John Delach

On The Outside Looking In
November 20, 2024

How Port Washington Gave Birth to Pan Am’s Transatlantic Operations: Part Two

Denise Duffy Meehan

Edited by John Delach

November 2024

(In 1937,) Pan American World Airways proved that commercial aircraft crossing the Atlantic on a scheduled basis was now feasible. That understanding encompassed Port Washington and fifteen hundred watched the return of Clipper III from Southampton, England to Port. 

Still, those that would make money on the routes had a long way to go. Aircraft capable of making the crossing was a priority. The Sikorsky S-42B, used to pioneer the northern and then the southern Atlantic was inadequate for the task. It had required 2,300 gallons of fuel, 160 gallons of oil  and 1,995 pounds of spare equipment to make the first survey. While nothing was spared operationally, little in the way of amenities was provided for the crew. Their meals consisted of celery, olives, soup, salad and strawberries. And, while the high cruising altitude with open windows to aid in celestial navigation (at times 11,000 feet) required heavy outer garments, the flight suits were not fur-lined as reported.

After proving that it could be done, Pan American set out to get aircraft to make it all feasible. In 1938, Europeans did fly surveys over the Atlantic, and boats representing Air France and Lufthansa utilized the Port Washington facility. Finally, on March 3, 1939 technology caught up to reality  when Mrs. Roosevelt christened the “Yankee Clipper,” a Boeing B-314. She was taken on a shakedown flight from Baltimore, over the southern route to Marseilles arriving on March 3 and along the northern route between Baltimore and Southampton on March 28.

The first transatlantic airmail departed from Port Washington on May 20 returning on May 27. The first revenue passengers departed from Port Washington for Marseilles June 28, 1939. Thereafter, weekly service over northern and southern routes was routine from April through November. Eventually, four B-314 flying boats served on the routes.

The airship had come a long way in comfort. Constructed at a time when industrial designers had come into their own the interior of the Boeing was a crossbreed between a gentlemen’s parlor and a chrome environment. There was room for a crew of 12 and about 34 passengers. The bulk of these being the well-to-do with enough to do the daring. A large lounge and sleeping bunks were some of the finer features, features that ironically still turn up in the first-class sections of aircraft today.

While the boats, as they were floated into the landing docks were impressive, the spit and polish of the crew taking over their craft at the first bell, then boarding passengers at two bells, was dramatic. However, the reality of the Port Washington base was disappointing. What would resemble a third world airport today housed facilities such as Customs, Immigration and Public Health, along with the operation division of the airline.

The “terminal” was modest with few amenities. But, this, after all was just a temporary headquarters. Condos would soon be all that stands where aviation once was grand.

 (This planned development never saw fruition. World War II and the cold war prolonged Port Washington’s role in aviation. Grumman had a plant there during World War II as did Republic during the Korean War. Post war utilization by Thypin Steel, an importer, followed and by the time they left the property in the early 1980s, the site was deemed thoroughly polluted and uninhabitable and too poisonous to ever support condominiums.)

The writing had been on the wall, or more correctly on the lease, for a permanent home even before the first transatlantic passengers ever departed Port Washington. On May 20th  Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and Pan American chairman, C.V. Whitney had signed a lease for an airport at North Beach. Today, we know it as the Marine Air Terminal at LaGuardia Airport. Ironically, after more than 40 years, Pan American returned to that terminal basing its northeastern shuttle operation there.

Port Washington’s place in aviation history did not end in March of 1940 when the boats left town. Grumman operated Plant 15 there from April 1942 until the end of the war ) making parts for the navy’s TPF Avengers, that carry a torpedo or bombs.) The company even provided a 12-inch reinforced concrete road, now called Sintsink Drive, which was bombproof, making it possible to move materials after an enemy attack. Republic Aviation took over the facilities during the Korean War, manufacturing wings for F-84 jet fighters there.

Soon enough, perhaps only the concrete road and a commemorative plaque at the Town Dock will be all that is left of Port Washington’s aviation claim to fame.

Editor’s note:

MS Denise Duffy Meehan ended her piece by thanking William M. Masland then living in nearby Manhasset for all of insight he gave to her in writing her piece. Masland was the navigator on the first transatlantic survey in 1937. He eventually became a Captain of the Flying Boats himself and, when the US Navy requisitioned all of Pan American’s Flying Boats after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Masland went on to become a Commander in the Naval Reserve, a position he would hold until he retired in 1962.

He wrote a book about his history and experience with Pan American Flying Boats called “Through the Back Doors of the World in a Ship That Had Wings,” a title, only an engineer would love. His book originally sold for $14.95. Today, if you can find a volume, expect to pay  the market value. for example, it cost me $94.00 plus shipping and handling. (I asked my family to buy it for their eighty-year-old father for Christmas.)                             

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November 13, 2024

How Port Washington Gave Birth to Pan Am’s Transatlantic Operations: Part One

The article I am about to present was written by Denise Duffy Meehan for a publication called, Good Living. I have had an aviation love of Pan American’s Flying Boats and everything about them since I was a child. My godfather flew for Pan American starting as a flight engineer on the Boeing B-314s and retiring as a pilot flying the Boeing 747. Being paid to fly doesn’t get better than that.

One of the facts that enhances my attraction to these fabulous machines is how brief a period their careers spanned. The entire reason for their existence was due to the fact that when the routes across the Atlantic and the Pacific were first proposed, Pan American faced major gaps in land-based airports large enough to support these giants especially, runways long enough for take-offs and landings. By the end of World War II, these gaps had mostly disappeared and large land-planes were soon available to enter service.    

