Yorkville: Stoops to Nuts

Leaning on a Yorkville Lamppost ~ 2nd Avenue Coming Back to Life

2012-02-02T09:05:00.004-05:00

Eastside of 2nd Ave bet 84th & 85th Street

Leaning on a lamppost, a major male activity since the invention of street illumination will be back in full swing on the east side of Second Avenue in Yorkville.

Last night, walking along I saw these Bishop Crook lampposts getting ready to go to work. Made for an odd scene but seeing them lined up gave me a lift to know the war torn avenue will soon be back to normal (kind of).

After the lampposts are installed, bring on those street trees, sturdy saplings that will grow with vigor and climb up to the fourth floor fire escapes.

Second Avenue is coming back to life.

Notice detail on top of new posts matches the old post's detail in the 1934 black and white photo below.

Eventually, subway service for the first time since the old El was demolished in 1940. Sing it, Peter Noone!

n/e cor of 80th St & 2nd Avenue

Robert Pryor & Tom Murphy leaning on York Ave post

west side of 2nd ave between 84th & 85th St

eastside of 2nd Ave between 84th & 85th St

2nd Ave bet 84 & 85 St

2nd florist in low 50s

Shanghied on Peck Slip!

2012-02-01T13:49:00.001-05:00

Ishmael

Walking along Peck's Slip in the Seaport this morning, I spied a barber's pole, looked at myself in the store window's reflection and saw a wild poet. I went inside, took a seat and announced, "Short on the sides, square in the back and take nothing off the top.
"Whoa, matey, what?"
A voice from the backroom. He was behind me and I couldn't see him, while he's talking I notice there was no mirror in front of me, just piles of ship rope and nautical devices ~ hanging over my head was a painted maidenhead with wings.
"I want a haircut."
"This ain't a barbershop."
"What is it?"
"It's the Unofficial South Street Seaport Museum and Home for Wayward Sailors. Call me, Ishmael."
"What's with the barber pole outside?"
"That's not a barber pole, It's a carved lighthouse painted with stripes."

I readjusted my glasses and looked around the place. The windows were dirty with little light coming through them, but I saw two guys asleep inside a rowboat turned on it's side so they could curl up for a nap. One sailor had an admiral outfit on and the other seaman wore a striped shirt with a hankie wrapped oddly around his bald head. They both snored. A sign said, "Bait for Sale."

"I'm sorry, I thought you were a barber, I'll leave."
"No, no, don't go, I'm a barber, I mean I was a barber when I sailed the South Seas."
I recalled my memories of sailor's hairdos from movies and concluded this wouldn't end well.
"Thanks, but no, I'll be going."
I tried to get up, but in a warm forceful way, Ishmael shoved me down. He had an eye patch.
"No, please, I'll do a fine job, and I'll feel better about myself. I've been combing the waters for another chance at barbering."
"What do you mean feel better about yourself?"
"Well the last time I cut hair, I was still rumming, covering everything with monkey shit and had a few accidents. I damaged my pepper box and had to kiss the wooden lady."
I tried to get up again, but Ishmael gave me a desperate hug and pressed me down.
"I'm better now. Haven't cut myself shaving all week."
My chance to escape was nil. I haven't been to a gym in a year; my exercise slump's taken me muscle away.

I've been Shanghaied on Peck Slip!
"Why so glum?"
"What?"
"Why the long face?"

I've buried three barber shops in the last four years. Sick of the "find a new one" process, I surrendered.

"Oh nothing, go ahead."
"A fine decision, laddy, sit back, while I swab your deck."
"Who are those guys?" I said, pointing to the two sad sacks in the rowboat.
"Sporty in the admiral's outfit is Loose Lips. He's been on three ships that sunk and he's talky. Baldy's name is Billy Bones but everyone calls him Baldy."
"Do they live here?"
"On and off, but it's my sea chest they're after."

Ishmael took my glasses off and with little light coming through the haze covered windows I may as well been down in Davey Jones Locker. In the dark, I imagined what was in Ishmael's sea chest. I concluded Loose Lips and Baldy were strictly there for the free room & board.

"Why are the boys in the rowboat, don't they have beds?"
"Up on the deck they have swell hammocks, but they like being down here with me."

While Billy Bones and Loose Lips snored away the morning in their rowboat, Ishmael & I talked about the sea, the New York Giants and the next City Stories: Stoops to Nuts storytelling show at Cornelia Street Café on Valentine’s Day, Tuesday, February 14th @ 6 pm.

I promise a great show with these artists: Steve Northeast, Jana Peri,Thomas Pryor, Daniela Schiller, Katherine Wessling & Nick Zaharakos.

Admission is $7 and that includes one free drink. With all said and done, Ishmael gave me a fine haircut; I tipped well and prayed my head had found a new barbering home.

Rory, Tommy & Rabbit with Crewcuts 1960

The Return of the King ~ Central Park Twilight in Snow

2012-01-31T08:01:00.000-05:00

I've put up the second batch of snow photos I took in Central Park and Yorkville last week. Below is a public link to the album so you can view all the pix whether you are on Facebook or not. The park in snow is cinematic. Walking alone through Central Park at twilight turning dark is a Hollywood picture show.

Last week was The Return of the King.

Here is a link to the photos.

Back In 1953

2012-01-30T11:04:00.003-05:00

Here is a wonderful Yorkville story told by my friend, Denny Ferado.

Back In 1953

Dennis John Ferado

There is a section of Manhattan that was once known as Yorkville and is now usually referred to as the Upper East Side. Unless of course you were born in Yorkville then it will always be “Yorkville” no matter what new and future maps may show. It was an experience that will always be part of my life.

There were several different age groups who occupied the four corners of York Avenue and 87th Street when I was growing up during the 1950’s. They were totally immersed in holding up the four buildings that made up that square. Actually we never had a corner to call our own; we borrowed them for awhile when the older guys weren’t around, so we’d shuffle from one to the other. Still, those memories rise to the surface every so often and I would not want to change a thing from back then in 1953.

Allen Ginsberg moved to the East Village; Jack Kerouac, Norman Mailer and William Burroughs arrived soon after and the “Beat Generation” was under way.

The New York Yankees signed, Elston Howard, their first Negro ballplayer.

Tony Bennett gave birth to his third million seller with Rags to Riches. Rhythm-and-blues singer Ruth Brown had her second million seller with Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean. Clyde McPhatter formed The Drifters and they released their first smash hit single, Money Honey and the Orioles, Crying in the Chapel reached the top of the charts. The House of Wax, From Here to Eternity, The Big Heat, The Wild One and Shane were the new movies we just had to see.

March--The Beer Tree

One night in March we had a quart of beer and five of us were passing it around down in Carl Schurz Park. We were standing on the bridge (overpass) some sitting on the wall, above the tunnel (in which we used to harmonize) that crossed the bridge at 87th Street. Alongside of us there was a powerful tree with several strong, thick branches. This night we all agreed that it looked a lonely tree, it looked hungry for company. I think it was Jim Jim who pointed to the tree and said:

“Did you hear that?” She said, ‘Come on up. I can hold all you guys.’”

We were amazed at how we all fitted so well and with good separation between us. There was no bending of the big branches, not a creak or a squeak and, seemingly, we were not much of a burden to it. I guess we were still a bit undersized to be too much of a strain. Unknowingly we had stumbled upon, what would become known as “Our Beer Tree,” because that night we sat in it and passed around a bottle of beer. For the next two years there were nights we’d go to the park climb up our tree and sit there for hours chatting and singing and when someone walked past we’d stop talking and, most times, we wouldn’t be noticed. When we were spied by passersby, to our amazement, they paid no attention to us--they ignored us. I think every time that happened we were secretly insulted. Maybe they thought it was a tree that grew kids--a kid tree. Why not? Anything was possible.

Our beer tree became a clubhouse, of sorts, for us and we loved it since it gave us our ever sought after but ever elusive privacy. We never harmed it in any way or carved our initials into it or knowingly broke off a small budding leaf. Like a country boy has a special tree that he loves and thinks of as his own, we city kids had found one that we could share.

April 5th Easter Sunday--Working for ‘The Greek.’

Tommy, Paddy, Jim Jim, Ray and I went to work, just for one day, for Dano’s florist on 86th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues on Easter Sunday--every florist’s most hard-pressed day. We delivered flowers from 8:00 AM until 7:00 PM. We rode subways, busses and the Third Avenue El up to the complicated Bronx out to industrial Queens, over to exotic Brooklyn and all around Manhattan. We had experiences that kept us hysterical for weeks after with the retelling and restructuring of each of our stories. When we finally finished our long day’s work we were all wired up. I think we made between 8 and 12 dollars apiece. Dano paid us nothing, we worked for tips. By the end of the day, we had stashed some flowers and plants in my parents’ basement, the ones we couldn’t get anyone to accept or sign for. Since we felt the florist was unfair with us we took all the left over flowers and plants and sold them on the corner of 86th Street and York Avenue, one block away from the florist. We made another eighteen dollars to toss into the pot. We always did things that way, it didn’t matter who had what, we always divided it up evenly. We were rich the day that followed Easter Sunday, I called it “Blessed Monday,”--I ran straight up 86th Street to Helfer’s records and blew it all on a stack of 45’s.

For years after I somehow avoided passing in front of Dano’s Florist and I only lived two blocks away. I’d walk on the uptown side of 86th Street with my head turned opposite his store. I can only imagine how many calls Dano received about customers not getting their deliveries. Forty-five years later I was walking out of the Gracie Square Post Office on East 85 Street, I turned east toward 1st Avenue and had to do a quick little cha cha to avoid crashing into someone. I looked up and I was staring into Dano’s eyes. I saw there a faint, yet discombobulated, recognition in those eyes that quickly segued into uncertainty. At first I thought he was going to call a cop on me. Abruptly he continued walking on. I knew at once it was my paranoid Yorkville disposition kicking in--forty-five years after the fact.

My parents grew up during the depression and learned how to survive under the most dire and desperate conditions. In 1931 they had been married for a few weeks and were sleeping on the floor because they could not afford a mattress. Nevertheless my father promised my mother he’d get them a mattress to sleep on, somehow, before the day was over. My father had a job delivering large metal cans of milk to grocery stores in a horse-drawn open wagon. It barely paid the rent and kept them from starving. All that day they had been walking up and down the east side avenues and through the side streets of Yorkville. They were exhausted and were coming home walking east between 5th and Madison Avenues on 74th Street when two young men walked out of a building struggling with a mattress. They saw my parents staring and one of them said: “Mother’s gone and burned a cigarette hole in it and father wants it gone. It’s a perfectly good mattress and we’d hate to see it wasted.” My parents carried that mattress on their backs up Madison to 90th Street then east to their basement apartment between 1st and 2nd Avenues. When they were in their apartment sitting at the table they both broke down in tears. They were tough from the times they had gone through and sensitive to the needs of others because they had been there themselves. Their story is a tale of wonder as are most of the Yorkville families of that day. Mom learned how to survive and help raise her two younger sisters. Their father drank and thought nothing of smacking anyone of them around, and verbally abusing them daily.

