Moving Van Day

One of the reasons Ollie and I moved in with my former husband two days ago is that I don’t relish the idea of Ollie becoming a temporary media celebrity by being trapped in a moving van, lost somewhere on I-95 between New York City and Portland, Maine. If he’s not in the apartment while the movers are working, we can avoid a scary 15 minutes of fame.

So while Ollie lounges around watching soap operas across town, I'll be overseeing the emptying of our home, counting boxes as they go onto the truck and saying goodbye to the good neighbors who have helped make my life on Bedford Street the pleasure it has been for 23 years.

As Chinatown has expanded northward during the past two decades and SoHo has creeped south, Little Italy has been squeezed between, reduced now to only two or three blocks identified mostly by Ferrara’s Bakery. There was a time, however, half a century ago, when my neighborhood was still part of a much larger Little Italy.

When I moved to Bedford Street in 1983, the Italian social club was still here, three doors down from my house. Young toughs, who became my friends and looked out for me when I came home late at night alone, manned the door to the club and it was rumored that private, big-money poker games took place there on Wednesday and Saturday nights.

Limousines often lined the curb in those days and on three or four occasions I spied John Gotti visiting the club.

There were still a number of Italian widows here when I moved to this block. Mary, then in her eighties, lived next door. She had moved into that apartment when she arrived from Italy as a teenager in about 1915 – the bride, in an arranged marriage, of a young man who had immigrated a few years earlier.

Mary told me about the five children she raised in her top floor apartment and the wood-fired, community oven, in the basement of what is now a high-end restaurant half a block away, where the women took their bread for baking and chickens for roasting in the days when they had only a cooktop in their kitchens.

Like my building, most of the others here have been gentrified now and there aren’t many Italian families remaining. Mary’s children and most of the others have left the neighborhood for Long Island, New Jersey and parts west.

One once-large family still here runs the local laundry which was, until sometime in the 1970s, a funeral parlor. The stained glass windows are still there in the back near the dryers.

The owner, Jerry – by consensus, the “mayor of Bedford Street” – is an affable, streetwise Noo Yawka, now about 60, who grew up on the block and will happily tell you - once you're friends - about the scams and such that have been known to be run here (and likely still are). His wife, who also grew up in the neighborhood, died of cancer about 15 years ago, and now two of her sisters, Dee and Roe, keep the laundry humming.

The laundry is the local gossip rag, better than any neighborhood newspaper could be. Anything that happens here – births, deaths, marriages, divorces, who just got a job, was laid off or retired, new arrivals and departures, where they're from, where they're going, what prices have been paid for apartments – it's all reported at the laundry, sometimes in unnerving detail.

During my first year here, Jerry's teenage children and others who still lived here scared the bejesus out of me on the Fourth of July. Long a tradition on the block, it was an all-day sidewalk barbecue, firecracker and cherry bomb extravanza that began at noon and didn’t stop until midnight. They must have bought literally a ton of fireworks - it sounded like World War III for a nerve-shattering 12 hours and the next morning I was literally ankle deep, outside my door, in shreds of firecracker paper. I learned to leave on that holiday for next few years until the kids grew up and left.

When I moved in, what is now the corner deli was a flower shop and for a short while after that, it became chi-chi restaurant catering to celebrities. When I tried to make a reservation, a week or two after it opened, I was told nothing was available for three months. Yeah, right.

I’ve never understood why that sort of snotty restauranteur hasn’t noticed that the beautiful people always move on within six months or so to a newer chic hangout and that if you’ve not cultivated a local clientele, the restaurant is doomed – as this one was in less than a year.

For the past 20 years, it’s been a deli run by an Arab family of many brothers. It’s a small space, but somehow they cram in all the necessities of daily life from morning croissants to kitty litter. And they are the kind of people who will always spot you a few dollars when you run short.

I miss Isla which was a Cuban restaurant in the style of Havana in the Fifties before the revolution. I met the members of the Buena Vista Social Club band there on two occasions and I’ve never found another mojito worth drinking like the one the bartenders at Isla concocted – so smooth, so clear, so sparkly you could easily believe you were relaxing on a beach in Cuba. But Isla, sadly, couldn’t survive the city-wide restaurant downturn following 9/11.

Marinella, however, did survive as it has for the 35 or 40 years of its existence. I made it my personal dining room and hardly a week has gone by since 1983, that I haven’t eaten at least one meal there. I’ll go back one more time before I leave for the best grilled calamari in all of New York City – and believe me, I’ve tried that dish in at least 50 restaurants.

