BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: NEW YORK,NEW YORK

New York City? I could only last 3 months there. It’s a hard place to be without money and when you don’t know the territory and you don’t have a trade.  That was 1944 or 1945, so maybe it’s a nice place now, only I’m not going to try it.

Charles Bukowski
***

LEARNING TO SWIM IN THE EAST RIVER IN THE EARLY 20th CENTURY

"I could swim. I did what was called the East River
stroke, otherwise known as the "slap-overhand." I
put my arms straight out over my head until the
backs of my hands touched each other, then pushed
out to either side. That was the safest stroke to
use when swimming in the East River -- every time
you pushed to the side, you got the garbage out
of the way."

George Burns. Gracie A Love Story (New York:
G.P.Putnam's Sons, 1988)

NEW YORK CITY'S NUMBER ONE VAUDEVILLE THEATER IN 1909

...Hammerstein's Victoria Theatre on 42nd Street,
the most glamorous vaudeville theatre in all the
world. No other variety theatre ever presented 
such a range of performances as did the great
impresario, Oscar Hammerstein, the first, and his
Barnum-like son Willie. Any name that found itself
on the front pages would be seen in person at
Hammerstein's on the stage. For example, two young
ladies charged with the murder of the millionaire,
E.D.Stokes, were set free on bail and were 
immediately booked into Hammerstein's billed as
the Shooting Stars.

George Jessel. So Help Me. (New York: Random
House, 1943)
**
THE POET ELIZABETH BISHOP DESCRIBES NEW YORK CITY

"It is like a battered-up old alarm clock that insists 
on gaining five or six hours a day and has to be kept 
lying on its side"
                       Elizabeth Bishop
**

             A WRITER IN NYC GOES TO
             MADISON SQUARE GARDEN TO
"            COVER THE NEW YORK KNICKS
             BASKETBALL TEAM

             Dribble, dribble,
             Scribble, scribble,
             Dribble, scribble,
             Quibble, quibble.
             Scribble, dribble,
             Quibble, Scribble,
             Dribble, dribble

                 LJP
**

HUBERT'S FLEA CIRCUS IN NYC AT 228-232 WEST 42nd Street

"Jack Johnson, the famous black prize fighter, did
a celebrity act there from 1933 until his death in
1948. Bob Dylan wrote about visiting the plsce in his
early New York days. Even Lenny Bruce had a routine
about going to Hubert's as a boy to see the 'Scientific
Marvel,' Albert Alberta, a half-man half-woman. Professor
Heckler's trained fleas had an irresistibly wacky 
quality and often made the news on their own account.
A publicist once tried to check Heckler's star performer
into the Waldorf-Astoria. Another flea was shipped to
Hollywood, where it was slated to appear in a Claudette
Colbert movie. Sadly, it got lost in the mail."

Gregory Gibson. Hubert's Freaks (New York:Harcourt,Inc,
2008).
***
 

THE FIRST MURDER IN NEW YORK CITY’S CENTRAL PARK



Fans of great city parks will certainly enjoy reading 
Stephen Wolf’s memoir of his love affair with New
York City’s Central Park—Central Park Love Song: Wandering Beneath the Heaventrees. In Chapter Ten,
“Garden of Darkness and Light”  the author discusses
crime in the urban paradise:

“Mistaken for an Irish Catholic by a gang of Irish 
Protestants, William Kane was the first person murdered in Central Park. That was 1870’; two years  later a park visitor was killed in a robbery ‘that has actually stained the turf of (our) fairy land,’ wrote The New York Times. “