Charting Cars in the Bronx

(Originally published 4/10/21)

Once upon a time, I charted car comings-and-goings on individual pieces of construction paper. Sometime in the mid-1970s the teenage me plopped down on my front stoop, and occasionally at the front window, and recorded the manufacturers of the automobiles that passed me by. What an interesting boy I was. Back then, I knew car makes and models—be they Dodge Darts, Chevy Impalas, Buick Centuries, and most everything in between—because they were respectively unique and readily identifiable.

In those simpler times in the old neighborhood, everybody knew a whole lot more of their neighbors than city folk do nowadays, including the specific kinds and colors of the cars they drove. Locals distinguished themselves with their choice of vehicles and couldn’t, therefore, come and go incognito. Currently—with some notable exceptions, of course—what is parked along the streets, and in area garages, look blandly similar, despite all the amazing technological advances therein.

Automobile hues in the 1970s were also in sync with the fads and fashions of that groovy snapshot in time. Danny drove a dark-brown Ford LTD; Cathy, a pale-yellow Volkswagen "bug." Jack “elbows” had a sky-blue Plymouth Duster, and Jimmy and Desi next door, a bright-red AMC Rebel. There were folks who drove gas-guzzling “boats,” as my friends and I called them back then. Arthur’s father parked a metallic gold-colored Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight on the street that was the size of a stretch limousine Others sought out economy cars that were simultaneously affordable and fuel efficient in an age of increasingly high gas prices and, sometimes, outright shortages, courtesy of that awful cartel in its heavy-handedness heyday.

My father owned a 1959 Chevrolet Biscayne for fourteen years. It had an interior smell—a car-seat vinyl meets gassy residue kind of scent—that inspired carsickness, particularly without something called air conditioning. In fact, one member of my family would puke his guts out at the mere notion of getting into the thing—yards away from it—before every road trip long or short. The Biscayne was at long last retired in 1973 and we thereafter rode in style in a second-hand Buick Skylark, purchased from a guy on the next block. It was a set of wheels with the creature comforts of air-conditioning and a kneeling-bus quality before there was such a thing. A decade later, somebody convinced my father to get with the program and purchase a Chevy Chevette, a car that drove so many “people happy” with its incredible gas mileage. It had a stick shift, the back windows could only go down halfway, and no air conditioning. Sure, it got decent gas mileage, but there was no turning back. We were a spoiled clan by then.

Chevrolet, by the way, won the gold medal in my 1970s car-charting Bronx survey—by a considerable margin if memory serves. There were foreign cars around then, but they were foreign to most drivers who often were loyal to one American manufacturer or another. Times change and stoop statisticians—sad to say—have gone the way of the typewriter and countless classic automobiles with style.

Catching the June Bug

(Originally published 6/5/22)

Once upon a time, the month of June shined. It embodied a heaping helping of good: long days, the school year's end, backyard barbecues, baseball in its many incarnations, and imminent summer vacations in exotic locales like the Jersey Shore and the North Fork of Long Island. Thirty years ago in June, I regularly attended a poetry open mic at a now defunct eatery and gin mill called Sidekicks Café. A poet named Ron—who was especially entertaining and the exception to the rule—recited his original verse in a soothing Southern accent, a muted cadence not typically heard in the Bronx. One particular poem of his repeatedly referenced the “June bug.” It vividly brought to life this clumsy insect of the night. Listeners visualized the bumbling creature careening toward a light source, while crashing into windows, screen doors, and human heads in the process.

In the beetle family, the June bug was not a sight for sore eyes. And still isn't! Contrarily, its nighttime companion, the lightning bug, was a welcome summer visitor. Flashing on and off as the fledgling summer days of June grew dark, few insects could compete with its dazzling light show. Meanwhile, the June bug blundered along. I don’t imagine it was dangerous—not a carrier of malaria or sporting a lethal stinger—but it was ugly as all hell. Come to think of it: While the lightning bugs were impressive on warm summer nights, human contact was not recommended. Their inevitable calling cards: a nasty, lingering odor not easily scrubbed away. And, too, in the bright light of day, they were rather gruesome looking.