My parents were both wonderful New York characters who had gone to great lengths to give us kids the things that we needed in life. That they certainly did and how thankful I am to have had them both in my life. I say this to help understand the following.

May: Stealing Begonias

Pop steered our big black Chrysler as it rolled stealthily north along the curb at 66th Street and York Avenue slowly coming to a full stop. We were in front of a large wrought iron gate that was part of the Rockefeller Institute. Behind the gate there were two concentric circles of flowers sitting atop a circular grassy knoll. Mom sat in the front passenger seat and Jim Jim, Paddy and I were in the back seat. Pop kept the motor idling. Mom reached over her seat and handed me and Jim a little garden spade and a burlap bag for our contraband. To Paddy was given two empty shoe boxes and a child’s sand shovel. Mom spoke through a blue cloud of cigarette smoke:

“Now listen to me you guys. Be careful sliding under that gate. I want you in and out of there in 2 minutes. Jim Jim you get 3 geranium plants from the outside ring of flowers, see them?” Jim nodded. “Dennis, you go inside the circle and get three begonia plants. And leave whatever soil clings to the roots, you two--don’t shake it off. Paddy-me-boy, fill up your boxes with earth. Forget about the plants, just get soil, okay?” She smiled at him and continued: “Now”, to the three of us, she said, “two minutes flat. Do you hear me?” I said:

“You know there’s a watchman just beyond the hill?”

“Don’t worry. If he sees you, your father will talk to him. Be careful boys and Dennis don’t bang your head on the gate.” She knew, better than anyone, about my tendency to collect knots on my head. Paddy was smiling when he said:

“Come on Den Den, it’ll be fun. Jim Jim said:

“Lets get Mom’s garden.” Pop chimed in with:

“Not a better wheel man in New York City. I greased the sides of the car today with Crisco in case we’re in a chase. I’ll keep the motor running for you guys. Now let’s get your mother’s begonias and get the hell out of here.”

Under the giant gate the three of us went a-slithering with our bags, boxes and tools. We did not get caught and the plants looked beautiful in mom’s garden. A few years after that the Rockefeller Institute constructed a large round building called The Conference Dome which now sits on the exact spot where the circle of geraniums and begonias once grew.

July: A Memorable Day at Pelham Bay

One stifling Saturday morning about 10 of us met in 89th Street between 1st and York Avenues. A friend’s parents were janitors for three buildings on the block and the basements were loaded with paraphernalia which we used to build a giant raft. We decided we would build it out of six used rubber truck tires and several eight foot wooden planks. We hammered and lashed the boards and tires together and carried the assemblage on our shoulders up 86th Street to Lexington Avenue and the Pelham Bay Subway line. I don’t know how we did it; the 10 of us could barely lift it. We struggled and wobbled down the double staircase on the northeast corner of 86th and Lexington Avenue with people diving out of our way. Before paying our fares a train pulled in and it was then we noticed that our creation was much too large to fit through the subway car’s doors. A bleak delirium swept over us before we came to our senses. We could work this out. Blessed with an abundance of brilliance, we rested for spell, discussed the situation, then rallied. We lugged the beast back up the steps and dismantled it right on 86th Street. Then we carried the planks and rolled the tires back down the steps, paid our fares, and boarded the train that carried us up to Pelham Bay.

When we reached our destination we lugged everything down to the water and reassembled our monster. (We should have thought of this before we put it together back at 89th Street). We pushed it into the bay and jumped on it. Perhaps if we had used inner tubes and not heavy hollow truck tires, it might have been sea-worthy, might have floated for a bit. Of course it sank immediately. The remainder of the day we spent diving and jumping off an abandoned train bridge and harmonizing beneath it for the echo; we were given rides on two separate occasions by a cruising motor boat and by a small family yacht passing under the bridge because they liked our singing. In spite of our failure to imitate Huck Finn on a raft it was a memorable day at Pelham Bay.

August: In Central Park

We played hardball in Central Park and no one wanted to be the catcher. Paddy wanted it, got it and refused to wear a mask or any protection while crouching behind home plate. Ronnie and I watched him for a while, then Ronnie said: “He’s a quarter short of a buck.” I nodded in agreement. Eventually Paddy would wear the equipment because, Jiggs, Jim Jim’s uncle, our baseball coach, forced him to.

We also played a type of softball which is called lob ball. In lob ball there is no fast pitching, the pitcher lobs the ball across the plate. He could put “stuff” on the ball but it was done by lobbing it. This day while we were still warming up before our game there was two Puerto Rican teams on the field next to us having a serious game of softball. The pitching was fast and furious. Standing side by side Jim Jim and I watched in awe as the ball crossed home plate in a blur. Suddenly from behind us, close to our ears, we heard a gentle and distinctly familiar British voice say: “I beg your pardon, gentleman.” We turned at the same time and standing right between us was tall, dignified, dapperly Mr. Boris Karloff. He spoke softly and his face was just inches away from ours. Jim Jim and I stared as he continued, “There is something that has me baffled. Perhaps you would be kind enough to enlighten me? Jim Jim said:

“Of course, Mr. Karloff. How can we help you?” And in his most charming and animated Boris Karloff voice asked: “Why is it those Porrrr-tree-can chaps throw the ball so swwwwiftly?” He went on to tell us he was just out for a stroll in the park. One thing about growing up in Manhattan, you never knew who you might be brushing shoulders with at any moment or in any place.

We would frequent the Asphalt mall at 90th Street near the East River Drive where we could sit in shadows against that strange cement building, watch the cars passing, do some singing and no one would ever bother us. Except the cops. If they drove by and spotted us we’d have to move. I don’t know why because we weren’t disturbing anyone and we were far enough away from all buildings for anyone to hear us even if we were singing because of the noise from the cars on the drive. Flip and Riley drove around in their car and hated everyone, Tom the foot-cop wanted to shoot one of us--preferably me--and Big Red would always pick out one of us to smack across face every time he ran into us. We’d go into the back of hallways and try to keep our voices down so as not to get chased. After a few minutes we’d, unconsciously, begin to get louder or burst into song. If one of the tenants came into the hallway, it was all over and we’d have to leave immediately. It seemed as though we were always looking for a place of seclusion. Then someone would mention our tree.

October’s Apple Pies

I can’t recall where we went apple-picking, but we picked 4 bushels. It was somewhere in Upstate New York or in Connecticut. Just Mom, Dad, my sister Margie and myself. When we got home my mother gave away 2 bushels between our neighbors. The next day she set her mind to baking apple pies so she had my sister and me peeling apples all day and we did it without whining. As soon as the pies started going into the oven I called Ronnie and told him my mother was on a pie baking binge, did he want some hot apple pie? I met him and we walked around the block giving the pies time to cook, then headed to my house. As soon as we turned into 88th street the aroma of cinnamon and baking apples hit us. We ran into my apartment, the place was laminated in mesmerizing odors sending Ronnie and myself into a swoon.

We were robots, soup spoons in hand (the pies were too juicy to eat with a fork) and drool on our lips. We waited for what seemed a decade, it was taking so long and we were growing older by the second. When the first two pies came out we almost drowned ourselves in them. With burning lips and tongues aflame we devoured a third pie between us. My mother made ten pies--she just couldn’t stop making them until almost all the apples were gone. Ronnie and I rolled out of my house onto 88th Street, went to Mark’s candy store and got two sodas. We walked back to my house sat on the stoop, talked about how great mom and the apple pies were, had two swallows of our sodas then we both ran to the curb and threw up.

November. Our tree was nearly leafless now with the slightest bit of camouflage left. The entire summer, fall and several chilly winter nights found us in our tree whispering and softly harmonizing. In our perch we could see Gracie Mansion, a mere sixty yards away, where Mayor Wagner presided, the mansion all aglow and shinning brightly. On certain nights we’d watch the big limousines pull up and unload the rich and famous draped in furs and tuxedos gathering for fancy dinners. We’d sit in our tree and watch. Sometimes a shifting breeze would bear the scent of a perfumed lady guest over to our tree. We’d fill our lungs deeply and smile at one another.

We could see the stars flickering above us and hear the hooting of the tug boat fog horns as they plied their tankers up and down the East River. I had often wondered as we nested in our tree: could it possibly get any better than this? Back in 1953.

Dennis John Ferado

Central Park in Snow ~ Yorkville's Front Yard

2012-01-29T11:07:00.001-05:00

Folks like to limit Yorkville's boundaries as a neighborhood. I'm not a fan of that.

Yorkville to me was as far as I could walk when I was 8 years old without thinking I was dead if someone caught me. Central Park always was and will always remain part of Yorkville to me regardless of what the real estate speculators say. I have many more photos from this day in Central. I willl put them up in a few days.

Here's a link to Central Park in snow photos.

Central Park, Dad and Me ~ Now & Then

2012-01-28T10:59:00.002-05:00

I was organizing my photos and noticed a picture that reminded of a scene I've been seeing my whole life. A location we picked to release turtles when they grew too big for Mom's liking.

I went through Dad's old shots and found one of Central Park looking across a lake past a wooden shelter towards the northwest with the buildings to the right.

I framed a similar shot last week, 51 years later.

Dad and I love Central Park equally.

Writing About My World

2012-01-27T11:35:00.009-05:00

When I was a little boy my Ryan grandfather and I sat on his long York Avenue stoop and read The New York Daily News together. If he was feeling good, Pop would spring for a dime and I would run up to the newsstand on 86^th Street and buy two newspapers, one for each of us. I couldn’t fully read yet but to have my own paper and study the pictures, pick up some new words as Pop repeated them out loud and memorize the letters spelling them to myself; well, I was as happy as a kid could get. Read (kind of) football, baseball, hockey and basketball news, learning all the players, the teams standings, and sometimes seeing these great old photos in the center of the paper by a guy named Weegee, well these murder scenes, people making weird faces and car crashes were amazing stuff I’d never seen before. I used to think; when I got older I wanted to write about my world, my neighborhood, Yorkville, my schools, P.S. 77 and St. Stephen of

Hungary

, my teams, especially the Giants and Yankees.

At LaSalle Academy, I wasted a whole year in a class where I was supposed to learn touch typing on writing made up sports stories about my then crappy teams, stories about our teachers, my other classmates and the shitty jobs we had after school, the Lower East Side, and stories of wishful and bizarre neighborhood heroics. I wasn’t just goofing off, I was practicing.

Here's my story from yesterday's front page in The New York Times' Home Section.

I have a sturdy memory and all those classes I took on the 1616 York Avenue stoop and in the classroom at LaSalle’s annex next to 44 E. 2^nd Street right off Second Avenue are paying off.

The New York Times Publishes Two ~ Next Storytelling Show is Valentine's Day

2012-01-26T08:49:00.006-05:00

Hi Folks, today my Yorkville neighborhood story was published in The New York Times Home & Garden section on the front page.

Here is a link to the story: "One Foot Planted Firmly in the Nest."

Two weeks ago, The Times published my story about playing indoor tackle in York Hill Co-op and scamming New York Giants tickets at Loftus Tavern in the mid 1960s.

