John Delach

February 2016, Reissued July 2025

Late last year, I found myself driving home from Sunset Park, Brooklyn on a mild Sunday afternoon. The unseasonable weather stirred local residents of Bay Ridge to abandon TV images of NFL football games in favor of enjoying an afternoon of walking, jogging, bicycling or just relaxing on their water front park’s promenade overlooking Gravesend Bay, the Narrows and the Verrazzano Bridge. Driving on the Belt Parkway, I took in the scene then caught sight of the old Parachute Jump in the distance towering over Coney Island. I began to think about this now decommissioned landmark as the Belt Parkway steered me closer to this distinctive tower.

The Parachute Jump was designed to be the centerpiece of the amusement area at the 1939-1940 New York’s World Fair. Conceived by a retired navy commander, James H. Strong, he received a concession from the Fair Committee to build, assemble and operate the tower. The 1939 Fair guidebook described the ride:

Eleven gaily-colored parachutes operated from the top of a 250-foot tower enable visitors to experience all the thrills of “bailing out” without the hazard or discomfort.

Each parachute has a double seat suspended from it. When two passengers have taken their place beneath the chute, a cable pulls it to the summit of the tower. An automatic release starts the drop, and the passengers float gently to the ground. Vertical guide wires prevent swaying, a metal ring keeps the ‘chute open at all times, and shock-absorbers eliminate the impact of the landing. One of the most spectacular features of the

Amusement Area, this is also a type of parachute jump similar to that which armies of the world use in the early stages of actual parachute jumping.

Admission was 40 cents for adults and a quarter for children and the drop down took between 10 and 20 seconds. It was the delight of the fair and my mother and father. Then an engaged couple, they took delight in riding this phenomenon multiple times. Growing up, mom would regale me with stories about the fair and especially tales of this ride that both frightened and excited me. After the fair ended, the Tilyou family, who owned Steeplechase Amusement Park purchased the structure and re-assembled it at the  boardwalk entrance to their Coney Island grounds christening it: Brooklyn’s Eiffel Tower.

By the mid-1950s I began to travel to Coney Island with other local neighborhood kids. We’d venture by subway to swim at the beach or to explore the amusement areas behind the boardwalk. We rode the three roller coasters, the famous and still operational, Cyclone, the Thunderbolt and Tornado. We rode the Bob-Sled, a short-thrill ride that performed just as its name implied, the Wonder Wheel, a gigantic Ferris wheel and a peculiar ride called the Virginia Reel. The Reel featured round cars where about six people sat in a circle facing each other. The car rode a chain to the top of a slope, then spun down a zigzag incline bruising as many parts of bodies as possible.

We visited Steeplechase Park but never got up enough nerve or the price of 75 cents to ride the Parachute Jump. Back then 75 cents was an exorbitant price especially when the Cyclone only cost a quarter. But in my head, I thought, “Someday, I’m going to do it.”

Then one windy day, I looked up to see a couple trapped aloft beneath a parachute entangled in the wires. All they could do was sit there and wait until a hook and ladder arrived and the firemen could raise the main extension ladder high enough to rescue them. I was mesmerized by this spectacle and I don’t know what scared me more; watching them being trapped or their 200 feet climb down the ladder!  

After experiencing the horror of that evacuation, it was beyond my nerve to consider a ride on the jump ever again.

Ironically, Steeplechase and its Parachute Jump closed in 1964, the same year that the successor to the 1939 World’s Fair opened in Flushing Meadows Park. A popular swell of enthusiasm wanted to bring the jump back to the new fair, but Robert Moses, the Tsar of the 1964-1965 Fair, wanted no part of it or an amusement zone.

To this day it remains derelict yet a stately, well-maintained and freshly painted landmark; Brooklyn’s Eiffel Tower.

September 2013, Revised July 2025

Somewhere into the 90-minute guided tour through the decommissioned Congressional bunker hidden under the Greenbrier Hotel, it struck me: “This facility is awful. What a crude place this is. I would have thought the geniuses who designed it would have been more thoughtful!”

It may have been the cramped mini-dormitories where senators, congressmen and congresswomen were expected to sleep on steel springs supporting thin mattresses set into wooden frame bunk beds; 12 to 24 people per room. The inadequate, rudimentary toilets and bathrooms, or the total lack of privacy.

It may have been the minuscule cafeteria appointed in cheap chrome framed Formica tables and stiff plastic chairs circa 1957. It may have been the cafeteria floor with its starkly painted checker board pattern that caused headaches, nausea and a general feeling of anxiety and discomfort. The furniture and the floor were deliberately designed to keep the “inmates” moving and discourage them from lingering there too long. Why? Because the cafeteria was too small to feed most of Congress at any one time.