June was the ultimate anticipatory month, a time to get the summer ball rolling. We had the June bug, as it were, and it impacted all ages—from those of us who waited patiently for the Good Humor man to make his daily evening rounds to the adult set who commenced with their nightly stoop-sitting gossip-fests. Spanning generations, stoop sitting was an urban art form. It’s still practiced, but not as extensively as when I was a boy. Stoop sitting supplied a ringside seat for both the expected and unexpected. Like the time a new neighbor and homeowner was seen chasing his sister down the street while uttering a litany of profanities. I wonder what that was all about? Footnote: The man lived in the same house for fifty years before passing away last year. I don’t know whatever became of his sister, if she inherited his property, or if she's even among the living.

Just as Good Humor retired its fleet of trucks and became exclusively a supermarket brand, so many of those who caught the June bug along with me have gone the way of a funeral parlor’s laminated prayer card. It would be fair to say that I’m not quite as enamored with June as I once was. Still, the June bug endures in nature and in countless memories as well. I’ll have a grape-lemon-flavored Bon Joy Swirl please.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Braking Bad

(Originally published 3/9/20)

Governor Cuomo has officially advised his considerable and diverse constituency to avoid “crowded spaces,” like the subway. This is no small order, especially for New York City’s nine million inhabitants, many of whom use mass transit daily. Well, despite my esteemed governor’s counsel, I opted to venture out this weekend and descend into the underground—and so did a lot of other people by the looks of things! Without them, yesterday’s ride wouldn’t have risen to the level of a “crowded space.”

While I fully appreciate that the coronavirus is not to be taken lightly, I couldn’t help but reflect on the recurring electronic announcements in subway stations, which instructed riders to frequently wash their hands for at least twenty seconds and sneeze or cough—should the need arise—into their elbows. Surprisingly, I didn’t spy a solitary soul wearing a mask in my travels but did see a discarded one on the sidewalk.

The highlight of my downtown train ride was not the stuff of sneezing and coughing in a subway car. It was idly sitting for about twenty-five minutes at the 191st Street station. The reason: Somebody—or somebodies, actually—activated the emergency brakes on the two trains ahead of the one in which I was a passenger. Now, that doesn’t sound like a coincidence to me. I know there are times when these mysterious brakes are pulled in real emergencies. In my personal experience, though, the braking was courtesy of a lunatic, punk, or some combination of the two.

Anyway, after finally reaching my destination, I ventured out into the great outdoors—on a pleasant post-clock change morning—and encountered an incredibly angry man on his phone. He was informing a passerby of the wind beneath the wings of his rage. What was all the fuss, you ask? His civil rights were” violated,” he said, by a mall security guard with, naturally, no “proper cause.” And this fellow wanted to “press charges.”

I suppose the guy called 9-1-1, because New York’s Finest materialized in short order. Initially, two officers spoke with him for several minutes. At one point an officer got into the man’s face. This made me happy for some reason. Honestly, the complainant sounded to me like an annoying whiner—a victim poseur. From what little I could glean, the security guard wanted to look inside a shopping bag of his from another store, which can be humiliating, I know, if you’re an innocent party. But making such a big stink about it…

Eventually, the two policemen went inside the building where the violation occurred. They came out a couple of minutes later with some security detail, who watched with interest further interaction between the police officers and the aggrieved party. This tête-à-tête went on for more than a half hour, and a couple of more officers even joined in the conversation. But nobody on the scene took out a pad or notebook and wrote anything down. They were more than likely trying to convince the fussbudget to forgettaboutit. Less paperwork for them and, honestly, civil rights violations and pressing charges should—when push comes to shove—be the real thing or nothing. Of course, I’m only guessing here and filling in the blanks. Perhaps I’m violating this crybaby’s civil rights by reporting what I saw and what I didn’t see. I just don’t know.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

What's the Buzz?

(Originally published 8/24/19)

As I was wandering around this morning, I heard the harmonious buzz of cicadas. Cicadas by day and crickets by night can only mean one thing: another summer's swan song. While the sounds of crickets have thus far been faint, I nevertheless associate the somber chirping of these melodious insects with the incoming dread of that first day of school.

