Clifford Browder's Blog, page 35

233. Hart Island, the Forbidden Island

     Hart Island in Long Island Sound is New York City’s forbidden island, forbidden to all except paupers, the friendless, and the forgotten, and to them only if corpses.  It is the city’s potter’s field, where the unclaimed and unidentified bodies of the dead are buried, their graves dug by inmates from Riker’s Island.  And why forbidden?  Primarily because the island also houses the crumbling remains of various long-abandoned facilities, sites fascinating to contemplate from a distance but dangerous to enter.  Here is the section of my post #49 from long ago that described the island:         
     And what becomes of humans -- the unclaimed bodies that turn up in every big city -- one may also ask.  The answer in New York is that, since 1869, they are taken to Hart Island, a quiet, grassy island only about a mile long and a quarter mile wide in Long Island Sound near City Island in the Bronx.  This now uninhabited island, at various times the site of a lunatic asylum, a sanatorium, a boys' workhouse, and a drug facility, is the city's potter's field, the final resting place of some 800,000 anonymous, indigent, and forgotten persons who are buried in closely packed plain pine coffins in common graves, three coffins deep for adults, and five for babies.  Some 1500 bodies arrive yearly, about half of them stillbirths and infants who are interred in small pine coffins.  "Baby Morales, age 5 minutes," says the paperwork on one; "Unknown male, white, found floating on the Hudson at 254th Street," says another.  Burials are done quickly and routinely without funeral rites, unless there is a   spontaneous prayer from a gravedigger.  
     Note:  I have often wondered where the phrase "potter's field" comes from.  It is Biblical, saying what the chief priests did with Judas's thirty pieces of silver when, repenting of his betrayal of Jesus, he flung them down on the floor of the temple and went and hanged himself: "And they took counsel, and bought the potter's field, to bury strangers in" (Matthew 27:7).  A field used for extracting potter’s clay was useless for agriculture and so was available for burials.
     And who are the gravediggers of Hart Island?  Inmates from Riker's Island who arrive by boat handcuffed, but then climb down into the trenches to work unmanacled, most of them glad to be away from prison and out in the open air, working in the flat, calm solitude of the island.  They are paid all of fifty cents an hour, as is typical of our prison/industrial complex.  But they are not insensitive.  "Respect, guys, respect!" they caution one another, as they lower the coffins into the graves and then cover them with dirt.

     Hart Island is not open to the general public, most of whom have probably never even heard of it, and trespassers face a stiff fine.  But family members able to  prove their relatives are buried there can arrange visits.  This is no easy task, since one has to navigate numerous city agencies to obtain the necessary information.  The coffins have no individual markings, but each grave corresponds to an entry in a ledger.  If successful, the family members can then arrange to have the remains disinterred and removed for burial elsewhere.  But most of the remains are unclaimed.

     What is it like on the island?  The few who are allowed to visit have different impressions.  One visitor, seeing the crumbling vestiges of earlier installations, called it a dilapidated ghost town; another found it surprisingly peaceful, surrounded on sunny days by an expanse of scintillating water, and serenaded by the distant clanging buoys of Long Island Sound.  One hopes, for this last resting place of the unknown and forgotten, that the latter impression is more accurate.  But those crumbling vestiges have a haunting beauty that photography reveals: the beauty of abandonment and desolation.  I shall never be able to visit this forbidden island, but everything about it breathes mystery.
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     But today Hart Island has been touched by scandal.  One would like to think that those generous donors, often affluent, who leave their remains to science would have their wishes respected, and that those remains would advance the progress of science and benefit humanity at large.  But such is not always the case, as revealed by a recent New York Times exposé of laws favoring the enrichment of nursing homes and court-appointed guardians of intestate estates, who found it profitable to let bodies entrusted to their care be buried on the island, sometimes even though a minimal effort by the authorities could have found the next of kin.  Consider these examples:
·      An 88-year-old woman who worked as a housekeeper for the same family for 50 years, but who outlived that family and was shipped off to Hart Island.·      The remains of a 102-year-old feminist pioneer whose family donated her body to science, expecting her to then be cremated, ended up on the island.·       A 96-year-old author of an influential book on costume design for opera willed his body to Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons who, not needing it, passed it on to the New York University School of Medicine, which in time sent  it to Hart Island instead of cremating it.·       A shrewd 91-year-old businesswoman who had left her estate of more than $1.3 million to charity and given her body to NYU with the expressed wish that she finally be cremated, likewise ended up on the island.
     And so on and so on.  The scandal seems to have resulted less from intention and malice than from negligence and bureaucratic ineptitude, and has apparently been resolved with appropriate apologies.  But in willing one’s body to science with hopes for ultimate cremation, one had better receive iron-clad assurances that your noble wishes will be carried out.  Otherwise, you may end up with the friendless and forgotten in a cheap pine coffin with a number on it in a grave on Hart Island, with only the respectful words of an inmate by way of a farewell.  So it goes in the City That Never Sleeps.
     Source note:  For information on the recent Hart Island scandal, I am indebted to articles by Francis X. Clines and Nina Bernstein in the New York Times of May 24 and May 28, 2016, respectively.

   The book:  No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World, my selection of posts from this blog, has received two awards: the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction, and first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards.  (For the Reader Views review by Sheri Hoyte, go here.)  As always, the book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.




     Coming soon:  ???  It’s wide open.

