christmas time, every one of them devoted a huge amount of floor space to displaying the latest toys, dolls and board games (Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots, Etch-A-Sketch, Mousetrap, Hot Wheels, Barbie, Troll dolls etc.). Some created whole worlds to walk through, just like the window displays but life size….Santa’s workshop, the North Pole, Scrooge’s London, all populated with aluminum trees with shiny tinsel, and illuminated by rotating color wheels, and bubble lights.

One of the biggest draws, expectedly was being able to “visit” Santa and give him your wish list. Again, each store had a Santa, and just like the toy departments, they could be quite different from one another in terms of physical size, length of beard, and their Ho-Hoing ability. Usually the lines to see Santa were long, most kids eagerly awaiting to plead their case for a new sled, or baseball glove. Invariably of course there were one or two kids who when it was actually their turn, went from avid disciple to frightened non-believer, terrified by this strange, maniacal hairy dude in the red suit. But even those kids would be back next year, the allure of the season too strong to ignore.

They are all pretty much gone now; only the biggest remains. Macys still draws crowds, and celebrates the holidays each year by hosting the largest Thanksgiving Day Parade in the country, something they have been doing since 1926. This year will be its 100th anniversary. Oh and you can still get a great sandwich at the food court, and you can still ride the old wooden escalators, some of the last ones operating in the world, to get there.

So here’s to the Department Store and all it gave us.

Some shopping days now, I have to go to three or four stores to get everything I need, and I find myself muttering what many a tired shopper must have uttered a century or two before: “Can’t they just put everything under one roof??”

For a time, they did.

-Rob

Those End of Summer Memories from the Mid Sixties.

My guess is that you will agree when I say that time is moving way too fast! Doesn’t it seem like yesterday we were welcoming summer and getting ready for all our favorite summer activities? Yet, now, in a blink of an eye autumn will arrive in a couple of days! ! What?!

I grew up in NYC in the 1960’s and the cooler weather already started to be noticeable as soon as Autumn hit. I haven’t found that to be the case for over 20 years since moving to Southeast Texas. Here , cooler weather arrives around January, if we are lucky!

By the time January hit NYC, I remember being in heavy coats, with hats and scarfs wrapped tightly around my face to keep out the wind chill. Gloves also made the list of normal daily attire. Oh, and probably some kind of winter boots that would provide warmth as I sloshed around the icy streets.

Here in Texas, folks are still wearing their flip flops , though they may have actually decided to throw on a nice Hoodie as well.
I remember the end of summer way back in 1964. The Beatles were dominating the music scene, but my favorite song was “House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals. It was released in the summer of that year.
I hated to think about summer coming to an end. Autumn meant back to school and an end to my summer freedom. I was never fond of school when I was a kid, as I never really “fit in”and dealt with a lot of what we call bullying today, so this definitely added to my sorrow of seeing summer end!
School started sometime around the first or second week of September in NY, right after Labor Day, and the temps were already getting noticeably cooler. Just that simple change of temperature raised my anxiety level about summer being over.
My memories of summer included images of long walks at the lake our parents took us to in New Jersey ,nightly visits by the Good Humor ice cream truck, bike rides, drive-in movie nights with my parents and brother, sitting outside late at night listening to the radio and waiting for Cousin Brucie to play House of the Rising Sun! I had no real curfew in place because there was no school to get ready for in the morning. Loved it!
… and how about grilling!? It was always wonderful to take a bite out of a summer hotdog or burger while listening to or watching your favorite baseball team take the field!
I have found that on some of my more difficult days,I can gain a more positive outlook just by recalling some of those wonderful summer memories.
Do you recall a song: “See You In September”? It was not one of my all time favorites, but it was a pretty good song that came out on a hot summer day in 1966 by a group called “The Happenings”. The band originated in Patterson, New Jersey.
Well, decades have passed and here we are; well into September. It’s kind of scary how quickly it’s here.
The lyrics of “See You in September” made autumn seem like a long way off:
🎵See you in September…See you when the Summers through…….”
So, …..When do I start watching “Christmas Vacation” and the “Polar Express “?

Don.

