John Delach

October 2001, Revised September 2019

Today marks the 18^th anniversary of the dreadful day that terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center and changed our lives forever. I wrote this a month after the towers fell.

Austin Tobin was the driving force behind the construction of the World Trade Center. As Chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, he envisioned these twin towers to be the centerpiece of international trade. He wanted these towers to be the tallest buildings in the world, but he also wanted a crown jewel to enhance their glory. To fulfill this desire, he commissioned architects to design the World Trade Center Club, his personal gift to power. Located on the 106^th and 107^th floors of the North Tower, The Club became a magnificent drinking and dining facility with private rooms, fine wine and cigars, with a staff that exuded the proper snobbery of an elite country club. It was home for the three-martini lunch and its men’s room, adorned in pink and white Italian Marble, was so magnificent it could be an appropriate setting for a rock star, if not a national leader, to lie in state. The Club kept its own accounts and neither cash nor credit cards were accepted.

When the press became aware of the privacy and opulence of The Club, all hell broke loose. How could a public agency promote a subsidized private club? Tobin had to pacify the press and politicos and so, at night it became “Windows on the World” the unique public restaurant 107 floors in the air. The NY Times first review read in part: “…as to the quality of the food, you cannot beat the view.”

At lunchtime, The Club remained members only. Senior officers in my industry, marine insurance, frequented several private luncheon clubs belonging to one or more. They were swell places to entertain clients, prospects and underwriters while their cost was buried in generous expense accounts. A mentor, Charlie Robbins, introduced me to The WTC Club. Charlie drank Bombay Gin Martinis and loved to entertain there. He especially liked to show it off to visiting British brokers and their wives. This was during an era when British firms sent their senior and most promising junior brokers to the United States for two or three weeks at a time in the company of their wives. The Labour Governments tax rate was 90% and these trips provided an alternate method of compensation. They came to New York mainly in May and October when the weather is best. 

Charlie’s greatest coup came during a dinner in one of the private dining rooms. He disappeared and, on his return announced: “May I have your attention. I have arranged a special event for the ladies, a tour of the most magnificent men’s room in the world.” Charlie had bribed the staff to temporarily close the men’s room as he proceeded to escort the ladies, including my wife, on a private tour to the delight of all.

Charlie encouraged me to become a member. We worked in midtown and the cost was discounted if you were north of Canal Street. I took his advice and joined. During my 20 years as a member, I hosted many a lunch and dinner there. I utilized their private rooms to set agendas, deal with crises, welcome visitors, congratulate success, say goodbye to retirees, good luck to transferees and accomplish other matters of commerce.

The view was paramount and at times dramatic. On crystal clear winter nights, the brightness of the city overwhelmed us while the surrounding areas stretched to the horizon in strands of light. Manhattan buildings, seen from above, stood out silhouetted by spotlights and ground lights. If the moon was strong, or full, its reflected light made rivers, bays and the ocean glow. Helicopters flew by at altitudes lower than The Club. The only view above us were the lights from airplanes, satellites and the stars. One night during dinner low clouds swept in from the west obscuring streets and buildings as they grew fainter and fainter until they disappeared. Remarkably, we could still see the stars.

Such was life in the fast lane, 1970s and 1980s style. However, as the 1990s arrived, the Club became an anachronism. The era of the private luncheon clubs was over. The Harbor View Club, Drug and Chemical Club, The Wall Street Club and the infamous Whitehall Club, with its deadly bartender, Spiro, had all closed. The business of doing business had changed in focus, diversity and geography with a reduced tolerance for lunchtime drinking. This cultural shift, loss of tax deductibility, the cost of space and the desirability of their locations conspired to hasten their demise.

The terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 had forced The Club to close, I thought permanently. So, it was with surprise that I opened an announcement in 1995 advising The Club would re-open. I re-joined at a discounted fee, but seldom used it as I too had changed. I hosted my last dinner in the fall of 1999 for a group of French underwriters from AXA Insurance Company. The summer before, they had entertained us and our client at their chateau in Bordeaux, a once in a lifetime event. My colleagues and I decided to present the Club to them in return. The weather cooperated fully. The view was superb, the food good and the wine, far too expensive for my taste but suitable for them all were a success. Our guests were as impressed as the French would ever admit. 

I resigned from The Club in 2000 when I retired and never returned. On September 11, 2001, the Club died when the North Tower fell.

To relieve my post-destruction gloom, I searched for and found my old photographs taken as a young man that illustrated the promise of the the twin towers during their construction. I also found my last membership card. I embraced this as evidence of my memories of the club.

Curiously, a final chapter, an epitaph of sorts had to play out. A letter arrived with the return address for Mr. Jules Roinnel in Baldwin, Long Island. Jules was the Club’s Manager. Dated October 12^th, Mr. Roinnel spoke about the 72 staff members who died that day. He also advised that two surviving luncheon clubs would offer guest privileges until the end of the year. Even though it read in part: “…the future of The World Trade Center Club is unclear.” it had an upbeat tone about it.

Perhaps Jules was going through the motions? We all express our grief differently. What once reigned supreme was gone. The Club, like its era and the towers belonged to history.

Last Wednesday, August 27, the same day I last published, I also had an appointment with my gastro specialist, Dr. B, to evaluate my need for either or both an endoscopy and a colonoscopy. Dr. B, formerly a blazing redhead has turned gray protecting my insides for almost twenty years. This appointment was needed because a previous blood tests had indicated a hemoglobin level of 10 where 12 was considered normal. Dr. B, my wife and I all took this in our stride; Dr. B had tests taken and scheduled an endoscopy for September 11.