Port Washington isn’t exactly an international destination. Yet there was a time, some 50 years ago ( now 87 years) when this bay community was aviation’s eastern gateway to America.

It all began in 1937, when a fledging airline with grand ideas, Pan American World Airways, determined to conquer the North Atlantic, as it had the Pacific, the Caribbean and the eastern coast of South America to Brazil.

Port Washington was chosen as the eastern terminus of the circuitous route that included New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Ireland and finally, Southampton, England. Why it was chosen was a combination of geographical merit and available resources.

The airships that challenged “The Pond” were called flying boats because, in a sense, they were. As water-bound as tadpoles, (they were giant forerunners of today’s seaplanes) the boats required long stretches of smooth water to get aloft. So, the shelter of Port Washington’s Manhasset Bay and the expanse of the Sound beyond Plum Point gave Port Washington a leg up on other waterfront communities in the race for the international sea-airport.

But it was the seaplane facilities of the American Aeronautical Company, manufacturers of the Savoia Marchetti airplane that sealed the deal. The company had constructed a waterside facility in 1929 – operating it as a test base for its S-55 and S-56 aircraft (available for a mere $7,373 fly-a-way) and as a rental hanger / ramp called the New York Seaplane Airport. Pan Am purchased the 12-acre parcel in 1933, intending to use the large hanger for storage while continuing to lease space in the smaller buildings to private seaplane operators.

In 1936, this small hanger made a minor stand in aviation history by hosting two German flying boats exploring the airspace over the Atlantic. The Aclous and the Zepher were distinctive as they were the only aircraft of the class to be launched via catapult from a mothership, the “Westfalan.”

No doubt this German effort and other great aviation rivalries added to the zeal with which the Pan Am base was fitted for the U.S. Airline’s own surveys. (Survey was the official term used to describe the testing of heretofore uncharted air routes.) Announcements of the upgrade to over-ocean airbase was made April 2, 1937. On June 18, Pan Am’s first commercial passengers to be flown over the northern Atlantic were carried from Port Washington to Bermuda. In order to gain landing rights in Crown territories, the U.S. agreed to permit Imperial Airways, the British Precursor to BOAC and later British Airways to land in Port Washington.

Icing conditions forced the airlines to relocate Bermuda service to Baltimore the following November. Weekly service from Port Washington resumed April, 1938 and again in 1939. Rates to Bermuda in June of 1938 including air, hotel and meals were $172 per person for seven days and $262 for 16 days in Depression dollars, this translated into a tariff that only the patricians could afford.

When it came time to chart the vast ocean that until then only daredevils as Linberg, Wrong Way Corrigan and Beryl Markham had flown, it was predetermined that surveys would be done reciprocally. Pam Am would depart Port Washington on July 3, 1937 in its Clipper III, with Captain Harold Gray and a crew of seven aboard at the same time Imperial Airways “Caledonia” with Captain Wilcockson in command, left Southampton, England for Port.

All backers (Imperial was not only flying for the Crown but also France and Germany) would share their results and the unwritten rule was that all glory would get equal pay. So, even though the Pan Am boat reached European landfall on target and within six minutes of its estimated arrival time and Caledonia missed Newfoundland altogether and had to backtrack, arriving one and a half hours late, the press gave them equal standing.

While this example of one upmanship is dear to the hearts of the crew who flew her, other aspects of the 15-day, 7,000-mile Clipper III flight interest historians. Among them are the fact the first airline weather map made for the North Atlantic was utilized and the first “commercial’ aircraft siting of an ice berg was reported to the U.S. Coast Guard.

Even though Captain Gray responded to the Irish press that the trip “was a nice little joyride,” it was hardly a lark. Navigation prowness and extreme vigilance accounted for dead-on landfall at the River Shannon, but it was strong nerve that actually got the crew there.

Being the 11th aircraft to succeed after 86 attempts to cross the Atlantic was less important than the other points the survey set out to prove. As one newspaper reporter put it, Pan Am proved that crossing the Atlantic was out of the realm of stunt flying and within the grasp of commercial aviation. And that grasp encompassed Port Washington. Fifteen hundred spectators turned out to greet the Clipper on her return home.           

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November 6, 2024

Lassie Come Home

Ruddell Bird “Rudd” Weatherwax and his son, Bob Weatherwax introduced the American public to collies, here-to-for, a virtually unknown breed of pure-bred dogs. This heroic story about a boy and his dog first came to life with a best-selling English novel, “Lassie Come Home”, written by Eric Knight that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer bought the rights to in 1943. The movie starred Roddy McDowall who played Joe Carraclough, the Yorkshire school boy who loved Lassie and Elizabeth Taylor, who played Priscilla, a  young girl sympathetic to Lassie’s plight.

The film supposedly set in England and Scotland was actually filmed in Washington and Monterey, California. During production, those MGM executives who previewed the dallies were so moved that they ordered more scenes added to “This wonderful motion picture.”

A female collie was selected for the title role, but she began to shed excessively when called upon to perform. Fred M. Wilcox, the director approached the trainer, Rudd Weatherwax, who agreed to substitute his male collie, Pal, to play Lassie. Being a male, Pal was bigger and looked more impressive. Mr. Wilcox decided to cast Pal because when he performed he expressed  human emotions and reactions. Pal performed beyond expectation in the most dramatic scene of the film, crossing a dangerous rapid to continue Lassie’s way home. After seeing the first prints, MGM’s chairman stated, “Pal had entered the water, but Lassie had come out, and a new star was born.”