     ©   2016   Clifford Browder

232. Scavengers of New York

     I use the term “scavengers,” since “ragpickers” seems inappropriate; they’re after cans and other recyclables much more than rags.  These are the guys – usually men, occasionally women – whom you see prowling the sidewalks and streets and gutters, poking into trash cans and other refuse in search of cans that can be returned for a nickel, and other stuff that somewhere can be returned for a small sum.  Who are they, and where do they go to turn in their spoils?  Busy New Yorkers pay little attention, while hoping that these self-appointed collectors help keep the city somewhat clean. 
     Having researched nineteenth-century New York, I have a better idea of the scavengers of that era than I do of the ones today.  Back then they were above all women, usually German, Irish, and Italian immigrants who trudged the streets in all kinds of weather, dodging the rushing carts and stages not yet impeded by the installation of stop signs and red lights.  Often they had a district where they claimed priority, fighting off any intruders who dared to invade their territory; nasty hair-pulling and face-scratching fights resulted, with other women cheering on one or both participants. 
     These ragpickers scavenged all kinds of clothing and rags, bits of metal, discarded clocks, busted parasols, cracked chamber pots, lumps of coal, buckles, hatpins, and bones, and sometimes even crouched at the mouths of sewers and reached past unmentionable wastes, or even the remains of an aborted embryo, for anything that glinted, hoping for rings but often as not getting spoons.  Having sorted out their spoils and washed their rags in their tenement quarters, they then sold them to the rag man, the bone man, or the junk man, earning a few pennies that might get them two days’ rent in their room crammed in with other women, and some boiled beans and a penny of rum.
     And today?  The supermarkets grudgingly receive recyclable cans and bottles, but restrict the hours and the amounts they will receive; one often sees the scavengers with their bulging plastic bags of recyclables gathering near the entrance at the appointed time.  But there are redemption centers as well, and scavengers flock to them with their spoils, even though raiding trash cans for recyclables is against the law, since it undermines the city’s own recycling efforts.  And not all the scavengers are trudging on foot with pushcarts; some arrive in automobiles laden with cans, bottles, appliances, bits of metal, whatever.
     Last week I encountered a true mystery: a huge heap of plastic bags jammed with recyclables, a heap some ten feet high and possibly piled on top of a cart that was hidden beneath it, at the curb next to the little park across the street from my building.  Next to the heap, in a steady rain, a man in a brown jacket with a hood was sorting items.  In addition to the big heap, he had at least four small carts or bundles that he was looking after.  I had never seen him there before.
     The next morning, when I went out on an errand on the second day of rain, his stuff was still there, and on one of the park benches there was another heap under a big white blanket: presumably, the scavenger trying to get some sleep in the rain.  So he was probably homeless.  But how one man by himself could manage all those bundles baffled me.
     On the third day, when it was still drizzling, I went out to get a paper and saw an older man, an African American, sitting in a shop doorway out of the rain, with a few small bundles beside him, staring sullenly out from under his brown hood: surely, I thought, the scavenger who had accumulated all those other piles of bulging plastic bags.  Coming back with the paper, on an impulse I flashed the friendliest of smiles his way and asked, cheerily, with a gesture toward the heap across the street, “Is all that stuff yours?”  -- a query that  he answered with a dismissive gesture and a shout, “Get away from me!”  So savage was his look that I did exactly that, surmising that many rejections and orders from the police to “Move on!” had probably rendered him aggressively defensive and leery of any stranger who approached him.  Obviously, his was not a happy life, least of all in the rain.
     The next day I saw him sleeping again under the big white blanket on a bench, though the rain had finally stopped.  Why he lingered there with all his accumulated booty I still couldn’t figure out.  Then, the next day, he and all his stuff had vanished, whether by his own choice, somehow transporting all those bundles to another location, or because the police had ordered him away, I will never know.
     I thought the story had ended, but I was wrong.  Three days later he and his mountain of  spoils reappeared in the park in exactly the same spot as before, sticking out into the street.  And there he was in his hooded brown coat, sorting things out, or slumbering under the white blanket on a nearby bench.  Why can’t he get rid of his stuff and maybe even realize a modest profit?  Why does he linger here day after day, married – or maybe chained – to his gleanings?  The mystery deepens yet again.  After that I saw him once again, with all his stuff, on West 11th Street, not far from my building, but after that he vanished once again, though I dare not say forever, since he has a way of popping up when least expected.


     My Tale of a Tub:  Two weeks ago I had a novel adventure.  It was 4 a.m. and I went to the bathroom to relieve the bladder imperative, and having done so, I suddenly lost my balance and fell into the bathtub, where I sat, momentarily stunned, with both legs dangling over the side of the tub.  It took me a moment to grasp what had happened and the situation I now found myself in, so ludicrous that, once I realized I wasn’t the slightest bit injured, I started to laugh.  How had it happened?  Two possibilities.  Maybe I experienced a momentary dizziness that caused me to lose my balance and fall, pushing away the little black bathroom rug as I did so.  Or maybe the rug slipped out from under one foot, causing me to fall.  Having experienced no dizziness since then, I incline toward the second explanation.
     Whatever the cause of it, there I was, sitting crosswise in the tub with my feet dangling over the side.  How was I to get out of this ridiculous position?  The tub was dry, so I had no soggy bottom to deal with, but the solution to the problem was not immediately apparent.  Intuition was no help; I had to rely on that glory of homo sapiens sapiens, the ability to reason.  First of all, I had to pull my legs into the tub so I could lie there lengthwise, as God and the maker of bathtubs intended.  I did so, but then found myself seated with  the faucets poking into my back, likewise not the position that bathtubs are meant to accommodate.  So I dangled my legs over the side once again and maneuvered, within the narrow confines of the tub, so as to reverse my position, which in that cramped space wasn’t easy.  So far, so good: I was now seated facing the faucets, resting my back on the sloping surface meant  for just that purpose.  But I was still a prisoner of the tub, since my hands couldn’t gain the leverage needed to lift me out.  What to do? 
     Reason once again redeemed me: I must turn myself over, renounce the sitting position and get on all fours, as if ready to crawl.  Achieving this meant more strenuous maneuvering in a space not meant for such efforts, but achieve it I finally did.  Now, on all fours, I was able to place my hands on the tub’s sides, gain leverage, and lift myself majestically – or maybe not so majestically – up to a standing position, and then with no difficulty step out of the tub.
     Viewers are probably by now as tired of this narrative as I was of being stuck in the tub, but I see my Tale of a Tub (to borrow a title from Swift) as demonstrating the superior status of homo sapiens sapiens who, when trapped in an unforeseen predicament, uses his native smarts to rescue himself and resume the noble stature of the species. 


   The book:  No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World, my selection of posts from this blog, has received two awards: the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction, and first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards.  (For the Reader Views review by Sheri Hoyte, go here.)  As always, the book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.




     Coming soon:  The Forbidden Island.  Why is it forbidden?  Who is allowed to go there?  What scandals have erupted concerning it?
     ©   2016   Clifford Browder


    

231. Graffiti

     You see them everywhere – on sidewalks, on fences, on mailboxes, wherever there is space and a chance to be seen by passersby.  On the pavement of the Union Square greenmarket on March 23, 2016, in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Brussels:
Pray4Brussels

We gonbe alright

     On the Horatio Street sidewalk recently near an entrance to Jackson Square Park, just south of West 14th Street:
I was cagedbut I fought back
In white chalk, so I thought, but it must have been white paint, since it has since survived several days of rain.  Under the words were two crudely drawn chickens, or maybe two squawking ducks; the artist’s skills were limited.
     On a mail storage box on West 13thStreet recently, squeezed in with a host of scribblings and crazy art:
FAMEKILLS