Read here: "When the Fire Hydrant Was the End Zone."

Vinny loves Teddy

Our next City Stories: Stoops to Nuts storytelling show at Cornelia Street Café is Valentine’s Day, Tuesday, February 14^th @ 6 pm.

I promise a great show with these artists: Steve Northeast, Jana Peri, Thomas Pryor, Daniela Schiller, Katherine Wessling & Nick Zaharakos.

Admission is $7 and that includes one free drink.

It’s Flatiron Time.

25 Years Ago Today, The Giants Taught The Broncos To Play

2012-01-25T09:10:00.001-05:00

25 years ago today, the New York Giants beat the Denver Broncos 39-20. I was there, in the worst seat in the Rose Bowl on Jan 25, 1987. I couldn't have been happier. That day was perfect. My Giant misery was finally over at 32 years old. Go Giants!

If it was 1973 by chance, and I was 19, I'd go to Paragon's on 17th & Bdway, buy new football equipment, go to the Asphalt Green on York Avenue, and start a tackle football game. Bet you I'd have 22 guys in an hour.

On the sideline the girls with the radios played Dancin' In The Moonlight & Bargain.

I always liked listening to Keith Moon when we hit each other.

Thief Clips Candy Store Bottle Opener ~ Yorkville's Police Blotter

2012-01-24T13:23:00.003-05:00

“What are you doing?” Nan asked.

“Nothing,” I answered and kept rummaging through my grandmother’s kitchen drawer.

“What the hell are you looking for?”

“Aaah, a screwdriver.”

“Why?”

“Fix my skates.”

“Skates don’t have screws, they have nuts!”

“Thanks,” I said, found the item and ran out of the apartment with the wooden handle tool.

Downstairs I walked south on York Avenue to the corner of 83^rd Street and turned down the block stopping at a vacant store at 501. Looking around carefully, I approached the doorway and started working on two large screws deeply sunk into the wood on the side panel. Once the screws were in my pocket I shook the metal bottle opener away from a dozen coats of paint trapping it to the wall. Once off, I rubbed the wood underneath probably installed before 1920.

Joe forgot or didn’t care to take his Coca~Cola bottle opener when he moved his Candy Store around the corner to York Avenue between 83^rd & 84^th Street the week before in 1965. I was making sure the item had a good home in my room. That bottle opener is pictured here along with a photo of the 501 East 83^rd Street store front, along with a photo of Billy Majorssey and me with a 12 ounce Pepsi bottle.

TONIGHT ~ TUESDAY, JANUARY 24th @ Word Up! bookshop:

No Name @ WORD UP!
The evening will conclude with an open mic portion where you can share YOUR work!
ERIC VETTER is the MC~ THOMAS PRYOR, JON SAVOY, ONI PEREZ, & more, and YOU-- the reading concludes with Open Stage!

When- TUESDAY, JANUARY 24th
Where- WORD UP! bookshop
4157 BROADWAY (between 175th St & 176th St)

Showtime- 7:00 pm
Admission- FREE!!

Ali Loves Eli ~ Go Giants!

2012-01-23T11:48:00.001-05:00

I have no words, so I asked yogurt eating Alison in her Giant cap to say a few, “ Last night the Giants won their fifth consecutive Seventh Game of the World Series, Jets, Dallas, Atlanta, Packers & 49ers. Eli Manning stood in against a terrific defense and made the third downs, threw it away when he needed to, and shoveled a few to backs to avoid a couple of sacks. I have to finish my yogurt but later I’ll have more to say on the matter.”

21 years later, Alison continues to wear the Giant snow hat I found on the football field at Yankee Stadium in 1968 after the last game of the year when they let the fans run free in a steady snowfall. Tommy McNamara and I had the time of our lives that day.

In 1987, I had a few drinks with Carl White from Channel 5 after the Giants beat the Broncos at a hotel bar in California. I met Carl again at the 1987 draft in New York and he interviewed me when the Giants drafted Mark Ingram. Dad taped the interview on the VCR.

Back to Alison for a final word, “On Manning, let me leave you with this: He threw a bullet 17 yard TD to Manningham on a third and fifteen, against a relentless 49er’s D. Terry Bradshaw and Joe Buck you can eat Eli’s socks.”

Bethesda Fountain Angel Protects New York Giants

2012-01-22T08:05:00.006-05:00

Early this morning walking through Central Park, I asked the Bethesda Fountain Angel to fly out to San Francisco today to watch over the Giants during their NFC Championship game. The angel agreed on one condition, I have to lay off Hellman’s mayonnaise for one week. I asked her to give me a few minutes to think about it.

I headed for Sailboat Lake where I saw Fifth Avenue upside down in the water, then I strolled over to The Boathouse and spied the Ice Queen sipping ice tea at a cafe table, then I returned to Bethesda Terrace and told the Angel, “OK."

Before lifting off, the Angel promised to closely watch our punter today figuring the game will be a chess match over field position. The Angel plans to open an old fashioned party line for the Giants secondary so they don’t miss assignments.

As the Angel flew away, I shouted, "Go Giants!"

She curled one wing back towards me, then cleared the trees heading west.

Yorkville In January Sunshine ~ Go Giants!

2012-01-21T11:58:00.001-05:00

It is snowing this morning, and that will drive me outside to take pictures later and give me time to think about tomorrow's Giant game in San Francisco. I'll walk past all the places I played touch and tackle football in the street especially tackle when it snowed and we temporarily stopped worrying about breaking our bones bouncing off the concrete and asphalt.

On the bottom is a link to pictures of Yorkville in January Sunshine, but first links to two of my favorite plays in New York Giant football history and they both include Joe Montana. Go Giants!

Burt Says Hello to Joe Montana

Leonard Marshall Says Good Night to Joe Montana

Yorkville in January Sunshine

Gifford, Pryor, #16 ~ New York Giants Get Healthy

2012-01-20T13:21:00.006-05:00

517 East 83rd Street

Growing up on 83^rd Street I had two ball players’ pictures on display that I cut out of magazines, Frank Gifford and Mickey Mantle. I edged the players’ bodies carefully with a scissor and glued Frank and Mickey onto construction paper and scotched tape them to my bedroom wall. Mantle died when Mom tore him from the wall during one of her vacuuming assaults. Following that tragedy, I removed Frank from his spot at my eye level and stood on the dresser and re-taped him well above my short mother’s reach.

Here, for the first time in 40 years, Frank Gifford on Construction Paper by Tommy Pryor in 1964.

Frank Gifford by Tommy Pryor created in 1964

Don’t be worried, I plan to reattach his missing right foot. It had a boo-boo and Doc Warren is working on it.

(If you are interested I ripped Frank out of my annual Street & Smith Pro Football Magazine and got Mickey from Sport Magazine.)

I recently met with Frank and he & Allie Sherman gave me permission to wear #16 Sunday, if necessary. We’re worried about Bradshaw’s foot holding up, so I will be on the sideline under a blue hood rough and ready.

Tommy & Frank discussing Father Benedict Dudley

Fyi, I’m going to séance tonight to coax Chris Schenkel back from the dead to call the game on Sunday. If I’m successful, and get Schenkel to Candlestick, I have a friend who has a friend that says his cousin knows a way to delay Joe Buck’s arrival.

Frank Gifford at Old Yankee Stadium

On Being a Parishioner in the Church of Mara

2012-01-19T11:29:00.006-05:00

You’d think I have an ownership stake in the New York Giants based on the joy and affection I derive from and convey for the team. I love playing catch with a football, and miss playing tackle football every day but I have a more complex role as a devoted parishioner in the Church of Mara.

I stunk at basketball, I can’t dribble with my right hand. Once the defender knows you can’t drive right you’re dead. I can’t jump. I haven’t liked the Knicks since the 70s.

I can skate but I can’t stop. When I go ice skating I have to go in circles or hit a wall to come to a halt. I stopped loving the Rangers when they lost their minds and traded Ratelle, Park and Middleton (500 goals) to get Phil “I’m going to stay in front of the net for a while” Esposito & Ken Hodge (8 goals) his Sancho Panza. The Rangers Cup in 1994 was a blip on my radar.

I couldn’t hit a curve ball or a fast ball. My Yankees passion waned when they desecrated Yankee Stadium hiring the guy who designed Alexander’s and Korvette’s to do the 1973 renovation. My Yankee flame went out when Steinbrenner’s pompous mouth appeared in the media more than his team. George blew my buzz.

Getting older I seek comfort sources that sooth or rile me up like when I was 10 and there was nothing more important then the 25^th anniversary Superman double issue due out in one week. I didn’t sleep the last night before I bought it in the candy store.

The Giants remain the one team in sports I suspend my disbelief and let their victories lift me higher than any recreational drug ever did. But, if I am willing to put all my love temporarily in one place, then its loss will take me equally the other way, and for a long time I’m sad. I have places where I find relief. They don’t fix it instantly but they ease the ache. Pictured below are three of those spots. Central Park, Union Square and the Hudson River seawall.

I’m hopeful for Sunday’s game. The Giants and 49ers have a long history of breaking each others heart. Only one moves on.

As Elvis Costello says, “You can please yourself but somebody’s gonna get it.”

Sunday, somebody gets it.

New York Giants Enter The Twilight Zone

2012-01-18T09:46:00.003-05:00

Having your team in the playoffs this deep into January is like being in a happy Twilight Zone episode. Say the one where the guy and his dog avoid hell and end up in heaven together. Yeah, me and my dog in heaven together that’s where I am with the Giants right now. Food taste better, music sounds better, girls are prettier and people that rub you wrong brush off like lint. On the other hand, getting knocked out the playoffs at this point reverses all these feelings like a bad Twilight Zone episode where Billy Mumy turns me into a Jack in a Box because I didn’t laugh at his stupid joke.

Sunday against the 49ers is the Giants fifth straight seventh game of the World Series after the Jets, Dallas, Atlanta & the Packers. One and out.

It doesn’t get better.

Pictures that cheer me up.

Giants Playing the 49ers, Springsteen, Life Is Good

2012-01-16T20:12:00.002-05:00

Jim Burt Clocks Joe Montana ~ Jan 1987

The Giants playing the San Francisco 49ers in the NFL playoffs brings back feverish memories of the Jints playing the Bill Walsh gang and my detailed preparation for each game that included lots of indoor catch with rolled up socks while listening to Bruce Springsteen.

Go Giants! Bruuuuuce!

Bruce by Jeffrey Havas

"Give Me a Player, I'll Give You a Number!" Go Giants!

2012-01-15T09:14:00.009-05:00

In the 1960s Dad saw many Giant home games. If he couldn’t swindle a ticket, he’d drive to Connecticut with several friends packed into one large car. They’d rent a motel room and watch the game on a TV station outside the 75 mile blackout.

On home game mornings, Dad tried sneaking out of the house. I’d lasso his leg.

“Dad, please, please, please.”

“Tommy, if I could, I would.”

“I’ll root quietly. Not a peep. You won’t even know I’m there.”

“I can’t.”

