Baby, It’s Cold Outside

(Originally published 1/21/19)

How cold is it? It is so cold that my “Ernie lock” is frozen. More on that shortly. But first, the weekend winter weather hype around here did not amount to more than a soaking rain. However, phase two—the brutally cold aftermath—came to pass. This past Saturday, the various subway platforms and subway staircases in New York City were smothered in rock salt—or whatever ice-melting combination the Metropolitan Transit Authority employs nowadays. In genuine fear of slipping, I found myself gingerly navigating this precautionary measure of what might or might not be. Honestly, descending heavily salted stairwells can be hazardous to one’s health.

Happily, I didn't take a tumble on the overly salty surfaces. The subsequent chill, though, resurrected memories of a past January cold spell. For some reason, I have these evocative images in mind of a particular time and a particular place. And courtesy of the wealth of information on the Internet, I can confirm what I have long believed to be that time, 1977, the winter of my first year in high school. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that I mostly loathed the high school experience, cafeteria fare notwithstanding.

I vividly remember riding our not very special “Special” buses across the Bronx—west to east—on a series of brutally cold mornings. More than four decades later, I can still feel the despair of those icy rides, which commenced on Broadway under the noisy El. And as the buses rattled down Bailey Avenue, I can see the rising seven o’ clock sun reflecting on the frozen snow remnants on the passing sidewalks. At our rides' very literal high points on East Gun Hill Road, glimpses of the Long Island Sound on the horizon were visible. In the dreary depths of wintertime, such fleeting sightings made me pine for summer when our “Special” buses were on ice.

Looking back, there was nothing quite so depressing as venturing off to high school during an Arctic blast. But I somehow made it through that frigid January of 1977 and lived to tell. It should be noted here that if my secondary education was excised from my winter memory bank, the season had its moments. Honestly, it all boiled down to snow in those days. It is what I—and many of my peers—desired for a whole host of reasons, not the least being potential days off from school. But in an age before hand-held devices kept addicted youth indoors in winter, spring, summer, and fall, my contemporaries and I spent a lot of time outside no matter the season.

As for that Ernie lock, I will make a long story short. It is a bicycle lock used on the gate leading to a few descending stairs and my front door. The lock came to pass after an unsettling early morning visit from a person unknown. At that ungodly hour, 4 a.m., I opted not to inquire, “Who’s there?” Who, pray tell, was ringing my bell then—off and on—for half an hour that felt like an eternity? I should have called the police.

I did, however, have a prime suspect for the unwanted wake-up call: a neighborhood local named Ernie. We knew each other as kids but were never friends. Unfortunately, I am a familiar face. And Ernie has long been putting the monetary bite on people he knows—even remotely. I made the grave mistake of giving him a few dollars one time and it opened wide Pandora's Box. While it solved my short-term problem, it created a vexing long-term one.

Ernie’s story is a sorry one. Once upon a time, he was a quiet, unassuming youth. Now, pushing sixty, he is loquacious and inclined to rave—his brain, no doubt, scrambled by his decades-long addiction to heroin. In my most recent encounters with Ernie, he came out with a couple of whoppers. He would be starting a job in two weeks, he said on one occasion. That didn't happen. The man also reported that he would be receiving food stamps on the fifteenth of this month. I wonder? And, yes, if I gave him a little something to tide him over until then, Ernie would buy me groceries. Well, as of this writing, the Ernie lock remains frozen, but a spritz of WD-40 will fix that. As for Ernie, his problems are sadly not so easily fixable.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Pizza Hut Parable

(Originally published 5/14/21)

Forty-four years ago, an older neighbor and friend with both a sense of high adventure and an automobile decided to call on—for the very first time—a Pizza Hut restaurant. Big stuff! It was a newly opened location in the city of New Rochelle, a hop, skip, and a jump from where we called home in the Bronx. For years, we had heard whispers about Pizza Hut and its singular dining experience, but there wasn't one in the vicinity—until, that is, the summer of 1977, which was also, coincidentally, the “Summer of Sam.”

So, off we went—four of us in total—to Pizza Hut. Heartburn notwithstanding, we loved the place and the pan pizza, which was decidedly different from—our bread and butter—traditional New York-style pizza. My paternal grandmother, though, made a uniquely delicious pan pizza, with breadcrumbs sprinkled atop the mozzarella. Yes, the 1970s and 1980s, too, were kind to the Pizza Huts of the world and—I daresay—grandmothers’ home cooking as well. There were chains aplenty back then that were considered must tries, from Beefsteak Charlie’s to Brew Burger to Nedick’s. And while the aforementioned eateries may be in the compost of history, Pizza Hut endures.