Things are changing here. Jerry speaks of selling the laundry and moving to Florida, and it feels like more than idle talk these days; he recently bought a condo on the beach there. Just three weeks ago, a new restaurant opened down the block. It’s a good place for breakfast or lunch, but already it’s become a singles meat market at night - five deep at the bar and too raucous to be able to have a conversation over dinner.

At my building, my buyer also purchased two of the other three apartments that make up the condo which he intends to renovate into one big space - almost returning it to the single-family home it was built as 200 years ago. The fourth apartment, a duplex with a roof garden, was bought last year by a famous, young movie star who lives there with her rock-musician boyfriend.

In 1983, this was a lower-class neighborhood in the early stages of gentrification. Today, it’s mostly rich people and there is no way I could afford to buy in if I were doing it now. But I don’t think it will be as colorful a block with the active street life I've known during my stay.

What I appear to have done in Portland, Maine – without realizing it at first – is to purchase my new home in another lower-class neighborhood in the early stages of gentrification. I’ve been lucky during my life to have sometimes been in the right place at the most interesting time: Sausalito and San Francisco during the beatnik era, Chicago for the 1968 Democratic convention, New York for Woodstock, working in radio during the most innovative and creative period in popular music, and switching to a career on the web in its earliest commercial incarnation a decade ago when we were still inventing it.

And now I think I’ve chosen a new place that, in its own way, will be as interesting as my past choices. I sense a feeling of community in my new neighborhood, Munjoy Hill, and that it won’t be long until I know my neighbors.

And now it’s time to get over to Bedford Street to be there when the van arrives at 6AM. It’s been an entire year bringing the decision to leave New York to its fruition and I’m eager to get this show on the road.

Comments

[Tabor]

Tt seems like your cat you always land on your feet. Thanks for the historic tour of your part of New York. I could see it in my 'minds eye.' Have a safe trip!

[AlwaysQuestion]

Thank you for sharing this, Ronni. I love it that you're looking forward to the new opportunities to come while respecting those you've had.
Looking down the road to my moving day, I don't want to be the guy who's consumed with fear of the future and regrets. You're my role model.

[Suzann]

Thank you Ronni for a most wonderful tour of your old neighborhood. Best wishes as you move forward to make your new dreams come true. Safe journey.

[Cecile Christensen]

Your description of the neighborhood is a rich, detailed one. It reminds me of the places I've lived and the people I've know there. I hadn't thought about them in a very long time.

I appreciate your looks backwards because they prompt me to look back myself. I've seen things again that I hadn't even remembered that I knew.

Thanks for taking the time from your busy move to write so thoughtfully about your surroundings.

[suzz]

What a wonderful tribute to your "old" neighborhood as you take your memories into your next adventure.

[Milt]

Ronni, you paint a beautiful picture of the past. May the future bring you as many interesting memories.

[Rain]

that was a very interesting portrait of your neighborhood through the years. I have never lived in a city but always found them fascinating to walk through and wonder about the coummunities for living. Sounds like your new life will be equally interesting. Good luck with all the moving details.

[Marja-Leena]

What a memoir of a neighbourhood! Here's wishing all the best in the move to a new one! I look forward to the stories of another colourful community.

[Chancy]

Another Op'nin of another Show

"The overture is about to start
You cross your fingers and hold your heart
It's curtain time and away we go -
Another op'nin
Just another op'nin of another show!"

The curtain goes up on your new adventure. Best Wishes Ronni.

[Lorna]

Man, I couldn't stop reading, even though my coffee was getting cold. Personally, now that I'm past the "best before" date, I love hanging out in the meat markets. So much beauty, so much drama.

[Ron Fugarino]

Rick Gillis speaks glowingly of your abilities ... as a displaced New Yorker of some 30 years your few words of the Italian sections of Manhattan made me ache.

Keep writing: you've gifts.

[goldenlucy]

Darling Ronni,
Your show IS on the road. And may it be, if not always smooth, fulfilling and useful.
Much love and many prayers,
lucyd

[Claude]

A great post, which I enjoyed with all its details about your neighbourhood. May your new place bring you as much pleasure as this one! And bon voyage to you and Ollie!

[Joy D]

I've been in the same county for most of my life and have fond memories of the other places I lived. Maybe, as Thoreau said about Concord, I've traveled a great deal in Dickson County. Thanks for helping me experience other places through your words. I'm looking forward to exploring Maine with you.