Some are problematic, as for instance, on the sidewalk at an intersection:
TAKE  CARE
Good advice, but for whom?  Similarly, on East 4thStreet:
PAY  YOURDEBTS
And on Eighth Avenue near Jane Street:
PROTECTYOHEARTPYH
And on the scaffolding masking renovation of a building on West 4th Street:
TAKE  ME  TO  THE  ALLEY
when there was no alley in sight.  Just as enigmatic, also on East 4thStreet:
I  DON’T  WANTTO   DIEMOTHERCOW
     You rarely know who the graffiti artists are, but in some cases I assume young teen-age males, known for their blatant candor, as in these two instances, seen by me long ago, though I don’t know where:
If Satan gets my balls we’ll play tennis
farts are healthy
And in the Union Square greenmarket, scrawled on the pavement in fading chalk trampled by busy New Yorkers who paid no heed:
NEW  YORKR  UHUNG?
     Some show signs of sophistication, as for instance this one, scrawled on the wall of a men’s room on the Columbia University campus eons ago, which was much quoted and became legendary:
God = mc2
For the knowing few, of course, this was a take-off of Einstein’s renowned physics equation, E = mc2, meaning that energy equals mass multiplied by the speed of light, squared. 
     But my favorite graffito (yes, that’s the singular) was one I glimpsed, I don’t know where, back in the rebellious 1960s:
Jesus savesbut Moses invests
     This post will not attempt a history of New York graffiti, least of all their evolution from crude sidewalk  scribbles to the exuberant multicolored art of minority youth spray-painting the sides of the city’s subway cars in the 1970s, until in the 1980s the authorities with great effort eliminated the art – and art it was, in my opinion, however misplaced – and scrubbed the cars ruthlessly clean.  For some, the graffiti-ridden cars symbolized the city’s moral and physical decline, which goes to show that one man’s art is another’s vandalism.  And the debate continues today, when an alleged resurgence of graffiti art has inspired tours in certain neighborhoods to view it, while the New York Post declares that the city must beat the “cancer of graffiti.”
     One graffiti artist who announces himself is Hans (“Ace”) Honschar, age 42, whose colored chalk snippets appear all over the Upper West Side, and who briefly about a year ago invaded the West Village – my turf – and left messages on the sidewalk outside the D’Agostino supermarket that I patronize.  His messages – at least, the ones that I have seen – are relentlessly upbeat:
the two mostjoyous timesof the yearare Christmasmorning andthe end ofSchool

find ur talent& fulfill yourpurposefor you arethe embodimentof infinitepossibilities

I saw thatmy life wasa vast, glowingempty pageand I could doanything
What he does, of course, is fill every empty space he sees with his multicolored bits of wisdom.  In the process he even makes a buck or two, for shop owners pay him to leave an inscription in front of their shop, and passersby pay him to take their picture for five dollars or, for double that, to have their picture taken with him.
     Fulfilling his destiny, alas, has led to a tangle or two with the police, since graffiti are technically forbidden, but like a good New Yorker he persists.  Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to a strict religious family that attended a Pentecostal church, he grew up in Florida and migrated all over Canada before landing in New York where, like so many, he knew he had to stay, with a special fondness for the Upper West Side.
I wake upevery morningand I sayto myself‘Well, I’m stillin New York,thank you God’
No matter what the outcome of his skirmishes with the police, he will continue to fulfill his chalky, polychrome destiny.

    Graffiti have always been with us and always will be.  They have been found in the ruins of ancient Egypt and Pompeii and surely go back eons, probably to the dawn of writing.  I can well imagine some enterprising young caveman sneaking a few raw squiggles onto the walls of a cave otherwise adorned with marvelous drawings of the animals hunted by our ancestors in prehistoric times.  Graffiti are usually anonymous, often irreverent, often bawdy, but sometimes uplifting and inspiring.  And by their very nature subversive.  No city has contributed more to their fame and notoriety than New York.
    The book:  No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World, my selection of posts from this blog, has received two awards: the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction, and first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards.  (For the Reader Views review by Sheri Hoyte, go here.)  As always, the book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.




     Coming soon:  Mysteries of New York: Scavengers.  Who are they and what are they up to?

