A Royal Flush

Yesterday, I walked over the Brooklyn Bridge. It was cold and beautiful. On Gold Street, I recorded three stories in a studio. Nine of my published stories are being professionally engineered and will be available for you to listen on the Internet in late February through a link on this blog. Back in Manhattan, I headed for the Surrogate Courthouse on Chambers Street. On the first floor of this splendid building is the New York City Library and it's open to the public. They have every book you can imagine on the city, old maps and land books.

I love 31 Chambers Street, I worked there for the Comptroller's Office while I was in Hunter College in the mid 1970s. There was no security, me and a bunch of Pace accounting majors ran the building. Our job involved many visits to the spooky basement where every voucher for every check cut by the city was stored. My job was to reconcile vouchers to checks right after President Ford told the city to "Drop Dead," per the New York Daily News (He never used those words, no surprise). It was so dark in the basement we bumped into each other, and played wicked games of hide and seek.

When it was time to go the bathroom I used the Judges private chambers bathrooms on the sixth floor, quite easy to sneak in. Fixtures were brass, wood paneling to kill for, enough room in each stall for a card game. They were thrones. Each stall had a pull chain with the water box over the toilet bowl. Every time I yanked that chain it was a royal flush.

Going to the bathroom at home was never the same.

A Hazy Shade of Winter

Ahhh, seasons change with the scenery,
Weaving time in a tapestry,
Won't you stop and remember me?
(Paul Simon)
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Here's a view of the frontage of St. Peter's Church, the oldest Roman Catholic parish in New York. Standing north of the church, this view was hidden before the foolish demolition of the Deco Art styled Dun & Bradstreet building last year, and will only be available for a limited time until the monolith goes up across the street. Behind the church is the Underwood Building. At one point, Underwood Typewriter was one of the largest companies in the world ~ this was their headquarters. See the 1911 black & white photo of the building with the Municipal Building in construction on Centre Street behind it.


I roamed around City Hall Park today and took a couple of photos. In one, I caught a squirrel and pigeon playing an ignore me game.

I leave my affordable housing job and my office below in two days, and slide into my new career. Can't wait.
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Here's a description of St. Peter's from their web site:

Old St. Peter's is the Mother Church of Catholic New York, as it is the oldest Roman Catholic parish in New York City and New York State. The Roman Catholic Church was not permitted to function in New York during the Dutch and British colonial periods, except for the administration of Gov. Thomas Dongan (1683-88), who was himself Catholic. The American Revolution changed all this, and in 1785, after the British evacuation of New York, St. Peter’s Church was founded. Property was acquired on Barclay Street, and the first church constructed on the site of the present church. St. Peter's Parish opened the first Catholic school in the state of New York in 1800. Elizabeth Ann Seton was received into the Roman Catholic Church at St. Peter's in 1805. Born in New York City in 1774, Elizabeth often prayed before The Crucifixion painting above St. Peter's main altar. (This painting by Mexican artist Jose Vallejo was a gift from the archbishop of Mexico City in 1789.) A widow and mother of five, the former Episcopalian eventually went on to found the Sisters of Charity. Elizabeth was the first person born in the (soon-to-be) United States to become a canonized saint (September 14, 1975). The cornerstone of the present Greek Revival granite building with six Ionic columns was laid in 1836, as designed by John R. Haggerty and Thomas Thomas. St. Peter's was the first church in the archdiocese to offer midday services, and by the 1940s St. Peter's was becoming more of a service church as the financial district gave way to stores and tall office buildings, with thousands entering the area each day for work.In 1965, St. Peter's was designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. The church is located just north of the World Trade Center towers, and was a staging area for emergency responders. The body of the Rev. Mychal Judge, Chaplain to the New York City Fire Department and officially the first casualty of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack, was brought to St. Peter's by firefighters and laid before the altar.