I patronized Pizza Hut that summer’s eve in 1977 and, if memory serves, one more time, but details of the second visit escape me. The chain—including Pizza Hut Express locations—is still visible in the area. After recently viewing a retrospective Pizza Hut history on You Tube, my curiosity got the best of me. How is it faring all these years later, I wondered? In countless respects, 2021 is the polar opposite of 1977. Pizza Hut, for one, is no longer special. It is competing with popular chains—with assembly-line pizza pie tastes—like Domino’s, Little Caesar’s, and Papa John’s. Once upon a time, the charm of Pizza Hut was sit-down dining—the soup-to-nuts restaurant shebang with pizza as the main course. In the 1970s and 1980s, Pizza Hut décor was what one expected—and what one considered an unbeatable ambiance—in that unmistakable colorful snapshot in time. Pitchers of soda poured into red pebbled plastic tumblers and pizza served with a smile. It didn't get any better than that!

Honestly, it came as no surprise to me that Pizza Hut has evolved into a mere shadow of its former itself. Nowadays, it emphasizes delivery and pick-up over indoor dining. And from the comments I read on the YouTube video chronicling the chain’s storied history, the quality of the pizza has precipitously declined. So, what else is new? When in Rome do as the Romans do. When waging war against fellow fast-food pizza chains produce a similarly inferior product. Lamenting the Pizza Hut transformation, one former fan pithily remarked, “2021 sucks!”

Several days ago, I purchased a box of Ellio’s frozen pizza, a brand that I regularly consumed when, in fact, I sampled Pizza Hut for the first time. I liked the pizza back then. It had a defining sauce—that is Ellio’s—ample cheese, and a doughy cardboard crust. Now, it's three strikes and you're out—a non-defining sauce, minimal cheese, and a non-doughy cardboard crust—but it is still called Ellio’s. For a while there it was known as McCain’s Ellio’s, which marked its transition from memorable to insipid. What more can I say about the 1970s Pizza Hut experience and others just like it? You had to be there to understand.

“B” as in “Ball”

(Originally published 6/7/13)

With the school year ending, hospitable climes, and daylight to spare, it is June in the Bronx. It was—once upon a time—a favorite time of year. The month of June supplied more hours to play ball—all kinds of ball. Nowadays, I see very few kids playing anything on the streets. This sociological observation is why I was quite surprised to encounter a cardboard tray of rubber hardballs in a local delicatessen—one run by Arabs. For some reason, rubber hardballs in an Arab deli called to mind Dr. Zewail, an affable Egyptian professor of mine in Manhattan College. The man informed his macro-economics students that in his language—Arabic—there was no “P” as in “Peter” and “B” as in “ball.” And so, naturally, he always made a “mish, mosh, moosh” out of words with Ps and Bs, like “rubber hardball.”

A Bronx deli in the twenty-first century selling rubber hardballs just struck me as odd. Perhaps I am missing something here and there is a real demand for them—for some games played in some places unknown to me. They could also be old inventory from the 1970s and a prior deli owner, which is a possibility. I don't know. However, I do know that one, among many things, that we urban youth did to pass the time in my old neighborhood, Kingsbridge, was play pitcher and catcher, games of “errors,” or just have a catch in our concrete backyards and alleyways. Rubber hardballs, which I presume were manufactured for playing on rough, synthetic surfaces, were the ideal ball. Gradually, though, even they would wear out with use. This once versatile and robust orb would eventually be too far-gone—deemed an "egg"—and put out to pasture.

While growing up in that simpler snapshot in time, my family’s front hallway performed double duty as an equipment room, where our baseball gloves, bats, and balls were placed and plucked from as needed. The ball selection included everything from spaldeens to Wiffle balls; hardballs (cowhide and rubber) to tennis balls. When purchasing one of his stickball bats, I will always remember “Herman” of Bill’s Friendly Spot on W231st Street lecturing me. “Don't use tennis balls with it,” he said, “because the bat will break.” In other words, he wouldn't take back splinters—a broken bat under any circumstances. Of course, I ignored Herman’s wise counsel, and the bat broke upon a second contact with a tennis ball.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Touched by a Rat

(Originally published 6/23/12)

Angels touch some people, or so I have heard. No such luck for me today. I was, however, touched by a rat at the 14th Street subway station in lower Manhattan. I have spotted these ubiquitous rodents there before, running along not only the tracks but on the narrow platform as well. Suffice it to say, this location is not a good place to panic, shriek “eek,” and bolt like a pinball.

I always seek out the last car of the subway train for my trip home, which usually gets me a seat, but also happens to be near a garbage dumpster. While resting my weary bones against this thing several hours ago, a rodent with an exceptionally long tail scurried past me and then returned for an encore over my foot in concert with an arriving northbound Number 1 train. I feared my new friend might join me for the ride. Happily, the creature had other plans. While I'm not a superstitious sort, this kind of close encounter in an excessively humid, urine-smelling underground subway lair did not bode well for the future.