     ©   2016   Clifford Browder

230. 14th Street Shops: Everything You Need for Basic Living

     When I asked a new acquaintance from Kokomo, in northern Indiana, for her impressions of New York on this, her visit to the city, she immediately came up with three:
·      The vastness of Central Park.  She had never seen a park so large and so impressive.·      The courtesy and helpfulness of New Yorkers.  And no, she didn’t find them rude or abrupt.·      The array of charming little shops in the West Village, which she had just encountered after a walk all the way down from Central Park.
Yes, the West Village – and many other New York neighborhoods – abound in charming little shops, more now than ever.  They give a unique flavor to much of the city, lend it a charm that alleviates the city’s impression of bigness and intensity and hurry.  For these little shops invite you to come in, browse, and linger; no hurry here, no pressure.
     For a sample of their diversity, come with me on a bus ride along 14th Street, a street that separates the West Village from Chelsea, and that refuses to be gentrified.  14th Street, East and West, is determinedly commercial, not primarily big-time commercial, but above all small-time commercial, meaning lots of small shops whose juxtapositions are often delightful.  For instance:
·      Chelsea Bagel & Café next to Bunga’s Den next to Gemini 14 next to Satori Laser next to Desco Vacuum, right across the street from  the looming Art Deco headquarters of the Salvation Army, with its grotto-like entrance with paired stairways leading into what mysterious  recesses I cannot imagine.  Desco Vacuum is known to me, since I have purchased vacuum cleaner parts and accessories there, and Satori Laser offers laser hair removal, but Bunga’s Den and Gemini 14 at first baffled me.  But not for long, thanks to the Internet, which informs me that Bunga’s Den is a “relaxed, funky neighborhood joint offering a number of beers on tap, plus pub eats & comedy nights.”  It features cushioned booths and a handmade wooden bar, but who Bunga is remains for me a mystery.  And Gemini 14?  It proves to be “a color bar salon dedicated to perfection.”  But what is that?  It dyes and styles your hair, even to the point of “magic wand” hair extensions “personally crafted to your needs.”  One good session here and you’re bound to make a hit at Bunga’s.
·      Edible Arrangements next to Smoke Shop next to Yo Yo Spa next to a pharmacy.  Which is clear enough.
·      Bling Lash above Auntie Guan’s Kitchen next to Urgent Medical Care (“open 7 days”).  Auntie Guan’s is, as I assumed, a Chinese restaurant, no doubt presided over by a motherly Chinese lady who is in love with food and her customers.  It offers northern Chinese food, including braised beef noodle soup and dried tofu noodles “with pepper lunch special.”  Sounds good, I’ll admit.  And Bling Lash?  It claims to be “NYC’s Best Eyelash Extensions and Nail Art Spa.”  So here too, a session should set you up for a glamorous entrance in Auntie Guan’s.  On 14th Street, all is possible.  And if northern Chinese cuisine doesn’t suit your system, Urgent Medical Care is right nearby.
·      Brick Oven Pizza next to We Buy Gold and Diamonds / We Pawn.  No mystery here.
·      El Paraiso Spanish/Chinese Food above City Eyebrows Threading Salon next to Framing, and over Framing, a driving school named Defensive.
·      ezPawn Corp next to Jupioca, a “vibrant outpost for blended fruit juices, protein shakes, tapioca drinks, smoothies & more.”
·      Toosh next to Electronics – but what, oh what, is Toosh?  A shoe store, it turns out.
·      Dragon Tattoos over Cigarville next to 24hr Parking (clearance 6’8”).
·      Potbelly Sandwich Shop next to Sprint next to Wigs Plus next to Lighting and Beyond, which offers lamps and electrical appliances.  Sprint baffled me at first, but now, thanks again to the Internet, I know that it is a “provider of wireless plans, cell phones, accessories & more.”  Wigs Plus, never a mystery to me, has a collection of “gorgeous wigs, extensions and hair pieces … something for every occasion.  Shop today!”
     Let there be no doubt, on 14thStreet you can satisfy every conceivable need – not luxury needs, but the basics.  You can spruce up your appearance, pawn something if necessary, and buy cigars, smoothies, wigs, pizza, cell phones, and vacuum cleaners, and have a good meal at Auntie Guan’s and a beer at Bunga’s.  And if these material delights aren’t enough, and Urgent Medical Care can’t help, there’s always the Salvation Army.
     To round things out, let’s have a quick glance at the Union Square greenmarket, which is often the destination of my eastbound Wednesday morning bus rides on 14th Street.  Most of the stands there are familiar to me, but recently I discovered two new ones.  The John D. Madura Farm of Orange County offers a variety of mushrooms at its stand, one of which was completely new to me: the maitake mushroom.  Native to both this country and Japan, it is also known as hen-of-the-woods.  It’s a big brown thing the width of your hand with the fingers outstretched – for a mushroom, plenty big.  Being a cluster of curled or spoon-shaped caps, it looks like an out-of-control growth, but the stand assures us that the maitake has a woody flavor suitable for everything from soups to salads.  It’s weird in appearance, fascinating, but I have yet to give it a try.
     Near the maitake stand is a stand with a sign that caught my eye:
DRINK LOCALgrowing   malting   mashingdistilling   aging   bottlingOrange County Distillery
Yes, from Orange County come some more novel products that should appeal to locavores: vodka, gin, bourbon, and corn whiskey – farm-to-bottle spirits produced in that county’s fertile Black Dirt Region.  So there you have it: one quick visit to the greenmarket, and you can gobble a woody-tasting maitake washed down with a shot or two of genuine New York State-produced bourbon.  No need, then, to patronized Auntie Guan, though in this richly diverse city there’s certainly room for all. 
     The book:  No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World, my selection of posts from this blog, has received two awards: the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction, and first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards.  (For the Reader Views review by Sheri Hoyte, go here.)  As always, the book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.



     Coming soon:  New York Graffiti.  And then, Mysteries of New York (there are many).
©   2016   Clifford Browder

     

No Place for Normal: New York: Sheri Hoyt review

No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in t he World Clifford Browder
Mill City Press, Inc. (2015)
ISBN 9781634137249
Reviewed by Sheri Hoyte for Reader Views (3/16/16)“No Place for Normal: New York” by Clifford Browder is a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City. Readers are regaled with tales about city icons - from street characters to celebrities, famous restaurants, and tourist locations such as Greenwich Village, Union Square, and Central Park, rounded out with tales of inspiration, adventure, drama, and nightlife. New York City has no room for anything normal - the more eccentric, different, weird, and astonishing, the better. It is undeniably the most unique city in America, as demonstrated in these great stories.Although a transplanted Texan of many years, my hometown is Saratoga Springs, New York. That noted, I must say that one of my favorite stories in the book is “Upstate vs. Downstate: The Great Dichotomy.” Even as a child, I remember when people asked me where I was from I would always respond “Upstate New York” as opposed to just “New York,” clearly wanting to establish the difference in the inquirer’s mind. I don’t recall how that was ever ingrained so deeply in my mind; even so, I can’t imagine what would have happened if NYC had succeeded in seceding from the state!I believe one of the most interesting stories in the book is on the back cover. I found the author’s short bio to be an interesting story in and of itself. Browder, a writer and retired freelance editor, resides above the Magnolia Bakery – you know, the Sex and the City Magnolia Bakery! He has never owned a car or a television, and in his own words, “shuns the cell phone and tolerates the computer!” Living in New York City – unplugged? Now that’s a story!I thoroughly enjoyed “No Place for Normal: New York” by Clifford Browder and highly recommend it to all fans of entertaining short stories and lovers of New York City. It would also make an interesting travel guide for people who just want to learn more about the city that never sleeps!


*                        *                       *                        *                         *

 The book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Sheri Hoyt review

No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in t he World Clifford Browder
Mill City Press, Inc. (2015)
ISBN 9781634137249
Reviewed by Sheri Hoyte for Reader Views (3/16/16)“No Place for Normal: New York” by Clifford Browder is a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City. Readers are regaled with tales about city icons - from street characters to celebrities, famous restaurants, and tourist locations such as Greenwich Village, Union Square, and Central Park, rounded out with tales of inspiration, adventure, drama, and nightlife. New York City has no room for anything normal - the more eccentric, different, weird, and astonishing, the better. It is undeniably the most unique city in America, as demonstrated in these great stories.Although a transplanted Texan of many years, my hometown is Saratoga Springs, New York. That noted, I must say that one of my favorite stories in the book is “Upstate vs. Downstate: The Great Dichotomy.” Even as a child, I remember when people asked me where I was from I would always respond “Upstate New York” as opposed to just “New York,” clearly wanting to establish the difference in the inquirer’s mind. I don’t recall how that was ever ingrained so deeply in my mind; even so, I can’t imagine what would have happened if NYC had succeeded in seceding from the state!I believe one of the most interesting stories in the book is on the back cover. I found the author’s short bio to be an interesting story in and of itself. Browder, a writer and retired freelance editor, resides above the Magnolia Bakery – you know, the Sex and the City Magnolia Bakery! He has never owned a car or a television, and in his own words, “shuns the cell phone and tolerates the computer!” Living in New York City – unplugged? Now that’s a story!I thoroughly enjoyed “No Place for Normal: New York” by Clifford Browder and highly recommend it to all fans of entertaining short stories and lovers of New York City. It would also make an interesting travel guide for people who just want to learn more about the city that never sleeps!