While Pal became a star, Weatherwax received all rights to the Lassie name and trademark in lieu of back pay owed him by MGM.

Set in Depression-era Yorkshire, England, Mr. and Mrs. Carraclough were forced to sell their collie, Lassie, to the rich Duke of Ruding. The duke took Lassie to his home in distant Scotland. His Granddaughter, Priscilla, (Elizabeth Taylor) sensed the dog’s unhappiness and arranged for her escape.

Imagine all of the perils Lassie encountered on her long trek home, dog catchers, violent storms and the rapids. She also met kind people who offered her aid and comfort. Lassie finally returned to her favorite resting place in Joe’s schoolyard where she was reunited with the boy she loved.

Budgeted for $666,000, it made $4,517,000 at the world-wide box office.,

Of course, a dog movie this successful initiated re-makes. One of the most successful was: “Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey.” Released fifty years later, this movie featured three pets wrongfully separated from their family. The old member of the group, a Golden Retriever named “Shadow” voiced by Don Ameche, a cat named Sassy, voiced by Sally Field and, Chance,  a free-spirited American Bulldog voiced by Michael J. Fox who narrated the movie.

The film received positive reviews with the consensus stating, “Disney’s re-make of ‘Lassie Come Home’ successfully replicates, and in some ways improves upon, the simple charms of the original.”  The movie Made $57,000,000.

One of this trainer’s secrets in continuing the successful continuation of the Lassie brand was using several collies to play the part. To accomplish this, they bred thousands of collies to produce Lassies, each with a distinctive white blaze down their snouts. But only one Lassie at a time appeared onscreen or at public events. 

Rudd Weatherwax went on to train collies for the Lassie TV show that ran from 1954 to 1974. He also trained other dogs like the one who played Spike in the film, “Old Yellow” and the New York Mets first official mascot, a beagle named Homer.

Bob Weatherwax became his father’s apprentice. He learned the interdisciplinarian roles needed to manage the Lassie brand. These included being the dog’s talent agent, pooch geneticist and acting coach.

Rudd died in 1985 and Bob Weatherwax embraced his Talent-manager role including traveling First-Class with his celebrity dog. “On a trip to promote the 1994 movie ‘Lassie,’ a successful attempt to revive the franchise, he and the film’s star stayed at the luxurious Rittenhouse Hotel where the celebrity collie dined on boiled chicken prepared by the chef and delivered by room service and washed down with distilled water.”

Bob’s bond with Lassie was enhanced when the collie saved his own life.

“When I was a toddler, my parents couldn’t afford a fence in the yard. They tethered me to a tree to prevent me from running off. I quickly learned how to free myself by unhooking the harness and, one day I decided to take off and explore the great big world beyond the tree.”

He wound up in the middle of the busy street in front of his house.

Pal, a.k.a. Lassie, “saw me and sensed that I was in danger and within seconds our famous collie was running toward me.”

The collie barked and nudged him back toward the yard.

“Lassie not only saved lives on the screen,” he wrote, “but also saved me in real life.” 

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October 30, 2024

The Big U’s Forty-Five Years in Purgatory

In 1969, when United States Lines took the SS United States out of service while the ship was receiving her annual check-up at Newport News Ship Building, the operators essentially walked away from America’s flagship. However, US Lines was only the operator. The real owner was Uncle Sam under the control of the Maritime Administration, MARAD, that still had plans for this magnificent ship.

The Department of Defense proposed that the Big U be converted to a hospital ship as her size and speed would allow the liner to be rapidly deployed to address any crisis around the world. The plan would have included up to 23 operating theaters,  1,600 hospital beds and a full set of specialist rooms comparable to any major land-based hospital. The navy ultimately rejected the plan as being too expensive and impractical.

MARAD decided that the holding on to the Big U was also impractical and the navy finally declassified the ship’s design features.  In 1980, MARAD disposed of the liner by selling it for $7 Million to a Seattle based developer who planned to revitalize the Big U as a floating condominium. But this owner’s financial status deteriorated so he neglected the vessel still docked in Norfolk. Consequently, her interiors became thoroughly ruined with water damage and mold.

The ships fittings and furniture were spared this fate, but not in a good way. They were gone before the water damage took place because he sold them at auction to pay creditors. Three hundred thousand fans and collectors participated in the week-long auction and raised $I.65 million for the objects taken from the ship. Still, the owner was forced into bankruptcy. The United States was seized by US Marshals and put up for auction.

The new owners planned to refurbish the ship and return it to trans-Atlantic service paired with the Queen Elizabeth 2.  They only paid $2.6 million at auction as the Big U was loaded with asbestos as its insulation. This was common for ships built in the 1950s. As we know, the world had come to understand that breathing in asbestos would cause cancer that can kill the victim. So, it had to be removed.

On June 4, 1992 the ship was towed to the Sevastopol Shipyard in Ukraine and underwent asbestos removal from 1993 to 1994. The interior of the ship was almost completely stripped down to the bulkheads. The open lifeboats were also removed as they were obsolete and violated international rules. In June of 1996, she was once again towed across the Atlantic to a new home in Philadelphia. Starting in 1997 a continuous chain of potential saviors entered the scene with all kinds of “what if ideas” only to eventually slink away into the night.

They included Operating the ship as a cruiser in Hawaii and convert her to a floating  hotel like the Queen Mary in Long Beach.  Norwegian Cruise Lines, (NCL) bought the ship, deemed the hull to be sound and in 2004 commenced feasibility studies regarding retrofitting the Big U. Once NCL realized this would cost between $700 million and One Billion, they lost interest.