Placid subway rides can turn on a dime into a ride from hell. All it takes is one passenger or multiple passengers to make this nightmare a reality. Foremost, you don't want to ride with a deranged soul who could kill you. That did not happen today. You also don't want a malodorous individual, who has not bathed since the Clinton administration, to sit nearby. That did not happen, either. No, this group from hell were a couple of boorish families who never missed a beat in behaving ill-mannered. The subway car was their playground. If I printed out a transcript of what I heard on the ride from 96th Street in Manhattan until I exited in the Bronx a few miles later, there would be no periods in it. While standing only inches away from me, one woman painted her nails on the journey. I still have a headache.

I could see the disgust on the faces of the rest of the subway car’s passengers—a New York City melting pot if ever there was one—even though they were, to the untrained eye, poker-faced. Typically, straphangers, including me, prefer not to confront boors, who live by their perverse and coarse codes. In other words, they will scratch your eyes out for telling them to temper their crassness.

As the train inched closer to where I called home, and this shrill and loathsome brood didn't exit, I grew increasingly anxious. I dreaded the thought that they might live near me and that I might see them again. When I heard one individual inquire as to where they were getting off, the reply sounded a little too much like my station. I was prepared to stay on the train. Turns out, I was mistaken and exited where planned.

Walking ever so gingerly down this elevated subway station’s steps, I was greeted by a woman I know from my neighborhood. She asks passersby for quarters, even though she insists on at least a dollar’s worth of them. I said testily, “Can you at least wait until I get down?” The “quarter lady,” as she is known in some quarters, said she wanted to get something to eat from a local fast-food joint called Popeye’s. I gave her multiple quarters and she promptly hopped on a bus that pulled alongside her. She didn't use the change to pay the fare, I saw, and the bus was poised to take her a long way from Popeye’s! Damn that rat. Angels do not ride the subways. Who can blame them?

 

A Night to Remember

(Originally published 6/25/12)

On this very night thirty-nine years ago—June 25, 1973—I attended my first Mets' game at “beautiful Shea Stadium.” That is how announcer Curt Gowdy described the place four years earlier in a 1969 World Series highlight film. Anyway, from my ten-year-old perspective, it was more than beautiful. In fact, from my vantage point, it was awe-inspiring—Shea Stadium was the quintessential Wonder of the World. While I had been to Yankee Stadium on multiple occasions, I had only seen the "Big Shea" through the screen of my family’s black-and-white television set. So, to experience Shea Stadium in living color with its singular ballpark din—in the flight path of nearby LaGuardia Airport—made it a night to remember.

Johnny, an older neighbor, chauffeured five of us to the game in a firetruck-red Rebel, a classic AMC car from early 1970s. We had secured the tickets by snipping coupons from the backs of Dairylea-brand milk cartons, which was not as easy as it sounds. Looking back, the actual ticket values were $1.30 a pop—grandstand seating in the stadium’s high-altitude, dizzyingly steep upper deck. (The same ticket cost a $1.50 a couple of years later.) The Mets just were not doling out box seats to the area’s milk carton cutters. But it was a simpler time when free tickets of any kind were coveted.

While I remembered this incredibly special day in history—hence this blog—I didn't recall the starting pitcher or the lineup. I knew for certain my boyhood idol, Tom Seaver, wasn't on the mound, and was quite sure the legendary Willie Mays didn't get into the game, either. Yogi Berra was the team’s manager—I knew that—and a not especially memorable Met named Jim Gosger was one of the outfielders that night. I don't know why I remembered Gosger being in the game, but I did. I recalled, too, the tragic outcome. Entering the ninth inning, my team led two to nothing. The opposition Chicago Cubs, however, scored three runs in the top of the ninth and won the game. I was cruelly razzed by a couple of older males in my company—fans, of course, of my home borough's team in that other league and the Mets' cross-town rivals. Crestfallen, my older sister, who also was along for the ride, bought me a Mets' helmet as we exited paradise—so all was not lost. And life went on—almost four decades now and counting.

Postscript: Due to the magic of the Internet and the unfathomable depths of the information superhighway, I resurrected that evening’s box score. I was right about Jim Gosger. Tug McGraw blew a save opportunity and Jon Matlack took the loss that night. The attendance was 31,984 and the game time temperature was seventy degrees, ideal evening weather for a ballgame.

The Minister, Tree Branch, and Me

(Originally published 11/29/11)

I share something in common with a certain man of the cloth. It seems we both reside in street-level bachelor pads in private homes on the same block. And that's the long and short of our similarities, I suspect. Everything else I know about this fellow is limited to our encounters—for lack of a better description—which have been numerous the past couple of years. When I see him in the early morning hours—presumably before he goes to work, if that's the right phrase—he is without fail walking a small dog and puffing on a cigarette. The occupational giveaway is the Roman collar, fuchsia-colored buttoned shirt, and black sports jacket.

