Summer Solstice Memory on 86th Street

An old 86 St. memory ~ Mom's shoe store excursions, dragging Rory and me along with her looking for the unfindable: a comfortable shoe. Us  getting thrown out for speeding, riding the rolling ladder in the store much too fast and playing "Salugi" with the magical device that measured your foot that the shoe clerk claimed cost a lot. 

"Put it down! Now!"

86th Street's Droopy Stoop ~ Now & Then

On the southeast corner of 86th Street and York Avenue is a stoop that caught my interest as a kid. 500 East 86th Street. It was the highest one on the block. I’d wait on top for my father to get off the crosstown bus. Sitting there, I noticed the railing on both sides looked like a really fat elephant sat on it and made it droop. Never knew why. Last month, I had a conversation with my friend, Bill Chefalas, and he told me a story.

Our Stoop – 500 East 86th Street

During the period 1955 to 1958, I, along with other neighborhood friends, used to meet almost daily, and sit at the very top of the stairs, where we could see out over the cars and people on to York Avenue. We would alternate between the stoop and the popular Kronk’s ice cream parlor, a block away on 87th Street--the stoop was more private. On any given day, there were at least 20 to 30 of us who would congregate at these places. Some came from as far as the Bronx to meet there. (I walked every day from 81st Street and 1st). For these were some of the most popular places for us to meet girls and arrange dates. A few of us had cars, but I didn’t. And the ones that did, used to take us on rides to Coney Island and Freedom Land in the Bronx, and long rides around the Belt Parkway.

Our “stoop,” had a very large decorative stone lintel about six feet wide, located at the top of the stairs high above the door, and one day, probably around 1957, the lintel came crashing down on the two railings. If you look today, you can still see the two parallel bends on the railings that were caused by the crashing stone. Luckily, we weren't sitting there at the time. Every time I pass by that building, I look over at the stoop to see if the bent railings are still there, and they still are. Seeing those bends, bring back the memories of those days, and I can still picture me and my friends sitting there.

By Bill Chefalas

Yorkville on the Radio

The urinals in the bathroom of the 86th Street RKO were so big, we hid inside them when we played hide & seek after we watched the film too many times. On a regular basis, I went to the Loew's or RKO in Yorkville for the first show around 11 am and didn't come out of the theatre until it was dark.

In the RKO, Steve Murphy and I made a human ball wrapping ourselves around each other, and threw ourselves down the three-story high horseshoe staircase, we rolled like a barrel. The carpet on the stairs was so thick it hardly hurt. No evidence, till the next day when black and blues sprung up all over our bodies. This was not a big hit with RKO personnel.

Last night, I was Valerie Pepe's guest on her terrific radio show on the Centanni Broadcasting Network. Thank you, Valerie, Betty & Johnny Anello. We told Yorkville & Staten Island neighborhood stories, you can listen by going to the link below ~ go the "The Valerie & Betty Show 5/19/10" ~ click and the show should open in your media player. After you listen, take your kid to a movie and leave them there for the day.

http://www.centannibroadcasting.com/

Safe at Home

I never shook Mickey Mantle's hand and that remains one of my few regrets.

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When I was 8 years old, Mickey stood right in front of me at the 86th Street RKO theatre in April 1962, when they made that silly movie "Safe at Home," to capitalize on the Maris & Mantle, M&M boys' 1961 home run derby. The Yankee team made appearances in several New York City movie houses to promote the film.

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I forced Dad to get to the theatre two hours early to make sure we were on the aisle. We had a quick burger across the street at Prexy's first. At seven o' five, word spread the team bus had pulled up in front. The Yankees came into the lobby dressed in suits & ties and marched down the right side of the movie house. Yogi Berra walked by me and stepped on my toe, but I didn't notice, though my father did and wanted Berra to apologize. It was strange seeing Dad pissed at Yogi.

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Elston Howard stopped in front of me, and put his arms behind his back like a military MP. Ellie saw I was having a baby over Mickey Mantle standing right next to him two feet away from me shaking in my sneakers. Dad and Ellie exchanged laughs over my dilemma, then Howard leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Say hi, he won't bite you." But I was too scared to say anything to Mickey. As the Yankees walked on stage for a final bow, I dribbled my opportunity away.

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Below is a letter I wrote to Mantle when I was 13.