The SS United States Conservancy was created in 2009 led by William Gibbs granddaughter, Susan Gibbs, who set out to save the ship from being scrapped by raising funds to purchase her. On July 30, H. F. Lenfest, a Philadelphia media entrepreneur and philanthropist, pledged a matching grant of $300,000 to help the Conservancy purchase the ship from NCL. In November of 2010, the Conservancy announced a new plan to develop a “multi-purpose waterfront complex as part of a stalled Foxwoods Casino project only to have this idea collapse a month later when the state Gaming Control Board revoked Foxwood’s license. Still, the Conservancy bought the Big U from NCL in February of 2011.

The Conservancy’s record for re-purposing was no better than all the others. Every project to re-locate the Big U failed; in particular, New York and Miami. All the while, the Conservancy’s funding could not keep up with the monthly costs of $80,000 to keep the vessel moored in Philadelphia.

By 2018, the situation became more desperate. Several developers proposed variations on the same old solutions. By 2021, the owners of Philadelphia’s Pier 82, where the ship had rested all these years had had enough. They went to court to increase the daily rent to $1,700 and sued for $160,000 in back rent. In June of 2024, Federal Judge, Anita Brody found in favor of the pier’s owners and gave the Conservancy 90 days to remove the Big U.

That’s when Florida’s Okaloosa County announced plans to buy and sink the ship to create the world’s largest artificial reef. MS Gibbs welcomed this solution.

Let’s face it, forty-five years is much too long. Let her go. Let the Big U’s purgatory finally end. For everyone who loves the Big U, let us pray that this plan becomes a reality.                   

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October 23, 2024

The Beginning and Demise of the Big U

Recently, I came across an article in the industry magazine, Professional Mariner, about the ocean liner, SS United States, or those of us fond of this magnificent ship called her “The Big U.”

Inactive since 1969, her luck had’ finally run out and The Big U was being evicted from her long-term berth on the Delaware River in Philadelphia. The owners, The SS United States Conservancy, had run out of options of other locations and sadly agreed to “Reef” the ship. Reefing means sinking her so she becomes a home for sea creatures and for divers to explore the ship, both inside and outside.

The Conservancy’s president, Susan Gibbs, granddaughter of the ship’s designer, William Francis Gibbs, explained,

In the long and storied history of America’s Flagship, these last two-years of this unfortunate litigation (with the owners of her berth) have perhaps been the most difficult, and the conflict at the pier has drastically impacted our plans for the ship’s long-term future.

While this is not the outcome we originally  envisioned, the ship will have a future. This next chapter of the SS United States’ story will bring thousands of people annually from around the world to experience her. Okaloosa County has now allocated more than $10 million to reactivate the SS United States as the world’s largest artificial reef in tandem with creating the Conservancy’s land-based museum and visitor center.

The cost to sink the Big U may be more than $10 million. Oskaloosa County has agreed to absorb the cost needed to accomplish this project. The Big U will be towed to Norfolk, Virginia where extensive preparations will be undertaken to prepare the ship to become the promised reef.

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William F. Gibbs was the premier designer of ships in the first half of the Twentieth Century. For years, he had envisioned a super trans-Atlantic liner that could out-perform all other liners while carrying over 1,900 passengers and a crew of 1,044. America’s experience during World War II convinced the military that our own merchant marine should have the best ship possible under American Flag to transport our troops to England or any other destination. After conversion, the Big U could accommodate 14,000 soldiers, a remarkable number and sail at high speed.  

In 1945,  the War Department put out bids for such a ship, and a long story short, Gibbs was awarded the contract. Finally, his dream had become a reality and he became the tsar of the Big U’s design and construction. Newport News Ship Building became the builder of choice and so they deserved to be; to this day they are the premier American ship builder, especially for military vessels.

But the SS United States was also designed to be a commercial ocean liner for United States Lines and Gibbs designed the plans that would include all the ambiance that a great liner would have. The first was that all of the superstructure would be made of aluminum to lighten the ship. The other was to eliminate all wooden construction. The only exceptions were the butcher’s block and the Steinway Piano. As a liner, the ship could carry 834 in First Class, 524 in Second Class and 554 in Tourist Class.

The Big U was launched in 1952. Before United States Lines and the Government’s Maritime Administration, (MARAD) Inspectors signed off on the vessel’s performance, the builder’s staff had to put the ship through its trial runs.  On June 10, 1952, Newport News Shipbuilding sailed the ship out of Norfolk and into the Atlantic Ocean with US Lines and MARAD engineers on board to witness the Big U’s performance. US Lines went first and the Big U met their speed challenge of 32 knots without any problems or complications. 

All of the US Lines representatives were excused and left the ship. Then, the MARAD engineers and the Newport News engineers manned the ship’s second boiler room and engine room and the captain called for military speed. The addition of these two units increased the speed to 38.22 knots sustained speed with spurts as high as 44 knots, a record never before achieved and immediately deemed top-secret.  

The Big U’s first voyage as an ocean liner was in pursuit of the Blue Ribbon, the recognition of the fastest ship to cross the Atlantic. The RMS Queen Mary held the record set in in 1936 of 33 knots. The Big U blew that away with a run just under 40 knots. The ship was welcomed as America’s flagship being new and attractive, popular and a nice money maker for US Lines. In addition, Uncle subsidized  the owner to maintain trans-Atlantic service no matter the profitability.