229. Computers Are Stupid

      I hate computers because they’re stupid, just plain, flat-out stupid.  Oh yes, I know they can do fantastic computations and beat us paltry humans at chess, but that’s not smart in the true sense of the word.  They can’t reflect, weigh alternatives carefully, and make logical decisions.  They can only do what they’ve been programmed to do, which makes them the equivalent of a moronic robot, or maybe worse.  Here are some examples of their stupidity.
     When I turn my computer on and want to go online, I get this message:
None of your preferred networks are available.Choose the Wi-Fi network you want to join from the list below.
This makes no sense to me, nor can I comprehend the gibberish in the boxed list accompanying this message.  So I click “Cancel” and try again, at which point I get the same message and have to click it off again.  And when I do get online, I get a message that I am not online, even though I obviously am.  When I consulted an Apple genius at my local Apple store, all he could suggest was to keep on canceling the first two messages and ignore the third.  So the merry little game continues.
     But there’s worse.  If I touch the screen ever so lightly, it magnifies; the print becomes ten times larger.  So I touch it again, this time intentionally,  usually what’s on it jumps around.  After several more attempts, finally I get back to normal-sized print … maybe.
     On other occasions I get a message that I’m not connected, which in this case is usually true.  Why this should suddenly happen isn’t clear.  So I click the keyboard on, which may or, more often, may not help.  Then I click the mouse off and then back on, likewise usually to no effect.  So with great reluctance I turn the computer off, turn it back on, and wait.  Sometimes this works, and sometimes not.  If it doesn’t, I have to turn the modem off, turn it back on, and wait.  And wait.  And wait.  Slowly the little lights start flashing, informing me that the power is on, then USB (whatever that is), then DSL (ditto), and finally, at long last, the Internet.  But if I didn’t save whatever I was working on when the connection went out, that material is lost.
     And the much-vaunted memory of computers is, to say the least, flawed.  They think they know what I want, based on some past venture, which may have been an error on my part.  As a result, I am offered items that are totally irrelevant.  If I check the stock market, I’ll get offers of low-cost trading, and unsettling announcements about how the market is about to plunge to the nethermost depths, or maybe soar to celestial heights.  None of which interests me in the slightest.  On other occasions I’ve been offered Viagra.
     Then there’s spam – tons of it.  It used to be rare, but now – probably because of some innocent digital foray of mine – it assaults me daily with sweet irrelevancies like these:
·      Mediterranean cruises·      24-hour road assistance for my nonexistent auto·      No-hassle life insurance·      A home warranty that will save me big money·      A reverse mortgage calculator·      A program to take off two pounds of belly fat daily·      Surface coatings to protect my wood, steel, or concrete floors (they should see my floors – all splinters!)·      A device to charge my devices without cables·      Help in finding an attorney (“Don’t procrastinate!”)·      A free (so they insist) cellphone with unlimited texts·      Burial vs. cremation·      A degree in marketing·      An offer to fly business class·      A camera system to provide security and surveillance in my business·      New tires at a discount·      Energy-efficient windows that pay for themselves·      Help in shopping around for a sports utility vehicle·      Photos of singles 40+ in your area, free (Wow!)
These offers aren’t just irrelevant; they’re farcical.  But when I try to implement the promised spam detector, I go in circles.
     Granted, some knavish souls might suggest that I’m the stupid one, not my or any other computer.  But computers are supposed to make life easier for us humans, they’re supposed to be docile and helpful servants; instead, they are tricksters, rogues, and morons, depending on their mood of the moment, and the opportunities that arise.  When they aren’t just plain dead stupid, they are cunning and malicious, a real threat to our sanity and well-being.  So take your choice: they’re either abysmally stupid or fiendishly clever.  If the latter, we’d better watch out.
     A clarification: I have a Mac and swear by it.  My quarrel isn’t with the computer itself, but with its programming and whatever else may be involved.  The computer itself is fine; the software is another matter.  And these current problems are nothing compared to those of my first computer, a product of some company whose name escapes me, a company that has since, quite appropriately, gone out of the computer business.  With that computer I would get, when least expected, this message:
This computer has performed an illegal operationand will be shut down.
And shut down it was, with consequent loss of any material not saved.  This problem, probably embedded in the software, was never solved; it ended only when I changed computers.  On this merry note I conclude.
     The book:  No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World, my selection of posts from this blog, has received a second award: the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Awards for Regional Non-Fiction.  It also won first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards.  (For the accompanying review by Sheri Hoyte, see post #223 of March 27, 2016.)  As always, the book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.




     Coming soon:  Little shops of 14th Street, and after that, New York graffiti.  In the offing somewhere: Mysteries of New York.
     ©  2016  Clifford Browder