“Give me a player; I’ll give you a number.”

“Sorry.”

“We watch everything together. Who are you going to hug when the Giants score?”

“Hon, I’m sorry. There’s no room in the car.”

“Put me in the trunk. Wrap me in a blanket like a mob hit.”

Dad lingered, then shook his head and continued walking across the kitchen with his free leg doing all the work.

Today, I’m not clear where I’m watching the Giant Packer game. During the action I sometimes stand up too quickly and nearly lose consciousness. This is not safe in an apartment that isn’t childproofed. Still weighing my options. Wherever I watch I’ll be there with Dad, ready to drive Mom bananas.

“Watch the lamp!”

It's a beautiful day ~ Go Giants!!!

Three of my Giant stories below:

When the Fire Hydrant Was the End Zone

The Headlock That Won For the Giants

Schadenfreude, How Bout Those Boys?

The New York Times Published My Indoor Tackle Story

2012-01-12T10:27:00.004-05:00

The New York Times published my story "When The Fire Hydrant Was The End Zone."

In 1962, the New York football Giants played fourteen games each season. Seven games at home and seven games away. Away games were televised. Twenty one hours of heaven. The League blacked out home games to discourage a drop in ticket sales. “Huh?”

This remains the most diabolical punishment ever devised to torment me. It still floors me knowing they went through with this plan after weighing its impact on me.

I saw the conference room full of cigar smoke and National Football League officials. The lead official turned towards the league’s medical expert standing at the head of the board room.

The Lead Official said, “Doctor, we are considering blacking out NFL home games under our new TV contract. How will this impact Tommy Pryor?”

The League’s Medical Expert aimed a pointer at a chart. He said, “It is my expert opinion that blacking out home games will stop young Tommy’s heart. Despite his parents overwhelming grief, he will be gone.”

To offset my pain I played indoor tackle in people's living rooms. I targeted latch key kids whose parents both worked. This led to several adventures. Once the jig was up (we got caught) I played tackle football on the east side of York Avenue sidewalk in front of the York Hill Cooperative Apartments between 81st & 82nd Street.

"When The Fire Hydrant Was The End Zone."

Storytelling Ignites Cornelia Street Cafe

2012-01-11T09:54:00.001-05:00

Due to the fiery level of talent at the “City Stories: Stoops to Nuts” show last night, the artists were delivered to the Cornelia Street Cafe in an Explosives truck. Luckily, I caught the truck idling at a light during its rounds.

Thank you, Lisa Burns, Dylan Maida, Nicole Ferraro, Julia Joseph, Francesca Rizzo & Adam Wade for one of the best shows ever at Cornelia Street Café. Your stories, songs and musicianship blew away the standing room packed house. Thank you, Danielle Marks for your terrific artists photos here from last night’s performance. Thank you, Jon Calvert, for filming the action. Thank you, to an incredibly supportive audience; it was a kick to have so many people out on a night right after the holidays.

When you share an event like this together, it hangs in for a long time.

Everybody, please come back to “City Stories: Stoops to Nuts” real soon. Hugs, Tommy

Stoops to Nuts Storytelling Show @ 6pm Tonight @ Cornelia St. Cafe

2012-01-10T08:51:00.002-05:00

Walk, run, fly to the West Village tonight to the Cornelia Street Cafe for "City Stories: Stoops to Nuts" storytelling show ~ 1.10.12 @ 6pm.

Tonight's artists: Lisa Burns, Nicole Ferraro, Julia Joseph, Thomas Pryor, Francesca Rizzo & Adam Wade. $7 admission includes a free drink. A good deal!

http://www.corneliastreetcafe.com/Performances.asp?sdate=1%2F10%2F2012&from_cal=0

more West Village photos here!

Street Corner Talking ~ New York Giants Step Up

2012-01-09T09:17:00.007-05:00

Loftus Tavern 1962

50 years ago in 1962 the New York Giants played the Green Bay Packers at Yankee Stadium for the NFL Championship. Five gents from Loftus Tavern took a Checker cab up to 161^st Street & River Avenue in the Bronx. It was 9 degrees with 35 mile an hour winds. My Dad was in a Connecticut motel with four other Yorkville guys watching the game on a black and white TV outside the 75 mile local game blackout. I was in my Irish grandparents 1616 York Avenue railroad apartment in the front room throwing around a pair of my grandfather’s socks like a football listening to the game on the radio and the steam pouring out of the radiator. Through the front window I could see Loftus Tavern on the south east corner of 85^th Street. I would have killed to be at that game, and I was crushed when the Giants lost 16-7. At 8 years old my life revolved around the Giants, Yankees, Rangers and Knicks. I moped for the rest of that winter.

Bailey's Corner 2012

Yesterday, I returned to Bailey’s Corner formerly Loftus Tavern to watch the playoff game where the five sets of New York Giants season tickets were kept under the cash register. That cash register is still there. Ghosts flew around the bar cheering the Jints on.

The Giants play yesterday was noteworthy, they are on a roll and now face the best team in football based on record and quarterback performance. I can’t wait.

After the game, I met two of the tavern’s regulars, Orson & Chris, outside the bar. Each fellow had something to say about the game and the Giants.

Loftus Crew 1962

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Orson (aka) Frazzle

Orson: “The Giants defense has given up 30 points in the last 3 games. That’s Dallas, Jets & Falcons. Their D is not the same D that gave up 38 points to the Packers six weeks ago. Their running game is up a caliber, too. I like the Jints chances.”

Chris (aka) Ashley

Chris: “I agree with Orson, which is a rare thing. This Giant team has performed at a higher and more consistent level for three games that you have to think they can play with the Packers next week. I’ll be right back here at Bailey’s cheering them on.”

Our next City Stories: Stoops to Nuts storytelling show at Cornelia Street Café is tomorrow, January 10^th @ 6pm.

Please come down, I promise a good time.

Our New Year artists are: Lisa Burns, Nicole Ferraro, Julia Joseph, Thomas Pryor, Francesca Rizzo & Adam Wade.

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N Y Giants 2011 Football Season ~ Reprieve or Execution?

2012-01-08T09:07:00.003-05:00

A ruling on a continuance for the 2011 New York Giants football season is expected this afternoon. The Giants looking for an edge sought a reprieve directly from Governor Al Smith yesterday, but found out he was away for the weekend with Mayor Jimmy Walker at Judge Crater’s place. Crater’s been in hiding with his floozy girlfriend since he crossed the Mob but he invites the boys upstate for card games now and then.

As of this moment, the Giants and Giant fans do not hate the Atlanta Falcons. Seeking inspiration I sought out a few ex-Giants to address the Jints.

Homer Jones: “Throw it long!”

Aaron Thomas: “Watch your feet in the end zone, the stripes are blind.”

Kyle Rote: “Play both ways.”

Spider Lockhart: “Don’t get sucked in on Ryan’s play action.”

Mark Bavaro: “Eli, you are my kind of QB, hit me on the slant.”

Sam Huff: “If he doesn’t go down, bite him.”

Dick Modzelewski: “Hit the small guy with the ball.”

Joe Morrison: “Did anyone see my Yankee cap?”

Joe Don Looney: “There are really girls in the locker room?”

Harry Carson: “watch his hips, tackle with your arms.”

Allie Sherman: “Huff! Keep your eyes on #32.”
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I Could've Died Right Then and There ~ Jints ~ Yankee Stadium 1970

2012-01-07T10:04:00.003-05:00

Ron Johnson scores winning TD vs. Skins Nov 1970

Best live "Old Yankee Stadium, we were there," sports days ever with Dad.

New York Giants beat the Washington Redskins 35-33 ~ Nov 1970 ~ Jints came back from 19 points down with a quarter to go. Tucker Fredrickson's best game as a pro. Ron Johnson scored winning sweep right in front of Dad & me seating behind Yankee dugout. The Stadium rocked like it was a Rolling Stones concert. Dad and I hugged as if we were going out. The concrete below our feet was going up and down, up and down. I didn’t care if the Stadium fell in on us. I could’ve died right then and there.

Dad’s gone 10 years, when Dallas loses, I feel his smile. When the Giants win, I feel Dad’s hug and kiss.

At one point, (maybe they still do) the New York Daily News Sports Department sold prints of photos to the public. In the early 1980s I went down to their 42^nd Street building with old dates in mind. Special Mickey Mantle days and terrific Giant victories. The photos in the papers from those special days were tattooed to my brain. I asked for the 1964, 1967 and 1970 files.

I found Mickey Mantle’s 500 homer, Mantle’s homer off Barney Schultz breaking Ruth’s Series record. Tarkenton rolling out in a win against the Cowboys, Bob Tucker in same game and the crown jewel, Ron Johnson scoring on the sweep against the Skins in 1970. Doug Van Horn, Willie Young, Willie Harper and Don Hermann blocking efficiently on the play.

While I was looking through the photos I received a bonus. A guy came into the empty side room where I was looking through the photos. He leaned over me and asked, “What cha doing?”

It was Bill Gallo the News sports cartoonist. He sat with me for a half hour shooting the breeze, getting a kick out of my intensity and knowledge of his old hero & goat photos from past World Series. Bill was very nice to me. The 6 photos I bought cost me $95. It was a good day.

Go Giants! Beat Atlanta!

Yankee Stadium 1962

Rory & Tommy Pryor @ Giant game @ Yankee Stadium 1966

Our next City Stories: Stoops to Nuts storytelling show at Cornelia Street Café is January 10^th @ 6pm. Please come down, I promise a good time.

Our New Year artists are: Lisa Burns, Nicole Ferraro, Julia Joseph, Thomas Pryor, Francesca Rizzo & Adam Wade.

Three Reasons I love January: Giants, Stoops & Snow!

2012-01-06T13:00:00.001-05:00

Three reasons I love January: Giants, Stoops to Nuts @ Cornelia Street & Snow!

Let’s go Giants! Keep the ball rolling, beat Atlanta!

Our next City Stories: Stoops to Nuts storytelling show at Cornelia Street Café is January 10^th @ 6pm. Please come down, I promise a good time.

Our New Year artists are: Lisa Burns, Nicole Ferraro, Julia Joseph, Thomas Pryor, Francesca Rizzo & Adam Wade.

Snow is on the way, that’s for sure. I have my Flexible Flyer all set.

Here are photos from a snowstorm last January.

Crackup At Radio City

2012-01-05T14:22:00.011-05:00

Rory Pryor, 21 years old, 1977

For a bunch of reasons my brother Rory was committed to the NYU Psychiatric hospital several times. When I visited Rory at NYU I entered the building heart broke. There we were, two kids in a two kid family and I, the older brother, could do nothing to help him. Through the lobby, on the elevator, in the halls, on my way to his stark room or the visitors’ area I’d look around in awe. Thinking about how amazing it is if your brain worked nearly right and wondering how all these people lost their minds. After going through a bunch of things I planned to say to make Rory laugh, after we hugged he turned the tables. He told jokes, he said it was OK and pointed out that he was the sanest one in the place (not true but it always made me feel better). As sick as he was, Rory tried to ease my pain. That made me love him very much.

