The Bronx Revisited

The Bronx Revisited

25 years ago I turned to my wife and said, “Sell everything, we’re getting the hell out of the Bronx once and for all!”

This was NO knee jerk reaction. It had been coming for some time. It’s just that when change occurs slowly you don’t notice until something horrifying happens and the rose colored glasses are knocked from your face.

The teen two house up from ours was dead. Shot through the chest in a drive–by in broad daylight. He bled out on the sidewalk. The sidewalk where my wife strolled with my daughters in their baby carriages.

Turns out they shot the wrong guy. The person they were looking for lived two blocks down.

Not that it mattered to me. I was seeing clearly now. The Bronx had become a war zone.

Sometimes people ask me why I waited so long. The answer is simple. The Bronx of my youth was a great place to grow up. There were parks and playgrounds, beaches and roller-rinks, great restaurants and a subway and elevated trains that took you anywhere in the city you wanted to go for a single fare.

I remember ditching school and going to the World’s Fair in Queens when I was only eleven. Started playing clubs in Greenwich Village when I was sixteen. Went to mixers at Fordham College and sat out on the stoop on hot summer nights drinking beer and hanging with my friends.

Then crack cocaine showed up and everything went to hell!

And it went to hell so quickly I wasn’t able to grasp how much danger we were in until it was almost too late.

The crack-heads were a desperate group. They’d say anything, and DO anything to get money for crack. I had my car stolen twice even though I had alarms and crook locks on the steering wheel. I was held up at gunpoint for a lousy $27.00. Even caught a guy trying to break into my house.

And it kept getting worse. Every business was locked down like a bank vault at night. There were armed guards at supermarkets. Shoplifting was rampant and driving the local businesses into bankruptcy.

Hollywood began making movies on just how bad the Bronx had become. One was called The Bronx is Burning and the other, Fort Apache the Bronx which was about a police precinct in the South Bronx which at the time was the most dangerous area in America.

Within 2 years following the crack epidemic, all of my family and friends had moved away, with the exception of my brother. My brother, whom I have referred to in previous posts as Beerculees, was not the type to been driven off by anyone.

So he and his lovely wife Linda, remained in the Bronx and made a life for themselves.

I was happy for them but made it clear that if they wanted to see me, they would have to come to the North Country because there was no way in hell we were coming to the Bronx.

Then last week I received a call. My brother told me that Linda had lost her battle against lung cancer and wasn’t expected to last the weekend. He asked me to come down and stay with him until the burial.

So I did.

The burial is tomorrow and I have been in the Bronx for the last 6 days. It’s a VERY different place than the one I left 25 years ago. The streets are clean, people are polite and local businesses seem to be doing well. VERY well apparently because I have seen more BMW’s here in the Bronx in a day than I see in a month up north.

Roads still suck though.

Just a note. If you’ve ever wanted to see a Yankee game, or visit the Botanical Gardens or the Bronx Zoo but were concerned about coming to the Bronx, don’t be. The Bronx is once again the fun place of my youth and even Golden Balls has returned to Rice Stadium.

If you’re from the Bronx you know who Golden Balls is. And if not, stay tuned to this blog and find out who he is and how he got that name. 

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Cowboys and Gunplay at the Drive-in Movie

When I was a teenager I worked picking up litter in a drive-in movie following my gigs as a musician. It reminded me that I also worked there as a security guard on the nights when I didn’t have a gig.
On my first night on the job, me and the other security guards got a call on our walkie-talkies to go to the front as there has been an incident. In most drive-ins there is a playground under the screen and after the movie was over and the cars were leaving, one plowed through its chain link fence.
Now here’s a little back story. The manager was a big (and I mean BIG) Missourian with an authentic cowboy hat, cowboy boots and authentic cowboy balls. When we all reached the site of the crash, the manager (I’ll call him Big Dave) was talking to the Driver of the vehicle. I saw there were three others in the car, a man in the passenger’s seat and two women in the back.
After making sure everyone was okay, Big Dave explained to the Driver that for insurance purposes, he had 2 choices, he could sign a release stating that he and his passengers were unhurt or the drive-in would have an ambulance come and take them to the hospital. He also explained that this would be paid for by the drive-in.
The Driver refused both options. So Big Dave explained that if he didn’t agree to either he would have to call the police and file an accident report.
I should point out that everyone in the car was pretty drunk and Big Dave was trying to give them a break. Make the problem go away. This was the Bronx in the 1970’s and nobody in their right mind wanted to stir things up.
Apparently the Driver wasn’t in his right mind because he unleashed a tirade of curses and threats at Big Dave which ended with him telling Big Dave that he and his friends were leaving and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
  The Driver was apparently mistaken because that’s when Big Dave reached into the car with one arm and yanked the Driver out through the opened window. Seeing this, the guy in the passenger seat takes the car keys, jumps out the door, runs to the back and opens the trunk.
Okay, more back story. Although I didn’t know it at the time, my fellow security guard, a southern gentleman named Billy was a Viet-Nam vet. He was missing his left hand and his jaw had been constructed from one of his ribs, as he had been severely wounded when his unit was ambushed by the Viet Cong. Billy, I soon learned, was not a man to be messed with.
So here’s what happened. The Passenger opens the truck, leans in and reaches for a shotgun.
I see the metal glistening in the moonlight, there is another gun in a holster packed beside it.
I was stunned. We didn’t receive any training to deal with this. Was I supposed to jump the guy and wrestle the gun from him? Run away? Duck and cover? What?  I didn’t know how to react.
But Billy did. And looking back I think he prevented a bad situation from getting a lot worse.
With a shrug Billy pulled a snub-nose .38 from inside his blue jean jacket and pressed it against the back of The Passenger’s head. What followed was the sound of the gun being cocked. With an expression of the utmost sincerity Billy said in a slow southern drawl, “Yo’ lay a hand on that shotgun, son, and yo’ brains is gonna be all over it.”
I am going to assume The Passenger picked up on the sincerity of Billy’s tone because he immediately raised his hands and stepped back. After Billy brought him to Big Dave at gunpoint, I bravely stepped forward and closed the trunk.
I was sent in to call the police, (which I also did very bravely) and it turned out the car was stolen and in addition to the guns there were also drugs.
Billy and I went on to become work buddies and we had several other adventures together. One led to a full scale riot and the other had me on the roof of the concession stand trying to convince some nut high on PCP to drop the knife and to please get off the roof because the customers were complaining that he was blocking the picture.
But that’s a tale for another day.