Happily, though, my schooldays are distant memories. So, I thought I’d tie up some loose summer ends in the here and now. Recently, my nephew e-mailed me a link to an article, which quoted former baseball players Rich “Goose” Gossage and Lou Piniella. They both spoke of the contemporary game of baseball in very unflattering terms. To them and many others—including yours truly—professional baseball has become unwatchable. And there are a host of reasons why. It’s just not the same game that we once knew and loved—not by a long shot.

After completing four books this summer—timely published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the 1969 “Miracle Mets” season—I feel grateful that I experienced baseball as a fan when it was the American pastime, a game steeped in tradition and rich in history. I was a fan before analytics, home run-derby strategy (for lack of a better description), replay umpiring, and five-inning starting pitchers.

My nephew, who came around to baseball and the Mets decades after my sworn allegiance, admitted that even he is finding today's games almost unwatchable. But as the 2019 Mets have suddenly come alive—and are in contention—he’s swallowing hard and praying for another miracle. I’ve seen clips of today's Mets’ game-ending antics—players ripping off their uniform shirts after a win—and can’t help but wonder: “What would Gil Hodges say about all that?” Once upon a time, third baseman Ron Santo of the 1969 Chicago Cubs, managed by none other than the legendary Leo Durocher, performed a bit of theater after every Cubs’ victory. As he exited the field, he leaped high in the air and clicked both his heels. It was considered poor sportsmanship by most everybody in opposition back then—certainly by Gil Hodges and the Mets—and it eventually ceased as the 1969 Cubs imploded.

If nothing else, this summer also resurrected my interest in 1970s New York City politics. What an interesting time to be alive and a kid. With the Tappan Zee Bridge renaming in the news—as the Mario M. Cuomo Bridge—I purchased a couple of old books from that bygone era. When Mario Cuomo was mayoral timber. One book chronicled the fiscal crisis when my fair city very nearly declared bankruptcy. Yes, New York City was down for the count back then, but I didn't notice. After all, I was a boy and living through what turned out to be the last of the familiar urban childhoods, where all kinds of street games were played in the great outdoors and young and old alike hung out on stoops without—believe it or not—phones. The stoop supplied a box seat to countless cricket serenades. Their plaintive denouements to summer were repeat performances that were never quite welcome. But they were just doing their jobs.

A Summertime Sense of Humor

(Originally published on 7/21/17)

It’s officially a heat wave here in New York City—several days in a row of ninety-plus degree temperatures—and I’m not a fan. Yes, I romanticize the summertime of my youth every now and then—outdoors much of the time and playing the games that little people played for generations, which, by the way, they don’t play anymore. Admittedly, the one-two punch of summer’s heat and humidity was never something coveted and rarely, if ever, appreciated. My father always said that the discomforting clamminess and sordid air quality was a figment of our imaginations. He was a Buddhist at heart, I guess. Mind over matter.

Growing up in a seven-person household on the top floor of a three-family home with no air conditioning in July and August was—in retrospect—brutal. In the 1960s and 1970s, we also experienced recurring electrical brownouts. During the high-consumption months of summer, utility Con Edison’s answers to averting widespread blackouts were periodic brownouts. On the warmest of warm nights, the lights would flicker, which was no big deal. But brownouts were especially unforgiving when it came to ice cubes. Heat, humidity, and half-frozen ice cubes with a foul taste were an all-too-familiar summertime three-fer.

Nevertheless, those were the days my friend, I thought they’d never end. Regardless of the temperature or relative humidity of a summer’s day, stoop sitting was a hallowed evening ritual as well as—for a spell—a Good Humor truck passing by. These daily occurrences provided fleeting respites from the heat, particularly if something icy was purchased like a watery, cola-flavored Italian ice, lemon-grape rocket pop, or Bon-Joy swirl.

First there was Larry the Good Humor Man, who drove the classic little truck that required him to step outside and pluck the ice cream from its side-of-the-cab freezer. And then there was Rod the Good Humor Man, who conducted business in a stand-inside vehicle. Rod lived in the neighborhood. He would see us playing during the Good Humor off-season—parts of fall, spring, and the entire winter. Focusing on grocery sales alone, Good Humor sold off its fleet of trucks in 1976. And that was the end of that! The present owners of the brand recently resurrected the ice cream truck, I see, and—along with it—the ice cream man and woman. I suspect now they are stationed at parks and events, where ice cream peddlers are still spotted. But chumming for business on neighborhood side streets? I doubt it. If a Good Humor Man materialized around these parts, he would find few kids playing outside in the warmest of weather. And as for off-duty sightings, like Rod's, during the winter recess—fuggeaboutit!