Or perhaps the two private bedrooms set aside for the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate; rooms so small they would be considered cruel if designed for an American prison.

It may have been when the guide explained the members of Congress were to be forced into the bunker when Armageddon was declared whether or not they wished to go there. Or it may also have been when the guide explained that family members would be forcefully separated from their congressional spouses, fathers or mothers. The bunker was for Congress only and very few of their staff. Families could stay in the hotel itself which bodes the image of the inmates locked away in the bunker behind blast proof doors making decisions of the greatest importance while thinking about their families directly above them dying from radiation poisoning.

The bunker was designed during the 1950s when many of the cabins on passenger vessels didn’t have private bathrooms and may have been considered within the standard of acceptable accommodations even for VIPs. I wonder just how long it took to start the avalanche of complaints once select members of Congress began to visit the bunker once  it opened in 1962. The bunker’s existence was officially revealed in 1992 when it was decommissioned and opened to the public. However, we can safely speculate that a far more opulent successor opened some time prior to 1992.

Rest assured that our distinguished legislators, be they Democrats or Republicans, never abandoned the priority of saving themselves from a nuclear winter; they just wished to do it in style. One day circumstances will change again and this new and improved Congressional shelter will also be revealed. Until then, we can only take stock of what might have been had the Big Red Bear unleashed its arsenal as we all feared while this was their place of refuge.

How would our esteemed Congress survive this ordeal for as long as the six-months they could have remained in the Greenbrier bunker and what would they be like when they emerged? We can only wonder.

This all came roaring back on Friday, July 11, 2025 by way of The New York Times obituary of Paul Bugas, the former director of the bunker from 1971 until its decommissioning in 1992. Unspoken in the obituary, but nevertheless obvious between the lines, Mr. Bugas treated his position with the care and respect it deserved for the degree of responsibility his position expected of from him.

“For more than 20 years, Mr. Bugas had shown up to work at the Greenbrier, along with 12 to 15 other government employees, wearing clothing that helped them blend in with other resort employees. There was communication equipment that had to be maintained; a six-month supply of food that had to be replenished; and filters designed to remove nuclear, biological and chemical contaminants that had to be kept updated. Secrecy was paramount.

”Mr. Bugas served in military intelligence which gave him the necessary security clearance to become director of the Greenbrier bunker, as well as the training to keep a secret. When the bunker was de-classified, Mr. Bugas helped give guided tours. Having the opportunity to explain the work he had long had to conceal may have been cathartic, his son Paul said in an interview.

“Being the consummate Army man, his orders were to preserve an element of democracy if the big one fell,’ Paul said. “ An that’s exactly what he did.”

So, dear reader, who are you going to believe, my fanciful ramblings or that the way Bugas saw it was the way it really was?

“On the Outside Looking In will not publish next week. I hope to resume on July 30, if possible. Stay tuned.”   

My friend, Geoff Jones, recently sent me a piece from The Wall Street Journal about an entrepreneur by the name of Blake Scholl and his plan to restore commercial Supersonic flight with a new jet that his company, Boom, is developing. His plan is to fly 75 passengers on his new Supersonic Transport (SST) at the same cost as a regular Business Class seat or $1,700 one way.

This would price would be favorable to the listed $5,000 cost to fly the Concorde that was retired in 2003. 

Actually, that listed price for the Concorde was mostly a myth and the part I liked best in the WSJ piece was this paragraph:

“Delta CEO Ed Bastian is among Boom’s doubters, calling the jet ‘a very, very expensive asset’ for the roughly 75 travelers it is expected to carry – a fraction of a typical wide-body jet. He said he remembers the Concorde as a cool experience, but one he partook only through free upgrades, never with his own money. He has no plans to buy Overture Jets. ‘I wish them well’, he said.”

I flew BA with enough frequency during the 1980s and 90s to learn how to fly the Concorde for free. I flew on the Fast Plane 12 times, nine going to London and three returning back home.

I only had Marsh pay one time and that cost less than $2,000.

I had gone to London to meet with the leading Lloyd’s Underwriter to settle outstanding wording issues in Exxon’s GCE (Global Corporate Excess), their master insurance policy.

I had our London office set me up in one of their apartments in the Carlton Tower Hotel where we would meet the following morning. (Funny, all these years later, I choose not to remember that man’s name so I’ll call him, Mister X.)

Andrew Dowlen, a London colleague and a good friend, turned up first carrying that day’s Times. The lead business story read: “MR. X Rejects the Exxon Valdez Claim.”  

