New York City Memories

Paladin1950

Paladin1950

Still love 50's & 60's music!
Location
Mohawk Valley, NY
New York City had more eccentric characters in it than any other city I've been to or visited. Maybe that's why I loved watching Seinfeld so much.
This will be in at least 9 parts.
#1 The Shepherd of New York. I was walking down West End Avenue one Saturday morning, coming from my bank. Up ahead, I saw a man walking what appeared to be a large furry gray dog on a leash. I started to walk faster because I wanted to see what breed of dog it was. When I got close, I realized to my amazement, he wasn't walking a dog at all. He was instead, walking a full grown sheep. The landlord probably told him no cats and dogs, so he instead went out and got himself a sheep. I laughed and thought to myself, "Only in New York City!"

Rooster Man. There was a silver haired elderly gentleman with glasses that hung out on the sidewalks of the upper west side (Manhattan). Every so often, he would let loose with a loud cock a doodle doo. He crowed just like a rooster. If you were walking near him at the time, it would scare the hell out of you. Kids would go over and ask him to crow. One day I saw him on West End Avenue or Riverside Drive. He crowed of course. I must have been 8 or 9 blocks away about 30 or so minutes later. Suddenly along with the regular sounds of the city, I heard him let loose with another one of his cock a doodle doos, I looked back in admiration, and thought, "Man, that guy can really crow!"
 

#3 Jesus Christ. I was walking down 14th Street in Manhattan one morning. Coming my way, was a man in a white cloak, he had a thorn head band on, and was carrying a large cross over one of his shoulders. Two business men were crossing the street, and one looked back at the messiah. The other said, "Don't look! Don't Look!" Which I thought was rather stupid. I mean, how often do you get to see Jesus Christ on your way to work? When I arrived at work, I said to a female co-worker, "Guess who I saw on my way to work?" She said, "I don't know." So I told her Jesus Christ. She gave me a look like she was sizing me up for a straight jacket.

#4 The Little Old Lady From New York City. I was riding my bike to work one morning. I stopped at a red light. I noticed an elderly woman in a car, who also stopped for the light. The light turned green, and she was ready to go, but a city bus made a turn crossing in front of her. She slammed on her breaks, started cursing, and gave the bus driver the finger. I laughed so hard, I almost fell of my bike.
 
#5 Walking Satellite. I was waiting on a subway platform one evening. I noticed someone coming down the stairs wearing a humongus silver orb on their head. It had a lot of little windows going around it. His train (or her's, but I doubt it) arrived. But only one of the car's doors opened. As he attempted to enter the car, the huge orb got stuck between the open door and the closed one.

The conductor kept calling out for him to get into the car, so the train can start going. Finally he managed to force his large silver orb head through the door. He went stumbling into the train, with the orb spinning around on his head. The passengers in the train were stunned at what they were seeing. He straightened the globe to the proper position, and then sat down as if nothing happened. As the train pulled away, the people in that train were still staring in shock, while we on the platform, were in belly laughs.
 

#6 Paladin and the Fat Man. One Sunday morning, I left my apartment to go to the local newstand, to get a copy of the Sunday Daily News. As I approached the stand, there were 5 or 6 other people there also. Suddenly out of the corner of my eye, I saw a large person come near me. As he was trying to pass me, he banged against me, which sent me stumbling sideways. He turned and glared at me like it was my fault that he was fat and got in my way. I immediately recognized him. It was actor Charles Durning. I had seen him in some movies.
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#7 Super Hero. I was reading a newspaper on the subway platform, waiting for my train. Someone shot by on roller blades and was going towards the end of the platform. I didn't think much of it at the time. My train arrived, I got up and went in. I sat down and resumed reading the paper as the train pulled away. Suddenly the train's car opened up and a person all in black entered. He had a leather pilot's cap on his head, what looked to be a gas mask on his face, and he was wearing a cape. He was on roller blades. All the windows in the train was open being it was summer.