Epilogue: Larry the Good Humor Man was last seen driving a New York City yellow cab. Oh, but that was more than forty years ago. And Rod the Good Humor Man suffered a heart attack in the mid-1970s and lived to tell. Rod told us at some point. Oh, but that, too, was more than four decades ago. Larry, as I recall, was on the younger side as a Good Humor Man, so he might still be among the living, but he would be pushing eighty. If he’s still extant, I pray he’s in good humor. Rod, I fear, is more likely among the angels. With any luck, he’s ringing the celestial equivalent of his Good Humor truck bells, an inviting sound for countless living and dead souls who bought ice cream on steamy New York City nights a long, long time ago.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

A Present for You

(Originally published 5/17/15)

Trust me, I am living in the present. Even though I post a lot of pictures from the past and sometimes wax nostalgic for the “simpler times” of my youth—when a New York Mets’ game and the warm and reassuring voices of Lindsey Nelson, Bob Murphy, and Ralph Kiner were otherworldly—I am fully present in the present. Okay, so I think the present isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. In fact, it stinks in too many ways to count. Suffice it to say, people walking around the streets with their heads buried in their iPhones and obliviously yakking on their cells is disconcerting, rude, and—really—dangerous. But this familiar contemporary grievance has become a cliché. Yada…yada…yada.

So, I thought I’d look on the bright side of the here and now for a change and underscore some of the things I think are better today than in those simpler times of my youth. For starters, recycling is a major step forward. Once upon a time, everything from ketchup to prescription cough medicine to peanut butter came in glass bottles, which were just heaved into the regular trash when empty. How many Hawaiian Punch and Hi-C heavy aluminum cans did we toss into the garbage that weren’t recycled? Plenty. Of course, what and how much actually gets recycled is a question for another day.

While I don’t like the trend of human beings being replaced by technology, I am nonetheless happy there are ATM machines. They are convenient and I use them for virtually every banking transaction. Withdrawals the old-fashioned way—with a flesh-and-blood bank teller at the other end—always make me feel guilty, as if I’m doing something wrong. I’ve never seen you before. What exactly are you trying to pull with this withdrawal?

I’m pleased, too, that my high school alma mater—Cardinal Spellman in the Bronx—has cast asunder “lunchtime sponge duty,” where the unlucky and the unwashed were compelled to clean dirty lunch tables with filthy, bacteria-laden sponges and pick refuse off the floor as well. No rubber gloves were issued, and no extra time was allotted to get to our next classes. We didn't even have time to wash our hands. If we were late for a class, an unsympathetic teacher could set the “detention” wheels in motion—and a few of them did—even if we had the very legitimate “sponge-duty” excuse. There are no students who are “sponge-worthy” in the present and this is a step forward.

As far as diagnosing and treating diseases, our healthcare is considerably better than its equivalent back in the day. I’m old enough to remember a neighborhood family doctor making house calls. And when my paternal grandfather was diagnosed with leukemia, nuns in the Catholic hospital where he lay dying remained at his side 24/7. Still, the disease he succumbed to came attached to a prompt death sentence. While the Marcus Welby, M.D.-doctoring and nursing approaches are sorely missed, one still must appreciate the advances in modern medicine. If living and longevity count for something, the present rules.

If the Hudson River is representative of waterways everywhere, I suppose Iron Eyes Cody would have less to tear up about nowadays. My father swam in the river in the 1940s and recalled pushing an unremitting stream of excrement away. As a boy, I recollect the river smelling more of garbage than salty sea. Currently, the Hudson’s odor in lower Manhattan is of a pleasing brine and not raw sewerage. That said, Iron Eyes, I’m certain, would still need a Kleenex or two.