All hell broke lose that evening when her associate, Dr. P called me at home announcing my score that day was a six and it behooved me to get my ass into an ER for a transfusion ASAP!

On a gurney, less than an hour later at St. Francis Hospital, I was probed, evaluated, subjected to an X-Ray and EKG. Quickly admitted and benefitting from the first of two units of a blood, I arrived in Room 2537 about 12:45 am. Tests of all kinds continued during the early morning hours by competent and beautiful nightingales each lovelier than each other.

Memo to file: “Is this in heaven?” ….”No Iowa.”

About 3:30 am I began receiving the second unit of blood forcing me to remain on my back with the receiving arm straight out. At 6:15 an alarm signaled my transfusion was complete. The result, hemo count went from 6 to 8.6. A sweet nurse cooed, “By the way you are fasting for an endoscope, today so nothing by the mouth.”

Thursday was a longest day as nobody had scheduled me for procedures as they believed their challenge was to keep me alive through the night. Neither my family nor I could argue with that call so, thank God, I broke even.  

E, my roomie, ten years older than me was in bad shape. Suffering from cancer and diabetes, he’d become a victim too many different medications that had screwed him up. I overheard various docs who each explained why they were giving him “X” or “Y” Each diagnosis taken alone made sense, but together left him at mercy of the next big brain’s best bight idea.

 Memo to the good Lord: Take me before I ever become like E.   

All this time Mary Ann and Beth kept vigil taking turns to run home and tender to Max and Tessie. I was now on a semi-liquid clear diet of apple juice, broth, tea and Jell-O. When Beth called to see if I needed anything she was appalled when I explained to her that vodka was a clear liquid and a double was just what I knew the docs wanted me to add to my diet. With Mary Ann’s help, I prevailed but not before Beth dropped a dime on me within our family. They too were appalled, but Papa John got his drink.

The previous lousy night and my libation gave me my most sleep-full night for the rest of my stay.

Even so, I first had to endure the first of two cleansing procedures for my colonoscopy scheduled together with my endoscopy for Friday afternoon. A hospital room is a good place to become addicted to television and what could be better than watching the slow progress of a hurricane churning toward the Bahamas and Florida’s east Coast?

Mary Ann, Beth and I had to endure interruptions, like the hospital chaplain who anointed me in Sacred oils and Stanley and 80 plus volunteer who came in to say hello to Mary Ann who also volunteers in the hospital. Stanley, a retired doctor, dresses in outrageous clothing; different colored sneakers, one polka dot sock and one stripped sock, a large bow tie and that day, an angry bird shirt.

Stanley presented a small elephant with a raised trunk for luck to both Mary Ann and Beth. (Later, looking back from the other end of a successful endoscopy, I wondered which helped more, the Sacred Oil or Stanley’s elephants?)

My good doctor found the problem, bleeding nodules in my stomach and cauterized the damaged ones. Now my future depended on my hemoglobin levels. Lucky number seven was the minimum acceptable score and my evening count was 7.3, close to failing. My roomie had a bad night and consequently so did I. Close to 1 am, I decided to sit up watch Hurricane Dorian’s progress but soon grew bored. Instead I tuned in WFAN, our local sports talk station on my radio. An old friend, Steve Summers was filling a one-hour slot from 1 until 2 am. How do you fall so low that you accept an early morning one-hour time slot on the Saturday of a holiday weekend? But the old schmoozer was up to it. When one caller demanded that Steve predict how the Mets would finish and noted: “Steve, everybody is listening.” Steve replied: “Everybody? Joe, it’s just you and me.”

My numbers were a roller coater on Saturday but stabilized sufficiently on Sunday that I was discharged just after 4 pm. I had ceased being a happy camper until the good news came down releasing me. When they wheeled me out to the parking garage to meet Mary Ann I proclaimed:

Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, I’m free at last.            

Don’t you sometimes wonder where new expressions originate? Most often they seem to arrive on “winds of change” which I’d wager is exactly one of those expressions. The title of Sebastian Jager’s book, The Perfect Storm, first published in 1997 was co-opted by the media to include political, economic, military, etc. crises. I suspect Mr. Jager found this to be a curious expansion of a phrase he intended to explain what happened to a Grand Banks fishing boat that ventured out at precisely the same time as three separate vicious weather systems joined together to form a monster of a storm.

The expression wasn’t even recognized in 1998 the year after Mr. Jager first published his book and I suspect he lifted it from the maritime / fishing industry where it was used as a term of art. Today it is also defined as: “A particular or critical state of affairs arising from a number of negatives and unpredictable factors.”

Likewise, writers, reporters, columnists and talking heads ran away with the phrase Jager used in his book to describe when a fishing boat became unseaworthy: “tipping point.” Again, these scribes and broadcasters ran wild with tipping point using it to identify the exact moment when the sh*t hit the fan for a political, economic, racial problem, etc. or incident.

The origin of walk-off home run eluded me for a long time. I believe that I first heard this expression on ESPN which may or may not be true. In any event, once it was first adopted, it spread like wildfire. By the time I caught on to it, walk-off had become part of our everyday sports-talk.

Finally, a piece by Victor Mather appeared in The New York Times Sports Section this summer explaining its origin. Curiously, Mr. Mather first wrote this piece October of 2017?

 “Walk-off home run” was originally coined by Dennis Eckersley to describe the pitcher’s reaction to a game-ending home run that the batter hit so hard that the man on the mound knew instantaneously the baseball was going to land deep into the outfield seats. No sense turning around to see where the ball was going, none what-so-ever – just walk off the mound, cross the infield, pass through the dugout and head for the tunnel leading to the locker room.

