(Originally
published 12/19/21)
One of my
fondest childhood memories is Christmas shopping “downtown,” as we Bronx
denizens dubbed midtown Manhattan. During that colorful snapshot in time, the
1970s, it was annual tradition. My brothers and I accompanied my aunt on a
forty-five-minute subway ride to 34th Street—where the miracle occurred.
We would exit the train at Seventh Avenue directly across the street from the
main entrance to Macy’s, the “World’s Largest Department Store.”
We would
then commence our lengthy, but exciting day by first visiting Macy’s renowned “Cellar,”
a chaotic wonderland of pleasing sights, sounds, and smells. After plowing
through many of the store’s upper levels as well, we then made a beeline to
nearby Gimbel’s, not the world's largest department store, but pretty big. Later, we
would visit the “Woolworth’s” on Fifth Avenue, which was, in fact, quite
sprawling with an unforgettable fragrance—an intoxicating amalgam of scents
from the kitchen, candies, soaps, and everything else in the store, which
covered a lot of ground. There was also Brentano’s bookstore with its winding
wooden staircase, a book “superstore” before there was such a thing. S.H.
Kress’s, a Woolworth’s clone, was the place we chowed down—hamburgers and fries
at a circular counter with barstools. What more could a kid ask for?
Post-repast would find us at Korvette’s department store and ever-closer to St.
Patrick’s Cathedral and Rockefeller Center with that—must see—formidable tree.
Our trip was meticulously timed for us to lay eyes on the tree as the five
o’clock hour approached and darkness set in. Standard time’s shortest weeks of
the year—a timely Christmas bonus.
While the
first leg of our journeys from yesteryear, Macy’s, and the last leg, the
Rockefeller Center tree, remain,
everything in between has changed.
There are no more stores like Woolworth’s, S.H. Kress’s, and Brentano’s. Where
we once tread is now gentrified and the shopping choices reflect that. I was
not retracing my steps yesterday or last week for that matter. Instead, I
ventured to lower Manhattan, which we rarely visited as youths. Christmas in
New York is still something to see, but it is worth broadening the field a
little. There is a lot more to New York than midtown.
Then as
now, I took the Polar Express—actually, the Number 1 local—into Manhattan these
past couple of weeks to experience New York at Christmastime. And while there have
always been homeless, assorted lunatics, and panhandlers on the trains and in
the stations, the sheer numbers of them have skyrocketed. Yesterday, a fellow
entered the subway car with two Santa Claus-sized sacks of recyclable bottles
and cans. He did not appear homeless as he talked and texted on his phone, but
he came across as unsavory and a bit off. This straphanger did not concern his
fellow passengers until he lit up a cigarette. When a person does that in a confined
underground setting, the oxygen level dramatically plummets. Coincidentally,
another chap popped in and lit up—the perils of riding in the last car on an
uptown trip. As there was a palpable menacing air about him, I exited the car
and waited for the next train.
Why push my luck?
Across the
station from me during this eight-minute interval between trains was an
individual rambling on a phone to someone
or animatedly babbling to himself—it
was hard to tell. He was, however, saying the darndest things. I will not go
into details, but he had a lot to say about drug use.
The man had sampled them
all. After hearing a Whoopi Goldberg COVID-19 public service announcement
alerting us that masks were still required while riding New York City mass
transit, he abruptly switched gears. Suffice it to say, he did not approve of the
comedienne’s appearance and would not
you-know-what with her if she was
the last woman on earth. In fact, he would seek out a gentleman before her.
Granted, it was not on par with the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, whose
remaining shows have been cancelled due to a major spike in the citizenry
testing positive for the virus. But it is nonetheless unavoidably part of my
Christmas in the City adventures in 2021.
(Photos
from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)