228. The Judson City Public Library: Scandals and Irregularities Galore

     Here at last is a brief account of the Judson City Public Library, not the library of today, which is functioning smoothly and serving the public well, but the library of yore, back before computers and the Internet, when readers smudged their fingers turning the pages of real books, and a series of library directors who failed to engage with the staff encouraged certain deficiencies and even made room for small scandals.  (Don’t look for Judson City on a map; the name is invented, since I have no wish to taint the reputation of today’s library, located in a city in this general area.)
      Among the staff of that era were Mrs. Blaustein, whose lipstick preceded her through doorways, and whose ample bosom was agleam with jewelry; she worked in Circulation and was one of the more functioning employees.
     Mr. Wu, a Chinese American, had been shunted to the Catalog Department because his English was a flow of gibberish that no one could understand.  Years later he was still in Catalog and his English was still gibberish.
     Mr. Stevenson was a gentle, roundish man of some years who, sometimes, presided over the Local History Room, whose stately albeit somewhat musty confines were rarely penetrated by patrons.  On the wall above his desk, squeezed in incongruously among formal portraits of governors and mayors, was a photograph of his mother, who smiled benignly down upon him as he toiled minimally.  I say “minimally” because, alas, he was a bit too fond of the grape and struggled manfully to get through the day, never really drunk but not quite sober.  One Monday morning at five of nine, as other staff members strode briskly toward the entrance of the monumental library building, Mr. Stevenson was seen looking at the entrance with a wan, worn look.  Slowly he shook his head and sadly turned about and retraced his steps toward home.  He didn’t last much longer at the library.
     Amanda was a lady of middle years whose job was to sort out material to be sent to the branches, but much of her time was devoted to caring for stray cats that she plucked from the alleyways and gutters of the city.  With a caring heart and no authorization whatsoever she nested them in boxes in unvisited nooks and crannies in the stacks, feeding them generously and supplying them with ample amounts of kitty litter.  These activities might have gone unnoticed, had not a subtle scent of cat food and kitty poop spread throughout the stacks, provoking objections from coworkers.  Adamant in defending her strays, she defied orders from superiors and continued to clutter up the stacks.   Finally, one day when she was home nursing a cold, her supervisor recruited a team of coworkers to restore the strays to the street, clean out the cans of stacked cat food and litter boxes, and purify the air with scents.  When Amanda returned a few days later, she registered utter shock and dismay, and defiantly began reaccumulating strays and cat food and litter boxes.  So formidable was her compassion for felines that the staff gave up the fight in despair, and strange odors continued to pervade the stacks.
     The geography of the library building is of interest, ranging as it did, vertically, from the sodden depths of the basement to the airy heights of the Eaves.  The basement was the domain of the maintenance men, and a merry bunch they were.  Rarely seen above ground, where they appeared reluctantly at times for repair work, they found those depths congenial, for few of the upstairs staff ventured down there.  Stored in the basement stacks were government documents, tons of them – full Congressional records and quantities of statistics from various bureaucracies – which practically no one ever felt the need to consult.  So there the documents sat, year after year.  Then one summer a torrential rain flooded the basement, soaking some of the documents, which from then on emitted, instead  of a musty, dry odor, a soggy one  further spiced by a subtle hint of alcohol, since the maintenance men, in their splendid isolation, found frequent opportunities to imbibe.
     Meanwhile up in the celestial heights of the Eaves, the very top floor of the structure, two genteel elderly ladies toiled diligently, pursuing some noble project, though no one below quite knew what.  It was a special program funded by some benign foundation, perhaps to give useful employment and a sense of purpose to seniors, and it somehow involved archives; the two ladies, as sweet and silent as can be, sat at a table up there, quite alone, diligently copying or recording something.  So it went for days, their gentle presence barely discernible to those below.  Then one day one of them was absent, and the other toiled on in solitude.  Toward the end of the day the staff realized that they hadn’t seen or heard her all day and went to investigate.  They found her lying on the floor, no one knew for how long, pen clasped tight in her fingers, but quite unconscious, a victim of some medical mishap.  An ambulance was called and she was rushed to a hospital, though word never came of her ultimate fate.  The other daytime occupant of the Eaves, hearing of her companion’s fate, was so disheartened that she declined to continue the project, following which the lofty Eaves remained vacant for years.  
     A new note was struck in the library with the arrival of Maisie, the supervisors’ new secretary, who got the job through some obscure political connection.  She was young, vibrant, outgoing, her make-up a bit too bold, her skirts a bit too short, and from the moment she appeared, she added to the library atmosphere the one element missing: sex.  The females of the staff eyed her with suspicion, while the males – especially the younger ones – were smitten from the start.  Though she proved to be an excellent secretary, she was also an excellent gossip; with her on hand, few of the staff’s secrets remained secret.  Be that as it may, everything about her – her expression, her clothes, the way she walked – was just plain flat-out sexy.  Yet Maisie was no wanton: she tempted, but never delivered; she enticed subtly, but remained maddeningly elusive.  The high point of her brief library career came at the annual winter holiday party, where she did a wild dance to savage music (recorded) that elicited from the maintenance men wild outbursts of cheers and applause.  Soon after that she left the library, no doubt in quest of further conquests elsewhere.
     Without Maisie things were dull for a while, but the Judson City Public Library system was never devoid of scandal, and if not the hard core of it, at least a gentle whiff.  No, I can’t offer the director deserting his wife to run off with the assistant director – nothing so spectacular; but scandal nonetheless, inspired by murky doings at the Foster Street branch.
     Presiding over the Foster Street branch was Wendy Paterson, a diligent but slightly erratic librarian who served the public adequately at the front desk in the rooms open to the public.  But the library truck was parked nearby a little too often, sparking rumors about what went on in the back room of the library.  The truck driver, a stud named Joe, was charged with transporting books to and from the branches, but in the course of these duties he found time for extracurricular activities, especially at the Foster Street branch. 
     Hearing the rumors, the branch supervisor visited the branch, found all in front quite proper, but investigated the back room where the public never penetrated.  There, among the scant furnishings, was a large couch with plump pillows, and in the air the faintest trace of Ms. Paterson’s vibrant perfume.  On that couch, christened the Couch of Passion by gossipers, Wendy Paterson and Joe the truck driver were said to have tangled rapturously on many an occasion.  Of this there was no evidence, only the persistent rumors.  And in the very back of the room in question, there was a door leading to the basement.  When the supervisor opened it, he saw a stairway leading down into darkness, but made out, on the floor below, a teeming, writhing mass of waterbugs, outsized roaches so repellent in appearance, so shocking, so frightening, that the supervisor shut the door at once, locked it, and departed.  Rarely, before then or after, was the door opened, for the staff knew too well what lay behind it.  The supervisor had confirmed, insofar as possible, that in the nether back reaches of the Foster Street branch there was indeed a surfeit of biology, human and otherwise, but there was nothing to be done about it.

     A lighter, albeit sadder note was provided annually by Amelia Hudson, a spinsterish librarian who served diligently but cheerlessly throughout the year, and at the annual holiday party in December, by popular demand that became a little less fervent each year, did her legendary comic performance of “Bill Bailey, Won’t You Please Come Home.”  Throwing herself into the role of a grieving woman pleading with her estranged boyfriend to return, Miss Hudson pulled out all the stops, a little more each year, ending up kneeling on the floor, arms outstretched, pleading with tearful resonance. Though she hammed it up outrageously, hilarious laughter followed, tempered with the embarrassed realization, a little more poignant every year, that this was her one chance to let go a bit, to express a surge of bottled-up emotions, to do what she had longed all her life to do: to be passionately human.

     So much for the annals of the Judson City Public Library, proof indeed that life in a library can be anything but dull.