Retail

Retail

Retail, wholesale, clerical, white collar, blue collar and any other color collar you can come up with, in my working life, I have sampled them all, and I am grateful for it. Sure some were better than others, some more profitable, more fulfilling, but each had something to impart, to teach, to reveal. Working retail in a suburban mall is one thing, working retail in New York City in the 70’s was something else entirely. Besides the pace of the city, the sheer number of people that you would encounter each day, and the nature of some of those people made it quite a challenge sometimes. But it all made for anything but a boring day behind the cash register or stocking the shelves. No, each day was an adventure, and that’s what made it fun, the crazy people you would meet (try working at Nathan’s), or the rich and famous you would encounter (that would be Capezio’s in the Village). There was never a week that went by, when you wouldn’t have another bunch of stories to tell around the dinner table. And you always made new friends. But it could also be kind of scary at times; there were after all, some bad people out there on the streets.

One of the more interesting jobs I had was at a health food store on the East Side, a GNC (General Nutrition Corporation), a very popular chain of stores at the time. It was not for the hard core bean sprout crowd from the East Village, it was more of a soft core palatable alternative. As with any retail environment, I got to know the regulars that would stop in each day, some for an herbal tea and a croissant (yes they sold croissants!), but it carried vitamins as well, and protein drinks, and weight loss powders, and tons of energy bars (anyone remember the Tigers Milk bar? – my favorite!). All of it sold quite well; the company was onto something, tapping into the increasing desire of people to “eat healthier”, even if some of the products were questionable at best. But hey it made people feel good about themselves, and so what if along with that protein bar and bottle of Kefir, you could also score an almond croissant!

Our manager was a young guy, up and coming in the retail world and very popular with the ladies that shopped there (which boosted sales as well). One day he had the thought that we should set up a table out on the sidewalk in front of the store, and offer free samples of some of our products to people passing by; maybe a hit of that guava juice would entice people to come inside and see what else there was. So one afternoon, we set up a long table in front of the huge plate glass window of the store, right there on Second Avenue. We filled it with a bunch of the products, and went about trying to drum up some new business. It wasn’t easy trying to get a New Yorker to slow down enough to listen to a word you were saying or take a look at the samples. But we tried and it was kind of fun; we were outside on a busy street and there was no shortage of characters or conditions to gawk at. And it did feel good when you were able to actually get someone’s attention and listen to our little sales pitch about Vitamin K, or the healing benefits of Ginseng; heck sometimes we even got someone to come into the store!
But it was New York after all, and that meant having to deal with some loonies that inhabited the streets too. One afternoon this slightly deranged looking young guy was slowly walking by talking rather loudly to himself. Now maybe some places that would seem like weird behavior, but it was just another afternoon in the city to us. Hopefully he would just keep on walking, and talking, and that would be it. But no…..not our lucky day; he spotted our table and started pointing and shouting at us; we couldn’t make out what he was saying but it sounded like
he was accusing us of something (charging too much for a green tea?). Whatever it was, he was really working himself up into a frenzy, and I began to think about calling for reinforcements from inside the store. But he acted quicker than I did. Still shouting he quickly picked up a half full metal trash can (with it’s “Help keep your city clean” sign), and taking a few steps closer, proceeded to throw it right at us. Luckily my co-worker and I were able to duck out of the way, but the can landed on the table, bounced once and took out the entire plate glass window of the store! The guy continued to scream at us, I guess not satisfied with the havoc he had already reaped, but suddenly took off down the Avenue at a full run; and I would have too if I had spotted our Manager come bursting out the front door, with a metal baseball bat in his hands, and a totally pissed off expression on his face. So he takes off after the guy, and I am just standing there, kind of dumb founded, covered in glass and realizing this kind of thing wasn’t covered in the employee manual they gave us on our first day. I also wasn’t prepared for the reaction of some of the folks on the street; while a few came to see if we were ok, others just kept walking (more quickly now) by, as if nothing had happened, and a couple of very respectable looking people decided to avail themselves of some of our products from the toppled display in the front window, without bothering to pay for them. Really?! On your way back to the office, you just thought you would do a little looting??!! That in a nutshell was the city, the good, the bad, and the way ugly.

