Matt And Geoff’s Great Brooklyn/Queens Adventure

I was born in Brooklyn and went to high school there (via a bus and two subways). I figured I’d done my time. Did I have to go back?

I asked fellow meteorologist Matt Scott if he wanted to go to the city? Helaine had business on the other side of the state and I’m drawn to New York. I know Matt is too. We just didn’t know what we’d do once we got there!

Not to make a joke of it, but even as we left Connecticut we didn’t have a clue where we’d go or what we’d do.

IMG_1552.jpg“I’ve never been to Brooklyn,” he said.

I was born in Brooklyn and went to high school there (via a bus and two subways). I figured I’d done my time. Did I have to go back?

We drove over the Throgs Neck Bridge, onto the Cross Island and then the LIE.

There are signs on the Throgs Neck stating photography is strictly prohibited. At the same time on any given Saturday and Sunday the Brooklyn Bridge is infested with thousands of tourists and locals–most with cameras. What makes the Throgs Neck so insecure? Do they really think it’s a more tantalizing target than the storied Brooklyn Bridge?

I asked Matt if he’d like to see where I grew up and went to grade school? What was he going to say? I was driving!

A few minutes later we were standing in front of PS 163. The front door was propped open. A man was outside smoking a cigarette.

“I went here 50 years ago,” I began.

Shit, that makes me sound old. Luckily, I’m immature for my age.

Before long we were in the school.

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This building is the equivalent of one of the locales for MSNBC’s prison doc block! It was a school unsuited for me run by a woman I suspect hated me. From grade two to six I suffered inside.

The only saving grace was it was an amazing school for learning–even for someone who fought learning as much as I did! PS163 was firmly grounded in “tracking.” That’s the practice of grouping students of similar abilities together. Tracking has lost favor today. I’d be surprised to hear it’s used anywhere, though it certainly benefited me. I spent five years competing in a class of overachievers.

We had no gym. We had no recess. We had little outdoor activity–ever. Imagine.

There was… there still is a large room in the front of the building where, for a few years, we did some sort of cockamamie square dancing.

I was astounded to see numbers still painted high on the walls. This was where each class lined up in the case of emergency. The numbers corresponded to room numbers. This paint job is at least fifty years old!

PS163 worked out so well I asked Matt if he wanted to see Electchester, where I grew up? Again, to my surprise he said, “Yes.”

Everything looked smaller as we wound our way through the south end of Flushing. We headed to Kissena Blvd. then the LIE’s service road and up Parsons Boulevard where I lived. I put the top up on the convertible and we got out.

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I’ve used this analogy before, but these buildings (and the ones across the street at NYCHA’s Pomonok Houses) are reminiscent of the worst of Soviet style architecture! Considering the two complexes had well over 5,000 residents we were pretty devoid of amenities and services.

Because of how our individual building was turned to the street it was always much more convenient to enter through the basement which was 100% concrete and had asbestos wrapped exposed pipes and conduits. Maybe if I’d used a more formal and ‘softer’ entrance my experience would have been different. I’ll never know.

Matt and I walked around the building as I took photos. I wasn’t about to go in an see who was living in 5E where my family moved in 1953.

Stopping at these two places was amazing even though my experiences at both were sub-optimum. I decided to give Matt his trip to Brooklyn… but would he mind if we stopped at my high school?

We drove down Jewel Avenue to the Van Wyck Expressway then westbound on the LIE to the BQE. Without a GPS the rest was dependent on instinct and luck.

“See that tall antenna?” I asked Matt, pointing at a tall radio tower atop a building. “That’s my high school.”

We took the turns I thought would get us there while Matt tried to keep the antenna in sight. When we turned onto Fulton Street we were home free.

The neighborhood has really changed for the better. The brownstones on Ft. Greene Place were decrepit and often abandoned when I went to Tech. Now the neighborhood is gentrified. Don’t think of looking at a brownstone for less than seven figures.

I remember getting off the GG (now G) train at Fulton Street and walking by three bars before turning toward the school. Even at that early morning hour I remember watching drunks stumble out as I walked down the street. The bars are gone. The new stores are nice.

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Brooklyn Tech is currently surrounded by scaffolding. There’s some sort of major renovation going on. This is, after all, a school built as a stimulus project during the Great Depression. It’s aged.