However, the world was changing and in 1957. for the first time, piston-powered aircraft carried more passengers across the Atlantic than ocean liners. The entry of the early jet powered aircraft like the Boeing 707 and the Douglas DC-8 only exacerbated the conquest of airplane over ship. US Lines tried to freeze salaries, but this led to a series of strikes and ate away any profits. The last profit-making year for the Big U was 1959 and by 1960, she was operating at a deficit of $2 million. By 1968, this had risen to $4 million.

On Octobert 25, 1969, the Big U completed her 400th voyage. She was ordered to start her yearly overhaul at Newport News early. On November 11, US Lines announced that the ocean liner was being withdrawn from service. All work stopped, the ship was sealed with all furniture, fittings and crew uniforms left in place. The Big U was relocated from the ship yard to a terminal across the James River from Newport News.

The SS United States would never sail under her own power again and her afterlife would be a series of failures.

(To b continued.)

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October 16, 2024

Robert Caro’s, “The Power Broker” celebrates 50 Years

I look over at my copy of The Power Broker that I recently placed on top of a file cabinet in my office. A bit of bragging, my hard cover copy is a First Edition. Whenever I gaze at it, the first thing that strikes me is its bulk. The damn thing has over 1100 pages of text, 83 pages of notes and an index of XXXIV pages.

This piece you are reading has a type size of 12. The type size in my copy of Caro’s book must a eight at max. If I had bought that book today, I wouldn’t attempt to read it with that small a type size. As it was, when published in 1974, the print size combined with the sheer density of the content limited the amount of information I could absorb at any one sitting. Truth be known, it took me three years to finish Mr. Caro’s monumental study of Robert Moses, (RM.)

Curiously, it turns out that I am not alone. The New York Historical Society is celebrating the 50th Anniversary of its publication with an extensive exhibit of RM, his power, glory, downfall  and his legacy, or as Caro put it, “the good the bad and the evil.” In an effort to insert a bit of humor into this serious exhibit, their gift shop is selling coffee cups that read: “I Finished The Power Broker.”

“Caro usually dislikes cracks about the book’s length.

‘Did you see this?’ he asked, holding up his coffee.’

 ‘I’m not supposed to say this’ he said, ‘but I kind of like it.”

In the mid-1950s, my mother began taking me on weekend trips from Ridgewood, Queens to Hempstead, Long Island where her best friend, Helen McBride, and her husband, Richard had re-settled. The McBride’s were the first couple we knew who abandoned Ridgewood for Long Island. Many would follow over the years.

But I digress; my first encounter with RM and his mandate came during a weekend visit to the McBride’s house in the late 1950s. Back then, they lived on Alabama Ave. close to the Southern State Parkway. I went for a walk with my mother and Aunt Helen. Helen steered us toward the parkway to point out the earth movers expanding the roadway from four to six lanes.

Proudly, Aunt Helen pointed out the new construction to Mom and noted, “Isn’t this amazing. Moses promised that the Southern State would one day, be six lanes wide and now that construction is underway.”

I was stunned, shocked and confused. “How is it possible that Moses is expanding highways on Long Island. Good grief, is this the same guy who  parted the Red Sea a very long time ago? But,  Aunt Helen was always right. Still, still, how is that possible?”

Eventually, I figured it out. I took to RM like he was my hero once I came to understand all of his accomplishments, especially those in New York City and Long Island.

But I did get a shocking glimpse of the harm that RM’s philosophy did to those unfortunate people who happened to live in the path of one of his projects. Like the Army Corp. of Engineering, RM believed in building a road in a straight line from points A to B regardless of what was in his way. The only exception was if the powers to be in that path had more clout than RM. He spoke about this in a documentary that aired on TV in the early 1960s.

He spoke of the Triborough Bridge’s Manhattan exit. “If the bridge had been built in a straight line across the East River from Astoria, Queens, it would have reached Manhattan at 86th Street. That would have disrupted the heart of the Upper East Side and that wasn’t going to happen. Instead, he picked it’s landing at 125th Street, where he could force through an exit into Harlem.

It was about 1955 when I saw what RM could do to a neighborhood. His target was Maspeth, Queens that wound up directly in the path of the new Midtown Tunnel Expressway that ran from Long Island City to Queens Boulevard and joined Horace Harding Boulevard in Elmhurst. The path cut through Maspeth on a diagonal and devastated blocks and blocks of semi-attached single-family homes. Hundreds of families were summarily evicted and were forced to move to other destinations while their former homes were destroyed.

I do remember walking with my mother through this devastation on my way to my cousin’s home and thinking what a terrible thing this was to see. However, I still believed that it was a necessary sacrifice to progress. I was young and naive.

Also, RM was at his apex of engineering the construction of New York’s transportation network. He extended the Long Island Expressway (LIE) to it’s intended destination, Riverhead, LI. He built the Throgs Necks Bridge across Long Island Sound and, his crowning glory, the Verrazano Bridge across the Narrows from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn to Staten Island framing the entrance to New York Harbor by this magnificent crossing.

In the early 1960s he managed the construction of Shea Stadium, the new home for the Mets and the Jets and was appointed as the tsar for the 1964-1965 New York Worlds Fair to be held in Flushing Meadows Park.

Meanwhile, opposition grew against the now older RM. John Lindsay the new mayor moved against Moses, Lindsay was instrumental in deleting plans for the Mid-Manhattan Expressway and the Lower Manhattan Expressway. The mayor also drove the plans for a new super transportation agency. The Metropolitan Transportation Agency (MTA) that would swallow RM’s personal gem, the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, (TBTA).