Needless to say, it was a pretty traumatic day, quite a change from the everyday routine. Things of course quickly got back to normal, though the idea for the sample table on the sidewalk outside was put on hold for the foreseeable future. I really can’t remember how long I stayed at that job, it having lost a bit of its appeal after that, but it certainly wasn’t the end of my retail career in the city. Oh no, there was more fun to come, like being held up at gunpoint working at a Barnes & Noble, or falling down the stairs at Capezio’s, but it wasn’t all bad stuff. There was also the time I met Katherine Hepburn while working at Dean & Deluca; she was my Mom’s favorite actress, and while I excitedly told her of meeting her idol, I didn’t include the part where Ms. Hepburn told me to f**k off and leave her alone! And I will always be grateful for and in debt to the wonderful retail world in the city, as it is how I met Leslie – I sold her a pair of shoes downstairs at Capezio’s in the Village. There is a lesson there….magic can happen in the most unlikely of places, and when you least expect it.

-Rob

I Miss the City

I Miss the City

I miss the city. To keep me “attached” sometimes I will watch videos posted to YouTube that are filmed walks around town, each one a different neighborhood. I was surprised at how many there were to choose from; quite a few channels are devoted to what amount to walking “tours” of cities, and New York is one of the most popular (along with London) for people to chronicle their travels.

Looking at one recently of a walk around Greenwich Village, I was re-assured at the familiarity of what I was seeing; a lot of the streets look the same as I remembered them. Even some of the businesses I used to frequent were unchanged – John’s Pizzeria, Faicco’s, Rocco’s- thank goodness all still there. It was a bit surprising as the city, and the times, have changed quite a lot since I walked those streets, but at least in the Village, it looks like I remember it.

But then there are the people. They were walking about, all seemingly young, fit and stylish, (along with some holdovers from the Sixties), all on the move, alone, in pairs or in groups, some tourists (you could tell), some natives. But besides the changes in dress, and hairstyles and the models of the cars on the streets, there was something else different I noticed, looking at the scene as it unfolded in real time, something at first I couldn’t quite put my finger on. And then it hit me…..almost every last one of them, was staring at their cell phones. Some stopped walking to look (never a good idea on a busy sidewalk), but most just held their phone in front of them and looked and walked at the same time, their eyes glued to the screen. Well that was certainly something we didn’t see back in the day. Maybe it’s because I haven’t been back in a long time, but somehow I don’t think, if I should ever again find myself with Mick wondering “hey, what am I doing standing here on the corner of West 8th St and Sixth Avenue?”*, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be staring at my phone!

And as I suspected, it wasn’t just a New York phenomena either. I tuned into a video of a tour of central London; you know Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square,
Hyde Park, Westminster, as fascinating and as memorable as any urban trek you can imagine, and yup, there everybody was, tourist and resident alike, all milling about, staring at their phones. Maybe a few were getting directions, but everyone had them out, eyes glued to the screens. Meanwhile they are walking by Nelson’s Column, or the National Gallery, and not paying it a bit of mind.

It brought to mind a scene I see repeatedly whenever we go out to lunch or dinner now. We recently went to our favorite Sichuan restaurant for dinner, and a couple was sitting at a table for two near the front window. One guess. Right again, both were scrolling on their phones when the person who I assume was a friend and someone they had wanted to go to dinner with, was sitting on the other side of the small table maybe a foot away. And all the time we were there, I didn’t see them talk to each other once, too distracted by their screens.

I am old enough to remember life before the phone; the cell phone that is – I’m not that old! We somehow managed to get by without being “connected” all the time. The irony of course is that with all the technology and connectivity that we have at our disposal now, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of conversation going on, actually there is much less.

When I remember the city growing up, it was a colorful, vibrant movie unfolding, a sea of colors, the reddish brown of the buildings, the neon of the marquees, the startling wardrobes of the passers-by, flashing, blinking lights, always lights. And it had a soundtrack too, the sounds of the traffic, honking, the heavy bass from a boom box passing by, people shouting out to each other, barkers calling out today’s specials; a virtual kaleidoscope of stimuli, all lovingly assaulting my senses. This is why people live in a city, I think; this is why cities exist in the first place, so that society can exist!

Maybe it only lives in memory now, because when I look at the videos of the old neighborhood taken recently, I didn’t quite see or feel the same thing. Maybe some of the sounds are still there, but the vibrancy seems to be missing. And maybe that’s because I didn’t see too many people “experiencing” the city; everyone was too busy looking down at their screens, instead of up at the wonder of their surroundings.

Like I said, I miss New York; maybe just the earlier version.

-Rob

• Dance- Part 1 by Jagger/Richards/Wood for the Rolling Stones album Emotional Rescue 1980.