(Originally
published 12/29/17)
On January
1, 1971, New York City—as measured in Central Park—received over six inches of
snow. Thanks to the wealth of information on the Internet, I was able to
confirm my memory of that very snowfall. There was enough of the white stuff
for my best friend and I to build a snowman in what we in the neighborhood
affectionately called “the lot.” We got out the sled, too, and descended a hill
into what was a filled-in portion of the once visible and meandering Tibbetts
Brook. That swampy snapshot was before my time, but at least I got to
experience
the lot.
In the
early 1970s, there were still a smattering of empty lots in the Bronx and the
other boroughs of New York City. However, their days were numbered. Most of the
remaining lots would be built upon—and sooner rather than later. In the name of
progress, the lot and an adjoining victory garden were plowed under and fenced
in several months after our snowman-building adventure. That snowman was
therefore history in the making. For never again would a Frosty rise on that
hallowed ground, which in time would be a parking garage for a six-story
building.
The
snowman-building story would not be complete without mentioning the
neighborhood
tough who materialized and assisted us with our task. My friend and I were
on tenterhooks in the company of this uninvited visitor. With good reason, we
feared he might cause trouble and—very possibly—knock down our snowman. But
life is full of surprises. Without an entourage to encourage destruction and
mayhem, the punk from the next block pitched in and the fledgling moments of New
Year 1971 were peachy-keen.
Forty-seven
years have since passed. My then best friend is not my friend anymore. No
acrimonious breakup to report. Childhood friends are just not always keepers.
The passage of time sees to that. Recently, I have seen the bully boy as
an adult, and we said hello to one another. I really should have thanked him
for not knocking down the snowman. I do not see him on Facebook but see plenty
of his peers from the past. In their adult incarnations, a fair share of them
relish recounting blasts from the past, like knocking down someone else’s snowman.
A year
ago—on New Year’s Day 2017—I visited Manhattan in the early morning and waded
through the remains of the previous night’s New Year’s Eve celebration. There
were concrete barriers everywhere and the area mailboxes were all padlocked. It
is not only going to be frigid when the ball drops at Times Square a couple of
nights from now, but security will be even tighter than last year. I read where
two million people are going to be in attendance. Being there on the last night
of the year has never been on my to-do list. It is not on my bucket list,
either.
On January
1, 2017, I spied a sign in a shuttered Manhattan eatery window. It read: “We
are closed for Happy New Year.” The Wishful Thinking Department, I daresay. In
the waning days and hours of 2017, I cannot help but note the movie in the
theaters about Winston Churchill called
Darkest Hour. Mike Huckabee
recently compared Donald Trump to Churchill. And Senator Orrin Hatch thinks the
Trump presidency may be the “greatest ever.” Churchill, Washington, and
Lincoln—to name just a few—are no doubt rolling over in their graves. When I
was eight years old and building that snowman at the start of a new year, it
was a simpler time—for me at least. It was not so simple for those fighting in
Vietnam or those receiving draft notices in the mail. Darkest hours are in the
eyes of the beholder, I guess. So, what will 2018 bring? A Happy New Year? I cannot
say. I can say there will not be any snowman building in
the lot.
(Photos
from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)
