bemused_Bohemian wrote:



Congratulations, you're getting quoted a lot this day.

I lived in NYC 3 different times during my childhood in the Bronx, Manhattan during the 1950's, and Staten Island during the late '60's. I despised NYC the whole time I was there as a child. Compared to reports I hear from ex-patriated midwesterners who live in the Empire State presently people seemed more reserved and clannish back in the '50's but I was a young kid then. Everyone older than 11 seemed mean.

As a youngster I fondly remember the Bronx Zoo, Museum of Natural History, Empire State Building, the ferry boats, friendly cabbies that drove cabs made by Checker (Kalamazoo, MI), double-decker buses, gritty subways with rattan seats (uncomfortable as hell), human subway toll collectors who could pronounce words instead of grunting or sleeping on the job, trash everywhere, spitting on the sidewalk as an art form, great restaurants, Horn & Hardart (1st ever cafeteria I was ever in as a kid), Howard Johnson's (garish decor, excellent ice cream and service.....which mgmt let go to shit in the early '70's), ice cream and milk machine (25 cents/qt down in apartment basement).

I even saw the 1954 movie Godzilla here! Wow, that movie scared the peewads out of me then.

I less fondly recall unfriendly people and their kids, learning early where to hide your money on your person (pickpockets behind every lamp post, or so it seemed), becoming an adult child by the age of 5, social atmosphere that was non-existent (apartments were like jail cells, door thudding, keys locking/unlocking doors, footsteps and murmurring in the hallway but if you appear and they do not know you instant silence).

Staten Island in the late '60's was great compared to NYC. People were a little bit more friendly but then I was college age and read people differently, Parking free was a bitch. Parking a car on a city street and living in a multi-unit apartment building near the ferry terminal was a pain. My mother's apartment complex put in a camera-voice recognition system after the front level furniture got stolen 3 different times. The 4th set was chained to the concrete floor. The only thing stolen from my parked car was a radio antenna. Coat hanger replacement received just as well and wasn't as enticing to steal. The crime rate didn't escalate until the ramps linking Staten Island to the Verrezano-Narrows Bridge were finally opened. No matter, in 1968 home base became Seattle, Wa. and I have not been back since. Once I saw NYC from Union, NJ 22 years ago when I was a trucker but haven't made it back since. Do I miss the Big Apple? Good God! Hell, no.

My most memorable excursion in late '60's Manhattan--Bronx was accompanying my aunt Grace to go to Sunday Mass 1 time. She was a devout Catholic with a Master's in Music retired from teaching at Hunter College who devoted her Sundays playing the massive organ at St. Nicholas Church. Having lived 50% of my life in or near the NEC at the time I was used to urbanscape and it's pressure-cooker environment, or so I thought. I was not shaken being just 1 of 2 Anglos within a 2 mile radius waiting for the subway in Harlem. Everyone kept their own space, no worries. But the bus ride from the subway stop, holy shit!

When standing waiting for any public transit vehicle you hide your money. You also learn early to close open windows while riding a city bus in NYC. I closed mine and the window directly across the aisle. Periodically bricks and rocks would ricochet off the sides or crash with a thud onto the roof. I had to marvel at Grace. She had been a resident since the mid-'20's and always maintained a non-plussed air of dignity no matter what. As we were approaching one stop I could make out a shape hiding within a drugstore alcove and could plainly see 2 punks waiting nearby on the sidewalk. As fine an orchestration of dance I'll ever see in Hell's Kitchen the intended victim raced for the entrance of the slow moving bus while those blinker doors opened on 1 side only. As his second shoe cleared the entry way the driver closed the blinker doors quickly. The bus never, ever stopped. Right behind the first kid were the 2 punks. They were denied entry. Much cursing and gesturing ensued. One punk kept pace with our bus because his arm was caught by the door and I guess he wanted to have it back. The driver accelerated, opened, closed the blinker door rapidly twice. As the 1 punk tripped and fell the other punk threw a knife which bounced off the closed door. Later on I asked the driver if this was typical in Hell's Kitchen. He informed me that low seniority drivers get the crap runs and this just happened to be 1 of them and yes, it's typical but worse at night.

This bus ride happened back in 1966. I've never ridden that route since.