Seriously upset by this horrible news, I made a quick decision which I related to Mr. X as soon as he arrived: “Our only choice, Mr. X, is to completely ignore this grave decision. That is something we will have to deal with for the foreseeable future. But, we are here today to settle a long list of policy issues in dispute that must be resolved.

He agreed and we accomplished our stated goal. We even created a channel to settle about nine items that we couldn’t come to terms with that day.

We even took a time-out to enjoy a nice lunch I had ordered from the hotel’s room service.

That night, I had dinner with Leo Whalen, my colleague and friend, then living in London.

I drank a lot before going back to the Carlton Tower. 

The next morning, I woke up early and angrier than I have ever been in my entire life. All I could feel was hatred for Mr. X and everything involving insurance. Nothing could calm me. I was pissed.

My only recourse was to shave, shit and shower, check out and head for Heathrow Airport. 

On the way, I instructed the taxi driver to take me to British Airways’ Terminal 3. Carry-on bag in hand, I went directly to BA’s ticketing desk for Concorde, pushed my existing ticket and my company’s AMEX card on the counter, and commanded the clerk, “Put me on Concorde!’

She took a look at the expression on my face and all she said was, “Yes, sir.”

As she handed me my stuff, credit receipt, ticket, boarding pass and whatever else, she took a chance to wish me well.

I don’t recall what she said, but I replied, “I bought a ticket on Concorde because I cannot get out of this country fast enough!

Other than that, I don’t remember much about the flight home. I hope I slept; as any more alcohol would only worsen my already shitty mood.

Apparently, I did sleep and abstain from further imbibing as Mary Ann and I are still together so I must have returned to our home in a civilized condition.

(On the Outside Looking In will not print on July 2 or 9 and will return on July 16.)

The El, the Gate Train and the Conductor’s Song

John Delach

April, 2002 Revised June 2025

The train’s crew leaves their rest house at the Bridge-Jay Street Station of the Myrtle Avenue Elevated line. Four conductors and the motorman amble along the wooden platform and take their assigned positions on their five-car train. Each conductor steps onto the two open platforms between each coach, facing the station straddling the two cars observing the passengers remaining on the platform and commands them, “All aboard.”

Each man pushes two iron levers away from him closing the gates and then performs the same ceremony, pulling the cord to his right ringing the bell on the next platform working toward the front of the train. Clang-clink, clank-clank, cling-clank, clang-clink, four bells, each rung twice, eight repetitions, the sound of the conductor’s song. None sound the same; each bell expresses the identity of the conductor who rings it. The sound alerts each conductor that the gates behind him are secured. The chorus continues until the final conductor rings a bell in the motorman’s cab signaling him: “You’ve got the railroad.”

With a lurch, the gate train leaves Bridge-Jay Street and downtown Brooklyn, its courthouses, law offices, banks; its shopping district featuring the department stores, Abraham & Straus, Mays and Martins and its theaters, the Brooklyn Paramount, Fox and the RKO Albee. Noisily, the train crosses Flatbush Avenue and makes its way north into Fort Greene and the Navy Street Station. As the train eases into the station, the conductors make ready to open the gates.

Working outside forces conductors to adjust their uniforms to meet their environment. Winter’s cold and freezing rain are the worst elements and quilted vests, rubber gloves, ribbed shoes and plastic hat protectors’ help. But, at every station, they must leave the warmth of the coach and return to straddle the open platforms between each coach.

Navy Street Station; appropriately, workers from the Brooklyn Navy Yard, tired and dirty, lunch pails in hand, board the train. Continuing north the old wooden cars rattle through Bedford- Stuyvesant past tenements and public housing projects, parks, stores, churches and schools. These apartments, some with open windows and curtains pulled back reveal living rooms and kitchens, containing plants, bird cages, furniture, lamps, radios and televisions. Peering out from coach windows, passengers glimpse images of these apartments and their occupants. On hot summer days, women relax on pillows propped on windowsills and stare back forcing those peering passengers to avert their eyes in embarrassment.

Sparks fly from the third rail, motors strain emitting an electrical odor as coaches sway as they move over track joints. The train crosses streets active with new trackless trolleys, diesel buses or the trolley cars they will shortly replace. Delivery trucks, horse and wagons, automobiles and pushcarts compete for space while pedestrians’ cross streets dodging this traffic.

The train progresses stopping at the wooden platforms with ornate Victorian style station houses that line the El. Each is named after the street below, many for famous Americans; Washington, Vanderbilt and Franklin. As the train idles, each stop provides curious passengers a better opportunity to spy more intently into second and third story windows.