We walked three sides of the immense school building stopping at every outside door to see if it was open. At the very last door we saw three men at a car. The adjacent door to the school was slightly ajar.

“Do you work here?”

New Yorker’s aren’t usually quick and free with information, but they answered yes.

“I graduated forty years ago and haven’t been back since. Can we go in?”

The boss looked at one of his workers and told him to take us in. We couldn’t stay long. There was work to be done.

No matter how large a high school you went to mine was larger! Allow me to sing.

Tech alma mater molder of men.

Proudly we rise to salute thee again.

Loyal we stand now six thousand strong.

The rest of the song is inconsequential. Six thousand boys went to Tech. That’s the important part.

Most of the school was eight stories tall with five corridors per floor. A smaller part of the building went to eleven stories. Yes, we had elevators, but you could only use them between certain designated floors.

“What’s that up there?” Matt asked looking at a glass covered area on the highest floor.

“That’s the foundry.”

Yeah, we had a foundry. In high school I poured molten pig iron! I know what a cope and drag are and how to make a wooden pattern for pouring.

Tech was where you learned to be an engineer. Our course of study was perfectly designed to fill the needs of 1940’s America. Alas, it was a little long in the tooth upon my arrival in 1964.

We stopped for a few photos in the 3,000+ seat auditorium and a look at some of the intricate work produced by government employed WPA artisans. Remember, Tech was built both as a school and as a make-work project to employ people during a horrific economic crisis.

Again, this was a great stop. I was totally shocked we’d been let in. Thank you unknown custodial staff. I appreciate your kindness.

When Matt originally mentioned Brooklyn it was because of a weekly flea market he’d read about. It was in the neighborhood and we headed right there.

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As is the case with much of New York City this flea market was a veritable United Nations. Every possible shade of skin as well as an immense variety of accents were represented. There was enough diversity to make everyone a minority.

It’s tough to describe what was being sold because so much of it was totally off-the-wall. Yes, there were books about Hitler. Yes, there was a Jesus Christ Action Figure.

“It has wheels,” said the guy trying to sell it.

Like Tech this was a bad neighborhood at one time. Not anymore. I said to myself, “I could live here,” though I’m not really sure that’s true. Certainly on this lazy summer’s afternoon it was quite lovely and inviting.

The flea market closed at five and we were back in the car heading toward the Brooklyn Bridge. Last August I’d walked the bridge with my friend Steve. I thought Matt would enjoy it too. I had only the vaguest of guesses where the bridge was as we set out.

“There it is,” Matt blurted, but he was looking at the Manhattan Bridge.

Typical out-of-towner mistake. A bridge is a bridge–right? But knowing where the Manhattan Bridge was the same as knowing where the Brooklyn Bridge was because they’re so close to each other.

We found on-the-street parking a few blocks from the entrance to the bridge’s walkway. A whole day in New York City without paying for parking! My father is proud!

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The Brooklyn Bridge provides an incredible vista from which to view the city. Crossing the East River the bridge connects Downtown Brooklyn with Downtown Manhattan. It’s about a one mile walk.

I bought a bottle of water from a vendor and we headed over.

I cannot recommend this trek enough. Looking south you see Lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. In the distance tall cranes mark the port facilities in New Jersey.

To the north is the nearby Manhattan Bridge and a glimpse into Midtown. The Empire State Building dominates most northward views.

The East River is a working river. There’s plenty of commercial traffic though not the international fleet found on the Hudson.

There were lots of interesting looking people on the bridge, but none more interesting than the couple (by her accent, French) who found a girder with hand rails which led over the auto roadway to the edge of the bridge. It looked scary. They had just begun to head back when I spotted them.

After the bridge roundtrip we were hungry and found the Water Street Restaurant and Lounge. Surprisingly it wasn’t busy. I had a Cajun Blackened Sirloin Burger with BBQ Sauce, Andouille Sausage, Crisp Onion Ring, Cheddar Cheese. Matt had the Norwegian Lox Sandwich with Avocado, Pickled Cucumbers, Lime Mayo on Black Rye.

Good choice! Dinner was tasty.

