New Yorker of the Month

I am grateful and proud that Ask a New Yorker named me April’s New Yorker of the Month.

Mid-March, I took a long walk through Yorkville with Kennedy Moore, the founder of Ask a New Yorker and it all came out.  My love for the neighborhood, the city, the people still here and those gone. The rich Yorkville memories block to block, up to the avenues then down to the river.

Our walk started at Lexington Avenue and 86^th Street, the center of Yorkville’s universe. We meandered the lower 80s and went up to the footprint of the old Ruppert Brewery. Stopped at the Isaacs/Holmes Housing Project, then over to Asphalt Green football field. We played in Carl Schurz Park, strolled the Drive and concluded our walkabout in front of 517 East 83^rd Street, my old home, where our journey ended.

I love our city and my warren, Yorkville.  Thank you, Ask a New Yorker.

Our next City Stories: Stoops to Nuts storytelling show is six days away, Tuesday, April 10, 2012 at the Cornelia Street Café.

Our sensational line-up: Slash Coleman, Kurt Gertsmann, Dave Lester, Susan Neuffer, Sherryl Marshall and Thomas Pryor.

Admission is $7 and includes a free drink. I guarantee a good time.

Rear wall of the Yorkville Casino ~ 85th St

Heidelberg

Old Timers

Mom in front of 519 E 86th St ~ 1961

East Side Settlement House cornerstone 

1903 drawing of East Side Settlement House

Yorkville In January Sunshine ~ Go Giants!

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

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

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

All Hallows Haunt Lexington Ave ~ Beware the Great Pumpkin!

On Lexington Avenue, the spirit of Halloween is in a mischievous mood. 

Tomorrow night @ 6pm, the phantom follows Lexington down to Gramercy Park, makes a left, shrieks over to 6th Avenue and flies south to West 4th Street where it makes a mean turn into Cornelia Street down to number 29, in the door, down the stairs into the spooky café for City Stories: Stoops to Nuts Halloween show.

Ghouls include: Tricia Alexandro,Kambri Crews, Nick Danger, Timothy O'Mara, Thomas Pryor,Barry & Brian Stabile. Admission is $7 and that includes one free drink. It will be a marvelous night for a Moondance. I'm telling a ghost story. Boo!

Here are some creepy photos from Lexington Avenue Saturday night.

Sally says, "Don't be a Blockhead and miss the Great Pumpkin!"

Cornelia Street Café is @ 29 Cornelia Street. That’s between W. 4th St. & Bleecker, just around the corner from the West 4th Street subway station. Or a healthy walk from the east side’s # 6 ~ Bleecker Street stop.

Lexington Avenue Love Affair

Long before I attended Hunter College I fell in love with Lexington Avenue. As a boy I regularly drifted over there for no reason at all. This intimate stretch is my favorite Manhattan walking avenue, especially at night when the streets are clear. Better, in the snow. Lexington was not part of the original 1811 Street Grid. It’s insertion as a narrow avenue allows it to retain an old world feel. It’s easy for me to imagine Georgia O’Keefe and Alfred Stieglitz moving into the Shelton Hotel at 49th Street in 1925. Their love for the avenue influenced their work and flows through their art. I never walk passed the 67th Street Armory without thinking about Douglas MacArthur being laid out there in 1964 when he died, and the picture of the crowds in The New York Daily News first seven cent edition. The newspaper was a nickel the previous day.

I walked the avenue last week and took some pictures of the armory, Hunter (the original school building facing Lexington turns 100 next year) and the storefronts (my father sold his miniature furniture out of two Lexington stores). Here are pictures and a link to a small photograph album of Lexington, Park Avenue and a couple of side blocks. The painting here is by Georgia O'Keefe and the b/w photo is by Alfred Stieglitz.

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The next City Stories: Stoops to Nuts storytelling show at the Cornelia Street Cafe is Tuesday, October 11th @ 6pm. This month’s artists: Tricia Alexandro,Kambri Crews, Nick Danger, Timothy O'Mara, Thomas Pryor, Barry & Brian Stabile. Admission is $7 and that includes one free drink. It will be a marvelous night for a Moondance.

"On Three, Make a Stupid Face" ~ Freedomland 1962

“OK, go stand against the wall.” Dad said.

“Oh God, another friggin picture.” Mom mumbled down towards the top of Rory and my head.

We just stepped off the Lexington Avenue local at the end of the line: the Pelham Bay Park El subway stop. With his Yashica 44 camera hanging from his neck, Dad was gathering us for our first group shot before the train we got off, pulled out. On our way to Freedomland, the terrific new amusement park in the north Bronx, Dad thought he'd capture every step of the way. Every step. The three of us took a vote and Dad won “biggest pain in the ass of all time,” and we didn’t even get to the ticket booth yet.

“No, no, Tommy on the left, Patty, you in the middle, Rory on the right.” Dad said.

“I want to be in the middle!”

“Rory, be quiet.”

After the three of us were placed in dog show positions, Dad said, “Hold still, and smile when I count to three.”

Mom said through her tight lips,”On three, make a stupid face.”

“One, two… three!”

And here it is. The most revealing photo in my family history. Mom and I in cahoots make stupid faces, Rory is still pissed off at Dad for not letting him stand in the middle.