Eckersley first used the phrase as a broadcaster on NESN, the Red Sox network. Ironically, Eckersley, a Major League Baseball hall of famer was the pitcher who served up the famous pitch to the LA Dodgers Kirk Gibson in the bottom of the ninth inning of the 1988 World Series.

Gibson, who was injured came off the bench to pinch hit, clocked the ball into the stands. Gibson, a semi cripple chugged around the bases on his two damaged legs like an old steam locomotive heading for the barn: “I think I can, I think I can…”

Mr. Mather noted: “More than a decade ago, some were already sick of the term. In 2000 Sports Illustrated wrote, ‘Like crab grass invading someone’s lawn, walk-off has taken root in sports lingo and gotten out-of-control.”

After being universally applied to any game-ending home runs walk-off soon became applied to game-ending base hits as well such as walk-off singles, doubles and triples. Now it has spread to include walk-off double plays, walk-off walks, walk-off errors, walk-off hit by pitches and walk-off balks.

In Japan, the term is the more expressive “Sayonara home run” as sayonara has far more finality than goodbye.

If it were possible to re-wind the clock and limit the expression to Mr. Eckersley definition, walk-off home run would be palatable. Still, let’s rewind the clock back further to 1951 and Bobby Thomson’s dramatic home run that beat the Dodgers in the ninth inning of their final playoff game. I ask, “Would you prefer ‘Walk-off Home Run’ or ‘The Shot Heard Round the World?”            

Major League Baseball has announced that the Chicago White Sox will host the NY Yankees at a twilight game at the “Field of Dreams” site on August 13, 2020. MLB will build a new field nearby to the movie set, it being far too small to host a professional game. The so

called temporary ballpark will have 8,000 seats and the necessary facilities that today’s players, officials and fans expect. I suspect the temporary status will slip – slide away as other teams seek to enjoy the same experience; Cubs vs Cardinals, Reds vs Royals, etc. etc.

This was my experience there in 2011:

In May of 2011, Bill Christman, Mike Cruise, Don Markey and I made our second heartland baseball trip that took us from Minneapolis to St. Louis. Since we spent most of our drive passing through Iowa, I suggested that a stop in Dyersville was a must.

Spring was late arriving, not exactly baseball weather. We drove south out of Minneapolis in a steady rain. After traveling 112 miles we entered Iowa where soon we began heading east and southeast on state highways aiming for Waterloo, the home of the “Fighting Sullivan Brothers,” the John Deere factory and the Route 63 Diner.

I discovered the diner in the AAA guide and good reviews for it online. Bill and I tried brazened chicken, a specialty. The waitress tells us it’s lightly breaded roasted then fried. “That way it is crispy on the outside and moist inside.” She’s right, it is moist and good. Mike enjoys a chicken pot pie and chocolate cream pie and Don, a Reuben.

Then on to Dyersville, 56 miles further east on US-20, home of the set from the movie, Field of Dreams. We used Bill’s GPS to find it which was a good thing as there aren’t too many signs leading to its location. “Why Dyersville” can equally be countered with, “why not Dyersville?”

Dyersville is a typical Iowa farming community of modest family farms with homes, barns and other outbuildings prominently located on the property. After blinking through the actual town, we drove along a rural, well-maintained two-lane road that meanders through these family farms following the contour of the land. The GPS directed us to make a right turn and follow a smaller road for about a quarter of a mile then announced, “Destination on your right.”

The address was not our destination, but rather for the farm across the road. But never mind, there on the left, a short distance down a slope was another typical farm, but this one had a baseball diamond and a freshly mowed outfield cut into its corn field. A wire backstop protected the area behind home plate, small bleachers lined each baseline and steel poles supported the field lights on the borders of the infield and the outfield.  A small blue sign explained why this farm was selected for filming the movie and how the owner decided to preserve it.   

We were lucky, there was a break in the weather and the rain stopped for our visit. The set was so simple. No glitz or glamour, just the field, the poles and that ubiquitous white farmhouse and red barn surrounded by the fallow corn fields. The grass field was well tended, and, in a condition, I’d expect to find for a major league field. Even with all of today’s rain, both the infield dirt and the grass were without mud or puddles. Behind the outfield a line drawn along the ground clearly and neatly marked where the grass baseball field ball ended, and the corn field began. Looking out from home plate we had a panoramic view of several other family farms that rose behind the outfield. It was a wonderful sight allowing us to imagine how different it must look in August when the corn is as high “as an elephant’s eye.”

I couldn’t help but smile. The set was exactly what I pictured it to be when I first read W.P. Kinsella’s 1982 novel, Shoeless Joe reinforced, of course, by images from the 1989 film, Field of Dreams I understood why the producer chose this farm, so plain, so ordinary, so Iowa: Perfect!

Only a few visitors joined us on this dreary day allowing us to prevail upon a fellow tourist, a chap visiting from Dubuque, Iowa with his family to take our photo. We stood together in one of the two bleachers with a white fence and the farmhouse visible behind us. On a fence it simply said: “Field of Dreams.”

One last look and a stop in the souvenir store. I bought two hat pins containing lines from the book and the movie: “Go the distance.” and “Is this heaven? No, it’s Iowa.” Too bad but “If you build it, he will come.” is not in stock.

Satisfied with our experience we continued to Davenport in a rainstorm that returned with such intensity to make tonight’s game between the Quad Cities Lumber Kings and the Wisconsin Timber rattlers a certain rain out. (Did you know, Bob and Ray that the quad cities are Bettendorf and Davenport, Iowa and Moline and Rock Island, Illinois.)