The book:  My selection of posts from this blog has won first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards.  Sheri Hoyte, in the accompanying review, calls the book "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City….  I highly recommend it to all fans of entertaining short stories and lovers of New York City.  It would also make an interesting travel guide for people who just want to learn more about the city that never sleeps."  (The full review is also included in post #223 of March 27, 2016.)  As always, the book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  


     Coming soon:  Computers Are Stupid.  Also possible: little shops of New York; New York graffiti; construction in New York: ubiquitous and maddening, and won't it ever stop?
     ©   2016   Clifford Browder

227. The Looks of Desire, of Crime, of Spiritual Energy

     What’s in a look? Everything!  Here are my random thoughts on the subject.
The look of desire
Every woman and every gay guy knows this look, though straight guys are often so busy looking at women that they forget that women may be looking at them.  Once, back in my young youth years ago at Nantucket, where I arrived just before a hurricane, I was sitting at a counter in a restaurant, when the good-looking older man sitting next to me, whom I knew vaguely from a quick introduction the night before, reached over and took off my glasses.
     “Hey!” I exclaimed in mild protest, but he refused to return them, looking instead at me with the look of desire.  But his look was not burning hot; it was detached, as if filing me away for future use.  He looked in silence for a minute or two, and I returned his look without a word, not registering interest but noncommittal calm.  Finally he returned the glasses and I put them back on.  All this without a word between us.  A curious little game, new to me.
     The beginning of a torrid romance?  Not at all.  His action had surprised me, annoyed me, and flattered me; it was like a gentle rape.  But I wasn’t about to get involved, for I had been told that his usual breakfast was a string of gins, and that I wasn’t going to sign on for.  Instead, I ended up in a short-term relationship with a habitual liar whose lies reached the point where I had to break it off, and abruptly.  Maybe the gin drinker would have been a better bet.
    That look of desire had no guilt in it.  On other occasions I got look of desire that was direct, searing, and guilt-ridden, usually from a guy from the Bible Belt for whom a same-sex attraction was the ultimate in sin; sad.  And in my first year at Columbia as a grad student, I found myself on the fifteenth floor, the top, where no less than a third to a half of the residents were gay.  Pure coincidence, though we joked about it.  One of my neighbors, Walter, was friendly and full of good humor, but we all noticed that he had a look that was almost savage in its intensity, even when he wasn’t looking at his friends with desire.  Was he too from the Bible Belt?  I don’t know, but maybe so; certainly he was apt at citing the Bible, with hilarious effect.
     So much for looks of desire.  We all have a story or two to tell on the subject.
The criminal look
     My father was a corporation lawyer whose specialty was the intricacies of law regarding railroads.  But he told me once how, in law school, one of his professors insisted that there was a certain hardened look that characterized veteran criminals – a look that could not be used as evidence in court, which he thought unfortunate.  He insisted that you could recognize a criminal by this look, though the arguments against such use are obvious.
     Once I encountered this look.  It was in a Village bar on Bleecker Street long ago, a bar where gay men and women of all ages rubbed elbows with adventurous straights, a sprinkling of tourists, and real and pseudo bohemians – a racy mix much to my liking.  One evening I saw a man perhaps in his thirties who seemed to know some of the regulars, and from the talk around me I learned that he was fresh out of prison, incarcerated for what offense I do not know.  I caught his glance once or twice and yes, there was a hardened look that I had never seen before – surely the hardened look described by the law professor.  I can’t explain or analyze it; all I know is, it said to me DANGER  KEEP  AWAY.  Needless to say, I did.
The look of spiritual energy
     This look I have never experienced, but I know that it exists.  Gurus – the real ones – and healers have it, and no doubt saints and saints-to-be.  A Catholic student of mine once went to Italy to meet the Padre Pio, a Capuchin  friar whom he was certain would be posthumously canonized.  He did indeed meet him, and while he didn’t describe the man’s look, he said that, at once glance, the Padre knew that he, the student, was not in a state of grace, which he wasn’t.  Certainly the Padre had remarkably powers of insight.  And my student was right; the Padre, who died soon after this incident, was canonized in 2002.
     A friend of mine named Gary told me how he had heard the Dalai Lama speak during a visit to New York.  Asked if he could love even the Chinese Communists who had even threatened his life, the Dalai Lama replied, “It is very difficult, but … I love them.”  This reply so impressed Gary that he resolved to save up all he could so he could go to India to thank the Dalai Lama in person for this feat of love and forgiveness.  He did get there and did meet the Dalai Lama and chat with him, but that is not the point of this story.  Before going to the Dalai Lama’s residence-in-exile, he attended a large gathering to hear a famous Indian guru speak.  There were thousands there, and foreigners were seated in a special section.  When the guru arrived, he walked down an aisle right beside the section for foreigners, and for the briefest instant Gary’s eyes met his.  Instantly Gary felt spiritual energy pass from the guru’s eyes into his – a unique experience that he could attest to without being able to explain it. 
     Though I myself have never experienced it, I have no doubt that such energy exists and that it can be transmitted from one person to another.  Westerners may scoff, since this cannot be verified scientifically at present, but I suspect that someday science will catch up with the wisdom of Eastern traditions of spirituality and healing.  Whether it is in my lifetime or not, I hope that it will happen.
     So much for these three varieties of looks.  There are many more, I’m sure.  Tell me if you have experienced any; I’m eager to hear.
     Modern Art Strikes Again:  Never underestimate the ability of great art to take us to a new place, to reveal exciting fresh dimensions of human experience.  The Guggenheim Museum is installing a sculptural masterpiece by Maurizio Cattelan in a small room devoted to quiet meditation and other modes of experience: a functioning solid-gold toilet that will meet the needs of visitors while also commenting acerbly on today’s art market.  Visitors will no doubt form long lines awaiting admission – singly, I assume – to view and utilize this break-through innovation and in the process, I hope, achieve new insights into art and the human experience.  I trust that it uses a minimum of water in flushing.



    The book:  My selection of posts from this blog has won first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards, which can be accessed here.  Sheri Hoyte, in the accompanying review, calls the book "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City….  I highly recommend it to all fans of entertaining short stories and lovers of New York City.  It would also make an interesting travel guide for people who just want to learn more about the city that never sleeps."  (The full review is also included in post #223 of March 27, 2016.)  As always, the book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  


     Coming soon:  Annals of the Judson City Public Library: Dark Deeds Revealed, Things the Public Never Knew.  The whole scandalous story at last exposed.  
     ©   2016   Clifford Browder