Today, my friend, Merrill Black was published in The New York Times. Her story “Crackup at Radio City,” is terrific. Her truthful bittersweet account of her stay in the same facility touched me with its humor and heart. Thank you, Merrill, for bringing a strong memory of Rory back to me.

Read Merrill’s two New York Times stories here.

Crackup at Radio City

The Wise Plumbers

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Our next City Stories: Stoops to Nuts storytelling show at Cornelia Street Café is January 10^th @ 6pm. Please come down, I promise a good time.

Our New Year artists are: Lisa Burns, Nicole Ferraro, Julia Joseph, Thomas Pryor, Francesca Rizzo & Adam Wade.

Street In The City ~ Lincoln & Rockefeller Center at Night

2012-01-03T08:11:00.006-05:00

On a cold clear night, I walked through Lincoln Center, Columbus Circle and Rockefeller Center. The sky, buildings and lights were brilliant. Here are a few pictures of each location and a link to more photographs from the walk.

Street in the City from "Rough Mix," an Lp by Pete Townshend & Ronnie Lane.

New York Giants Send the Ryans Home to Texas

2012-01-02T10:36:00.003-05:00

Poopface

The happiest New York Giant has to be Kevin Gilbride, the Giants offensive coordinator. Sending blustering Buddy Ryan’s two big mouth fat sons home for the winter. Ryan! No playoffs for you!

See Poopface Ryan punch Gilbride here

As a die heart Giant fan, I’ve had many nemeses over the years, the Anti-Christ Cowboys, Bill Walsh’s 49ers, and Poopface Ryan's Eagles, to name a few.

Last night, the Giants beating the Cowboys made my old year and New Year. I swear when I was a kid, if the Giants went 2-12 but beat the Cowboys twice; as far as I was concerned they had a good year.

Realistically, winning the NFC East title while giving up more points then we scored, makes this seem a little bit like the NBA playoff scenario “let’s get everybody in there! Bring me your poor, sad, five hundred teams.” But, this smells a lot like the 2007 Giant team that went on a roll and won four games on the road to Arizona. Cruz is this year’s Bradshaw surprise "where'd he come from break out player." Three cheers for Patterson, New Jersey! Victor’s home town. And last but not least, did you see Eli snake his way out of several sacks? Manning runs the ball? Yes, he did!

Cowboys, go home.

All my love for the Cowboys is summed up in this story published in Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood in 2008.

Schadenfreude – How Bout Those Boys?

Beat Atlanta!

Dee-fense! Dee-fense! Dee-fense! ~ Go Jints! Beat Dallas!

2012-01-01T09:40:00.009-05:00

In 1981, my Dad and I watched Joe “The Nose” Danelo kick the Giants over the Cowboys into the playoffs for the first time since 1963. Never having a sports interested child, I've lost most of my enthusiasm for pro sports, except for the Jints. I remain deliriously under the impression the Giants need me to root for them. I get delightful pleasure when they play well; it’s the one thing other than exercise that still makes me feel like I'm a kid. My Dad is gone 10 years, but he's with me every Giant game. Dad never missed one of my football games even with his world class hangovers. We loved the Giants together, it was our unbreakable link.

Dee-fense! Dee-fense! Dee-fense!

Beat Dallas!

Our next City Stories: Stoops to Nuts storytelling show at Cornelia Street Café is January 10^th @ 6pm. Please come down, I promise a good time.

Our New Year artists are: Lisa Burns, Nicole Ferraro, Julia Joseph, Thomas Pryor, Francesca Rizzo & Adam Wade.

Here's Wishing You the Bluest Sky, hugs, Yorkville Nut & Monty

2011-12-31T10:22:00.001-05:00

Monty the Lexington Avenue Bulldog and I wish everyone a Happy, Healthy & Peaceful New Year!

2012 will see lots of new stories and photos on Yorkville: Stoops to Nuts, promise.

Help someone in need this coming year and you'll find better things!

hugs, Monty & the Yorkville Nut

Monty on Lexington

Baby It's Mushy Outside

Radio City Music Hall ~ The Vatican of the Silver Screen

2011-12-29T10:47:00.003-05:00

Last night, walking through Rockefeller Center a memory struck me like a brick. In 1970 the best bang for the buck in New York City was Radio City Music Hall. My sixteenth year was a very good one.

After my last class at LaSalle Academy around 2pm, I’d take the # 6 subway at Bleecker Street to 51^st Street where I’d pick up my girlfriend at Lexington and 50^th after her last class and we’d walk over to the Subway sandwich store on Broadway. Order two giant Tuna heroes with cheese and lots of extra mayo, two jumbo Pepsi’s and place it all carefully in my practically empty plastic school bag (didn’t do much homework on Radio City nights). We positioned a sweater in the bag to cushion the food.

Then we’d stroll over to the greatest movie palace in the history of movie palaces: Radio City Music Hall. We paid six dollars for two tickets and enter the cathedral. Walk up the plush carpeted horseshoe staircase to the Mezzanine where we’d take over the center of the first row and watch the Rockettes perform on the front and back of the film. We took our shoes and socks off and dug our feet into the velvet rug under our luxurious seats and worshiped silently in the Vatican of the silver screen.

With Radio Center Music Hall as my playground, I owned New York City.

Key Lime Pie In Red Hook, Brooklyn

2011-12-28T11:42:00.003-05:00

I visited Red Hook the day after Christmas and took pictures.

Here are a few and a link to many more.

Red Hook is an authentic neighborhood to walk and enjoy, it's rich with old New York character.

Inside You Time Moves, But Ghosts Dont Fade On York Avenue

2011-12-27T10:06:00.003-05:00

Robert Pryor 1582 York Ave @ 1948

Last night I had a delicious dinner in Mumtaz a new Indian restaurant at 1582 York Avenue. The restaurant is directly under the apartment where my father's mother lived from 1932 to 1988 with my Dad, uncle and grandfather. It was odd coming home with no one home, but I felt ghosts swooping around the space.

It was my first time in the store in 35 years; I remember being there 52 years ago when I was 5 years old. Here’s what happened.

Shopping on York Avenue in 1959

On the ground floor of my grandmother’s building, 1582 York Avenue, were two storefronts. To the left was Parker's Grocery. One day in 1963 a quart of milk, a loaf of Wonder bread and a pound of Ronzoni number #9 spaghetti all cost 19 cents each. That was cool. Murray Parker owned the store. Leather hat with built in earmuffs he wore year round over his large bald head. A real girl catcher. Huge cigar always unlit. Powerbroker over-sized Swifty Lazar eyeglass frames. Grimy white linen apron. That was ok because you never saw a clean one, so there was nothing to compare it to. Murray’s parents Mr. and Mrs. Parker (no first names available, nor given) started the business in 1932. Same year my dad's family moved into the building.

Murray Parker @ 1966

All arithmetic was accomplished by pencil on the brown bag you took your groceries home in. You would go home, check the numbers on the bag, then scratch your head for five minutes wondering how Murray never made an error. Sometimes he’d go down one side, do a subtotal in his head, go down twenty more items and always give you a perfect grand total. Many purchases were recorded in a marble composition book to be settled at the end of the week on payday.

Parker's was my first solo shopping experience. In 1959, at five, Mom sent me to the store for a pack of Marlboros and two milk. She gave me a dollar wrapped around a quarter. Parker's was around the corner from my 83rdStreet house so I walked to the store without crossing a street. Mom looked out Chickie Murphy’s front window in 4W watching me go up the block. When I neared the avenue she called my grandmother, “Mom, Tommy’s near the corner going to Parker’s, get on the front phone, watch him into the store and let me know.” “Got it.” As I turned onto York, Nan waved down to me and yelled, “Be careful.” “OK, Nan!” Inside Parker’s, I asked Murray for the cigarettes and walked to the back of the store to grab the milk from the glass case. Walking back towards Murray up the narrow aisle, his eyes traveled from me to the counter. After a long pause, Murray said, “What the hell is this?" Sitting on the tired marble counter a brown bag of garbage. Oh crap, I brought it with me. Too much pressure, remembering Mom's orders, "Marlboro, soft pack, two milk from the back of the case," and the stupid garbage.

Rory at Zoo 1961

Thomas E. Pryor Jr. 1945 @ 1582 York Ave

Tom Xmas 1960 in front of 1582 York

Pop Rode & Tom 1958

Aunt Mary 1582 York @ 1969

Aunt Mary Ann Pryor 1582 @ 1945

Herman & John Rode 1909

Ann Pryor in front of 1582 York @ 1942

Billy Majorosey & Tom 1965

Thomas E. Pryor 1582 funeral bill

517 East 83rd Street

Big Blue Christmas ~ Go Jints!

2011-12-25T09:11:00.001-05:00

When I was 2 years old I asked Santa for a red wagon. I got it.

This year I asked Santa to shut Rex Ryan's fat mouth.

Santa delivered.

After yesterday’s game, Brandon Jacobs took Rex Ryan's Drakes Cakes Order for today’s' Holiday Party at Met Life Stadium for Jet & Giant families.

Jacobs: "Yodels?"

Ryan: " Yeah, Yodels and a carton each of Ring Dings, Devil Dogs, Yankee Doodles, Sunny Doodles, Suzie Qs', Funny Bones, Sno-Balls, and those Orange cupcakes by Hostess, they're mine and Rob's favorites."

Bleeding Giant Blue ~ Go Jints!

2011-12-24T07:23:00.004-05:00

Three Bronx cheers for the NFL schedule maker who's guaranteed a lousy Christmas for half of New York City. The guy must be related to Joe Buck.

I'm going in the game today. Need to get the bad taste of 1988 out of my mouth and lead our Jints into playoff position.

I'm wearing my pajamas under my uniform so I'm ready for anything. Frank Gifford told me to take out my old Our Lady of Good Council #16 jersey (we practiced in Central Park's 97th Street Dust Bowl in 1969) and told Coach Coughlin to put me as flanker in the second quarter after Jacobs and Bradshaw soften up the Jets defense with pounding runs.

My personal trainer, my grandfather, will be on the sidelines making weird faces and smoking his cigar and coughing a lot. At flanker, I'll be a triple threat on the reverse thanks to my wicked left arm and my strong right leg from kicking and throwing pillows around the living room when the Giants do poorly (Dad taught me).

I feel bad (not that bad) for my friends, the Calverts, Jet fans, but it's time to play four quarters of Giant football. Gangrene is going down. I plan to pick up extra yards by screaming"Geronimo!" after I catch the ball and straight arm would be tacklers. Gifford is proud I'm wearing his number.

Dear Jet Offense, Please be kind to the Giant secondary they wear special orthopedic boots that slow back pedaling, and they love their defensive brothers so much they are reluctant to go deep with receivers and suffer separation.

Roll Out The Barrel

2011-12-23T08:53:00.004-05:00

My Uncle Jack and Aunt Anna were having marital problems in the early 1940s. Their fighting hit a new high in their East Harlem neighborhood when Aunt Anna found half her house money missing from the flour tin. She chased Uncle Jack with a ladle full of dog crap up First Avenue to the entrance of the 138th Street Bridge. Jack ran into the Bronx using the roadway’s passing lane.