[donna]

We'll be looking forward to the descriptions of the new neighborhood. Hope the moving goes well!

[kenju]

Mr. kenju will really enjoy reading this post. Good luck, Ronni!

[dus7]

TY, Ronni, for taking the time to remember for us some highlights of the old neighborhood. I enjoyed it very much. Good luck with a smooth move (literally). Calculated and well-thought-out change can help keep us - if not young - certainly more 'fresh'. Best wishes settling into your new home!

[joared]

As you close one door, another door opens wide...
continues to be your experience because you embrace life...life returns your embrace.

[yaakov kirschen]

what a lovely walk thru time and little Italy.
can't wait to follow your new "murder she wrote" lifestyle,
love,
yak
Dry Bones
Israel's Political Comic Strip Since 1973

[TropiGal]

Ronni -- I discovered your website only recently, and I love your attitude, thinking, soul, and writing. Your situation touches me: similar age, thinking of leaving South Florida after 20-odd years-- where everyone seemingly wants to come--becomes it's lost the "old flavor" I knew (and predictions of increasing hurricane activity are distresing).

At any rate, I am saddened to hear of the squeezing out and passing of Little Italy. I well remember attending the Festival of San Gennaro in the mid-1960s, squeezed into a densely packed crowd, watching muscled men try to climb a greased pole. The smells of delicious food, Italian spoken everywhere, our own slice of Europe in the U.S.A. I was attending NYU, fresh from upstate, and dizzy with the variety and intensity of life in the Big City.

I'm looking forward to continuing to read about your adventures and epiphanies. Good thoughts . . .

[Tami]

Oh, Ronni! You paint the most beautifully haunting story with your words! Be safe. Those of us in your online neighborhood will be waiting.

[fp]

Another beautiful post. I'll always remember our long lunch at Marinella's and the walking tour you were kind enough to guide. After you're settled into your new neighborhood we'll come knocking at your door!

[amba]

I met the members of the Buena Vista Social Club band there on two occasions

Omigod -- my heroes!! I cried when Ibrahim Ferrer died a year or two ago . . .

I don't know when it was that I realized all my heroes are old people . . . Desmond Tutu, Wislawa Szymborska, Buzz Aldrin, and Buena Vista Social Club . . .

[Kerowyn]

Your always evocative blogs about your imminent move to Maine have taken on even more meaning for me as I begin a new adventure that will likely change forever my life as I now know it. My partner and I found out yesterday that we have been accepted for membership in an intentional eco-village/permaculture community! Now we begin the process of paring down all the stuff we’ve each accumulated during the six decades of our lives in preparation for our move into a 30-foot yurt the end of this month. There is synchronicity in the symbolism as I simultaneously change my name to reflect my Celtic heritage and let go of old patterns and beliefs that no longer serve me. During the months we spent visiting the community and exploring the plusses and minuses of such a move, I became aware that it isn’t possessions that will satisfy the deep longing of my heart, but a connection to place and community that I’ve never had in a lifetime of moving every couple of years.

It’s the nitty-gritty of actually sorting through everything and deciding what absolutely HAS to go with us, what we can give up if it doesn’t fit in the yurt, and what we already know can be dropped off at Goodwill that is so time-consuming and mind-boggling. We have piles of things sitting everywhere – pictures stacked against walls, half-filled boxes, and empty cartons needing only tape to make them containers for treasures too precious to part with. Amid this clutter are three cats that grow increasingly restive as their surroundings become less familiar. We have put their large mesh and canvas cat carrier in the middle of the living room and they retreat frequently to its security. I long for such a place, and take similar refuge in a battered recliner that has a “TO GO” dot stuck on it. I ponder the simplicity of this life we are choosing and yearn to bypass the upheaval that precedes it. But life does not come with a “fast forward” feature, so I prepare for the inevitable nostalgia such a move will bring and embrace the excitement that feels like a bottle of champagne has been uncorked in my stomach!

Fortunately, we will not have to deal with the interminable angst of transferring utilities because it’s all part of the community fee we pay – a great relief after reading your horror stories on that very subject! There is, however, always a disconnect that comes with leaving one place and settling into another; I believe it’s in the gap between where we discover anew the strength and resilience that keeps the adventure alive!

[Terri]

I can't believe I somehow missed this post! Oh wow, did I ever enjoy it! All those memories you made and now have left to make some new ones. As a Bostonian, we visited NYC many times a year, so reading about the places you mentioned was a trip back in time for me as well.