Moses still had Governor Nelson Rockefeller on his side in support of his last big project, the Oyster Bay Long Island to Rye, New Rochell Long Island Sound crossing. But in the end, Rocky gave in to the intense opposition to this project and abandoned Moses.

RM was done. He couldn’t understand why. Instead, he asked, “Why weren’t they grateful?”

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October 2, 2024

Liverwurst and Other Cold Cuts, Gone but Not Forgotten

Needless to say, the outbreak of listeria in a plant Boar’s Head contracted with in Virginia to produce their brand of liverwurst is a major crisis for this brand, the premier cold cut processor and distributor throughout the New York Metropolitan area.

Boar’s Head radio advertisements historically took the high road: We’re Boar’s Head and all the other deli meats and cheeses are not. The snobbery in those ads was complete. They warned the public that just because a deli or a super market proudly informed their customers that they carried and served Boar’s Head products, you Mr, Miss, Mrs or MS customers should be alert to the deli worker trying to substitute an inferior product. People swore by Boar’s Head.

But that lousy plant in Virginia may have ruined everything! That listeria outbreak killed nine people and sickened dozens. Liverwurst was the main culprit. Boar’s Head reputation has been badly shaken and must be saved, otherwise the company’s very existence may become questionable.

Last week, Boar’s Head announced that they have ceased doing business with that flawed plant. They didn’t stop there. That announcement also stated that Boar’s Head had permanently ended producing their brand of liverwurst.

Least we forget the individuals who deliver the Boar’s Head products to stores from the corner delis to supermarkets and giants like Walmart and Target are  independent operators who buy those routes from existing owners who want to retire or move on in life. Those routes are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and maybe even millions.

Dan Berry  wrote a piece about the demise of liverwurst for The New York Times that he called: “Farewell to a Lost Love of Lunches Past.”

In his piece, he made this comment, “Besides, who in the world will bemoan a diminished supply of a cold cut that has the look and consistency of wet cement? Whose very name is an argument for vegetarianism?”

“Me, for one. And as I write this, I can almost hear the long awkward pause before someone, somewhere, sheepishly whispers, ‘Me too.”

And so I, John Delach, declare, me too, but I don’t whisper it. I shout it at the top of my lungs: ME TOO!

I didn’t discover liverwurst until I was an adult. To me, the idea of eating liver was a death wish and, because of its name, I considered liverwurst to be the same thing. We had plenty of bars and delicatessens in Ridgewood, being a German community. My Mom lived on a tight budget and most of the time we ate Taylor Ham and Bologna. On good days she ordered Virginia Ham and the king of cold cuts, Roast Beef on very good days.

In my retirement, since 2000, I learned the joy of going to the extensive deli counter at North Shore Farms, one of our local super markets. Without a doubt, a liverwurst sandwich became one of my favorite treats. I would order my sandwich on rye bread with a generous slab of deli-mustard and nothing else. Another favorite was prosciutto ham and provolone cheese, again on rye with deli mustard.

I went out of my way to limit treating myself to these marvelous sandwiches as I do for my most special treat, pastrami. Ben’s is my destination for this delicious treat. Again, my taste is simple, plain pastrami on their special rye bread. I don’t concern myself with mustard as each table at Ben’s has a full container of deli mustard which I use extensively.                   

Their livelihoods are on the line and Boar’s Head must salvage their name and reputation to save the company and its deliverers to re-gain the public’s trust.

It’s a mess, but admittedly, pales when compared to the possible results in the coming  presidential election.

So instead of ending this piece with any form of morbidity, I have chosen instead,  dear reader, to introduce you to a different take on liverwurst by the late, great satirical musician, Alan Sherman and his 1960s take on this cold cut:

(Sung to the rhythm of “Down by the Riverside)

When you go to the delicatessen store,

Don’t buy the liverwurst.

Don’t buy the liverwurst.

I repeat what I said before,

Don’t buy the liverwurst.

Don’t buy the liverwurst.

Oh, buy the corned beef if you must.

The pickled herring you can trust,

And the lox puts you in orbit AOK.

But that big hunk of liverwurst

Has been there since October First,

And today is the Twenty-Third of May.

So, when you go to the delicatessen store,

Don’t buy the liverwurst.

Don’t buy the liverwurst.

Don’t buy the liverwurst.

It’ll make your insides awful sore,

Don’t buy the liverwurst.

Don’t buy the liverwurst.

On the Outside Looking In will not publish next Wednesday and will return October 9th.

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September 25, 2024

The 100th Anniversary of the New York Giants

The New York Football Giants played their 100th Anniversary game on Sunday, September 8 starting at 1 pm in Met Life Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ their home since 2010. It had been quite a summer leading up to this game. In early August, Big Blue held a reception in Madison Square Garden to introduce their uniforms for opening day that replicated those worn by the 1925 team. Also, they wanted to showcase alumni like Lawence Taylor (LT), Harry Carson, Eli Manning, Phil Simms and Otis Anderson who spoke about their times playing for the team.

The late Wellington Mara had initiated and developed the understanding that all former players would always be welcomed back home with the statement, “Once a Giant, always a Giant!”

As the summer progressed, preparations continued. The top 100 players were selected and we fans were told that each group of ten would be identified each Tuesday. A long story, short, the top ten were: No. 10 Andy Robustelli – 9 Sam Huff- 8 Eli Manning-7 Harry Carson- 6 Emlen Tunnell- 5 Michael Strahan- 4 Frank Gifford- 3 Mel Heim- 2 Roosevelt Brown and -1 Lawrence, LT, Taylor.