He shot through the car on his roller blades, going as fast as he could. As he was skating through the car, he was leaning and his cape was flying in the wind off his back. He looked like some kind of super hero flying through the train. He left us all laughing with tears in our eyes.
 
#8 Plastic Packing Peanuts Snow Storm. I was at my job on Jane Street in the Village (Greenwich). I was outside on the sideIwalk packing items in a large crate for shipping. I poured in a couple bags of we called plastic peanuts. They're used for shipping valuable or breakable items.
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Suddenly a large wind came up, and just scooped up about half of the plastic peanuts that I put in, and they went flying down Jane Street like a snowstorm. I watched them blow down the street in the air. Suddenly a man, turned onto Jane Street, and found himself in a plastic snowstorm. He seemed to be freaking out about the summer snowstorm. I couldn't help it. I laughed myself silly.
 
#9 Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Movie King Kong. In 1983, New York City celebrated the 50th anniversay of the movie since it was the setting for some of the movie. One theater was showing the movie at 1933 admission prices, 10Ā¢. Not only that, they also included all of the scenes that were edited out of the movie in 1933, because people thought it was too shocking back then. It made it seem a lot different than watching it over the years on television. The city erected a 84 foot tall balloon of King Kong, and attached it to the Empire State Building.

Well I soon forgot about the giant balloon ape. One day I was riding my bike to work. I glanced up and saw this humongous ape climbing up the Empire State Building. It startled me so bad, I must of jumped 5 feet off of my bike seat.
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I lived in NYC for 4 years. My list isn't as eloquent as Paladin1950's.
1. At 8 AM, there's a disabled car on the Van Wyck Express. By 4 PM, the only part not stolen was the frame, which couldn't fit in a trunk.
2. Buying cheap stuff from some guy out of the trunk of his car.
3. ONE Christmas card from Tiffany's - $250
4. It doesn't matter if you live in the most expensive penthouse or a tiny basement apt., you will have either mice or roaches.
5. Finding just the furniture, for which you've been searching, sitting on the sidewalk on trash day.
6. You've never seen the person, who lives next door. OR living next to him for years, you're use to him, and he seems almost normal.
7. There's nothing in the universe that can't be stolen.
8. If you have a problem, there's always someone, who "knows a guy........."
9. The hot dog carts have the best tasting hot dogs
 
fuzzybuddy said:
I lived in NYC for 4 years. My list isn't as eloquent as Paladin1950's.
1. At 8 AM, there's a disabled car on the Van Wyck Express. By 4 PM, the only part not stolen was the frame, which couldn't fit in a trunk.
2. Buying cheap stuff from some guy out of the trunk of his car.
3. ONE Christmas card from Tiffany's - $250
4. It doesn't matter if you live in the most expensive penthouse or a tiny basement apt., you will have either mice or roaches.
5. Finding just the furniture, for which you've been searching, sitting on the sidewalk on trash day.
6. You've never seen the person, who lives next door. OR living next to him for years, you're use to him, and he seems almost normal.
7. There's nothing in the universe that can't be stolen.
8. If you have a problem, there's always someone, who "knows a guy........."
9. The hot dog carts have the best tasting hot dogs
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Oh I ate so many of those hot dogs, Especially in the early 1970's when they were about 50Ā¢ a piece.
 
This episode I'll relate might leave you sophisticates kinda blasƩ. Just the Impressions of a western Canadian concerning his one and only very brief visit to NYC. I'd taken a train eastward across Canada. I was a one-man journalistic team, with a very compact tape recorder slung from one shoulder, and a bag of camera equipment slung over the other.

Working for a while in Montreal, I decided to take Amtrak down for a few days NYC. So I'm a yokel, getting off in Grand Central, about to walk out to grab a taxi to get to where I was going to stay. As I'm walking through, I notice something I've never seen before or since anywhere else. Some tall, beefy uniformed cops are casually standing around joking and bantering back and forth with obvious prostitutes.šŸ˜³ Out in the bustling public space, and nobody's getting arrested.ā˜ŗļø !!!