226. Kitty Genovese Remembered

     Long ago, in a 2012 vignette about horrors that I had seen from my apartment window, I recounted briefly, as a kind of prelude, the 1964 murder in Queens of a young woman named Kitty Genovese.  Her tragic story has come again to mind, fifty-two years later, for reasons explained below.  But first, here is my account of the murder, excerpted from vignette #13 (also found on pp. 138-40 in chapter 18 of my book No Place for Normal: New York):
     Kitty Genovese was a young woman who, returning late one winter night from work, was attacked while approaching her apartment building in Kew Gardens, Queens. The assailant stabbed her twice, she screamed for help, he fled. She then managed to stagger into a back hallway of her building, where she collapsed. The attacker, eager (as he confessed later) "to kill a woman," returned, searched for her, found her in the hallway, stabbed her many more times, raped her, robbed her, and fled. Summoned by a neighbor, the police now finally arrived; she died in an ambulance en route to a hospital. Some days later, a New York Times article reported that 38 neighbors had witnessed the attack, heard her screams, done nothing. The story spread throughout the media as an example of the callousness and apathy of New Yorkers, their refusal to "get involved." The occupants of her building were so vilified that some of them moved out. The Times's account has been repeated ever since in psychology textbooks and other print media, on TV, and even in song.     But is it true? As regards the indifferent witnesses, the answer is no; surprisingly, the Times article was based more on hearsay than fact. The police interviewed about a dozen witnesses, but not 38; where that number came from no one seems to know. It was a cold winter night; many neighbors had their windows shut, didn't hear the screams; those who did, saw the attacker leaving or a young woman, possibly drunk, staggering toward the building. No one witnessed the second attack, which occurred in a back hallway. Those who heard a disturbance dismissed it as a lovers' quarrel or drunken brawl. Some neighbors even insisted that they did indeed call the police, but with no result. And contrary to legend, no one drew a chair up to their window so as to watch in comfort the horrors being perpetrated below. Shocking as the murder was, the story about the witnesses -- still lodged today in most people's minds -- was far more myth than fact. The assailant was arrested subsequently on other charges, confessed to this and two other murders, was declared "medically insane," and is now serving an indeterminate term in prison, having been repeatedly denied parole. The Times has never issued a retraction, but many sources now challenge the accuracy of its original article. To which I'll add this personal note: out-of-towners don't always realize the daily noise level of the city and how New Yorkers have to tune it out. If I hear a shout in the street, that in itself means nothing. If I hear what seems to be a cry for help, I have to investigate, since I may have been mistaken, or it may be a bunch of kids just fooling around. On the other hand, a repeated cry for help has to be taken seriously and in my experience usually is.     Some good did come of the Genovese tragedy. The Police Department reformed inefficiencies in its telephone reporting system; some communities organized Neighborhood Watch programs to help people in distress; and psychologists and sociologists investigated the so-called bystander effect or Genovese syndrome. To which I'll add the contents of an e-mail reply that I received when I asked several friends if the name Kitty Genovese meant anything to them. All the present or former residents of the city remembered her and the story of the neighbors' alleged indifference. And one replied: "Kitty Genovese is the reason I stopped the car at two in the morning in a bad neighborhood to help a woman who was screaming for help in the middle of the street while being wrestled to the ground by a very large and angry man. He could have been armed, but I could never have forgiven myself if I hadn't intervened. He backed off when I stopped, and I took her to the police station." For which, I think, a medal should be given….
*                   *                   *                  *                  *                 *
     Kitty Genovese’s story has come to mind again because her assailant, Winston Moseley, died in New York State’s maximum security Clinton Correctional Facility, in Dannemora, N.Y., far upstate near the Canadian border, on March 28, 2016, at the age of 81.  To my knowledge, the New York Times never formally retracted the original article on the murder, replete with errors though it was, but in its obituary of Moseley on April 5 it did so by implication, citing the article as “flawed” and “erroneous.”  In addition to acquitting the neighbors of callous indifference to the crime, it even added a telling detail that belies the earlier account: at considerable risk to herself, a seventy-year-old woman ventured out and cradled the dying victim in her arms until the police finally arrived. 
     The original story of 38 witnesses ignoring the victim’s cries for help did indeed, as the obit states, take on a life of its own, shocking the national conscience and provoking a flood of academic studies of what was termed the “Kitty Genovese syndrome.”  And Kitty Genovese, who was gay and living with a partner, has become a part of the folklore of Queens.  The current residents of Kew Gardens, the site of the attack, are well aware of the story, and the older ones who were there in 1964 still nurse a resentment at the damage done to the neighborhood’s reputation. 

     And Moseley?  Soft-spoken and intelligent, with no criminal record at the time of the assault, he hardly fit the image of a serial killer and psychopath, still less so as a married man and father of two.  But his wife’s working a night shift as a nurse left him free to prowl at night in search of victims, while his mother looked after the kids.  Captured five days later while committing a burglary, he confessed to having killed three women in all, raped eight, and committed 30 or 40 burglaries.  At his trial he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death.  In 1967 the Court of Appeals sentenced him to life imprisonment on the grounds that the trial court had erred in disallowing evidence of his mental condition.  In 1968 he escaped and during a five-day escapade took five hostages and raped a woman, before being recaptured.  In 1977 he earned a degree in sociology, and in an article published by the Times expressed regret for the murder and claimed to be a changed man.  Later appeals for parole were denied, and at the time of his death he was one of the state’s longest-serving inmates.  But for me, the untold story isn’t Moseley and his motivation, but his family: how did they react, when they learned of his arrest?  An untold story that remains untold, and rightly so: their privacy should be respected.

     Note on the New York primary:  With the primary here coming up next Tuesday, April 19, three of the contenders -- Hillary, Bernie, and the Donald -- are trying to convince voters that they are true New Yorkers.  (Cruz from Texas isn't even trying, though he's actually said good things about the state recently, belying numerous other comments.)  So the Times had a true New Yorker, 27-year-old Matt Flegenheimer, a campaign reporter, to assess these claims.  Here is some of what he found.  (For the complete report, see the Times of April 16.)

     Accent:  Trump has some of it, but Bernie (no pun intended) trumps them all.  In this regard Illinois-born Hillary (my home state, as it happens) is no New Yorker, which probably helps her elsewhere.

     Residency:  Trump wins, even if he lives in the sumptuous Trump Tower on snazzy Fifth Avenue.  Bernie deserted the city for Vermont long ago, and Hillary's mansion in affluent Chappaqua in Westchester County, with its five bedrooms and formidable security, isn't exactly a modest brownstone in Brooklyn or the West Village.

     Travel:  Bernie thought the subway still uses tokens, and the Donald gads about in a private jet and limousines.  Hillary tried to ride the subway, albeit with difficulty making the Metrocard work, so she wins.

     Finally, my own guidance for voting next Tuesday and in November: I won't vote for anyone who

Won't release his/her tax returns.  (Obama just did.)Owns more than two homes.Has more than two wives.Has assets stashed away abroad in some place I can't even find on a map.Gets less than $200,000 for giving a talk to Goldman Sachs.Eats wienies.Screams.That last one is tough.  Will I even vote?  Probably, having compared the decibels.


    The book:  My selection of posts from this blog has won first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards, which can be accessed here.  Sheri Hoyte, in the accompanying review, calls the book "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City….  I highly recommend it to all fans of entertaining short stories and lovers of New York City.  It would also make an interesting travel guide for people who just want to learn more about the city that never sleeps."  (The full review is also included in post #223 of March 27, 2016.)  As always, the book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  



     Coming soon:  Something, I don't know what.  I have several ideas cooking.
     ©  2016  Clifford Browder