Afternoon trains carry a melting pot mix of passengers. Black and Hispanic women carry groceries, their wash or packages from the central post office. German and Italian housewives, together or with children return from shopping trips downtown. High school students take the train home from school. Boys from Brooklyn Tech carry slide rules, science and engineering textbooks, girls from Dominican Commercial wear uniforms and knee-high socks and boys sporting ties and jackets ride home from St John’s Prep and Bishop Loughlin. Brewery workers from Rheingold and Schaefer board at Broadway. The train continues north through Bushwick as the blocks become less dense and flats and tenements shrink in size revealing the spires of small Protestant Churches. At Wyckoff Avenue, the last surge of passengers board the train, some returning from trips to The City transferring from the Fourteen Street-Canarsie subway, others from shopping trips to local stores on Myrtle Avenue.

Crossing into Ridgewood, Queens apartment houses continue to shrink to two and three stories and single-family homes begin to appear. The conductors play their song one more time at the Fresh Pond Road Station and the train descends to ground level for its final run to Metropolitan Avenue, the end of the line in the communities and cemeteries of Maspeth and Middle Village.

The last passengers detrain and the crew takes a break awaiting their next assignment to return to Brooklyn to play their song again.

“Oh shit!” I exclaimed into my otherwise empty kitchen. It was 6:05 AM on Saturday, June 7^th and I had just watched the weather report on WNBC’s local morning news.  The weatherman had gone a bit far afield and reported on a heavy rain storm in the Scranton, PA area.

“It is heading east in the direction of Sullivan County (NY) and should reach the Catskills at about eleven.”

Eleven AM, what a lousy coincidence. Beth, my daughter, her husband, Tom, their Eighteen- year-old son, Cace, and I had booked a rail-bike tour on Rail Explorers at 11 AM that would take about two and a half hours. For the record, Rail Explorers operates on abandoned track out of Phoenicia in the Catskills about twenty miles west of Kingston.

 Michael Harmon introduced me to Rail Explorers in his October 27, 2024 edition of The New York Times. Harmon’s experience reflected ours except that he only experienced light rain on his trip. Here is what he wrote: “It’s always a thrill to pull out of a train station and feel yourself picking up speed, wheels click-clacking over the rails. It’s even more thrilling when your train has no roof or sides, is as low-slung as a Mazda Miata and comes with a warning to watch out for bears crossing your path.

“I was riding a rail-bike, a pedal-powered contraption built to cruise along railroad tracks. Rail-biking opens the door to using existing rails recreationally, with no need to tear up the tracks. In 2015, Rail Explorers started the country’s first rail-biking operation. Today, the company has seven locations and there are now more than dozen rail-biking outfitters running excursions in 16 states from Maine to California.

“My trip – an eight-mile round-trip pedal, much of it paralleling the Esopus Creek – departed from Phoenicia, home to Rail Explorer’s Catskills Division.

“The atmosphere (when we met) was surprisingly upbeat for 8 am on a gray, damp morning before, Sam Huang, our tour leader began a high-energy introduction and safety briefing. ‘These are the Rolls-Royces of rail bikes.’

“Our rides did look pretty slick with painted metal frames, adjustable seats with handles on either side  and even some very Rolls-Royce-built in umbrellas. After demonstrating the raised-fist ‘brake signal’ to alert riders behind you that you are stopping – and reminding us to watch out for wildlife, Mr. Huang let out with a spirited ‘All abord’ and we were dispatched to our assigned rail-bikes. I had booked a tandem rail-bike ($102) suitable for one or two people: Rail Explorers also offer quads ($178) for groups of two to four (the prices are per bike, regardless of the number of riders.”

“One by one, our convoy set off down the line boosted by an electric pedal-assist system that helps make the rail-bikes suitable for all ages and abilities. As I pedaled along, I took in the scenery, glad the crew had generously spaced out our departures from the station giving me the opportunity to have a few times when I felt I had the tracks and the scenery all to myself.

“(Mr. Huang broke this spell as he) gathered his flock and linked our vehicles together for a dramatic transverse of State Road 28, which runs along the tracks for the beginning part of the ride. I challenge you not to smile as you bike between the lowered gates of a railroad crossing in full bells and honking cars glory.

“Four miles in, we reached the halfway point, stepping off to stretch our legs while the crew turned our bikes around using a turntable.

“After I climbed back on for the return trip, I settled into a rhythm, marveling at the effort it must have taken in the 1860s to lay these tracks flanked by the river on one side and a rocky cliff on the other.”