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Our last stop was the area under the two bridges. This being the weekend there were weddings taking place with the Manhattan skyline as backdrop. When you get married down by the banks of the East River you’re inviting anyone around to stop and watch. It’s really quite sweet, romantic and frugal!

We stayed near the river until the sun went down, then headed home.

We’d set out with no firm plan and yet (even Matt will admit) had a really fun day. It was nice to go back home. It was nice to see how Brooklyn’s changed. It was good for Matt to discover Brooklyn.

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Very Cold January New York City Adventure

We left Connecticut late Thursday morning, driving the 90 or so miles with minimal interruption. Our destination was the Affinia Manhattan Hotel on 7th Avenue, across from Madison Square Garden and Penn Station.


Our story starts with Santa. The old guy knows if you’ve been naughty or nice, sure. He also knows when a deal’s a deal! That’s how Santa found, and placed in our collective stocking, this week’s trip to New York City.

He found a highly rated hotel at half price and show tickets to Legally Blonde The Musical, also half price.

No wonder he’s jolly.

What Santa didn’t care about, being a fulltime resident of the North Pole, was New York City is on sale this time of year because the temperature is also likely to be half off.

We left Connecticut late Thursday morning, driving the 90 or so miles with minimal interruption. Our destination was the Affinia Manhattan Hotel on 7th Avenue, across from Madison Square Garden and Penn Station.

I pulled up to the curb behind another car, barely clearing the intersection. There was no sign of help! We waited.

A few minutes later, Helaine got out, entered the hotel and found the doorman. Within a minute or two, we had traded our SUV for a perforated piece of paper and walked inside.

The Affinia Manhattan is older, though in very good shape. It seems from all outward appearances to be a hotel that caters to tourists, as opposed to businessmen.

As we checked in, we met our first Affinia employee. We would come to find, they are all “Vegas friendly.”

That’s a compliment. Las Vegas is built on a hospitality economy. Everyone who works there knows it, and buys into it. Friendly staff brings return guests (who tip well).

Like the hotel, our room had been in its current state of decoration for a while. It was the largest single hotel room I’ve ever had, with two full size beds, a kitchenette and postage stamp sized bathroom.

Our main view from the 11th floor was 7th Avenue – a blessing and a curse. 7th Avenue is cooking ’round the clock and noisy!

We (meaning Helaine) unpacked the clothes. I set up our ‘comms station’. Passing on the hotel’s $9.95/day Internet, I hooked up via my cellphone. The G3 connection was about T1 speed, meaning 1/6th what I get here at home, though probably faster than what the hotel provides.

Stef had come prepared with a list of places (meaning stores) she wanted to visit. We headed to the subway and Greenwich Village. It was a 10 minutes ride on the “A” train.

At Belvedere Castle in Central Park, the official Weather Service observation site, the high was in the low 30s with a light wind. In the canyons of the city, with Bernoulli’s principle ramping up the wind like water through a garden hose’s nozzle, it felt closer to zero.

We were looking for Marc Jacobs on Bleeker Street. In this lower part of Manhattan, where streets no longer run parallel and perpendicular, it was tough to find. Luckily, along the way I spied the Magnolia Bakery.

This was a place I knew nothing about until Saturday Night Live featured it in “Lazy Sunday” a digital short. Even then, it took Stef’s sense of ‘what’s hot’ to move it onto my radar.

I saw the sign and could only think one thing – cupcakes!

Good God, they’re amazing. I can’t imagine there’s anything healthy about them but you’ll die happy.

As Helaine and Stef looked in stores, I stayed outside, freezing and photographing.

The Village is a very nice, very citified residential neighborhood. People move here to live an affluent lifestyle without looking ostentatious. Sorry, your cover has been blown.

We moved farther south to Century 21, a major discount clothing store across the street from Ground Zero. If you’re wondering whether Lower Manhattan has changed since 9/11, the answer is yes, there’s a huge construction site where WTC towers once stood. Other than that, people move about their business as they always have.

This part of the city is busy because it’s particularly convenient (something lost on me as a kid growing up in Queens). You’re only a few minutes from Midtown, Brooklyn (via the subway) and New Jersey (via the PATH trains) and 25 minutes from Staten Island via the ferry.

Back at the hotel we all changed to more sensible shoes and headed uptown on foot toward the Theater District and Times Square.

