York Avenue, Sunday Morning (1939)

Armin Landeck, American, 1905-1984: “York Avenue, Sunday Morning,” 1939; drypoint. Ackland Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, The Hunter and Cathy Allen Collection, 2013.21.26

I found this work this morning, thought the subject was perfect as a borrow for this page.

Tricia Alexandro @ Stoops To Nuts @ Ryan's Daughter

Mark your calendar. Valentine's Day, February 14th, a special Stoops to Nuts show at Ryans Daughter, 350 E. 85th Street @ 3-6 pm. I''ll perform sections from my upcoming play, "City Boy." Our musical artists: Nina & Son (David Terhune & Nina Terhune) and Eric Vetter & his Mirth Makers.

"My Aim Is True"

Thomas Pryor presents: Stoops to Nuts Valentine Day Show

Ryans Daughter, 350 E. 85th Street

February 14th @ 3pm to 6pm

Free show

directly across the street from the sketch above ~ ball field 59 St.

Batten the Hatches on York Avenue!

East River ~ 7am ~ Oct 29, 2012

Brian Ferry tells me "Love is the Drug,"as I sit writing here. Outside, it's picking up. Vertical rain and all that. Early this morning, I watched the swollen East River saturated in grey.  An hour ago, I walked up to 84th and York. Took a photo and thought about my family's 116 consecutive years on this avenue, formerly called Avenue A changed by real estate speculators after WWI to cash in on war hero Sergeant Alvin York.  Remember Gary Cooper in the film?

Here are a few pictures of a spot on York over the years.

Batten the hatches!

eastside of York Ave looking towards 84th Street

Thomas E. Pryor 1945

Robert Pryor, Allie Cobert & Mickey Fiorillo 1962

Tommy Pryor Xmas Day 1960

The Rain, the Park and Other Things

The rain, the park, and other things, that cheer me up.

Enjoy the day, wet or dry.

Some photos from now and then for a soggy day in NYC.

Rory kissing his ass goodbye in Carl Schurz Park

Mom with bump up and Rory on Confirmation Day

Patty Loves Joannie Baloney

42nd Street about to go End of World like

Shine On, Uncle Mommy

Paying tribute to Uncle Mommy, Patricia Pryor, today would have been her 82th birthday. When Mom was my age she made Dad drive her to Eisenhower Park in Long Island early on a Sunday morning to be at the finish line of my first and only half marathon. When I came in she met me with a hug, kiss, flowers and a quart of orange juice that she encouraged me to drink straight from the carton (Dad hated that). 

Mom gave me many nicknames, Tee, Klutz, Cow Cow Boogie, but the sweetest and my favorite, she called me “her little mouse.” I love cheese and she said I gnawed toast with my teeth instead of biting and chewing it. (I did, to make it last longer).

Below, is a charcoal drawing of Mom by Dad when she was 31 years old in 1961. (I remember the night Dad did it on 83^rd Street. Dad kept telling Mom to stop moving). Also below, a few photos of Patty or Pat, the names were interchangeable. Everybody loved her, and Pat's coffee cup for 40 years along with the hot chocolate cup she gave to me, Tom, her little mouse.

I am lucky, I have a film of my parents going in and out St. Stephen’s on their wedding day in September 1952.  For the first time in about 10 years, I watched it the other day three times and had a good cry.

I’m grateful to have had people in my life that I miss all the time. She’s gone 14 years, but I’ll never stop thinking about and loving with my whole heart my Uncle Mommy.

Happy Birthday, Ma!

The Superball Incident

I openly owned a Superball for five minutes. I bought one in Joe's Candy Store between 83rd & 84th Street on York Avenue in 1965 when the amazing nuclear ball was introduced.



I left the store cautiously bouncing the other worldly sphere off the sidewalk not wanting it to fly into the avenue. It's awesome powers unknown to me. After giving it a couple of test bounces, I whacked it off the ground as hard as I could trying to send it up to the sixty-foot high tenement roof. Instead, it went off on an angle towards Spotless Cleaners, hit the store's door at 80 miles an hour cracking the glass and bounced back to me cleanly just in time for the guy in Spotless Cleaners to come out the door and see me standing there with the ball in my hand. "Lose the ball," he told me.

I placed it in the street and walked away. Spotless was a chain dry cleaners so insurance paid for the door's glass. I snuck back later sliding behind the cars in the street and picked up my ball leaning against the curb. Going forward, the Superball stayed in my pocket when I strolled past Spotless Cleaners.











Fun Superball Fact: In the late 1960s Wham-O made a "giant" superball, roughly the size of a bowling ball, as a promotional stunt. It fell from the 23rd story window of an Australian hotel (or some reports say, from the roof) and destroyed a parked convertible car on the 2nd bounce.

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

Rory's Olin Hall Adventure

Rory loved adventures. He joined Freddy Muller and me on one in 1966. Not sure who first discovered it, but starting at 70th Street near the FDR drive down by the East River, you could enter the New York Hospital complex down a flight of stairs into a sub-basement that had a series of walking tunnels that led through many areas of the hospital. The hair on the back of our necks stood up when we passed through the pathology area where every conceivable human body part was floating in liquid in huge glass jars. At first we went down the eerie tunnels because we could, but eventually found they led to the sub-basement of Olin Hall at 69th Street & York Avenue where we found a regulation size wood floor basketball court. This made Freddy & me very happy, and Rory indifferent. He liked getting spooked and had no interest in sports. Next time Freddy and I brought a basketball and Rory wandered around until it was time to leave or we got chased by doctors playing a pick-up game. Eventually, the whole neighborhood found out the secret of the buried court. That blew it for everyone, security now kept an eye out for us. Looking back, this was the best time of our lives, together.

Rory died at 42, twelve years ago today. He was a fine artist but left little of his art behind because he gave it away to his friends. The three pieces shown here are Rory's work.

Here's one of Rory's favorite songs, "Baker Street," by Jerry Rafferty

And when you wake up, it's a new morning
The sun is shining, it's a new morning

You're going, You're going home.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3ov78kAMNg&feature=related

Harold & Maude plant a tree for Rory

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD5fMMXwZs8&feature=related

If you like, you can listen to last week's "Yorkville: Stoops to Nuts," radio show with my guest, Coree Spencer, at the Centanni link below:

Yorkville: Stoops to Nuts 9/14/2010 with host Tommy Pryor & guest: Coree Spencer

Shopping On York Avenue ~ 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.

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 83^rd Street 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.