Hanging Out On The Stoop

Charlie on 511 E. 84th Street stoop

Hey Charlie!

Do Your Ears Hang Low?
Do They Wobble to and Fro?
Can You Tie Them in a Knot?
Can You Tie Them in a Bow?
Can You Throw Them Over Your Shoulder Like a Continental Soldier?

"Where's Poppa?" ~ Thomas Pryor's Stoops to Nuts Father's Day Show

Friday, June 17, 2016. @ 7-10pm upstairs at Ryan's Daughter
S2N artists: Colin Dempsey, Joe Dettmore, Nicole Ferraro, Tim McGillicuddy & Una McGillicuddy. 

Thomas Pryor's your host, it's a cuckoo crazy nuts FREE S2N event. Bring your Pa, Da and all your recollections of Poppa. I'll be doing Yorkville stories about Daddy O'Pryor from scenes in my upcoming solo play, "City Boy" (Feb 2017.) We work to preserve our neighborhood's character and texture through word and song and raise the alert on our diminishing street light and vanishing stoops.

Charlie on 511 E. 84th Street stoop

Charlie on 511 E. 84th Street stoop

Charlie on 511 E. 84th Street stoop

511 East 84th Street stoop here ~ my family almost bought this building in the early 1950s. My great grandparents lived in an apt on the first floor. Either my uncle or my father backed out, they were each going to take one of the floors. My father with my great-grandmother Rode in this photo in 1946.

If you like my work check out my memoir, "I Hate the Dallas Cowboys - tales of a scrappy New York boyhood." Available at Logos Book Store or online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

The book has 118 Amazon five star reviews out of 118 total reviews posted. We're pitching a perfect game. My old world echoes TV's "The Wonder Years" ~ just add taverns, subways and Checker cabs.

as a boy on 83rd Street, I'd walk around the corner to the 500 block of 84th Street and make believe I had my own bedroom in one of the beautiful townhouses on that block instead of the top of the bunk bed I split with Rory and half a toy chest in our broom closet sized bedroom.

In winter I complained it was hot, Rory complained it was cold, the heat from the standing steam pipe rose up in our tiny room with the useless air shaft window. Then I met the Freehills on EEA, heard about their Archie Bell & The Drells "Tighten Up" sleeping spaces. I stopped complaining.

East 84th Street: The Edge of My Universe

As an adult and as a kid certain Yorkville blocks could instantly swing my mood one way or the other. A block that always made me feel good was 84th Street between York Avenue & East End Avenue. Since I was forbidden to cross a street alone until I was 6, 84th Street was my adventure block


I lived on 83rd Street and 84th was as far as I could go away from my building without getting a kick in the ass for breaking the "cross the street rule."

84th Street was the edge of my universe.

The housing on 84th Street, unlike 83rd Street, included a row of townhouses and beautiful mature trees on each side that made a canopy of green over the street bed in spring and summer. The block was the yellow brick road that ended in a little hill that led directly into Carl Schurz Park. My park!

On 84th Street riding my bike I felt like Richie Rich cruising his estate. Pretty women in fine dresses walked up and down coming back from fancy East End Avenue. I was careful when I circled past them on my bicycle.

It wasn’t until my teens that I learned my family was this close to buying 511 East 84th Street. My Dad’s family was ready to do it in the early 1950s but my Uncle or Dad chickened out (never completely clear).

The now and then pictures here are 511 East 84th Street in 1942 and yesterday afternoon.

My grandmother, Ann Pryor Rode, is a giving a speech on the stoop and my father, Robert, 13, (on top right) is in the crowd taking in the Service Flag Dedication event in August 1942.

Strolling down 84th Street still makes me feel like a wealthy man.