Helaine, our organizational beacon, made reservations for dinner at Joe Allen, a well known theater hangout on Restaurant Row (aka 46th Street between 8th> and 9th Avenues). I’d actually been once before, doing an interview there while shooting on location as host of PM Magazine/Buffalo.

Stef and I shared a guacamole dip appetizer. It was smooth in texture with a spicy tang. For the main course, she ordered a warm chicken salad while Helaine and I had meatloaf and mashed potatoes. I was comforted.

When we arrived, the restaurant was empty. When we left, it was full. This is a place that does huge business, mostly timed to make an 8:00 PM curtain. We had other ideas before the show began.

Before heading to the theater, we headed into Times Square and the oversized Toys ‘R Us. It’s tough to explain how large this store is, except to point out it has a full sized, full motion, Jurassic Park dinosaur and a Ferris Wheel!

Some things in life don’t get questioned. Stef wanted to ride and she and Helaine had already decided the ride would be with me (the less height fearful of the parents).

As Ferris Wheels go, with wasn’t particularly high nor particularly scary. After all, it wasn’t put up in a parking lot by safety ambivalent Carny’s! It was, however, indoors. That was the attraction.

Ride finished, we found the door, turned right and walked another block or so to the Palace Theater, where we had tickets to see “Legally Blonde The Musical.”

As with most Broadway houses, it’s been here for a while. The Palace opened in 1913, and much of that old school feel is still in it, though the theater has obviously been refurbished.

It is an immense house with orchestra, mezzanine and balcony&#185.

Ours seats were upstairs in the first row of the mezzanine – an astounding view of both the stage and the orchestra pit. On this Thursday night in mid-January, only the first few rows of the mezzanine were full. I assume the balcony was mostly abandoned as well.

About 20 minutes into the show I said to myself, “This is going much too fast.”

There was too much story with too few details in too little time. It was the theatrical equivalent of fast food. And then, with the story established, Legally Blonde hit its stride.

This is not Shakespeare. It’s a very light, tightly choreographed musical, based on the Reese Witherspoon movie. It’s light and fluffy and… well, it’s blonde! It was a lot of fun.

Years ago, Broadway suffered because the players voices faded over the long distance to the upper deck seats. Not so anymore. Actors wear mics (which you sometimes see protruding from their foreheads).

I’m mention microphones because for this performance, I think there was too much amplification. Less would have been more. Voices could have carried without being overpowering.

Laura Bell Bundy, who we saw in Hairspray, is physically perfect for the lead role, sorority girl Elle Woods. She sings and dances well, but Helaine felt her voice ran out before the show ended, sometime in the second act. Toward the end, it became grating.

The real standouts in the cast were Orfeh, the déclassé hairdresser who explains life to Elle and Christian Borle, the ‘pulled up by his own bootstraps’ law student/love interest.

Orfeh’s voice is strong, brassy and vibrant. Her presence is strong on stage. And, as they read this, my family will find out, she’s working with her husband!

Orfeh is Paulette, the unlucky-in-love Bostonian hairdresser who becomes best friends to Elle Woods, and Karl is Kyle, the UPS man of her dreams. Needless to say, Orfeh is thrilled to get to bend-and-snap for her husband eight times a week on Broadway.

Christian Borle reminds me of Eric Bogosian. That is if Eric Bogosian could sing… and maybe he can – who knows? In one of those weird stage intangibles, he’s really likable, though I can’t give you bullet points why. That’s good, because this part demands likability. When he was on the stage, it was tough to look away.

Oh – there are two other cast members I wanted to mention – Chico and Chloe as Bruiser and Rufus respectively. Both pound dogs, they are incredibly well trained (though you do see food move from actor’s hand to dog’s mouth after each bit of acting) and integral parts of the show.

Stef asked me to go backstage and bring them home. A father hates to disappoint his child, but the show must go on. I resisted.

After a slow start, Legally Blonde finished strong for me. We left in a good mood and hoofed it back downtown to the hotel.

Manhattan was reasonably quiet until we got to the Garden, where the Rangers game was letting out. The crowd was in a good mood. The Rangers had won.

Checkout time at the Affinia is very late – noon. We were out earlier, leaving our bags with the bellman. Breakfast/lunch was at The Bread Factory Cafe on 7th Avenue.