Then there’s the Internet. I couldn’t have authored the books that I have without it—and certainly not in the limited time afforded me. I wouldn’t be writing this blog, either. At some point in the 1970s, I penned a lengthy missive to TV Guide asking the folks there an extensive roster of questions. Most of them were of the “Whatever Became Of?” variety. For some reason, I was fixated on death and who in the celebrity world had passed away. I remember asking, “Whatever became of character actor Larry Keating, who played neighbor Roger Addison on Mister Ed and, before that, Harry Morton on The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show?” and “why was he replaced on the former by Leon Ames?” I was a curious kid. Now, all I’d have to do is Google “Larry Keating” to acquire the answers to such burning questions. Someone at TV Guide—it should be noted—personally answered my letter and supplied me with potential resources—books of all things—that could help me find answers to my many questions. Larry Keating, by the way, was diagnosed with leukemia and—like my grandfather—died from it in short order.

YouTube and Netflix have been gifts in the present. I don’t think I’d ever have watched shows like Rawhide, Wagon Train, and Stagecoach West without them, not to mention countless other television classics and historic moments, which might otherwise be buried in the archives at the Museum of Television & Radio. While on the subject, I recently watched several episodes of Adam-12, a Dragnet-esque show from the past created by Jack Webb, on Netflix. It didn’t hold up! I found it interesting that they played for laughs a domestic abuse call, like it was a complete waste of the police’s time. With smirks on their faces and exasperated meaningful glances, Officers Malloy and Reed asked only that a wife-beater—fittingly festooned in a wife-beater—be a little bit nicer. One more plus for the present. Drunks, too—even behind the wheels of cars—weren’t taken all that seriously on television and on the streets. Now they are.

Finally, I must say the present has at long last put a lid on smokers—as best that it could—who have literally taken our breaths away and stunk up our clothes, hair, and skin for far, far too long. Courtesy of riding in a packed-like-sardines bus, I began every single day of high school reeking of second-hand cigarette smoke. It cannot be denied: The present has its place.

Remembering Dr. Z...By the Way

(Originally published 6/19/10)

The efficacy of Keynesian economics is being debated once more in both polite and impolite society. But rather than stake out a position on the demand side versus the supply side in this dismal science argument, I’d rather just wax nostalgic and recall a college professor of mine, Dr. Amin Zewail, whom I'll affectionately call “Dr. Z” hereafter.

Dr. Z was an adjunct professor substituting for an ailing instructor in a course called Intermediate Macroeconomics. The place: my alma mater, Manhattan College. The year: 1984. Dr. Z was a lanky, dome-headed Egyptian fellow, who not only wore thrift shop threads that didn’t quite fit his gawky frame—high waters and hobo shoes—every single day, but a sartorial selection at least thirty years past its prime.

Despite the briefness of my Dr. Z experience, it was nonetheless quite memorable. This man rates as one of those classic college characters I will not soon forget—a professor primarily remembered for his idiosyncrasies, including a singular teaching style. From the get-go, Dr. Z warned us that because “there was no ‘P’ as in Peter and ‘B’ as in ball” in his native tongue of Arabic, he was apt to “make a mish, mosh, moosh of the two…by the way” throughout his lectures. And he didn’t disappoint on that score.

In fact, the good doctor frequently finished sentences with the throwaway “by the way” phrase. He couldn’t stop saying it during class, which he took very, very seriously, by the way, often working himself into a frenzied, sweat-soaked trance to explain that Keynes’s General Theory “contended that consumption was a stable function of disposable income.”

Dr. Z also subscribed to the educative power of repetition. He peppered his lectures with “I repeat again” pronouncements and recapped word-for-word what had just been said. Dr. Z took attendance every class because, he revealed, he desperately needed the work and didn’t want to be fired. The man informed us that times were tough for him as a part-time professor, and that he called home somewhere in lower Manhattan “between the muggers and the hippies.” This former neighborhood of his, by the way, has since been gentrified beyond recognition and is no longer home to peripatetic profs.

When the buzzer sounded each class’s death knell, the Z-man stopped in mid-sentence and profusely thanked the whole lot of us. “Thank you very, very much,” he would bellow at the top of his lungs and really mean it. No, Dr. Z: thank you…for the memories and teaching me about John Maynard Keynes, too.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)