The sports department of my local newspaper, Newsday, invited Giants fans to share their favorite moments of being a fan. I thought about it and decided to submit my choice. The editor picked mine and this is the version they ran in their paper:

“My son Michael and I attended Super Bowl XLII. I lost track of time at the end of the game, but when Mike lifted me into the air, I knew the Giants had won. ‘Mike, if we had to play these guys (the Patriots) 10 times, how many times would we win?

“Pop, we just saw it!”

In late August, I received a message from the team that I would soon be receiving a package commemorating this anniversary. It arrived on the Wednesday before opening day. The top of the box featured the One Hundred Year’s Logo. One side illustrated the various logos and helmet marking the team’s history while the other side listed the eight years the team was World Champions.

The box contained a two-sided ticket encased in Plexi-glass. On one side was a replica of the first home game ever between the Giants and the Frankfort Yellow Jackets, who eventually became the Philadelphia Eagles. The reverse side depicted what a ticket for the 100th ticket would have looked like if the Giants still issued carboard tickets.

More importantly, the second box contained the team’s primary gift, replicas of the four Super Bowl rings from 1986, 1990, 2007 and 2011.   

I had to make a decision whether or not to attend this first game of the season. I have been a season ticket holder since 1962 and I decided that I could not miss this game. Hey, I’m a realist. At 80, the long walk to the stadium from where we park is an ordeal. Getting a golf cart  to take this journey is a big help, but the walk from the closest entrance to our seats is still difficult.

Add to that, that our current version of Big Blue is at best, a work in progress. So much is new and untried and our quarterback, Daniel Jones, is suspect at best coming off several injuries. I realized that it’s too important for me to miss this major anniversary. I decided to go into the stadium with my eyes wide open.

Joe M accompanied by his eldest daughter, Emma, picked me up at my house several minutes before 8 am. The temperature was still in the 60’s with the promise that it would climb into the 70’s. An early pre-fall day, and a good day for football. We reached the stadium’s parking lot before 9 am and were joyfully greeted by our Big Blue comrades.

We had a medium sized tailgate with 18 participants that included my son, Michael, his buddy Jeff and grandsons, Drew and Matt. Michael drove down in his newly acquired navy blue 2022 Chevy Silverado. Other participants included Bill W and his son, Mike; Ehab and his daughter, Page; Bruce, his daughter Alexis and a buddy, Goose and a friend and long absent Joe D. and his buddy also joined us.

Food was plentiful and included a prosciutto roll, home-made stromboli, shrimp flavored mac and cheese, sausage and pepper heroes, crab cakes and chicken kebobs.

Bill W. and I decided to call guest services and request a golf cart to take us to one of the entrances. Bill is also a member of the walking wounded. Unfortunately, it turned out we were far from alone in requesting transportation so Bill and I took turns pestering the dispatchers until one finally showed up.  

We had a great time with our happy- go- lucky mates glad to be back. As good as the tailgate was, that is how bad the game turned out to be. The final score was Minnesota 28, New York 6. The Giants fell flat on their faces on both sides of the ball while the Vikings second-hand quarterback, Sam Darnold, once the Jets first-round pick had a career outing throwing for 208 yards and 2 touchdowns. The Vikings capped off the scoring with a ten-yard interception of Jones by Viking linebacker,  Andrew Van Ginkel.

Enough was enough and I decided to leave during the third quarter when golf carts were usually available. Michael joined me and, fortunately, he found an empty cart just outside the gate where we exited. 

The ride home was a typical slog especially getting on to the George Washington Bridge, but thankfully, traffic remained free of other ordeals. The following Sunday the Giants lost their second game to the Commanders in DC, (formerly known as the Redskins) by a more reasonable score of 21-18. In Week 3 late breaks came their way as they beat the Browns 21-15. Buckle up, 2024 may turn into roller coaster of a season.              

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September 18, 2024

Ed Kranepool

On Sunday, September 8, the same Sunday that the New York Football Giants opened their 100th football season, Ed Kranepool, an original member of the New York Metropolitans (Mets) passed away from cardiac arrest in Boca Ratan, Florida.

The Mets had drafted “Young Ed’ directly out of James Monroe High School in the Bronx when he was 17-years old. He joined the team on September 22, toward the end of their 1962 season He played at their temporary home in Manhattan, the Polo Grounds, in 1962 and 1963 before moving to brand new Shea Stadium in Flushing Meadows, Queens in April of 1964.

“Kranepool grew up a Yankee fan in the Bronx, but he took a detour to upper Manhattan and Queens where Mets fans got to embrace him as a hometown boy of their own – one whose modest personality and baseball resume fit the underdog franchise.”   

Assigned No. 21, he began his career playing first base as a defensive replacement for the aging Gil Hodgers who would go on to become his manager. Kranepool’s early participation in the Mets line-up gave him the dubious distinction of being part of this team that lost 120 games in 1962, a record that still stands.

“He was still a Met when he retired after the 1979 season – leaving as their all-time leader in games played, by far, with 1,853.” Columnist Neil Best wrote this f/or Newsday’s September 10 edition. His obituary included a photograph of Kranepool with fellow 1969 World Champion Mets, Cleon Jones and Art Shamsky,  taken during a 2019  spring training outing.

Best quoted Jones: “I just spoke to Ed last week and we talked about how we were the last originals, still alive,  who signed with the Mets. The other 1962 guys came from other organization. Eddie was a big bonus baby and I wasn’t. He never had an ego and was just one of the guys. He was a wonderful person.”