Instead, we enjoyed a superb meal at the City Bistro in Davenport. Bill ordered onion rings followed by apple grilled chicken. Mike, mussels and duck, Don, crab cakes and veal Oscar. I too ordered the crab cakes and the Captain’s rib eye steak. Portions were large and delicious and our drinks and wine, generous pours. We set the over / under at $500 but the check came in at an unbelievable $243. We didn’t scrimp on our tip and saluted our good fortune to have a rain out that evening.

On the Outside Looking in Will not appear next week and will return on August 28.   

It was during our family dinner on Sunday, July 14 that it hit me, “This beach vacation is as close as it comes to being perfect.”

Sunday was our first full day on the Outer Banks (OBX) our three families having driven down on Saturday from Fairfield, Connecticut, Brooklyn and Port Washington, New York. Advertised on Google as an 8-hour and 14- minute drive, it took over eleven hours.

Our son, Michael, his wife Jodie and Drew, Matt and Sammi arrived first in a driving thunderstorm just before six pm. Our daughter, Beth, her husband, Tom and Marlowe and Cace arrived about a half-hour later almost simultaneously with Mary Ann and me. Mike and his family watched quite a light show as numerous lightning bolts struck the ocean.

The storm added to the chaos of so many new arrivals that eating out was a non-starter and take-out was overwhelmed. Mary Ann, Beth and Jodie chose instead to hit the Food Lion, the local supermarket, for frozen pizza that was devoured by this tired and hungry crowd. We didn’t last long and split up into the five bedrooms on two floors.

We had first reserved the house more than a year earlier after I suggested that we make such a trip to celebrate my 75^th birthday. Our five grandchildren ranged in age from 19 to 12 so a beach vacation seemed well-suited to our needs. I suggested OBX. Mary Ann and I made our first post-retirement road trip down the East Coast from Ocean City, Maryland to Savannah in the spring of 2000 and had enjoyed a pre-season stay there. My only demand was the house had to be on the beach with an unobstructed view of the ocean.

After a minimum of electronic searching, Beth found such a house through VRBO on the beach in South Nags Head. It was available for the week of July 13, 2019 at a price that wasn’t off-putting, so we booked it by making a 50% down payment.  (I chose not to buy the hurricane protection they recommended as the cost was too high and the house looked old enough to have weathered several storms. I rolled the dice and won.)

Strange as it may seem I am the only member of our family who is not a beach person. I burn, not tan, I hate the feel of suntan lotion, my face is sensitive to even special lotions, I don’t like the feel of bathing suits and I prefer to read in peace on such holidays. But I really enjoy being by the ocean and watching the world go by.

I spent part of Sunday on the beach and even went into the water twice. The ocean was pleasant both as to temperature and wave action. The house also came equipped with a small pool and hot tub. Since I never saw a pool boy or a hot tub boy nor did I see anyone ever test their cleanliness or balance, I considered them off limits for myself even though they looked pristine. I didn’t discourage others from using them (except when I told Matt (17) that it would make him sterile.)

On Sunday night we decided to dine at a café built on a pier located as Mike described it, “A seven-iron away from the house.”

We sat at adjacent tables, five grandchildren at one, six adults at the other. Jodie and I made the mistake of ordering margheritas without looking at the menu. We agreed they tasted different and seemed inordinately weak. Jodie asked the waiter who politely replied, “Our menu notes that we don’t have a spirits license and we make them with Saki instead of tequila.” Live and learn, while Jodie enjoyed hers enough to order a second from then on it was beer or wine for me at the Fish Head Café.

The food was good, the conversation better. Everybody was over the top about the house and in one day our stay was being voted best vacation, ever. It didn’t hurt that the house had excellent central air as it turned out a heat wave was about to envelope the Eastern Seaboard for the remainder of our stay.

Plans to rent jet skis, beach buggies or to go hang-gliding all seemed to evaporate under that heat and the OBX sun. I was involved in the two excursions. The first was with Beth and her son, Cace, to visit the sand dunes in Jockey Ridge State Park. The biggest dune is 90 to 100 feet tall, the highest on the East Coast. I decided my climbing days are over, I contentedly sat in the shade watching them climb to the top while instructors assembled four hang-gliders for that day’s class. We met the class on our way back to information. There were over two-dozen souls carrying helmets and harness vests heading for the dunes from their orientation class. All I could think was their standing around in the heat waiting for their turn. I hope it was worth it. 

Then, Mary Ann and I took Marlowe, Samantha and Cace 44 miles south for lunch and to visit the Cape Hatteras Light House. They climbed the 257 steps to the top while we waited in the shade. Later we presented them with certificates recording this feat.

I also participated in several minor adventures, one with Tom to bring home BBQ from Sooey’s, a big hit on Monday night, another with Mike to Brew Thru a drive-through distributor that specializes in beer, gear and wine. I also made a lunch run with Drew, Matt and Cace to Five Guys and picked up pizza with Mary Ann, Matt and Marlowe.

People did what they wanted to do. Jodie was the most prolific beach goer with Mary Ann, Tom and Beth distant runners-up. No one seemed bored and the week went by without even a minor blow-up.

The Briggs left a day early on Friday as Marlowe and Cace were off to a camp in New Hampshire that Sunday. The final two families departed between 7 and 7:30 am Saturday morning. Everyone reached home without incident ten plus hours later.

As an old friend once said: “Everybody was still talking to each other at the end, so we broke even.”          