I kept walking. But one cop walked over to me and said, "better pull that camera bag around front and keep a hand on it. Around here, somebody might come up behind you, cut the strap with a razor, and sprint off with your gear!"
 
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MY most vivid memory having never been there was the film "Bare Foot in the Park which I am still convinced was originally in B/W - now I am seeing clips in technicolor - OMG - bring back my b/w world !!
 
Never been to NY - yea ya don't not what ya missing but I am rather crazy about Katherine Hepburn so I have seen her walking around in her shared garden to her own large 4 sty town house. The gardens looked lovely on this rare footage and she talked about it with Clive James the ozzie interviewer. Like all others he tried to get her to talk about Spencer but couldn't. Looked a lovely place to live in??
 
I was told not to look anyone in the eye on the subway. Unfortunately, I did and lived to regret it. A rather scary guy was roaming the car, preaching. I looked up at the wrong time and apparently looked like someone who needed preaching to.

He knelt down in front of me and attempted to save my soul until my stop. I wasn't "scared" per se, but I was uncomfortable about it.
 
jujube said:
I was told not to look anyone in the eye on the subway. Unfortunately, I did and lived to regret it. A rather scary guy was roaming the car, preaching. I looked up at the wrong time and apparently looked like someone who needed preaching to.

He knelt down in front of me and attempted to save my soul until my stop. I wasn't "scared" per se, but I was uncomfortable about it.
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Reminds me of when I took my friend and his daughter (15) down from Vermont to the city. We took the subway and she was horrified when she saw the creatures who dwell down there. That and the old man kicking the dead chicken down the street in Harlem was all the NYC site's they wanted.
 
I never lived in Manhattan but spent time there including looking for a job for the better part of a year. An early memory is sitting at an open window in a cafe in Greenwich Village. A man stopped to chat. He was completely covered in tattoos and carried an open can of ripe olives which he offered around. We declined but wished him well. Tattoos were mostly on sailors back in 1957.
 
Babs2u said:
I never lived in Manhattan but spent time there including looking for a job for the better part of a year. An early memory is sitting at an open window in a cafe in Greenwich Village. A man stopped to chat. He was completely covered in tattoos and carried an open can of ripe olives which he offered around. We declined but wished him well. Tattoos were mostly on sailors back in 1957.
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And I wish they'd have stayed there: on male sailors...:rolleyes:
The first time I was in NYC by myself was in 1962. I was walking down the street in Greenwich Village, and stopped to look at something. A bum walked up to me and started asking me questions. No wanting to engage with him I answered either "yup", or "nope". He said are you from New York? "Nope". Jersey? "Nope". Texas?....šŸ˜„
 
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Driving. 1984. VW Bug. Manhattan...the time could be anytime. Lesson: Wait 1 full second before proceeding through a stop light when it signals for you to go. Someone has probably ran the red light is gonna crash into you if you go. Simple rule that saves lives and is working with the law to make our land.a safe and beautiful place. :)
 
Babs2u said:
I never lived in Manhattan but spent time there including looking for a job for the better part of a year. An early memory is sitting at an open window in a cafe in Greenwich Village. A man stopped to chat. He was completely covered in tattoos and carried an open can of ripe olives which he offered around. We declined but wished him well. Tattoos were mostly on sailors back in 1957.
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Greenwich Village was a place I wanted to visit. Early one evening before the sun went down, I was there. On the sidewalks were 1980s-style hipsters, and varied intriguing looking types in their 20s & 30s... they were all in good spirits. There was one old-school marxist guy in his 60s, walking along touting revolution-oriented newsprint pamphlets he hoped might be of interest to some. I perceived him as a forlorn relic, a surprising anachronism, as I figured Russia & Mao's China had ended North American interest in that credo.

I bought a pizza from Italians in a family-run cafƩ I stepped into. Let me say honestly, that was one of the very best pizzas I've had in my life. After that, I went to Gerde's Folk City, a famous coffee house with a simple dais at close quarters to all the little chairs around the many small tables, each topped with a stubby candle. Charming singers with guitars and other acoustic instruments. I did enjoy my whole evening in G.V.
 

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