After catching his breath, Jack not wanting to waste a good trip to the Bronx, continued walking north up to Yankee Stadium where he caught a doubleheader with the Cleveland Indians. DiMaggio went 4 for 7 with two walks and five RBIs. Jack spent $2.75 of Anna’s house money on Franks, beer, a ticket, a pennant for the kid, a program and a five cent pencil to keep score.

When Jack got home, Anna had put a chair against the door locking him out. Unfortunately, she also locked out her son, John, who after begging his mother to no avail to let him in stayed with my grandparents on 104th Street in their new East River Houses, Housing Authority apartment.

After much consultation with everyone on their block, Jack and Anna decided to get professional help from Flam & Flam, a 106th Street law firm, famous in the neighborhood for resolving family crises when folks were broke. After discussing their plight with Freddy (the brains in the outfit) and telling him they had one dollar for a divorce, Freddy rocked back on the legs of the library surplus chair and thought it over, then he popped a hand off his bald head.

“I’ve got it! A house divorce! It’s the rage in Philadelphia. When couples want out, but can’t afford it, the courts can grant a house divorce (no they can’t). You live together, but you’re not married (you are). You can tell everybody you’re divorced, but by a tiny technical thread you’re not really divorced. So I only have to charge you a dollar. Give me a dollar.”

Stingily, Jack gave Freddy Flam a house money dollar. Anna watched the money change hands thinking about kicking Jack’s ass right there in Flam & Flam’s office.

Anna buried Jack in Calvary Cemetery in Queens in 1978 after 13 years of conventional marriage and 37 years of house divorce thanks to Flam and Flam.

Roll Out The Barrel!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SfyObUd5e8

Yorkville, Just Another Small Town

2011-12-22T08:29:00.004-05:00

Here is a rich story written by my friend, Denny Ferrado. It's about old Yorkville's village drums aka Moms' eyes, ears & voices.

Yorkville, Just Another Small Town

by Dennis John Ferado

In 1907 Enrico Caruso recorded VESTI LA GIUBBA, it went on to become the very first record to sell over a million copies. Hank Williams COLD, COLD HEART was written and sung by him in 1951 and hit big on the Country and Western charts. It was recorded by Tony Bennett in 1952 and it gave Mr. Williams his seventh million seller. THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE by Kay Starr stayed in the top ten for nine weeks. On the Rhythm & Blues Charts there was Big Mama Thornton’s HOUND DOG (B. E.--before Elvis) recorded with Johnny Otis’ band, and Little Walter had JUKE. On the Country Charts the Weavers hit with MIDNIGHT SPECIAL and Charlie Gracie recorded ROCKIN’ AN’ ROLLIN.’ Watch out, Rock and Roll is on the horizon.

Gary Cooper won the 1952 Academy Award for Best Actor in High Noon, Anthony Quinn won for Best Supporting Actor starring along with Marlon Brando in Viva Zapata. The Best Director Award went to John Ford for The Quiet Man, Shirley Booth won for Best Actress starring with Burt Lancaster in William Inge’s, Come Back Little Sheba and Gloria Grahame won for Best Supporting Actress in The Bad and the Beautiful. Went to all the movies that year with my school mates, Jim Jim and I saw Viva Zapata and The Quiet Man twice. Ronnie, Billy C. and I saw High Noon together.

I was born in New York City on Manhattan Island in a Brownstone building that is known as a railroad flat. My parents were superintendents and our rooms ran from our front window on 87th Street through the entire building to a backyard which my mom had turned into a beautiful garden. We lived at 411 East 87th Street on the Upper East Side in a section called Yorkville and I had my first cry on our kitchen table. In 1942 a riot of kids were being born all around the city and placed on kitchen tables for the neighbors to ogle.

Our front room window looked out on Saint Joseph’s school and its Church alongside it. Ours was the closest building on the block to the main entrance of the school: roughly 15 grown-up steps in a straight line across 87th Street. I still have my graduation certificate from Kindergarten 1947.

I am still in touch with a few of those classmates. Every year we played basketball for Saint Joseph's School, some of us even stayed together through high school. We all lived within two blocks of the school and played in the streets after school was out. We played all the street games, kick-the-can, stickball, stoop ball, ring-a-levio, roller hockey, street-wrestling, hot beans, etc., etc. We played together on a baseball team, a soft ball team and a football team. We rode bikes, shot paper clips at one another, blew uncooked peas through straws at the girls, had raw egg fights, tortured store owners, sneaked into movie houses, got kicked out of movie houses, dropped water balloons from rooftops at other kids and threw them at passing Westbound 86th Street Crosstown buses with open windows, (as they were in mid-turn going from York Avenue into 86th Street) then flew like bats towards 87th Street. In school we shot water guns with ink in them at one another while in our white uniform shirts, we built skateboard boxes out of old wooden crates and rode them down hills and crashed them into one another. We tossed each other off concrete stoops playing king-of-the-mountain--I achieved a fractured elbow from that game.

We were a large crowd, maybe 15 of us on this particular day. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon sometime in late July or early August when we decided to play Johnny-on-the-pony against the Sanitation Department’s office building wall. After the game most of the guys walked home banged up and bruised. Ronnie, Jay, Paddy, Jim Jim,Tommy and I stayed and played a couple of games of Swift ball for another hour or so.

When we finished we sat down against the school’s wall, exhausted, underneath our 3’ x 3’ square box drawn with chalk on the wall which we also used as a catcher when the batter got up to hit. If the batter missed the ball it came right back to the pitcher. This area on the wall constituted the strike zone and faced north opposite and Sanitation building directly across 87th Street. The pitcher would stand in the middle of the street and the ball was hit back at him. We were just sitting there minding our own and relaxing, looking across the street at the two-storied office building with its flagpole extending up another twenty feet or so into the sky. Paddy stood and announced:

“I’m gonna climb up the side of the Sanitation building onto the roof and right on up that flagpole to the top of it. Does anyone want to come?” Ronnie said:

“You’re nuts! Jim Jim said:

“I’m out. That pole’s too thin to hold me.” I added,

“What for? He answered:

“There’s nothing else to do.” Before we knew it, Paddy, was half way up the side of the Sanitation building and continued up to the roof. From the roof he started to wave and shout: “Come on you guys, the view is great. And then he shimmied straight up the flagpole to the top of it. He touched the tip of the pole and then slid back down to the roof and shouted down to us: “You should see all the Spauldeens. Ronnie said:

“Lets go up,” Jim Jim jumped up and said:

“What the hell.” We all climbed up the side of the Sanitation building and we found a treasure-trove of pink-rubber balls. They had been collecting for years from all the foul balls by the different age groups playing ball on 87th Street and from the kids in Saint Joseph’s School during our recess hour of organized mayhem. During lunch period when school is in session, 87th Street becomes a play street. There was also a cracked baseball bat up there, a dead football, a swollen softball and an old pair of sneakers.

Although there would never be another summer to match the innocence of this summer, I thought: I was really lucky. How could a guy ever have a better bunch of friends, as crazy as half of them are, they’re the best. Maybe Paddy had to scratch some kind of itch that day by climbing to the top of the flagpole, I’ll never know. I was happy I never had to deal with that particular itch.

We were a close bunch all through the 1950’s into the mid 1960’s. When we were in the fifth grade we began spending our lunch periods in the back of hallways along 1st Avenue smoking cigarettes. I do not condone smoking, it’s a terrible, disgusting, dirty habit and many lives from my parents and from my generation have been lost due to tobacco. No one should ever start smoking. However, back then people were ignorant to the dangers involved and everybody smoked. Doctors, on TV commercials, recommended smoking to help people relax. It was a sign of one growing up, or so we thought, maturing; and we just couldn’t wait to mature. Between 88th Street and 89th Street on the east side of 1st Avenue, close to the butcher shop, there was Mark’s candy store. Mark wore a fedora hat and had a permanent short cigarette butt wedged into the left corner of his mouth--the eye above showed a constant squint from the smoke. He habitually wore a flannel shirt, under a buttoned-up gray cardigan sweater (winter and summer) along with his ever present change apron over that. His apron had numerous pockets in it along the front for every size coin that had ever been minted. Sometimes in the evenings I’d see Ronnie there waiting for the papers to arrive to take home to his parents just like me. We’d hang out and chat until both the Daily News and the New York Mirror trucks arrived. Mark was short and chunky and sold loosie cigarettes, three for a nickel, seven for a dime. That’s where we got our Lucky Strikes.

Between 87th and 88th Streets on the East side of 1st Avenue we frequented the hallways between Hugh's’ Bar on the corner of 88th St. and Anna Marie’s Pizza Parlor on 87th Street. Paddy, Jim, Ronnie, Tommy and myself had just lighted up two of our 7 cigarettes in the back of one of the hallways between Glaser’s bakery and Weinstein’s Hardware store and began to pass them around between us. Just then a lady came into the building with a baby in a carriage and two little ones tagging along, the older one was a little girl of about six and a boy about the age of three. The girl was trying to stop the boy from crying because he wanted a mello-roll ice cream and did not want to go upstairs to their apartment until he got one. The girl kept repeating the words, first gently:

“Hush Billy,” then sternly, “HUSH BILLY.” She positioned herself behind Billy and began to nudge him along with her body and her knees while little Billy dug his heels into the floor. We all jumped to attention when we heard them enter the hall and quickly crushed out the evidence while trying to wave the smoke away. However, the smoke hung low and heavy and we were drenched in guilt, caught in the act. It was a vain attempt to cover up our deed since the place stank from cigarette smoke. We all grabbed a hunk of carriage, as the baby slept, and carried it up the one flight. We knew the lady by sight and she knew us. She never said a word after we helped her, she simply opened her door and entered her apartment while her daughter gently dragged little Billy by the ankles along the floor, over the door sash and out of sight.

We returned to the bottom of the steps. Since our first attempt failed we passed around the five remaining cigarettes--a whole one each--because none of us could go home with any for fear of it being ferreted out by an inquisitive parent. We spread out, some of us stood, others sat around on the hallway steps and talked about the most recent tortures we had to endure from Father Heide. Over that weekend fourteen windows had been broken in Saint Joseph’s School which we had been accused of because the school staff knew we were the crowd who hung around 87th Street on the weekends.

To make matters worse those of us called to the Principle’s Office actually had nothing to do with the vandalism and at a latter date the truth surfaced and we were exonerated. So what! we all figured, we had already been accused and beaten on our bare asses by Father Heide with his Little Oscar. For the time being we had to endure. When we were nearly finished smoking the hallway looked like a smoke screen had just been put down. Straightaway the silence was splintered by the siren like sound of the downstairs doorbell squealing. We nearly jumped out of our skins. Someone entered the front hallway and the clap of slippered-footsteps came padding toward us. Outside the glass doors the sun shone brightly and we could only see a silhouette briskly making its way through the long smoky hallway. It was a familiar looking figure, I said to myself. The way it moved, lightly, yet determinedly. Then it hit me and the word just blurted from my mouth:

“MOM!” Ten Arms flailed in anguish trying to dispel the thick fog of smoke as we scurried, spun in circles, collided into one another. In the angst of the moment Paddy actually swallowed what remained of his cigarette and began to cough and gag. Mom was sharp, it was extremely difficult to fool her. She attended Saint Joseph’s with several of my friends’ parents and grew up on the same streets we were growing up on. Mom knew the first Mr. Glaser back in the early 1920’s, she knew Sam the fish man, all the store owners knew the hallways, the backyards and she knew everyone and everyone knew her.

