An Irishman Gave Me The Finger

Ourselves Club on East 84th Street in 1903

St. Paddy’s morning I woke from a strange dream. It was a spring day in the early 1900s in Yorkville. I knew this when I saw isolated wood-frame houses scattered among the vacant lots along the cobblestone street lined with trees in early bloom. I rode inside a copper colored trolley shooting the breeze with the driver.

We passed Lexington Avenue on 79th Street headed towards Third Avenue, when an Irish gentleman dressed in his Sunday best, velvet green vest, spats, top hat, the works, decided to dart out mid-block and jog theatrically across the street in front of us. The driver paid him no mind and kept the trolley at cruising speed. This forced the gent to move faster than he intended and his feet tangled. The gentleman finished his cake walk crossing with a 360 degree turn with his arms flailing and remarkably kept his balance.

The Irishman fumed when he saw us giggling at him. He marched across his lawn to his porch and pulled a large wooden contraption down the steps and out on the grass ~ looked like the catapult that the French hurled the cow at the English with in "Monty Python's Holy Grail."

He set the weapon up on the lawn and started cranking a handle on the side of the device. The driver and I exchanged a look, we expected, "Incoming!" Instead, after several "Crank, Crank, Cranks," a colossus wooden fist rose up with the middle finger saluting ~ the carved hand was giving us the finger. The Irishman crossed his arms, smirked and nodded towards the bus. 

If you enjoy my work, check out my memoir, "I Hate the Dallas Cowboys - tales of a scrappy New York boyhood," it's available at Logos Bookstore, 1575 York Avenue, or buy it online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble or other booksellers. If you do read it, please leave a few honest words about the book on Amazon and B&N. Thank you.

Central Park

Central Park

My Favorite St. Patrick's Day ~ 1970

Ask a New Yorker published my column about my favorite St. Paddy's Day. 

It's one of those memories that float in and out my head and lift my spirits.

Here's a link to the story, a link to Old Saint Paddy's and a few pictures through the years.

The singles Thank You and Everybody is a Star by Sly Stone was in heavy rotation on March 17, 1970.

That day was a keeper.

Erin go Bragh!

copy of my grandfather's baptismal certificate from St. Pat's Cathedral  ~ 1900

Old St. Pat's

Buddy @ LaSalle Academy 1970

Tommy @ LaSalle Academy 1970

Artie Peters & Tommy mugging for Joe Menesick on the #6 Local 1970

Tommy & Buddy 1985

Buddy, Tommy, Karl, Eddie & John 1982

Buddy & Tommy 2011

Complicated Shadows

Walking east near the 59th Street Bridge, I saw a startling shadow up ahead. A bishop's crook, twenty feet tall, on the smooth surface of a brick wall painted white. The light pole’s reflection flickered. I fumbled for my camera but before I could pull it out the shadow slipped away along with the sunlight that created it. It was sunset, my short film had vaporized but the beauty of the image was branded inside my brain. 

Light always plays tricks on me and I like that. Serious shadow production in early spring when daylight stretches and the air is still cold and clear is ideal making movie weather. 

Saturday morning, walking along the East River Drive, inside Carl Schurz Park, down to 79th Street and East End Avenue, I stopped on the 500 block of 81st Street to savor the rich shadows and light contrasts against the buildings. Leaning into a street tree to shoot up past the branches and fire escapes I thought, this is what I saw in 1957 from my stroller when I was 3 and laid all the way back and concentrated on the sky instead of trying to see what was in front of my one year old brother's big head that was blocking my forward view (I have a fat head too, but it doesn't impede my view). 


Mom was a big time Yorkville walker. Rambling down to 59th Street, “to make sure the bridge was still there,” was nothing for her. Rory and I would dive inside the family car in front of our house on 83rd Street (Dad didn't have a car, so our stroller was our jalopy) and we’d take off for the foreign lands inside our Yorkville neighborhood: Bohemia, Hungary, Germany, Italy, Ireland, and other exotic places. Aromas and languages floated by our noses and ears on each block. Recalling our ancient adventures, I began taking photos from my old stroller view, same perspective kids see today from their Maclaren carriages if their moms let them get out of their protective coverings for air. 

The bishop crook I spied last week might have been a reminder of something I saw long ago that planted itself inside my head and returns, now and then. Not all stored images are happy ones. Complicated shadows run through every childhood. It’s inexplicable having emotions riled up inside you without warning and sometimes without understanding of what put them there in the first place. Triggers are everywhere, and I find that mystery intriguing.