Returning to our adventure, the four of us left Roger Drive in Port Washington at 7:30. Tom drove us in his new Hyundai Santa Fe.  Traffic was with us and we arrived at 10:15.  

Curiously, the same Mr. Huang led our convoy. Since we were in a four-seater we learned that a single passenger, the one occupying the rear right seat actually controlled the electric motor and the brake. A good thing too as I couldn’t lift my legs up to reach the recumbent peddles. Cace did the honors  as our operator on the outbound leg, Tom on the return trip.

Shortly after we got underway, the ski let loose with rain. Beth remarked, “Wow, right on time.”

It rained and it rained and it rained. It overwhelmed the umbrellas and the ponchos that Rail Express provided. Our personal rain gear also failed. Early on, the four of us decided to ignore our suffering and concentrate on this unique experience. 

The two road-crossings were a hoot and Huang was a combination drill sergeant and cheer leader having us wave our arms and shout for joy as we sped across Route 28. Waiting motorists responded with a cacophony of honking horns. 

Our stop at the turn-around was okay. The rain lessened so we could enjoy the bagels Mary Ann had packed for us. “Bagels in the rain, what a wonderful moment, I’m happy again…”

I’ll admit the ride back to base was less than ideal as we hit another squall. We didn’t waste any time dismounting, using the rest rooms and returning to the Santa Fe.

Our soaked clothes made for an uncomfortable ride home, but we were not discouraged. Tom stopped to pick up a burger for Cace at Five Guys and we all shared a generous bag of their fries.

A unique experience, indeed. I’d do it again. Hopefully, without rain. If not, so what.

Memorial Day Remembrance

Bud Hearn

May 2025

Bud Hearn has been writing and publishing his blog, The Weakly Post, for 17 years with about 800 different titles. His post set out below was written as a celebration of Memorial Day as it was held near his home at Neptune Park on St. Simon Island, Georgia. I have re-published with Bud’s permission to honor him.

                                                        The Poppies Blow

                                                              Bud Hearn

                                                            May 26, 2025

     In this place for many years multitudes of a cross-section of diverse Americans celebrate Taps at Twilight in remembrance of Memorial Day. We come to pay tribute to those who have died in service to our country, as well as honor those living who have served in our preservation of liberty. It’s a humble and solemn occasion.

“In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row

That mark our places, and in the sky,

The larks, still bravely singing, fly,

Scarce heard amid the guns below.”

     The annual event is organized by the St. Simons Island Rotary Club. The Golden Isles Community Band resurrects John Phillip Sousa for a short concert of his militaristic music. We can imagine him directing the band. The enthusiastic music is rousing. We march along with them, waving our tiny American flags in time with the music.

     Picnics are everywhere. Smoke from barbeque wafts across the lawn. Our own ravenous crowd usually numbers about twenty-five. We gather around several tables covered with red checkered tablecloths and feast on fried chicken, sandwiches of cucumber, pimento cheese and pineapple, all on white bread (the edges removed in true Southern tradition). There’s more: deviled eggs, guacamole dip, fruit and unlimited desserts.

     Throngs of patriotic Americans pack the entire lawn of Neptune Park. We face the rotunda where engraved bricks with the names of the beloved fallen remind us of our heritage. Standing alone in the center is a flagpole. Our flag, the enduring symbol of national unity, is alive.  It waves freely in the breeze. It’s the central focus of all eyes.

     As the day drifts down towards dusk, a Spirit floats on the coastal breeze and moves among the crowd.  It swells, then hushes, then blows again. A profound stillness descends upon the multitude. Laughing voices of children ring in the distance. They add new life to the solemnity of the gathering.

“We are the dead; short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.”

     This same Spirit blows amid the graves of patriots everywhere. It’s we, the living, who are restless. The honored dead lie peacefully in the earth now. Their names, dates and events mark their final resting places. What survive are their names, our memories and the ideal of Freedom. The Freedom that beats in every living heart was purchased by the blood of our countrymen. This same Freedom, we pray, will continue to survive long after we, the living, are gone. We have our names; we have only borrowed the dust.

     Like our warriors, we live for a purpose…a common devotion for freedom and brotherhood.  We hear this theme from every speaker who ever came to memorialize the occasion.

     At twilight we witness the Retirement of the Colors. The crowd is breathlessly silent. The flag is lowered, gently folded, itself soon to be laid to rest in the darkness of the night.

     A mournful trumpet then sounds the three simple notes of ‘Taps,’ or Lights Out or Gone the Sun. In the distance its fading echo descends gently upon the declining day.