I have long assumed the man is an Episcopal or Methodist minister. Having experienced a Catholic upbringing and education, I just never knew a priest who lived in a basement apartment, which doesn't mean such living arrangements are unprecedented. The priests in my past always called hearth and home a parish or resided somewhere on the school grounds where they taught. But then again, a friend of mine worked alongside a Catholic priest in a Barnes & Noble store. The man needed the money and had to both locate, and pay out of his own pocket, his accommodation. These are tough times for all.

Anyway, today—post-Hurricane Irene Day One—I was outside and picking up scattered debris, including a large tree branch that I dragged to the curbside. With my back unintentionally turned away from this approaching holy man, I heard him—quite uncharacteristically—say something. I swiveled around and momentarily considered asking, “You talkin’ to me?” As per the norm, however, he was staring straight ahead, cigarette in one hand, and dog leash in the other, fulfilling his morning ritual. I surmised he was speaking to his canine friend, because I never saw any technological device in his ear. This man is old school and, for that matter, pretty old.

But then I noticed that the tree branch I had moved was jutting out a foot or so onto the sidewalk proper. Had I seen this before, I would never have placed it in such a precarious position, and I immediately moved it out of harm’s way. I proceeded to do something of a double take at that point, realizing that this neighbor of mine, who always does his best not to make eye contact with anyone—and, by osmosis, speak to anybody—had indeed addressed me. In fact, as soon as I laid eyes on the branch partially on the sidewalk, my brain—without any prompting on my part—replayed the previous moment. Yes, this mystery servant of the Lord, whose holy threads no doubt reeked of nicotine, had chided me. Considering that I was cleaning up a big mess, the scolding was at once unnecessary and unappreciated.

Harking back to my boyhood, I was always turned off by the unpleasantness and sometimes outright nastiness of a fair share of religious sorts. The more innocent and less cynical child quite often cuts to the chase. How could some of these men and women who purport to do God’s bidding and adhere to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth be so disagreeable? I was never impressed with autocratic “good businessmen” known for running parishes with an iron fist and Wal-Mart bottom line efficiency. It seemed incongruous to me then, just as it does to me now.

I was literally both frightened and horrified by the fact that a Sister Lorraine-character passed nun muster and was permitted to teach children. She sported both a habit and a burgeoning mustache some four decades ago when she threw my friend Johnny down to the rock-hard marble at the altar’s edge in church. It was during "First Holy Communion" practice, and he received this body slam courtesy of the unforgiveable transgression of having a chewed up hot lunch straw sticking out of his shirt pocket.

Happily, Sister Lorraine was gone the following year—from my grammar school at least. Where she ended up after that, I don't know. Hopefully, she joined the Teamsters or was discovered by a talent scout for the World Wrestling Federation. All these years later in my adulthood—hopeless romantic that I am—I still prefer religious folk to be on the gentle side and not the Marlboro Man.

River, Take Me Away in Your Sunshine

(Originally published 8/21/11)

When my father was a young boy growing up in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan, the family and some friends would often hop on the Number 1 train during summer weekends for the short ride up to Inwood Hill Park. Upon their arrival, they would hike through the area’s primordial woodlands—on Manhattan Island to this day—to an off-the-beaten trail winding down to a tiny snatch of sandy beach at the scenic confluence of the Harlem River Ship Canal and the Hudson River.

On such excursions, the older Italian men, including my grandfather, brought along their homemade wines. They placed the bottles in an icy cold freshwater spring, which trickled down through the nearby hills. Opened in 1936, the Henry Hudson Bridge loomed like a colossus—an engineering marvel—directly above this Shangri-La. The Spuyten Duyvil railroad swing bridge operated below.

Provided one did not venture out too far, the waters off this obscure snippet of shoreline were shallow and free of the extremely dangerous currents farther out. My father vividly remembered those days at the beach—wading into the drink awash in, among other things, human excrement. Granted, this fun in the sun couldn't have been the healthiest of recreational activities, but it was the late 1930s and early 1940s, when raw sewage poured into the local waters. It was just the way things were.

Flash forward thirty years and I recall being at water’s edge in New York Harbor. The wafting breeze was a curious mix of sea salt and sewer, and unsightly flotsam in the Hudson River was commonplace. The cleanliness of the waterway in those days—in these parts—was a familiar punch line.

But a funny thing happened over the last three decades. The river’s gotten cleaner—dramatically so. There is even talk of a public beach on Manhattan’s West Side. And not far to the north of the city, Hudson River beaches are open for business. And as for swimming in poop in the future, I think it would be wise to Just Say No. We have been there and done that—and there's no turning back.