Because we ruined Dad’s photo, he walked ahead of us and didn’t talk to us for an hour. Which was just fine with Rory, since he was always mad at Dad, and vice versa. Mom was thrilled she pushed Dad’s button. My stomach hurt from being caught in the middle.

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Two events coming up: I'm reading at "Mr. Beller's Neighborhood Reading Series" on Friday, May 27th @ 8pm @ Happy Ending Lounge on Broome Street **** our next "City Stories: Stoops to Nuts Storytelling show" @ Cornelia Street Cafe @ Tuesday, June 14th @ 6pm. Details to follow on both events.

Lexington Avenue ~ My Little Town

As a boy I was pushed along, then pulled along all of Manhattan's avenues with no exceptions.

We had no car, like Barney Rubble we visited our neighbors using our feet.

My earliest memory of Lexington Avenue was going to the Lenox Hill Clinic on 76th Street to get a vaccination. I remember being impressed with the buildings on both sides of the street. Burnished dirty stone right on top of me. Lexington is the most narrow avenue in Manhattan. This means a lot when you are small and want to relate to objects, and the closer they are to you, the easier it is to decide whether they are good or bad.

When we strolled along Lexington, I began to think about girls, and thinking about walking along Lexington with a girl, holding her hand, feeling the buildings on both sides of the street watching us and giving us passage, and thinking about how Lexington made me feel like I was in my little town.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aa62m5cl0LU

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Yorkville Radio Show ~ Starts Next Tuesday ~ July 13th @ 9pm

Alison and Guillaume are leaving the palace to visit: Yorkville: Stoops to Nuts, the radio show, starting next Tuesday, July 13th @ 9pm on the Centanni Broadcasting Network, live from Giovanna's Restaurant on Lexington Ave & 100th St. Join Ali & Guillaume at the show, have dinner, a glass of wine, or tune in live at home or on the archives.

http://www.centannibroadcasting.com/

One hour devoted to storytelling about neighborhood places, characters, and institutions with terrific guests & music. They'll be shows on the RKO 86th Street, Old Yankee Stadium, Carl Schurz Park, Losers Lounge, Clay Cole Show, Cornelia Street Cafe, and various Yorkville taverns & shops. Tune in, I'll take you back.

A Snowy Walk Through Hunter College, A Long Time Ago

I attended kindergarten, grammar school, high school and college in Manhattan. It was natural.

September 1972, I entered Hunter College with 16,000 other matriculating students.
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I was way in the back of the line when they gave me my first class schedule. I had little choice in picking five classes and the guy who put my schedule together handed me a card and shook my hand, "This is the worst schedule I've ever seen."
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Monday, Thursday 8-11am; 3-5pm ~ Wed 8-10am; Friday 8-10am; 4-5pm.
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I played football for the Bronx Warriors, and broke my fibula a week before my first Hunter class. My first two weeks I was on crutches. Most kids avoided the slow elevators. I took one to the 10th floor then went back and forth hopping the staircase from 7th to 10th floor to class. I held the crutches in one arm and took one step at a time on my good foot while a thousand kids ran around and through me. It was impossible to hold the giant heavy door open alone and get through it before it closed back on me. I needed help and usually slid through when a gang of kids went through, or sometimes...
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late for a class, I was on the stairs with a few stragglers. At the 9th floor door, a very pleasant Chinese student smiled towards me, and apparently was holding the door for me. He appeared happy. I said, "thank you," and put my crutches in place under my arms and put my head down to go through the doorway. The pleasant smiling student let the door go, it whacked me in the head, and with my arms locked to the crutches I moon-walked backward quickly across the landing, slammed into the huge radiator and fell into a heap.
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That first semester, I took a course, "Probabilities & Statistics," for two purposes: improve my weak gambling skill and satisfy my Math & Science requirement. 8am, Mon & Thurs, I dreaded the first class, I don't wake well. Got there late, opened the door, and saw a tall thirtish teacher, one goofy guy and forty nursing students, half of them Irish with those cute little noses. I was never late again.



My last year at Hunter, I hung around with Susan. We met in a Flemish Art class, Susan looked like The Girl with a Pearl Earring, this made absolute sense to me. Museum guards at the Met threatened us three times with expulsion. On a class trip, our teacher scolded us, "Seriously, you two, need to grow up." Susan and I took this as a compliment. We bought 25 cent bagel sandwiches in the High School building and put a ton of free Mayo on the one slice of Swiss or Bologna. We went to the Zoo when we should have been in class, and went to class when we should have gone to the Zoo. Susan made Hunter better.




My favorite teachers: Robert J. White, Classics, he imitated a werewolf and launched tribal mating calls in class, Dr. White turned me onto Edward Albee and Pasolini films. Professor Richard Barickman taught me: Poetry, Hardy, Elliot, Thackeray, Dickens and Henry James. He always wore riding boots like Heathcliff with the pants tucked in and taught me critical literary analysis.
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Professors White & Barickman led me to a rich appreciation for ancient civilizations, and in literature: D.H. Lawrence, Mann, James, Romantic and Victorian poetry (I still own my Washington Square Press paperbacks edited by William H. Marshall). These two men loved language with all their hearts and we soaked it up.

building on 65th Street and Park Avenue, just looked pretty against the sky