86th Street ~ The Heartbeat of Yorkville

On a good day, I'd weasel a quarter off my mother on 83rd Street. Then I'd hit York Avenue, walk half a block north, go up the stairs of 1582, walk into Apt. 2 South, make a little small talk and say, "Hi Nan, how are you , can I have a quarter?"

Then I'd stroll north, crossing 84th & 85th Streets, go up the long stoop of 1616 York Avenue and walk into the first floor apartment on the north side of the building ~ same routine, "Hi Pop, Yankees won yesterday, how are you? Can I have a quarter?"

Once in a blue moon, they all said, "Yes."

When they did, I had my movie money ~ 75 cents for Loews or the RKO. Who needed food? I was going to see a new film all by my lonesome. Up 86th Street, I ran. It never bothered me to go in during the middle of a film. I liked trying to figure out what was going on, who was who, and I always stayed for the entire movie anyway.

Under the street bed of 86th Street between 1st & Lexington Avenues beats the heart of Yorkville. It's been there since the end of World War I. Maybe longer. Between those avenues were the pleasure domes of my childhood, the late 1950s and 1960s. The three movie houses, Horn & Hardart, Cushman's, Prexy's, Karl Ehmer, off block, Schaller & Weber and the Heidelberg Restaurant, Berlin Bar, Merit Farm, Papaya King, Ideal Restaurant, Salamander Shoe Store for my special need feet with the store's gift of a air-filled balloon for every child on a straightened out metal hanger because they were too cheap to buy helium, Woolworth's and Lamston's around the corner, Martin's, Singer's, Lotus, Little Hofbrau and countless other restaurants.
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Last night, I stopped by the new Barnes & Noble bookstore near the 86th Street subway entrance to check out the new books. There in the center of Local favorites & the New York section was Lost and Found: Stories from New York, (see photos).

My family's played, shopped and gallivanted along 86th Street for 100 years. If they were here, everyone of them would have a baby seeing my story, "Madame Butterfly Goes Down,"in this book.

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Thomas Beller's terrific anthology, Lost & Found: Stories from New York, is available at:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Lost-and-Found/Thomas-Beller/e/9780393331912
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Yorkville Crossroads

Every corner is a crossroad. We all gravitate there to watch the river flow.

If it was 86th Street & York Avenue, you planted yourself in front of the Pharmacy, watching the rich girls strut down 86th Street to their fancy addresses, making sure they knew money could never make them prettier then you.

If it was 84th Street & East End Avenue, you could read the faces on the parents coming out of Carl Schurz Park...

"Thank God, it's over, those kids drove me crazy."

And examine parents faces going into the park...

" Oh, boy, I'm going to play catch."
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Horn & Hardart

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“My family was on the dole when we were young,” Mom said in the hot street.
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“What’s that?” Rory asked me.
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“Means you’re on a special pineapple diet,” I told him.
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After getting thrown out of the cool bank for loitering, Mom pushed us down 86th Street in the stroller and told us a story. “It’s not like the old days, when I was a kid you could spend the whole day in the Horn & Hardart coin-mat with a few nickels in your pocket. Steaming coffee came out of the mouth of a brass dolphin. Best baked beans on earth. Macaroni & cheese from God. My knucklehead cousin, John, once put a nickel in a machine to get a glass of milk. Then he yelled train wreck, and showed me his open mouth full of lemon meringue pie. He was so proud of himself; he forgot to stick a glass under the milk spout. Quick thinking, he stuck his hat underneath the spout and collected the milk the hard way.” Mom rubbed the sweat off the back of her neck and said, “It’s a scorcher.”
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101 Dalmations

When I was 6, Dad took me to the 86th Street RKO to see 101 Dalmations. We split a large Seven-Up and a box of Pom-Poms. I immediately loved the movie for a bunch of reasons, but two stuck. The first was the scene in the film where they all sat around and watched TV together. Dad, Mom, Rory and me did that too. Only thing we did without battling. The second impression that never left was these two dogs were terrific parents, the kids screwed up, got in all kinds of trouble but the parents hung in with them. I remember thinking, I hope Dad is watching this movie closely.







I achieved a Joe DiMaggio type streak today. 101 straight days of blog entries.
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86th, 125th, 138th, 149th... Next stop...

My record was 28 minutes, from grabbing the ticket out of Jack Loftus hand in his tavern at 85th Street, running up 86th Street to catch the uptown #4, flying down the stairs at the 161st Street/River Avenue El, motoring to Gate 1, into the Stadium and finally reaching my seat in Section 18 in the mezzanine.