     Three simple notes close this day, but another three notes will renew the morrow. Like death and resurrection, tomorrow’s bugle call is Reveille, accompanied by a cannon’s retort. It’s a rousing ‘get-em-up’ tune as the flag is again raised atop the naked flagpole.  It will again personify our nation’s glorious past, its hopeful future and our enduring commitment to freedom.

     So we will say goodnight to the Spirit here. The day is finished.  Picnic baskets, tables and chairs are packed, and the crowd disperses, somber in the memory of the occasion. Yet it departs unsettled, knowing that our nation’s struggle for freedom continues.

“Take up our quarrel with the foe!

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high!

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep…”

This is about Queens and its greatest advocate, Jimmy Breslin. Queens is the fourth borough in terms of prestige. Finishing next to last stinks but being the laughing stock is reserved for last place and, at least, Queens’s residents don’t have to endure the abuse and ridicule directed at the residents of Staten Island.

Staten Island will always be the least respected, least understood or cared about borough in New York City. The sophisticated, pretty, moneyed, self-absorbed young elites who populate and socialize the Manhattan night-scene scorn all the outer boroughs and Jersey traffickers. They derisively dismiss them as rabble: “The Bridge &Tunnel (B&T) crowd.” Staten Islanders don’t even qualify to be so disdained even though they’ve had their bridge since 1965. Pity!

Queens is next to last in prestige on the NYC social food-chain and will also always remain so. It has none of the grit, character, drama or clout of Brooklyn or The Bronx. In fact, if not for its two airports, Kennedy, (JFK) and LaGuardia, (LGA,) or the fact that people must drive through Queens or ride the LIRR to reach the super-wealthy East-End, few would care if Queens slipped back into the sea.

(The thought occurs: If technology had advanced  just a bit further along in 1925 when Fitzgerald published, “The Great Gatsby,” poor Jay would have avoided his downfall by being flown or helicoptered over the hellacious Flushing Meadows ash dumpsite. Again, Pity!)

We have the Mets, two world’s fairs – although the 1964-65 Fair was cheapened by the line in, “Men in Black:” Why else did you think we put a world’s fair in Queens?

While I was born in Brooklyn, I emigrated to Ridgewood, Queens as soon as Mom returned home from Bushwick Hospital. Mary Ann was born in Astoria, grew up in Astoria and Flushing. We met at the fair on June 6, 1964 and we returned there on our official first date. I actually took her to the top of the towers where the alien space ship was cleverly hidden in the movie, Men in Black…Who knew?

When first married, we rented in Kew Garden Hills. After our daughter, Beth was born, we moved to Middle Village. We rented a house from my aunt at a discounted amount, but, when it came time to buy, she wouldn’t sell. We left Queens for Port Washington in 1977.

When I was in college, I discovered Jimmy Breslin, then a regular columnist at the Herald Tribune. I quickly realized that Breslin was a treasure and both a critic and an advocate for the fourth borough. My belief in Jimmy was confirmed by a letter to the editor about the late Ed Lowe, a beloved columnist at Newsday. Early in Ed’s career, he received a congratulatory phone call from Breslin.

Bill Mason described the event in a letter: “Ed got up from his desk and walked very slowly over to mine. His eyes were wide open and his mouth was pretty much the same way. He seemed to be in a trance.

‘That was Jimmy Breslin,’ Lowe said. ‘Jimmy Breslin telephoned me.’

“Apparently, Breslin had read an article by Lowe and called him out of the blue. Lowe said Breslin told him, ‘Kid, you just remember to stay out of Queens. That’s my territory.”

Breslin got Queens and his pen gave life to minor characters, small-time hustlers, grifters and wannabees who populated the perpetually darkened streets under the elevated lines along Jamaica Avenue, Roosevelt Avenue, 31^st Street, Liberty Avenue and Palmetto Street. He understood Glendale, Sunnyside, Cypress Hills, Corona, Maspeth, Flushing and South Ozone Park.

Breslin gave us Fat Thomas, Klein the lawyer, Shelly, the bail bondsman, Marvin, the torch and Un Occhio, the mob boss.

He got The Pastrami King and the Queens Boulevard Courthouse scene. He got ex-borough president, Donald Manes, who ran unopposed across party lines multiple times before committing suicide following a municipal scandal that Breslin first broke. He christened Queens’ D/A, Brown, “Duck-down Brown,” for hiding behind his desk when then a judge during a shoot-out in his court room. Breslin said this about the blood feud between union boss, Mike Quill and mayor John Lindsay: “John Lindsay looks at Quill and sees the past and Mike Quill looks at Lindsay and sees the Church of England.”

