Eighth Inning: Benjy's Rule in the City

(Originally published 12/4/20)

When I was a young, I would—yes—listen to the radio…waiting for my favorite songs. Well, maybe not, actually. When I was a boy, I listened to Met games on the radio and not much else. When the games were played at home, at Shea Stadium, the ear-splitting sputtering engines from jet planes landing and taking off at nearby LaGuardia Airport were music to my ears. It supplied incredible ambiance to the storied American pastime—when it was a game—and youthful exuberance and sheer wonder took it from there.

A visit from Kingsbridge, my Bronx neighborhood, to Shea Stadium in Flushing, Queens, was an outer borough to outer borough experience—a thirty- or so minute drive—never once dubbed a trip into the city and back. Nevertheless, the excursion furnished us with a bird’s eye view of “the city” at the Triborough Bridge. This perpetually busy hotspot is where three New York City boroughs come together in heavily trafficked disharmony—the Bronx, Queens, and Manhattan—hence, the bridge’s moniker. Well, no, not anymore. Politicians could not leave well enough alone once again and renamed it the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge. Of course, everybody I know, as they should, still call the bridge “Triborough.” Anyway, I—once upon a time—referred to trips into Manhattan as “going into the city” or “going downtown.” It was part of the common vernacular. Despite the fact that the Bronx, just like Manhattan, is a borough in good standing in New York City, it was—as the song says—uptown.

In fact, “going into the city” did not even cover the entirety of Manhattan Island. I could walk from Kingsbridge in the Bronx to Marble Hill, several blocks away, and technically be in Manhattan, but—hilly terrain notwithstanding—that brief stroll did not rise to the level of being in the city. “Going into the city” or “going downtown” were references to midtown—shopping at Macy’s, seeing a play, or checking out the Rockefeller Center tree at Christmastime. Most of my youthful adventures “downtown” were in that same general vicinity, except, of course, when the family welcomed visitors from afar. For instance, when my father’s cousin from Italy turned up with her young son, it was off to the Empire State building for a long ascend—my first and last—and further south to the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, and a free ride on the Staten Island Ferry.

All these years later, I still refer to “going into the city” and “downtown.” But as time has passed, I have come to appreciate that there is a lot more to the city than midtown and its madness. Lower Manhattan—further downtown—is worth wandering through. Last weekend—in this most wacky of moments—I executed a twofer: from Rockefeller Center to the Battery in one fell swoop. The Number 1 train made it all possible. That is why, of course, it is the Number 1 train.

This is the Henry Hudson Bridge that connects Northwest Manhattan with the Northwest Bronx. My forebears picnicked on the Manhattan side of the bridge—in Inwood Hill Park, a.k.a. Inwood Park—before it was even there. My father swam in the then extremely filthy, feces-laden waters. They lost their little private beach and piece of heaven when the bridge was built.

This sign is in Inwood Park—in Manhattan, but not the city—with the last vestiges of virgin forest in the borough.

Feeding the pigeons, I suppose, feeds this more aggressive-than-ever creature of the night and day around here.

Like Frosty the Snowman, the Radio City Music Hall Box Office, I am confident, will be back again someday...maybe even in 2021.

And the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree viewing will be employing the "Benjy Rule"—a ticket and a mere five minutes of viewing while six-feet apart.

What is the "Benjy Rule," you ask? Well, approximately forty-five years ago, a neighbor family up the street had a rare lot of green grass next to their humble abode, My grandfather, an iceman at the time, had looked at the very same property for sale when he was considering relocating to Kingsbridge in the Bronx from Manhattan's Morningside Heights. He thought it the dream home with space for a considerable garden. But, alas, my grandfather needed a house with a rent-paying tenant to help with the mortgage and, besides, there were still some empty lots around for planting gardens. So, the place ended up the residence of some bona fide eggheads—the kind of doctors who did not practice medicine with a genius son named Benjy...

And the family had a couple of pear trees in their field of green...

One day my friend Johnny and I rang their doorbell to ask if we could pick some of the pears, which they, evidently, had no interest in picking. They were the baking kind, extremely hard, but we would eat them...

Anyway, son Benjy answered the door and agreed to let us pick pears but with one proviso: a time constraint. "You have five minutes," he said and the man meant it. How do I know? Benjy came outside exactly five minutes later and shouted, "Your five minutes are up!" And that was the end of that.

While I have not seen it in many years, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving was seriously underrated as a classic, somehow lost between the Halloween and Christmas specials.

Peppermint Patty shined, if memory serves, in the Thanksgiving episode. She really looked out for the ever-demeaned, often-bullied "Chuck."

Bazaar indeed...

In my younger days, Torneau Corner TV ads were ubiquitous on local television. This is the one on Sixth Avenue near Bryant Park.

President-elect Biden has said that he will encourage the citizenry to wear masks for one hundred days after his inauguration. Honestly, the vast, vast majority of us are wearing masks in buildings, supermarkets, and on public transit. The minority of buffoons who do not wear them get an inordinate amount of publicity. The big spike in COVID cases, though, seem to correlate with the changing seasons and spending more time indoors.