This story begins on June 1, 1940 when the City of New York merged the two privately operated subway lines, the BMT, (Brooklyn Manhattan Transit) and the IRT, the (Interborough Rapid Transit) systems into the IND, their municipal system. Overnight, the city fathers accomplished a form of urban renewal so extensive that even Robert Moses might have been impressed, if he ever gave a damn about rapid transit which is doubtful.

On that day, most of the original elevated lines serving Manhattan and Brooklyn were condemned to oblivion. Like a light switch being clicked, two of three IRT Manhattan Elevated lines ceased to be in service, the Second Avenue Line and the Ninth Avenue Line. (The Sixth Avenue Line had ceased operating in 1938.) In Brooklyn, the BMT’s Fulton Street Line and the Fifth Avenue line also ceased operating.

Coincidentally, a similar scenario played out in San Francisco Bay area as two of the three interurban passenger lines that only began running from Oakland to San Francisco over the Bay Bridge in 1939 quit in early 1941. Only one, the Key Line remained.

After the fall of France in June of 1940, when Britain stood alone. FDR rallied a reluctant America with his “Short of War” aid to England, lend lease, destroyers for bases and the beginnings of our arsenal for democracy.

Henry J. Kaiser was already building merchant ships for the United States Maritime Administration (MARAD) when they accepted his proposal to build a new shipyard in Richmond a suburb of Oakland on December 20, 1940. Initially, its purpose was to build sixteen merchant ships for Great Britain. On April 14, 1941, steel was laid for the first ship, the SS Ocean Vanguard. Five months later, work began on a second shipyard to build the new class of inexpensive merchant ships, simple-to-operate that could be produced quickly to replace the drastic loss of ships being sunk at the hands of the Nazi U-Boats. Rightfully deemed, the Liberty Ship, the first was built at Bethlehem Steel’s Sparrows Point Yard and christened the SS Patrick Henry. Each Liberty ships was engineered to finish one Atlantic crossing should it be lucky.  

The SS James Otis was the first to be built at Richmond, laid down in September of 1941 and delivered early in 1942. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, FDR’s arsenal grew to become a manufacturing behemoth beyond imagination. Kaiser increased production at Richmond, again and again opening shipyards 3 and 4. Workers were recruited nationwide reaching a total of 93,000 shipyard workers of whom 27% were women – Richmond’s pre-war population of 23,000 multiped to 130,000.

An entire new infrastructure had to be created; housing, schools, medical facilities, shops and schools. Transportation for the workers and their families was critical. The shipyards operated seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. At their height, those four yards turned out two new vessels every week a feat unequaled by any other shipbuilding facility.

Ferries carried workers across the bay from San Francisco. Car-pooling workers earned extra gas and rubber coupons to drive to work and bus lines were extended to the shipyards. Still they were not enough to transport all the workers. Another solution was needed, a commuter railway from downtown Oakland to all four shipyards with intermediate stops at the new housing projects within the shipyard.

The Key System obtained a cost-plus contract from the Marad to build and operate a line that didn’t exist. Built from scratch, the line relied on scrap and whatever other materials were available. The rails came from abandoned streetcar lines. The overhead wiring came from the Bay Bridge and the wooden supports needed to build a vital overpass came from timbers once used at a discontinued ferry mole.

That left the need for rolling stock. After the demise of the Manhattan els, the wooden cars were mothballed in the IRT’s massive two-level train yard north of the Polo Grounds. Marad selected 90 of these units all dating from the turn of the century, removed the wheel assemblies, lifted the bodies onto flatcars and shipped them cross-country to the Key Line shops in Oakland. On arrival, they were re-assembled, overhauled and converted from third rail ready to overhead wire ready by removing the third rail shoes, strengthening roofs and mounting pantographs. Service commenced on January 18. 1943 and continued 24 hours a day, seven days a week until September 30, 1945 when the yard closed after delivering the last of 747 ships.

This total was a record number for any shipyard, they included 519 Liberty Ships, 143 Victory Ships, 34 C-4 troop ships, 24 coastal cargo carriers, 15 LSTs and 12 corvettes.

The Maritime Commission offered to sell the shipyard railway to the Key System for a nominal sum, but management wisely declined. Without the Richmond Shipyard it became a line to nowhere. The line was quickly demolished but two cars, #561 and #563 were donated to the Western Railway Museum.

Both have recently been restored and are believed to be the oldest operational electric cars in the United States although the folks at the New York City Transit Museum may take exception to that boast.

The story behind the Richmond Shipyards and the Shipyard Railway is not uncommon and demonstrated the scope of America’s industrial might and the nation’s determination to do whatever was necessary to win the war.

What was extraordinary became commonplace and once the war ended these facilities created nation-wide solely to support the war effort were dismantled and disappeared as if they never existed.

America, God shed his grace on thee…   

A recent piece in The New York Times brought back a bizarre memory of a night many years ago when my big mouth combined with alcohol and a dose of New York sarcasm came close to getting me thrown off the Waterman Steamship Account.

The piece ran under the headline: “Which States Are the Safest?” It detailed a study produced by an outfit known as WalletHub that focused on five categories of safety concerns. The maximum total for all five categories was 100 points but it was heavily weighted by the first category, “Personal and Residential Safety,” worth 40 of those points. The other four categories, “Financial Safety, Road Safety, Workplace Safety and Emergency Preparedness,” were each worth 15 points. No states finished higher than 64.43 points (Minnesota) while Mississippi finished last with 33.11 points.

Curiously, I noted that five of the six New England states finished in the top ten (Rhode Island was 16) and all five of the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico finished dead last joined by Arkansas. This last fact is the one that resurrected memories of my unfortunate experience.

