Growing Up In New York City

I was an undersized third grader with glasses growing up in Washington Heights. Riverside Park was a short walk away from our northern Manhattan neighborhood and I loved to explore it with friends. On warm summer days we walked along the Hudson as far north as the Little Red Lighthouse which sits under the giant east tower of the George Washington Bridge and faces the sheer rock palisades of New Jersey. Here and there along the way we would stop to throw rocks in the river and watch men fishing. Quiet railroad tracks led us back south through trees and bramble to white mountains of rock salt under the West Side Highway that begged to be climbed.

That year my parents decided that, like my brother, I would attend school outside our neighborhood. On the first day in early September my brother escorted me there on the subway and pointed out the correct classroom. But at 3:00pm the bell rang, he went off to Central Park with friends, and I was left to make the return trip on my own. I arrived without incident and took the train myself the next morning.

And thus began my career as an 8 year old New York City subway commuter.

Soon it became a routine and usually pleasant journey. Board the 1 train at 157th street and Broadway; uptown one stop to 168th; ride the elevator up one level; walk down a long tunnel to the B train; south to 96th street and Central Park West. After school reverse each step to get home.

I got used to people asking where my parents were or if I was lost. Occasionally I got harassed by other kids. Bullies from other schools learned to relieve me of my subway pass early in the month, before others got there first. Slow movers had to settle for loose change.

My father was mugged in our elevator by two guys with a butcher knife. This despite the elevator´s high tech security system: a porthole window and a mirror. I think they lifted his wallet and wristwatch. After that I was in the best shape of my life; a few weeks of walking up and down seven flights of stairs will do that.

In the 1970s the subways were in bad shape following years of neglect, think: Beneath the Planet of the Apes. None of us would have been surprised to see James Franciscus crawling out of the tunnel in a space suit, Nova at his side. Near school, on Columbus Avenue, wild dogs trotted down the street in small packs. At night they lived in the abandoned buildings and empty lots that seemed to overflow with discarded treasures. But not wanting to cross paths with rats or Ratso Rizzo, we spent most of our time in playgrounds and in Central Park, that big green playground just across the street. There, in the park, boys growing up in the city are for a moment the same as boys everywhere. In springtime they climb trees, play baseball, or chase each other over hills in a game of capture the flag. In fall, tackle football on fallen leaves. In winter, a snowball finding its mark and the shock of melting ice on bare skin. All the time perfect laughter. Take a picture without Fifth Avenue in the background and you are anywhere.

In summer I took a break from the city. It was time for fresh air at camp in New England. There we canoed on rivers in Maine, toured Nova Scotia on bicycles, and backpacked the White Mountains of New Hampshire. In camp we sang indian verse at council fires, attended early morning flag raising, or walked down to the lake for evening vespers by candlelight.

One winter at home I prepared for a class ski trip to Vermont with extra sledding on a deadend street. The night of the big trip I rode the subway to meet up with the group at school. I had unwisely choosen to ride alone in the front of the first subway car, watching the long dark tunnel fly by. At the second or third stop three teenagers boarded and started toward my position. I made some resistance but before long they had helped themselves to the new ski jacket and mittens I had been breaking in for the slopes. One of them put the coat on and another the gloves. The third was left without any prize, but all three got off at the next stop. The conductor sat safely nearby in his compartment, unaware of what was happening. Luckily the trio hadn't bothered to look through my suitcase which had been sitting nearby. Finally the train arrived at 96th street I continued bravely on to school, walking three long blocks through the cold night carrying the luggage and wearing nothing but a t-shirt and jeans. Upon arrival I caught the attention of classmates and teachers who listened in amazement to my story. Luckily one of the kids said he had an extra jacket at his father's apartment, which was nearby in the famous Dakota. I arrived there a few minutes later in a taxi and found the father waiting for me outside with the coat. I was once again ready for the trip north.

In high school, after my brother left to become a fighter pilot, I took over his room located next to the kitchen. Actually it had been my aunt's room first, before she married a poet and moved to Venezuela. My brother left his old stereo and I listened to the Beatles and read John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway. Occasionally, in the still of the night, I would jump at the sudden report of a kill; a split-second break in the silence caused by the loud snap of a mouse trap. The next morning I would report the event at breakfast and my father would search through the canned vegetables and pull out the little guillotine and its victim. The mouse would be released into the kitchen garbage, the trap recheesed, reloaded, and repositioned on a pantry shelf. I could never resist taking another look down into the garabage. There would be the little brown body half buried in last night's lettuce.

The mouse and rat population in the building attracted a community of alley cats who lived in and around the building's garbage room. No campaign to remove them was ever witnessed by myself. I guess the theory was: better a few wild cats then too many rodents.

Our apartment was burglarized twice. Unfortunately, two gentlemen were still at work one day when I arrived home, rummaging for valuables in my parent's bedroom. I had come in, put my books down in my room and stopped in the kitchen for a glass of water, all the while undetected by the perpetrators who were making a racket opening closets and drawers at the other end of the apartment. I had thought it was my mother doing something strange and I went to find out what it was. But as I turned the corner to the bedroom I saw one of the men coming around the other way. We stopped and looked at each other and for a split second I was disoriented enough to wonder if I was lost. I like to think now that a stunning counterattack was my first option. In this scenario I bang their heads together after a series of dangerous kicks and punches, and watch them drop to the floor. Afterwards a calm phone call to a friend at the precinct. Come pick up these baddies.

That's the scene I later played in my head.

But the actual footage will show me locking myself in the bathroom before they had time to blink.

So there I was in that white-tiled bathroom with the criminals banging on the door and yelling confusingly about friendship. Luckily we lived in a prewar building with solid walls and doors. As a precaution I loaded the waterpick with hot water. If they had gotten in the only real threat would have been my violent shaking.

I have no idea why the hulking bandits didn't just go about their business and continue with the robbery. Could be that there wasn't much worth stealing and they were simply diverting themselves for a while before rejoining their busy social lives. Maybe they thought the place had already been robbed, and that was actually true. Eventually things quieted down and it became clear that my new friends had left, but I decided to maintain my secure position for a few more hours, knowing that they could also be hiding in the apartment.

After that incident I was a nervous wreck on the streets. I was afraid I would be recognized and forced to reveal what I had told the cops (which was of course nothing useful). The intruders would never believe that I had been unable to make a description for a police sketch or that the cops had not bothered to take fingerprints and interview neighbors.

But I survived and soon stopped wearing those famous glasses. I simply sat closer to the blackboard. I started roller skating with a friend from school. On Fridays and Saturdays we danced all nigh(on wheels)in clubs like The Roxy and High Rollers. There we saw performances by new artists like Africa Bambatta and Madonna. On Sunday afternoons we kept on skating near Sheep's Meadow in Central Park. Nearby, on that sidewalk in front of the Dakota, John Lennon was shot and killed not long before we graduated high school.