Here is a link to a photo album with pictures from stroller height and others just capturing a beautiful Saturday morning.

"Don't Smile Like A Simp!"

"Don't Smile Like A Simp!" Was a standard order from my mother when my father was taken pictures. Rory was a photogenic savant. I was a glom. Rarely, they caught me normal. The one normal here was taken by Otto Nelson who my grandfather threatened to kill.

This Saturday night, March 2 @8pm,  Reelin' In The Years ~ Dettmore & Pryor @ Ryans Daughter.  Hope you make it, part of a terrific two day festival of song, story and comedy. It's the third annual Unofficial Upper East Side EdFest.

Dettmore & Pryor @ Ryan's Daughter, Saturday, March 2 @ 8pm

I am Keyser Söze. Saturday night, I'll slip into Reelin' In The Years ~ Dettmore & Pryor  @ Ryans Daughter. Then, when you least expect it, I'll be gone. Hope you make it, part of a terrific two day festival of song, story and comedy. 

Unofficial Upper East Side EdFest

Flam & Flam

My Uncle Jack and Aunt Anna were having marital problems in the early 1940s. Their fighting hit a new high in their East Harlem apartment when Aunt Anna found half her house money missing from the flour tin. She chased Uncle Jack out of the house with a ladle full of dog crap, down the stoop and up First Avenue to the entrance of the 138th Street Bridge. Jack ran into the Bronx using the roadway’s passing lane.

After catching his breath, Jack not wanting to waste a good trip to the Bronx, continued walking north up to Yankee Stadium where he caught a doubleheader with the Cleveland Indians. DiMaggio went 4 for 7 with two walks and five RBIs. Jack spent $2.75 of Anna’s house money on Franks, beer, a ticket, a pennant for the kid, a program and a five cent pencil to keep score.

When Jack got home, Anna had put a chair against the door locking him out. Unfortunately, she also locked out her son, John, who after begging his mother to no avail to let him in stayed with my grandparents on 104th Street in their new East River Houses, Housing Authority apartment.


After much consultation with everyone on their block, Jack and Anna decided to get professional help from Flam & Flam, a 106th Street law firm, famous in the neighborhood for resolving family crises when folks were broke. After discussing their plight with Freddy (the brains in the outfit) and telling him they had one dollar for a divorce, Freddy rocked back on the legs of the library surplus chair and thought it over, then he popped a hand off his bald head.


“I’ve got it! A house divorce! It’s the rage in Philadelphia. When couples want out, but can’t afford it, the courts can grant a house divorce (no they can’t). You live together, but you’re not married (you are). You can tell everybody you’re divorced, but by a tiny technical thread you’re not really divorced. So I only have to charge you a dollar. Give me a dollar.”

Stingily, Jack gave Freddy Flam a house money dollar. Anna watched the money change hands thinking about kicking Jack’s ass right there in Flam & Flam’s office.

Anna buried Jack in Calvary Cemetery in Queens in 1978 after 13 years of conventional marriage and 37 years of house divorce thanks to Flam and Flam.

City Boy: Yorkville, My Hometown @ Yorkville NYPL

Who says the neighborhood doesn't have backyards?  
Two blocks away, our secret garden,     
 CARL SCHURZ PARK nyc 

"City Boy: Yorkville, My Hometown"

or a short gallivant to Manhattan's jewel, Central Park.

City Boy: Yorkville, My Hometown

Yorkville Library, 222 east 79 st.

Saturday, Jan 26 @ 2pm

Wednesday, Jan 30 @ 5:30pm

Yorkville 1896-2019

1405 Ave A @ 75 St. @ June 1906

"City Boy: Yorkville, My Hometown"

My family's been on York Avenue since 1896. 

On Saturday, January 26th @ 2pm 

& Wednesday, January 30th 5:30pm 

@ The Yorkville Library @ 222 East 79 Street

One hundred and twenty-three years of our neighborhood history through the voices and lives of my certifiable relatives that called Yorkville home.

looking east from west side of 75 St & Ave A

334 E. 79 St. @ 1962

1582 York Ave @1955

Tavern On The Green @ 1995

1932

84th & York @ Nov 1942

Hunter 1972- 2019 DMV