On one of my early trips to Mobile, Alabama to visit Waterman I hosted a dinner at the Epicurean Café for Robert Parker, Waterman’s risk manager, his wife Betty and his boss, Robert Haskins, Waterman’s treasure. This fine dining restaurant occupied an ante bellum mansion on Government Boulevard just outside of downtown Mobile. The restaurant was Mr. Parker’s favorite so long as it was on someone else’s dime. Fine dining indeed, with a glimpse of the white-gloved south. It was here that I discovered stone crab claws and Marsh & McLennan proudly picked up the tab.

Making conversation, Mr. Haskins reached into the inside pocket of his jacket to produce a sheet of paper. Waving it in the air he asked, “This is a list of each state and the total cost to live there. Can any of you tell me what state is the least costly?”

With youthful enthusiasm, I announced: “I believe that would be Mississippi.”

“Why, that’s correct. My, my,” Haskins exclaimed, “Tell me John, how did you come to know that?”

“Well, Bob, I thought about the quality of life and how much the state spent on their police force, public works and education and it seemed to me that these expenditures in Mississippi are so low that taxes must also be very low too.”

With that, I had dug myself into a hole but one that I could still climb out of so long as I stopped yakking away.  But: No, No, No; not good ole John Delach. Instead, I continued: “I am curious, Bob, what is the second least costly state on the list?”

When he replied, “Alabama,” my heart, soul and confidence dropped under the table.

I had no place to run to and no place to hide. I waited for the inevitable but nothing more was made of my remarks by any of my guests and the conversation moved on to other subjects. I was left in a state of remorse and confusion; had nobody noticed what I said?

We said our goodbyes; the Haskins drove off and the Parkers drove me back to the Admiral Simms Hotel (named after the loser for the Battle of Mobile Bay.) Bob Parker didn’t express any indication that he was upset, and Betty was her charming self. I said goodnight and retreated to the bar for a nightcap wondering if the shit would hit the fan at next day’s meeting.

It didn’t. Neither Bob ever brought it up and, of course, neither did I. To this day, I don’t know exactly why I survived committing hara-kiri, but my best guess is their manners were such that my New York sarcasm was inconceivable to them and what I was implying went right over their heads.

Delta upgraded me to first class on both the flight to Atlanta and the second to LaGuardia giving time to reflect on my near miss in comfort.

Since I couldn’t prove how I ducked the bullet, I invented my personal quip to describe how sometimes fate lets us out of a jam:

                                            “Only the good.”

                                                        Dy Yung

Owning a vacation home is like owning a boat; it’s both a luxury and a burden. A happy house leads to great times with friends and family, a place to experience precious moments. Yet, it’s still a house where things go wrong usually at the most inopportune times. These random crises remind me of the boatowner’s slogan: “The second-best day in the life of the owner is the day he bought his boat. The best day is the day he sold his boat.”

Since we purchased “Little House” in the fall of 1984 it has been a treasure but not without problems. For many years I opened and shut down the plumbing system all by myself following detailed instructions I wrote down from the first owner and its builder, Joe C. Joe and his wife had built it ten-years previously and for us it was love at first sight.

That first opening in late November 1984 brought with it our first crisis. Little did we know the consequences of winter conditions. I turned on the power to the hot water tank before it had filled destroying the heating element. This led to our first plumber’s visit. That happened a second time several years later but even when winter openings went well, they were still a bitch.

 When Joe C. built the house, he decided to go with electric heating assisted by wood burning stoves. Our power provider is New Hampshire Electric Cooperative, (NHEC) whose rates were only second in the nation to Long Island Lighting Company (LILCO,) our provider in Port Washington. Both had been players in nukes that failed to open, NHEC is Seabrook and LILCO is Shoreham. Their customers were left to pay off the debt and lucky us, we drew both.

As we aged, weekend trips to Marlow over the Martin Luther King birthday holiday became too much of a burden to open and close the house. Our season evolved into ending our visits after the Christmas holidays without re-opening until late April.

This didn’t prevent its own list of crises culminating in the closing of 2017 and the opening in 2018. Just our luck, a Polar Vortex enveloped Marlow, a town that already had the reputation of being, “The icebox of Cheshire County.”

It was so cold that even with the fireplace and wood stove blazing and the electric heat cranked up we could feel the cold seeping through the walls. We bailed and shut it down as best we could. Our plumber did his best and yet, that spring one toilet was lifted six inches off its base by a frost heave and the water pump quit. $3,500 later we were back in business.

This year, our opening was uneventful. We made three trips, two in May and one in June and Little House hummed. Our first extended stay would be for the 4^th of July and for the first time in a long time everyone planned to be there.

Mary Ann and I arrived on Saturday, June 29. We brought our two granddaughters, Marlowe (yes, named after the town but with an “e”.) and Samantha. Sam’s mom, Jodie, met us there having deposited her son, Matthew at a rugby camp at Dartmouth. We picked Matt up on Monday and settled in awaiting the onslaught of our other family members late on July 3^rd and early on the 4^th.

About noon on Tuesday our collective experiences with using the two toilets forced the realization that they were not emptying. “Houston, we have a problem!”

Two possibilities; the septic tank was full, or we had a blockage. Better to go down both roads, call our plumber and the septic company. We couldn’t contact, John, our plumber either by phone or text, but the septic company dispatched, Dan, their technician to evaluate the problem. Dan discovered that a coupling on the sewage line had slipped crippling the line. He couldn’t fix it, his service couldn’t fix it and recommended we call a plumber. Since John was unreachable, we tried a local firm only to be told their wait was three weeks.