“Kranpool’s statistics were modest. He finished with 1,418 hits, 118 home runs and a .261 batting average. In the championship season of 1969, he had 11 home runs, 49 RBIs and a .238 average.”

“Kranepool failed to live up to the potential star status predicted for him, but he was always valued as a bridge from the teams dreadful early years to the breakthrough in 1969. For example, when 44-year-old Hall of Fame pitcher Warren Spahn joined the Mets in 1965, Kranepool gave him his No. 21 and switched to No. 7, the number the big lefthand hitter wore for the rest of his career. “

My connection to Ed Kranepool was simple but disconcerting; he was born on November 8, 1944 and I was born on February 22, 1944. That made him the first major league baseball player who I realized was younger than me, a fact I found depressing especially at my tender age of 18 in 1962.

R.I.P. Ed Kranepool.

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September 11, 2024

The Army That Went to Mail

When Vincent Sombrotto’s died in January of 2013, his death was promptly reported in an obituary in The New York Times. Mr. Sombrotto was 89 and died in St. Francis Hospital on Long Island. His obit explained his claim to fame. It read in part, “Vincent Sombrotto, who was a rank-and-file letter carrier, led a wildcat strike that shut down post offices across the country in 1970, prompting President Richard M. Nixon to call out the National Guard…”

Those were crazy times, starting with Michael Quill’s face off against newly installed Mayor John V. Lindsay on New Year’s Day, 1966. The results he achieved for his members of the Transport Workers Union, (TWU) with the strike that lasted 12 days that saw him thrown into jail and killed him less than a month later, influenced other union leaders of municipal workers, quasi-city workers and others. They took to the streets as strikes seemed to spread like wildfire through the 60’s and 70’s until at one point forty different unions went out on strike in one calendar year.

It seemed that everyone who was a “union man or woman” joined the cause in those days of rage. Sanitation, police, fire, ambulance services, hospitals and even ballerinas from the American Ballet Theater took to the streets one even wore her slippers on the picket line. Umpires picketed Yankee Stadium; cemetery workers engaged in a hunger strike. OTB clerks, prison guards, tug boat operators, milk truck drivers, school bus drivers, and Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (TBTA) toll collectors all walked. Albert Shanker led the teachers out in a series of nasty strikes that pitted minority-controlled community boards against his United Federation of Teachers (UFT) culminating in a 36-day strike commencing at the start of the school year in September of 1968. Beyond material gains, the strike brought Shanker dubious fame thanks to a line in the Woody Allen movie, Sleeper: “(That) the world as we knew it had been destroyed by a mad man named, Albert Shanker who got a hold of a nuclear device.”

Another outrage to the citizens in a seemingly endless chain came in 1971 when bridge tenders belonging to Victor Gotbaum’s District 37 of the Municipal Employees Union opened all 27 draw bridges in the city before locking the doors, removing fuses and walking off the job after throwing their keys into the waters they guarded before leaving their posts. The chaos they left in their wake was insane. Only 7,000 of Gotbaum’s 400,000 members, actually went out but his 2 ½ day-rant included other vital workers at sewage treatment plants, garbage disposal terminals and school cafeterias. 

But Vinnie and his gang were different. They were federal employees. As the strike spread from Manhattan and the Bronx across the land, it tested President Richard M. Nixon’s patience and on March 23, 1970, five days into the strike, he announced on television: “(I) just now directed the activation of the men of various military organizations to begin in New York City, the restoration of essential mail services.”

As members of various units in the 42nd Division of the New York National Guard, we reported to the armories where our outfits were housed. Bill Wilson went to the Armory on 18th St. where his unit, the famous “Fighting” 69th was housed. Geoff Jones reported to his outfit, Company B, 42nd Maintenance Battalion at the Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx and Bill Christman and I journeyed to an armory in Hempstead, Long Island, the home of Company C of the 242nd Signal Battalion. For the next eight days, these were our places of work until the strike was settled. Of the four of us, only Bill Wilson actually delivered mail on an assigned route in lower Manhattan. So little mail was sorted at the GPO that delivering it would take him less than an hour each day allowing Bill to go off to his regular job as an insurance broker while still in his army fatigues before returning to the armory.

Bill Christman remembered our greatest accomplishment: “Putting up a volley ball net between two deuce-an-a-halves (Two and a half-ton trucks) and that our First Sergeant, Sgt. Peter Stegle commented, ‘Once the postal workers envisioned us invading their work places, they figured they better settle.”

We never left the armory and when the strike ended, Sgt. Stegle ordered us into formation on the drill floor to address us before dismissal. He reminded us that although we never left the armory, “Those who stand and wait also serve.” As he finished these remarks one soldier let loose in a stage whisper, “Ah, the motto of Burger King.”

Vinnie’s passing reminded us, the veterans of the great mail crusade, of the joy he inadvertently brought to us by calling that wildcat strike. Unbeknownst to any of us, embedded in our National Guard contract for service with Uncle was a provision that, if we were ever Federalized by order of the Commander-in-Chief, we would have a reduction up to one year of our six-year commitment regardless of the duration of being Federalized.

Thank you, Vinnie, thank you and Milhouse!

Only one obstacle remained, the governor of the state of New York. It seemed we also had a separate contract to be part of a State Militia, But Nelson Rockefeller turned out to be a player and he dispensed us from this commitment. Thank you too, Rocky, your wealthiness.

 I don’t recall recruiters trying to get many of us to re-up; that would have been too funny and a waste of time.

But I do know that like other aging vets of the great mail crusade, the next time I put a stamp on an envelope, I’ll think kindly of ole Vinnie.

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