As is so often the case, Helaine and Stef had walked by the day before, stared in the window and decided this particular would be worth our while. I don’t quite know how they do it. Good decision.

I stood at the pasta station as my linguine with rock shrimp and garlic pesto sauce was prepared. It was tasty, and enough carbs to get me going.

Stef and Helaine decided a neighborhood store (Macy*s in Herald Square) was the place to go. I begged off. Stores just don’t do it for me like they do for them.

I cut across 34th Street to 5th and into the Empire State Building. It was me, Clicky, three lenses and three batteries (each of which would fizzle prematurely).

As a native New Yorker, I can’t remember ever going to the Empire State as a kid. It’s a tourist thing, like the Statue of Liberty and the U.N. – something the locals don’t do.

My first trip up was on a Saturday night in the summer of 1967. A fellow student from Brooklyn Tech had gotten his FCC First Class Radiotelephone license and latched on as summer relief transmitter engineer for WABC-TV. It seems like a hell of a responsibility for a 17 year old, but he was working odd hours and making big money in a unionized position.

The observation deck is on the 86th floor. He worked somewhere in the 90s… with windows that opened and a ledge some of the more senior engineers claimed they walked out on. I remember a fresh breeze blowing in toward the rack of transmitters and the glow of the city below.

I wish I remembered his name. I’m not sure if I really liked him as much as I liked the idea of going to this very special techie place.

I went back to Empire (as the transmitter guys called it) a few years ago with Stef. This was in my pre-Clicky days. Did it count without Clicky?

Back then, we waited in line for a few hours before taking the two elevators up&#178. Today, there was no crowd and I breezed right through an abandoned rope line and up to the top.

Holy crap it was cold!

The Sun was shining and the sky blue as I stepped onto the deck. Groups of people clustered around the diamond shaped fencing, peering out, trying to figure where they were looking. The city below was familiar. I looked east, trying to find our old apartment complex in far off Queens.

This time of year, the Sun is never very high in the sky. Looking south was very different than looking north. To the north all the detail was distinct. Looking south was looking at buildings in silhouette.

I watched as people took snapshots with the city as the background. It’s tough to make that kind of shot work when all you’re doing is pointing and shooting. Cameras are designed to compensate and correct exactly what you want to show uncorrected!

One of the most fascinating parts of the observatory are the pigeons. “How did they get up here,” I heard someone ask?

Hello – they’re birds. They fly. There are numerous ledges. They don’t have to do it all at once.

I kept my mouth shut. I wanted to say it, but resisted.

These city pigeons, used to people and cognizant of the protective fence, stayed mere inches away. They were scoping us out as we returned the favor.

I came prepared, bringing all my gear. I didn’t bring enough battery power. I knew this might be a problem. New batteries were already on order (and arrived at home today) for these fading ones.

Don’t feel sorry for me. I still got plenty of shots. I just had to stop before I wanted to.

Oh – one more thing. By virtue of its incredible height, the Empire State Building is an awful place for cell service! I tried making a few calls. Mostly they failed before they could be completed. When I did get a connection, it didn’t last long.

When you’re on top of the Empire State, it’s very easy to appreciate the wisdom of having this once building tower over all the others. A city of ‘equi-heighted’ skyscrapers would look wrong and the effect of this observatory would be diminished.

I met the girls for our last stop before leaving. It was a snack at Pinkberry on 32nd> Street, a street of mainly Korean businesses and Asian faces.

This was a Stef call. Pinkberry is trendy. Stef likes trendy. The American Express ads touting Pinkberry’s “swirly goodness” only add to that aura.

It’s not ice cream. It’s not yogurt. And, I’m told, it’s not terribly caloric.

Pinkberry was the coldest dessert I’ve ever had… and on a day that was already cold! There’s no doubt, it was tasty and really pretty.

I’m hoping Pinkberry doesn’t come after me, as the store has a lovely ‘no photography’ decal on the glass.

So, here we are, home again. This adventure is over. It’s amazing what we were able to accomplish in about 24 hours.

This explains why I came home and crashed!