We dashed towards the stairs, the roof as our goal. In our adolescent disarray we tripped and stumbled and could barely make it past the first couple of steps where we got tangled in gridlock, pulling at one another from behind when we heard my Mother shout:

“Freeze!” We did. “I’m not going to do anything,” she said. As we were unknotting ourselves, Ronnie whispered to me:

“She’s tricky, Den.” Jim said:

“Come on, I believe her,” and cheerily said: “Hi ya moms,” and began to strut out. Paddy while choking and turning fire-engine-red began to spit out the words:

“I don’t, (cough) I don’t know (cough, cough)..., I don’t know about this.” Tommy followed Jim and as they were passing mom she grabbed each of them by their right hands and smelt their fingers. She looked into Jim’s eyes and softly mumbled:

“Don’t give me that ‘Hi ya mom stuff, I’ll give you one upside your head. This is no joke, you’re a bunch of dummies.” Jim hung his head as he gingerly moved past her. Mom sniffed Ronnie’s and Paddy’s fingers as they slithered by. Smelling the fingers for tobacco smoke was her proof that we had been smoking. Two weeks later she informed me that while she considered the smoke in the air as circumstantial evidence (we could somehow lie about that) the stench on our fingers was hard factual evidence--the smellee’s hand, she concluded, had definitely held a cigarette--this could not be fabricated away.

Alone in the smoky hallway with mom my knees began to touch. Once my friends were clear she waited for me but I was slow in moving because I didn’t know what to expect. Mom threatened but rarely did she resort to violence. She would even the score some other way which usually had a longer lasting effect. But mom knew just how to frighten the hell out of us by the sheer act of intimidation. She had a winter coat on (It was late November) with big wide sleeves, her arms were folded and she had her hands up either side of the opposite sleeve. She took her hands from her coat sleeves and opened her palms to show me that she was unarmed. Stepping lightly I began to wiggled by her when in one swift motion, she dropped her right arm straight down toward the floor, a wire hanger slid down and into her hand and the hand automatically shot high above her head (prequel to the movie Psycho) with the wire hanger.

With that sudden movement an all consuming fear ran through me. I bolted toward the front of the hall where the other four were out in the vestibule, faces pressed against the square glass in the door trying to see what was going on inside. But they did not see me coming, until I was at the door. They were too slow in moving as I yanked the hallway door open and jumped down the one step into the tiny 4’ x 4‘ vestibule and like dominoes we all crumbled to the floor. Now we were clambering, stuck in the vestibule and not enough room to open the outside door which opened inward. All 5 of us stuck in that little space while mom stood in the hallway with her face against the glass, grinning at us. All we could think about as we tore at one another to get out of that vestibule was that any second we were about to hear and feel the hiss and the kiss of a wire hanger. However, mom was too weak from laughter to even raise her weapon now. What she wanted to do was let us know that we couldn’t put anything past her and secondly and most importantly to put a real good scare into us--which she had, most emphatically, achieved.

I found out later that the mother of the lady with the carriage and the three children played bingo with a lady who knew my aunt, my mother’s sister, Nora, who was also a part of the great Bingo society at Saint Joseph’s. A few phone calls were made. When the lady with the three children got into her apartment she told her mother (who lived with her) about us. Her mother called her friend who played bingo with my aunt Nora, the bingo lady called Aunt Nora who in turn called my mother. My mother armed herself, sprinted around the corner in her slippers, and caught us red-handed. All this took place within a time frame of about twenty minutes during our lunch period. I always thought things like this only happened in small towns where everyone knows everyone else.

I got to thinking, I live in a big city with millions of people. Sometimes I can walk for miles, passing fleeting faces by the thousands, and no one will know my name. But in this little place in a corner of an overflowing megalopolis everyone, at one time, did know my name and everyone did know everyone else. Yorkville, just another small town.

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Below: Denny Ferado's 400 block on 87th St ~ St. Joe across street @ 2011

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My Grandfather's View of Nassau Street in 1916

2011-12-20T09:36:00.003-05:00

My grandfather, Thomas E. Pryor, was committed to a Staten Island orphanage for 8 years. He was 8 when he entered in 1909 (his parents died of pneumonia) and a day shy of 16 when he was discharged to his Aunt, Mary Pryor, who lived at 300 E. 42^nd Street in 1916.

Below is a picture of my grandfather at the orphanage, his birth certificate, his intake/outtake card from Father Drumgoole’s Orphanage and his 1935 Hack license.

Yesterday, doing birth certificate business for my daughter downtown in the Courts area, I walked along Nassau Street and saw the vacant lot where the first New York Times office opened in 1851. Through the lot I had a cool view of the Woolworth Building.

As I strolled about I thought about the day my grandfather was released from the orphanage in 1916.

The next day was his birthday. I imagined he walked downtown enjoying his new freedom, past the Brooklyn Bridge along Nassau Street turning into Broad Street at Wall Street. When possible I looked up at buildings I knew were built before 1916 and mostly served the publishing industry at the turn of the century. I made believe it was my first time.

I saw what my grandfather saw as a young man. New York City busting the sky even on the side streets off Park Row and Broadway. This blew me away. Below are some pictures from my walk and link to several others.

Happy holidays to everyone. Have a happy, healthy, peaceful New Year. Thank you for reading my work.

be well, Thomas.

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Our next City Stories: Stoops to Nuts storytelling show at Cornelia Street Café is January 10^th @ 6pm. Please come down, I promise a good time.

Our New Year artists are: Lisa Burns, Nicole Ferraro, Julia Joseph, Thomas Pryor, Francesca Rizzo & Adam Wade.

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Losers Lounge Tribute to The Supremes

2011-12-18T11:30:00.002-05:00

Walked down to Joe's Pub last weekend to see the Losers Lounge tribute to The Supremes. Motown cures all that ails me, it was a terrific show. Losers Lounge is the best recurring bang for the buck event in New York City. Next Losers show is the Doobie Brothers versus Steely Dan in February.

Here are some pix from that night & a link to lots more.

December Sunrise Ignites the Sky

2011-12-16T08:21:00.004-05:00

Sunrise, cat in the sink, Renaissance on the turntable.

Can You Undertstand?

Telling Tales On Cornelia Street

2011-12-14T09:22:00.001-05:00

A wonderful Stoops to Nuts storytelling show at Cornelia Street Cafe last night!

Thank you, Barbara Aliprantis, Kelly Wallace Barnhill, Carl Kissin, Mary Lee Kortes, Elizabeth Rowe & Amanda Thorpe for engaging us with your beautiful songs and stories. Thank you to Steve Northeast for looking over all of us, and thank you you so much to everyone who came down to the Cafe.

Please come back for our next show on January 10th. Our New Year artists are Lisa Burns, Nicole Ferraro, Julia Joseph, Thomas Pryor, Francesca Rizzo & Adam Wade.

Happy Holidays to all Stoops to Nutters!

Here are photos from last night's show and the West Village.

City Stories: Stoops to Nuts ~ A Storytelling Show on Dec 13th @ 6pm

2011-12-12T11:00:00.000-05:00

Our next "City Stories: Stoops to Nuts" show is tomorrow, Tues, Dec 13th @ 6pm at the Cornelia Street Cafe.

Please come down for a special holiday performance with gifted tellers and marvelous songsmiths: Barbara Aliprantis, Kelly Wallace-Barnhill, Carl Kissin, Mary Lee Kortes, Thomas Pryor, Elizabeth Rowe & Amanda Thorpe. Admission is $7 & that includes one free drink.

Here's a Christmas tale.

Christmas Relief With Preparation H

It was Saturday morning the week before Christmas in 1962. Rory and I were dunking toast in milk-ladened coffee. Mom was washing the dishes. Dad home late the night before got up to go to the bathroom. On the way to the head (He was a Navy Man), he put Sinatra’s Christmas album on his RCA Victrola. This pleased Mom to no end. Not sure if he put the record on to encourage his movement or to get us in a Christmas mood.

Rory had a Santa hat on at the kitchen table which drove me nuts because it was loaded with chocolate stains from candy bars Rory ate on the couch using the hat for a napkin. As soon as Mom noticed the stains the hat was history. Rory immediately began to sing along to “Jingle Bells,” the first tune in his high sweet voice. Rory could sing, Mom & I joined in.

As the second song started, we began to hear sounds from the throne in the toilet, “Oh, my god, ooooooooooooooooh, jeez, ooooooooooooh, huh, hey, aaaaaaaaah.”

As Sinatra and we sung “Jack Frost nipping on your nose,” we heard “maaaaa gaa, ooooooooooooh, ugh, hey, oh, my, ooooooooooooooh.”

And this kept up through two or three songs, and every time we heard Dad moaning, Mom started giggling then laughing out loud, since she gave us the green light we did too, to the point our laughter, Dad’s groans and Sinatra’s lifting voice became one chaotic 83^rd Street orchestra. Dad would pop in with “Shut it up!” But we couldn’t stop.

When Dad came out of the bathroom we all got the look of death and he stopped talking to us for the rest of the day. After he left the room Mom said Dad had sores called hemorrhoids because he read too long on the bowl. I thought to myself, “I need to cut down on my reading.”

Forty years later, the year before Dad died, he, my cousin, Jimmy, and I were sitting in my father's Massapequa Park living room watching a late December Giant game together. During halftime, Sinatra’s voice comes on the TV singing, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” I asked Dad how old he was when he got hemorrhoids. He gave me the look.

He remembered.

“I was 18.”

“You must have read a lot of stuff by 18.”

“What do you mean?”

“Isn’t that how you got them?”

“Nooooo, I was in the Navy.” He lit another cigarette from his other cigarette and continued, “We were in a munitions drill on the ship. I was in a line of sailors passing weapons from one deck below up to the guns. I was on the top deck three men away from the guns. Midway through a shot backfired and exploded. The two guys in front near the guns were torn apart, the guy next to me lost a hand, the force of the blast drove me straight down the ladder onto the deck below directly on my ass.”

And Mom knew this?

Biking South Down the East River

2011-12-10T10:02:00.004-05:00

Had business on Worth Street, biked south along the East River, rested in Foley Square, visited Oliver Street to say hi to one of Al Smith's homes. Gov. Al lived there from 1907 to 1923 feet from Henry Street in the St. James Parish.

Here's a link to a photo album of the bike ride.

Our "City Stories: Stoops to Nuts" holiday storytelling show is next Tuesday, December 13th @ 6pm @ Cornelia Street Café.