Time to pull the plug but Mary Ann and I couldn’t leave until tomorrow to shut off things, take home that which spoils and dispose of garbage accumulation. Jodie headed home with the three kids, and I decided to call the Days Inn in Keene for a room in suite. When the clerk answered, he tried to sell me a package, but I cut him off with: “Do you allow dogs?”

“Yes,” he replied, “No more than two, twenty dollars per pet and you are responsible for all damages.”

I had heard all I needed to know. Reservation made, we headed to Keene for dinner then checked in to what was obviously a pet room, perfume and all. We opened a window and put on the a/c to make it bearable. Max and Tess looked at us like we had lost our minds. But when we turned out the lights, Tess jumped into my bed, Max into Mary Ann’s. Tess stayed with me the entire night.

Early wake-up, coffee, clear the room, feed and walk the dogs and check-out. I looked at my receipt; the room charge was $98.62.

Listed separately was this surcharge: Code: PET, description: PET IN ROOM: $40.00

While heading for the City of Keene waste transfer site where we prepared to pay $2.00 for each bag of garbage by check, (no cash or credit cards accepted,) John the plumber called Mary Ann. He apologized for a breakdown in his answering system and confirmed he was away on vacation with his family but that he would fix our broken line first thing next week.

We returned to Little House after the drop off to clean and pack before returning to Port Washington.

Crisis resolved; life is good.

“On the Outside Looking In” will not appear next Wednesday and will resume on July 24.      

Due to circumstances beyond my control, today’s blog was delayed until this late hour. I will relate this experience in my next Blog: “Dog in Room.”

From 1934 until 1973 when the South and North Towers of the World Trade Center were completed with heights of 1,355 feet and 1,348 respectively, the world’s three tallest skyscrapers were the Empire State Building (1,250), the Chrysler Building (1,046) and the RCA Building a.k.a. the GE Building and 30 Rockefeller Center (950.)

 Manhattan was historically the skyscraper capital of the world beginning with the completion of the Woolworth Building (792) in 1910. Completion of the Twin Towers returned the record back to downtown, but Manhattan’s dominance ended less than a year later when Chicago wrestled the title away with the 1974 completion of the Sears Tower a.k.a. Willis Tower (1,450). The title never returned to the Big Apple while the Second City and America’s run ended when the Petronas Towers (each 1,483) opened in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 1998.

The attacks on the World Trade Center and the destruction of the Twin Towers and surrounding buildings on September 11, 2001 delivered a profound blow to the psyche of metropolitan New Yorkers. Critics questioned whether people would ever again be willing to work, live or play that high in the sky. While the debate over the idea of replacing those buildings went on, both Asia and the Middle East, after taking a deep breath, decided to press on building new structures to unprecedented heights.

Taipei, Taiwan secured the title in 2004 with Taipei 101 at 1,667 feet only to be blown away by Dubai, UAE in 2010. The Burj Khalifa rose to an amazing 2,717 feet in height. More than one thousand feet higher than Taipei 101, the Khalifa Tower, as it is usually called, holds almost every superlative building record ever invented. A multi-use tower the Armani Hotel occupies floors 1 to 8 with the hotel’s resident apartments on 9 to 16, condominium residences from 19 to 37 while Armani suites fill 38 and 39. 

Additional residential apartments are located from 42 to 72 and 77 to 108. The so-called “At.mosphere” restaurant rests on 122 and the so-called “At the Top Observatory” on 124. Corporate Suites look down on these teeming mases from lofty pieds-a-terre on 125 to 135 and 138 to 147. “The New Deck Observatory” sits on 148.

The six top occupied stories, 149 to 154 are devoted to the so called, “One-Percenters,” perhaps in this instance, the top half of this elite group? These chosen few command a view so vast that on a clear day with a pair of Swarovski EL 10X42 binoculars ($3,299.00) they may be able to spot a highjacked airliner 25-miles out giving them the ample opportunity to say a short prayer.

The Khalifa Tower has rendered all other edifice complexes to shame so far. Closest to date, the Shanghai Tower in 2015, (2,073.) The Abraj Al-Bait Clock Tower, (1,971) in Mecca in 2012 and The Ping An Finance Center, (1.965) in Shenzhen, China in 2017.

(A 3,300-tall tower was proposed for the UEA in 2016 but to date, with no sponsors.)

While the world moved forward, New York City remained trapped in our post- 9/11 trauma. It seemed for a time, Manhattan would not recover. The cost of locating, securing and arming One World Trade Center, a.k.a. The Freedom Tower exploded making it untenable. Any other commercial building would have been cancelled but New York proud said otherwise. The Port Authority of NY and NJ stepped in by increasing tolls on the George Washington Bridge and the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels to pay for it. One WTC (1,776) opened in 2014 while the tolls for the Lincoln Tunnel rose from $8.00 in 2001 to $15.00 in 2019 to pay for it.

With One WTC under construction, the shackles binding developers, builders, architects and engineers were released and new era of innovation and building is changing the Manhattan skyline once again. The Empire State Building has already dropped to third place and the Chrysler Building to eighth place and 30 Rock doesn’t make the top 10. When One Vanderbilt, under construction, occupying the entire square block; Madison to Vanderbilt, Forty-second to Forty-Third will grab second tallest at 1,401 feet when it opens.

Sadly, not all these towers deserve recognition. A combination of new technology a fluke in zoning laws, the need of mega-wealthy Russian, Chicom, Turkish, Greek, South American etc. to park some of their wealth in Manhattan towers has led to the creation of pencil skyscrapers that alter the landscape. These blights on the Manhattan Skyline include 432 Park Avenue (1.397) completed in 2015, but the worst is yet to come. Two pencil towers are piercing the skyline, both due for completion next year: 111 West 57 Street (1,428) and Central Park Tower (1,550.)