&#185 – Writing in the NY Times before the Palace opening of Beauty and the Beast, Alex Witchel wrote, “Even if the cost is $11.9 million, that’s still a lot of money by Broadway standards, if not Disney’s. Can jealous fellow producers at least hope it will take years to recoup the investment, especially given the Palace’s hard-to-sell second balcony?”

&#178 – The first elevator goes from the ground floor to the 80th. You change there for 86.

Rand McSteffie

Steffie’s college roommate is back at school for some summer classes. Steffie thought it might be nice to bring her their shared television and some other things we’d stored here in Connecticut. So yesterday afternoon, with her friend Sam in tow, Steffie set out for Long Island.

It’s really not a difficult trip and before long they were there.

Flash forward to departure time. By this time Sam, suffering from a headache, dozes off in the front seat. Steffie hops onto the Meadowbrook and heads home.

Everything was going so well, so smoothly until she got to the Cross Island Parkway. That’s how Helaine and I get to the Throgs Neck Bridge. The problem is, just at the point you exit to the Cross Island there’s a sign beckoning you to a different exit for the Throgs Neck!

Confused, Steffie followed the sign… and so began her great adventure through the boroughs!

Instead of heading north, into the Bronx, she was heading west toward Manhattan. Somehow she got on the Long Island Expressway, driving past the apartment where I grew up, past Queens College and the New York World’s Fair site.

Her exact route isn’t certain. She doesn’t totally remember and probably had no way of knowing anyway. I am reconstructing it from a conversation we had a little after 1:00 AM.

“You know that tunnel,” Steffie asked?

“Did you go up on a very high section of roadway with a great view of Manhattan?”

Holy crap! Steffie had made her way to Long Island City and was heading into the Queens Midtown Tunnel.

“It went on forever and was really narrow,” she said.

She’s right. The twin tubes of the Midtown Tunnel run around 1¼ miles. The lanes are narrow and the tunnel does curve. Even worse, as you leave you’re faced with three choices, “Uptown, Midtown and Downtown,” none of which would make any sense to Steffie!

She remembers Lexington Avenue and seeing Times Square on her right. She was totally lost.

“You know the glass building?”

Glass building? I looked at my toes – where all answers emanate. Glass building… uh… “You mean the Javits Center?”

It was around this time in the conversation that Steffie admitted that she knew she’d drive in Manhattan at some point, but had hope she’d wait until she was around 40.

Back in the car she pulled into a parking lot, hoping to find an attendant. No dice there. She yelled across at a taxicab stopped at a light. As he explained, the light turned green.

The time between a green light and horn honk in Manhattan is measured in milliseconds.

The were signs for the Holland Tunnel. She knew she didn’t want to be there. There were also signs pointing toward the George Washington Bridge. That sounded more familiar.

She didn’t know it at the time, but she was now heading north on the West Side Highway.

On family trips, we often make a decision as we approach the George Washington Bridge. If there’s heavy traffic on the bridge heading into the Bronx, we continue north and wind our way through the Bronx and Westchester. If the coast’s clear, we take the easy way – I-95, the Cross Bronx Expressway.

Steffie looked at the bridge and decided to continue. It’s lucky for her she did, because as it turns out, she would have taken the GWB. She would have headed across the Hudson into New Jersey!

Heading north, the West Side Highway becomes the Henry Hudson Parkway. She drove through the toll, over the Henry Hudson Bridge and into the Riverdale section of the Bronx.

Now nothing looked familiar! Exits came and went, but no names she recognized… until Mosholu Parkway.

Unfortunately for Steffie, she knew the name because we’d had brunch at the Mosholu, a boat moored on the Delaware River in Philadelphia. She took the Mosholu anyway.

Even with a map, it’s tough to reconstruct her trip from here. She did panic a little when she saw signs pointing to Albany. A little after that, a sign for the Hutchinson River Parkway.

Steffie headed north on the “Hutch,” finally breathing a sigh of relief as she passed the “Entering Greenwich” sign. She was back in Connecticut.

The 100 minute trip had taken her four hours. She had visited Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx and was within a few hundred yards of Brooklyn.

Steffie probably expected Helaine or me to get angry. We didn’t.

Do I wish she would have called me at some point? Of course.

It’s a great story we’ll have forever… one of those family fables grandparents will someday tell grandchildren about their mother.