Please come down for a special performance with gifted tellers and marvelous songsmiths: Barbara Aliprantis, Kelly Wallace-Barnhill, Carl Kissin, Mary Lee Kortes, Thomas Pryor, Elizabeth Rowe & Amanda Thorpe. Admission is $7 & that includes one free drink.

Hunter College ~ Filling My Toolbox For Life

2011-12-08T10:04:00.006-05:00

Hunter College

Today, Our Town newspaper published my column on Hunter, the college on the Upper Eastside. In the piece I pay tribute to my two best teachers during my five years at Hunter. (I liked my fourth year at Hunter so much I did it again the next year. I was a “super senior.” Actually, I was 9 credits shy of degree so I plugged along.)

Robert J. White, classics, who imitated a werewolf and launched tribal mating calls during lectures. Professor White turned me on to D.H. Lawrence and Edward Albee and Pasolini films. Professor Richard Barickman taught me poetry, Hardy, George Eliot, Thackeray, Dickens and Henry James. He always wore riding boots like Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, with the pants tucked in and taught me critical literary analysis. Both those guys were cool and effective teachers.

Old Hunter College 1912 Cornerstone @ Lexington Ave

Professors White and Barickman led me to a rich appreciation for ancient civilizations, Thomas Mann, Romantic and Victorian poetry (I still own my Washington Square Press paperbacks edited by William H. Marshall). Both men loved language and their students with all their hearts and we soaked it up. Hunter College helped fill my toolbox for life.

Thomas Pryor & Robert White December 2010

Read the full Our Town piece here.

Thomas Pryor Hunter ID Sept 1972

Good News for Stoops to Nuts & Garland Jeffreys ~ Get The Vote Out!

2011-12-07T14:00:00.003-05:00

The next “City Stories: Stoops to Nuts” storytelling show made “Time Out” Magazine’s this week.

Thank you, Cornelia Street Café and “Time Out” for your support!

Our Holiday show is next Tuesday, December 13th @ 6pm @ Cornelia Street Café.

Please come down for a special holiday performance with gifted tellers and marvelous songsmiths: Barbara Aliprantis, Kelly Wallace-Barnhill, Carl Kissin, Mary Lee Kortes, Thomas Pryor, Elizabeth Rowe & Amanda Thorpe. Admission is $7 & that includes one free drink.

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More Good news!

Garland Jeffreys terrific song, “Roller Coaster Town” is nominated as the Coolest Song in the World 2011 on Little Steven’s Underground Garage. If you’ve heard Garland’s new album, “The King of In Between” you know Garland is back, and this song is one of the best on the record.

Please go to the link and vote for “Roller Coaster Town.” Garland’s coming to your town, get ready.

Father Benedict Dudley & The New York Giants Dark Ages

2011-12-06T09:59:00.004-05:00

Tommy punts while Pop ponders a hard Math problem

Owning a four game losing streak in professional football is the equivalent of losing 40 straight games in professional baseball. It's 25 percent of your team's season. The New York Giants four game losing streak makes me blue.

The losing stretch reminds me of the bad old days, before Pete Rozelle forcefully escorted Wellington & Tim Mara across the dance floor to their new general manager, George Young.

I'm old enough to vaguely remember the Giants glory years coming to a close in 1963. Then the dark age: from 1964 through 1980 the Giants were terrible except for one tease in 1970 when the George "Straight to Hell" Allen led L.A. Rams beat the Giants in the last game of the season denying them the N.F.L.'s Eastern Conference crown, and worse, giving the crown to the Anti-christs from Dallas.

Below are the first few paragraphs of a Sports Illustrated article from September 25, 1972, about the New York Giants bad times.

Rory facing camera in Yankee Staium bleachers 1966

A cool Yorkville related thing in the article is a prominent character is Father Benedict J. Dudley. Father Dudley was the pastor of St. Stephen of Hungary Church on East 82nd Street, and he served me my first communion and I served him as his altar boy in mass. Father Dudley was also the Chaplain for the New York Giants & the New York Rangers and one of Wellington Mara's closest friends.

It's a good read, but I'd prefer the Giants put a little winning streak together starting next week.

Tommy & Father Bendict J. Dudley 1963

It's Just One Man's Family

Wellington Mara is moving his beloved—if baffling—Giants to New Jersey, hoping others will love them, too.

by Robert H. Boyle

Father Dudley said the 6:30 a.m. Mass and then looked in on the St. Francis of Assisi

Breadline on Manhattan's West 31st Street that has been running since 1929—the oldest breadline in the world, according to Father Dudley. Not scheduled to hear confessions that day, Father Dudley got into his car and drove to the Giant training camp in New Jersey. There he watched the workouts, checked on the progress of the rookies and talked with his friend, Wellington Mara, the president of the team. Father Benedict Dudley has been a fixture around the Giants since 1932 when a man saw him standing in the bleacher ticket line at the old Polo Grounds and said, "Take this, Father." It was a box-seat ticket right on the 50-yard line. There were three or four other men in the box, and Father Dudley kept up a running commentary on the performances of the players and the progress of the game. When one of the men allowed that Father Dudley certainly knew a lot about professional football, Father Dudley said, "I used to see the Frankford Yellow Jackets play when I lived in Philadelphia." It turned out that Father Dudley was sitting in the box of a very close friend of Tim Mara's, and from then on he never had to stand in the bleacher ticket line again. Another priest, Father Kevin O'Brien, who was a professor of physics at Fordham, has always hung around the Giants, too. He became known as the defensive priest; Father Dudley was the offensive priest. Once at a dinner in Milwaukee the late Fred Miller, president of the Miller Brewing Co. and himself a Catholic, introduced Father Dudley as the offensive priest. Father Dudley drew a chortle when he cautioned Miller on pronouncing the first syllable offensive. "The word has two meanings," he said. In the course of years, Father Dudley has become not only honorary chaplain to the Giants but to what Wellington Mara calls "the Giant Family."

To finish Robert H. Boyle's article go to this link:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1086564/index.htmin

How To Die In Paris ~ Book Launch Tonight ~ Free Wine!

2011-12-05T15:02:00.005-05:00

Tonight, Monday, Dec 5th @ 7pm – Naturi Thomas ~ Free Reading Event (Free Wine, too):

Bluestockings Bookstore @ 172 Allen Street

Naturi Thomas “How to Die in Paris” Book Launch

Celebrate a story of survival, love, self-discovery, and healing with the New York launch of Naturi Thomas’ riveting memoir. “How to Die in Paris” is an edgy, poetic, often darkly comic, memoir of a young woman who escapes a tortured past in New York to pursue a new life in Europe– only to find herself broke, desperate, and contemplating suicide on the streets of Paris. Join Naturi as she celebrates the launch of her memoir in the city where it all began.

This event is so cool, this book is so good, I talked two bears out of hibernation by reading them the first fifty pages. They sat on a midtown bench transfixed while the Empire State Building looked down at us. The bears are coming, too!

Kodachrome December in NYC

2011-12-03T09:14:00.013-05:00

December opened in Kodachrome. Warm sun, billowing clouds, a yawning moon in a blue sky.

Walking through Central Park, Columbus Circle and following the sunset downtown thought of Stevie Wonder's Golden Lady when I measured my love for the city. In the West Village, I watched Night Fall On Hoboken.

The next "City Stories: Stoops to Nuts" show is Tuesday, December 13th @ 6pm @ Cornelia Street Cafe.

Please come down to the Cafe for a special holiday show with gifted tellers and marvelous songsmiths: Barbara Aliprantis, Kelly Wallace Barnhill, Carl Kissin, Mary Lee Kortes, Thomas Pryor, Elizabeth Rowe & Amanda Thorpe. Admission is $7 & that includes one free drink.

Here's a link to many pictures from the last two days and a few oldies that for some reason just fit in.

First of December ~ Sheep Meadow Central Park

2011-12-02T09:13:00.001-05:00

Sheep Meadow was quiet on the first of December and stunning.

A couple made a reservation for the whole place. I felt like an intruder and walked wide around them but snuck behind for two photos.

On the very bottom are two pictures of one particular tree, from yesterday, and from last year in blossom.

Walking through the park yesterday I thought of Old Friends & Bookends.

From Uncle Mommy's Cookbook: An Irish Sandwich

2011-12-01T13:06:00.006-05:00

Tom & Uncle Mommy on Circle Line to Bear Mt. 1962

Just made an Irish sandwich: Iceberg Lettuce & lots of Hellman's Mayo on Wonder Bread. Uncle Mommy taught Rory & I how to survive when the fridge emptied before the Sloan's grocery run to 86th & York Avenue on Friday afternoons after school. New TV guide day, maybe including color pictures of Emma Peel, Elizabeth Montgomery or Mary Ann from Gilligan’s.

Murray Parker on n/e cor of 83rd St. & York Ave ~ 1966

Murray Parker’s grocery on 83rd & York filled in the food gaps during the week when Mom forced a two milk & a pack of Marlboro’s expedition. I’d be playing in the street and she’d throw money out Chickie Murphy’s apartment in the front of the building. One out of two times the coin laden money ball would whiff through my hands and smack me in the forehead. I'm a clutz.

Marvin Gaye was on my transistor radio.

Sandy Becker Haunts "City Stories: Stoops to Nuts"

2011-11-30T12:57:00.001-05:00

When I was eight years old nothing made me happier than hearing Bert Kaempfert’s That Happy Feeling coming out of our TV on East 83rd Street. That Happy Feeling signaled the start of the Sandy Becker Show.

Sandy Becker's talent and charm could cool my 103 fever, make my German measles stop itching and quiet my parents arguing.

I loved Chuck McCann, still do, but Sandy got way inside my head and I couldn’t wait to grow up and try and do all the things he did to cheer kids up. Sandy was a mentor and I wish I was able to tell him that. Luckily, I was able to tell Chuck who is alive and well in California.

I’ll bet Bruce Springsteen loved Sandy Becker, too, or he never would have worn that pith helmet on stage at the Garden in tribute to Sandy’s Hambone.(photo by Jeff Havas)

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The next "City Stories: Stoops to Nuts" show is Tuesday, December 13th @ 6pm @ Cornelia Street Cafe.

Please come down to the Cafe for a special holiday show with gifted tellers and marvelous songsmiths: Barbara Aliprantis, Kelly Wallace Barnhill, Carl Kissin, Mary Lee Kortes, Thomas Pryor, Elizabeth Rowe & Amanda Thorpe.

Admission is $7 & that includes one free drink.

Under A Crescent Moon in Central Park ~ Ridiculously Deep Indian Summer

2011-11-29T10:59:00.002-05:00

When I'm sad, a sunset can put new sneakers on my soul. Instantly, I run faster and jump higher. Add 70 degrees to the sunset and I'm surfing clouds.

Yesterday, I walked around the reservoir heading west. After dark, I biked south along the Hudson River seawall under a crescent moon. Be careful next few days as seasons flip, you'll need your Autumn Sweater.

Saw the oddest thing in my travels, a pleased piggy offering a carrot to a hungry bunny.

More ridiculously deep Indian summer pictures here.