These freaks plus other more legitimate new buildings will push both the Empire State and the Chrysler out of the top ten. So far, no developer has had the chutzpah to propose a pencil tower to exceed the height of Number One WTC and recent reviews of the engineering behind the heights of these pencils may curtail future construction. I sincerely hope so. Meanwhile, perhaps I can interest these esteemed owners the same binoculars recommended for those high up on the Khalifa Tower?

My hero in this piece is Manhattan. Once again, Manhattan renews itself and unabashedly moves forward into the future. In the words of the late, John Lindsay: “It’s the fastest track in the world.”

I recently finished an excellent but curious book about Harper Lee written by Casey Cep, a young, gifted writer. Ms Cep traveled to Alabama as a reporter for The New Yorker to write about Go Set A Watchman, Ms Lee’s sequel / prequel of To Kill a Mockingbird, published shortly before Lee’s death. While researching her subject, Cep uncovered evidence of another unpublished Harper Lee endeavor, a true crime story shrouded in mystery.

Curiously, I also discovered that Ms Cep too is shrouded in mystery. This brief bio appears on the jacket of her book: “Casey Cep is a writer from the Eastern Shore of Maryland. After graduating from Harvard with a degree in English, she earned an M.Phil in theology at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times and The New Republic, among other publication. Furious Hours id her first book.”

Another source noted that Ms Cep went on to earn a graduate degree in Divinity from Yale.

Beyond that Cep is a mystery. Her age is elusive and her identity; curious. The color photo of her inside the jacket of her book is the same as others I have found. Dark flowing hair, brushed to the left side of her face, she wears a black top with no discernable make-up or jewelry. She looks directly at the camera, tight lipped with eyes locked in a Clint Eastwood look that says to any and all intruders: “Make my day.”

Furious Hours is in many ways a biography of Harper Lee though Ms Cep doesn’t approach the story from that direction. Cep, instead takes the reader into the story of the Reverend Willie Maxwell, a black rural Alabaman preacher believed to have murdered five family members, all to collect life insurance money. Set in the 1970s, Maxwell eludes justice thanks to a local, savvy white lawyer who also profits from the reverend’s insurance proceeds. Finally, a cousin of his last victim takes revenge on the reverend at the victim’s wake by shooting three bullets into Reverend Brown’s face. Ironically, the same attorney who conspired with the reverend gets the murderer off on a plea of insanity.

I kid you not but take a breath to absorb all that before we continue.

Okay, if that is not enough, the murderer is found innocent by reason of insanity, remanded to the state’s mental hospital, where he is released three months later as a free man.

My purpose is not to review the book or to delve into the secrets Ms Cep uncovered about Ms Lee’s abortive decision to write this true crime story or how and why she abandoned her quest after ten or more years of research and work. Cep covers that waterfront in depth. She may not unearth all the bodies, but she uncovers many of them. Don’t expect to discover the essence of Ellie Harper Lee, but Cep opens several important and previously unknown or locked doors.

It’s the title: Furious Hours, that I found fascinating and confusing: “What furious hours?”

The sub-title is somewhat more palpable: “Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee.”

Murder and fraud, I get, but last trial of Harper Lee? Hyperbole at best and unnecessary but I presume it helps to sell books.

However, the title, Furious Hours, doesn’t seem to make sense. The book spans thirty or more years and the phrase is not mentioned until Page 252 less than 20 pages from its end. Most of the book is centered around the town of Alexander City in eastern Alabama.

Cep does tell us that Nelle Harper Lee and her oldest sister, Alice, were enamored by Albert James Pickett’s History of Alabama, first published in 1851, especially the passages detailing the lives and fates of the indigenous tribes belonging to the Creek Nation who once lived in that part of the south.

Ms Cep writes: “Pickett’s history does not continue past statehood’… (1819.)  “(Harper) Lee had a theory about why Pickett had stopped writing. ‘I do not believe that it was in him,’ she said, ‘to write about the fate of the Creek Nation, of the Cherokees, of the Chickasaws and Choctaws, which was decided within his own lifetime.’ Instead his narrative concluded with the ‘engagements’ between Andrew Jackson’s army and the Creeks which Lee said, ‘began to spell the end, which came as we all know, in a few furious hours at Horseshoe Bend.’ Then Lee said something more revealing…: ‘I think Pickett left his heart at Horseshoe Bend.”

More than 800 Creek warriors were killed in six hours of fighting at the battle of Horseshoe Bend. I believe those were Ms Cep’s furious hours.

Ms Cep continues: “If so, he wasn’t the only one who left some crucial part of himself in Tallapoosa County. Lee left something there too – if not her heart, then perhaps her nerve.”

I believe Casey Cep Has constructed a premise that for whatever reason, Ellie Harper Lee lost the courage to write this crime story because, like the outgunned Creeks, she finally reached a realization that she couldn’t write this book. The essence and substance of the plot were exclusively the property of the African-American community of Alexander City. Individually and collectively, these people had been deprived, de-valued and debased by the white community, justice system and press.

There wasn’t any record of the circumstances surrounding these killings in court records or newspapers. They weren’t considered newsworthy so the only insights into the story were locked into the oral folk-lore of the black community. Harper Lee knew that her sources for her book were locked into this community alien to her as if it was on Mars. She finally conceded that a bridge did not exist for her to cross that divide between her part of the Jim Crow south and their’s. 

I do recommend Ms Cep’s book, but like Elle Harper Lee, it appears that Casey Cep may have her own dark closets.