And, of course, the gripping and terrifying saga of Breslin’s bizarre relationship with David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam.

Breslin understood the mentality of holding functions in halls. Church halls, VFW halls, Knights of Columbus, Masons and American Legion halls. If it were a social event, we called it a racket. Local married couples dressed in their best, took tables for ten or twelve, brought their own bottle of Seagram’s or Canadian Club for their tables and bought set-ups that consisted of ginger ale, club soda and a bowl of ice from the sponsor to cover the nut.

He covered endless events held in halls, political and social, triumphs and tragedy, weddings, funerals celebrations and protests. If you knew Queens, you knew halls; folding chairs and portable tables that the organizing committees set-up and dismantled.

Jimmy Breslin got it. He ended his run at Newsday with this sign off in his final column:

 “Thanks for the use of the hall.”   

Sometimes we recognize the truth immediately, usually when it is self-evident. But sometimes it takes a bit of a jar to recognize when it is present.

One recent Sunday afternoon, I found myself in the Port Washington Library making copies for our writer’s workshop. As I was leaving, I noticed a stack of books on a table close to the exit. One stood out, a rather thick non-fiction book with the title, “The Fate of the Day,” by Rick Atkinson. This was the second volume in his trilogy about the American Revolution.

My cousin, Bill, my friend, Geoff, and I are all avid Rick Atkinson fans who have read his trilogy about the US Army’s battles in Europe during the Second World War. In the same way we each read his first volume about the revolution, “The British are Coming.”

I did talk it over with Bill as to who’s turn is it to purchase the book this time and we concluded it was mine. Too bad, talk about inflation, its cover price is $42!

Mary Ann ordered it from Amazon Prime on the afternoon of May 4 and it arrived before 9 AM the next morning. Another massive undertaking, 618 pages of script! Looking at my new book, I wondered how long it’s been since the author’s first volume was launched? I looked it up, April of 2019.

There it was for anyone to see, the ugly truth that it could take Atkinson six years to publish his new and final volume.

SIX YEARS: OMG!

If the final volume takes that long, I will be 87 when it’s published:

What are the odds that I will still be around?

And if I am, what will be the odds that I can still absorb its content?

And if I can absorb it will I want to?

FUHGEDDABOUTIT!       

May 2014, Revised May 2025

When the 7:07 PM Metro North / Connecticut Transit train to New Haven left Grand Central Terminal on time on Friday evening, May 9, 2014, it included one of the last bar / lounge coach cars operating on any American commuter railroad. Officially dubbed, Café Cars, this forty- something years old unit was removed from service at the end of that run together with three other lounge coaches.

They were rolling dinosaurs and only lasted this long because Connecticut deferred replacing their M-2 commuter car fleet well beyond other railroads had like Metro North and the Long Island. Their very existence was odd as the Nutmeg State still chose to include Café Cars when they ordered new train sets in the early 1970s at a time  almost all other systems were eliminating these coaches as they modernized their equipment.

Like Chicago; Jim Hagelow recalled “We lost ours years ago and with them, many fond memories. Birthday parties, Cubs outings, ‘Oh Shit’ card games and singing Christmas carols. Every year for years, a fellow from Peat Marwick and I led the car singing carols during our rolling party.” Jim also admitted a universal truth: “I think my wife was happy when it went away.”

Geoff Jones remembered that the older pre-MTA equipment included lounge cars with upholstered chairs and couches that could be moved around. “Some had service bars at one end, but there were others with long bars running along one side of windows. The railroad had a bartender who rode south from Poughkeepsie in the morning running a continental breakfast service. At night he became the bartender for the northbound return run to Poughkeepsie where they put him up in a small apartment. On weekends, he continued further north until he reached his family home.”

“When the new equipment arrived, booze carts on the platforms at GCT replaced the lounges. But drinks bought there didn’t last to Peekskill where a funny thing often happened on Fridays. The platform is located on a pretty sharp bend of the Hudson. The train emptied on the right so it took the conductor a long time to check it all to see if passengers were safely off. Just across the street was a pizzeria and thirsty commuters who still had a way to go pre-ordered pizzas and six-packs of beer from pay phones in GCT (no cell phones) to meet the train. A designated runner left with the first wave of exiting passengers to secure the order and re-board the train. Usually, the run went smoothly, but I do believe the conductor held the train when it didn’t. The pizza always smelled great but it was only ten minutes to my stop in Garrison so I didn’t join in.”  

After the LIRR introduced their new M-1 coaches without bar cars in 1969, for a while they turned trains that went long distances into bar cars by putting a cart and bartender on one of the units. He maneuvered the cart taking over one of the two vestibules in that car. He disabled the doors behind him and the conductor would announce his location. Pity the passengers, especially non-drinkers in that car. A line would snake down the narrow aisle with thirsty patrons competing for space with others carrying their drinks back to their friends. If that didn’t create sufficient discomfort for regular riders, once the bartender came on board, that coach officially became a smoking car!

My own make-shift bar experience came on my son’s last commute to Port Washington  before he was to be married and moved to Fairfield, CT. I bought two cans of Budweiser 16 ounce tall boys to share on our express run home. While the train was still in Queens, we made an unscheduled stop for what the crew described as a medical emergency. “EMS is on the way and will be here soon.”

We had finished our Buds, the doors were open and I spied a bodega at the end of the platform across Northern Boulevard. “Watch my briefcase,” I said to Mike and made my way as quickly as I could.

Dodging traffic, I replenished our diminished rations and made it back as the EMS fellows were removing the distressed commuter from the train. “Hey, is that for us?” one of them called out as I re-boarded.

“Afraid not fellas, but if you had let me know, I would have picked up two more.”
                    

May 2016, Revised May 2025

Last week’s piece jogged my memory about another incident that also took place at the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. My company had a rough spell in the early 80s that limited the destination for two of our meetings to the nearby Arrowood Conference Center in Rye brook, NY. In a word, modest, at best, Arrowood was a sad excuse for a resort.

Happily, my company’s fortunes vastly improved in the mid-1980s and the big brains decided to reward our Managing Directors with a conference at the Greenbrier.

We realized this meeting would be special. It seemed the firm had money to burn. The first night, before dinner, we followed a high-stepping college band from the hotel to the train station. What followed was a cocktail hour on a train trip to nowhere that consisted of vintage coaches and dome cars. Even the name tags we wore were totally upscale.

From 1987 until 2000, we attended eleven conferences at this swell facility. Most years, the event began on Monday morning and ended on Friday. Our firm was enlightened enough to make Thursday afternoons free time allowing the great majority of MDs to golf on one of The Greenbrier’s three exquisite 18-hole courses.

Being a miserable duffer, I didn’t need to suffer the embarrassment that would surely accompany any attempt I made to challenge these links. Tennis, too was out of the question. Instead, I made an appointment for the spa. Without question my favorite part of the treatment was the massage that concluded the spa experience. The Sulphur baths were the low point as they were just plain smelly and did nothing to enhance my mood or physical well-being.

Naturally, different masseuses brought their own talents and approaches to their craft and over the years I received superb treatment by both men and women that left me loose, relaxed and at as much at peace as was humanly possible.

Then there was 1993. Fortune introduced me to a short fellow with powerful arms and hands who introduced himself as Chet. We made small talk as Chet went to work. I learned he was a Mountaineer, a native-born West Virginian and true to his size and rough appearance, had once been a coal miner. I mentioned that I was from New York; the conversation went on – then from out of nowhere – he noted, “I worked on the Giants’ coach last year. That’s right, he was at the hotel and I worked on him.”

“Really,” I replied. “Do you remember his name? Was it Ray Hanley?” – The Giants previous the head coach.

“No, I don’t think so.” He paused, thought about it then floored me as he continued. “No, he just said he was the coach but that’s not his name. I remember him though because he stiffed me. I paid him back though. I’m part Cherokee and I put a curse on him and the team. They will not have success as long as the curse is on them.”

My head spun because of what I just heard. Chet couldn’t know how long I had been a season ticket holder, that the Giants had finished with a 6-10 record in 1992 and that Hanley and his staff had all been fired.

Instinctively, I wanted to ask him how much he’d want to lift the curse but I sensed that this would only make the situation worse. I had to be more nimble in my approach.

The massage ended and after I dressed, Chet returned with his personal log hand-written in a copy book. He pointed to a name revealing the culprit to be Rod Rust. Rod Rust, I thought to myself, not only did his “read and react” defense suck, he screwed all of us by being a cheapskate.

I put a good tip on the spa bill, standard practice at The Greenbrier, hustled to an ATM and withdrew a like amount in cash. I sealed it in an envelope and returned to the spa, asked for Chet and waited for him.

When he reached reception, I walked over, gave him the envelope while I looked him directly in the eye and said, “Chet, this is to make up for the shabby treatment you received.” I shook his hand and walked away.

It took awhile but the Giants went on to play in three more Super Bowls winning two.

The curse had been lifted.