The Payphone...and NYC Past

The Payphone...by John S LES

I was in Times Square a few days ago.  While walking around, I saw this strange metallic, boxy thing sitting near the corner of one of the blocks.  It was at first familiar and then a little strange to see, since there wasn't many of them around.  At least not like they once were.  Yep, I'm talking about a payphone booth pictured above. 

Many old timer from NYC will remember the payphone booths down in the subways.  They had accordion like doors that you could close for privacy.  However, most of them were pretty rancid and had a odor of urine in them.  But I do remember them.  Every now and then you might see one of them in an old police movie from the late 1960's or early 1970's.  Heck, I remember when payphones were still dialed using the rotary dialer instead of the push button numbers.

Even more, I still remember when payphones were all located on almost every street corner and when they were actually telephone "booths".  They were booths with doors that you could close and have privacy - or change into your Superman costume.  Those booths eventually gave way to a much simpler telephone booth design.  One that didn't have a door and four walls.  It simply had either short aluminum or Plexiglas side walls for privacy. Nothing else.  That was not quite the same as the old booths, but it was the best that you could get.

There is little doubt that the explosion in mobile phones in the last twenty years has made payphones almost a thing of the past.  Here is a link to a simple Google search for NYC payphone images.  Remember any of those images?

In fact, speaking of the past, an organization called The New Museum launched a project entitled "Recalling 1993" last March in New York City.  You called a toll free number from one of the now 5,000 payphones still located in NYC, and from there you would hear a recording of the 1993 history that has passed at the location of that phone.  The voice recordings where lent by some celebrity actors, publishers and various other New Yorkers who lived and could recall what the City was like in 1993.  This was featured in a CBS News article.  Click here.  There is a link to the recording sample within the article.

It would be a shame if all payphones disappeared in NYC or anywhere else.  They were once a great thing to use as I was growing up.  It is hard for me to fathom that one day down the road, I may have grandchildren with me sitting around a campfire...and they may ask me something like this, "Granddaddy...what was a payphone like?  Did you ever use one of those?"

Yes.  Hundreds of times.

Now whether or not you grew up in New York City...can you imagine those questions becoming an actual possibility?  Well...it's not too far off.

A City That Never Sleeps...And Spirits That Never Quit

It is said that New York City never sleeps.  However, just over a year ago, on October 29th, 2012 the city withstood one of it's toughest natural disasters on record...Hurricane Sandy.  There was additional damages in the surrounding areas of New Jersey, Connecticut and Long Island.  Hurricane Irene had hit the same tri-state area just 14 months earlier.  Most New York City dwellers thought that they would avoid the brunt of damage from Sandy, just as they had did for Irene and a handful of other big hurricanes over the past 30 years.  However, that would not be the case this time.

This generation of New Yorker City residents will long remember watching both the East River and the Hudson River breaching Manhattan on it's west, south and eastern shorelines.  They will never forget seeing video footage of subway tunnels, as well as the Mid-town and Brooklyn Battery tunnels also under water.  Lastly, who can forget the horrific flood and fires in Breezy Point, Queens?  There's plenty more to point out and many stories to remember from a year ago.  By the time Thanksgiving had come last year, most of us were simply thankful for food, and for being spared from any greater loss of life or property.

I remember visiting my mother last Thanksgiving.  She still resides in Lower Manhattan.  Yes, by Thanksgiving of 2012, the East River waters had long since receded, however, when you walked around downtown and could still see the waterline on the buildings - it brought it all into prospective.  Seeing the FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) generators parked on 34th street, three weeks after Sandy and lines of crookedly parked cars, with condensation filled windows, stretching six or seven blocks - all having signs on them indicating that they were damaged by Sandy and could not be moved - really brought things into perspective that Thanksgiving day.

Here is a link to the Huffington Post Dot com, with some dramatic pictures for those who would like to see some visual reminders of that horrible aftermath.

In spite of it all, New York City is back.    

Just a couple of weeks ago, this past November 8, the Philippines was struck by a typhoon, which packed winds up to 200 miles per hour.  I've known, grown up and even work with friends of Philippian heritage.  On behalf of all New Yorkers and Americans everywhere...I extend condolences and prayers to the survivors and relatives of this disaster.  

This highlighted text is a link to NBC news which will direct you to reputable sites for donations to the disaster in the Philippines.

An Apple Pie Dish Recipe Delivered!

A relative sent in her own family recipe on apple pie making.  Perhaps you have one too and would like to send in for comparison?  Feel free!  Enjoy!


Dawnn's Deep Dish Apple Pie


Ingredients

Deep dish pie crust

10 - 12 medium apples

1 - 1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice

1/2 cup sugar (plus extra tablespoon)

1/4 cup light brown sugar firmly packed

3 to 4 tablespoon flour

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg


Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Combine apples, lemon juice, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg.

Mix well and pour into deep dish crust



Topping

3/4 cup of flour

1/4 cup of sugar

1/4 cup of brown sugar firmly packed

1 stick of butter

Mix flour, sugar, brown sugar and butter with fork

Sprinkle topping on pie


Bake on cookie sheet about 50 minutes 

The Hottest Selling Apple...Before The Apple Generation...

An apple a day...keeps the techno-phobics away.  Excuse me, I meant to say the doctor away.  Fooled you right?  You thought this was going to be about Apple Inc.  Ohh no..."Houston, we have a problem."  You see...today every time we hear the word "apple" we almost automatically begin to think of the great Apple Inc computers and mobile devices of the past 30 years or so.  Below is my 2005 iMac machine which proved to be a very solid machine during the height of it's short lifetime.  

No no no...folks I was talking about the original apple.  You know the kind that you eat?  Oh yes this is them below!  These are the original "apples" that used to set the world on fire when you simply mentioned their name.  Red apples, green apples, tart apples, sweet luscious and of course Macintosh apples.  Once again...an apple a day keeps the techno-phobic away...or at bay...or out of the way.  Especially when the Fall season hits the Northeastern parts of the United States...and our luscious apples become ripe for the seasonal apple pie making!

When I was a child, during the Fall season, there used to be just two words that would set every child's ear on fire wanting to grab themselves a peek in momma's kitchen.  Those two words were "apple pie".  In addition, depending on your home grown family palette, the only other pies that spun your head around would be sweet potato and pumpkin pie at this time of the year.  Seemed like everyone's mother had some kind of family or self learned recipe.  Or the moms actually called each other on the telephone and shared some secret recipe to add something a little different to jazz up their well know apple pie version.

Back then the kitchen phone always had the longest cord in the house.  My mother would stretch it to it's furthest reaches in the kitchen while she spun pie plates, pie crust, butter, fresh cut apples, Carnation milk, cinnamon spices, vanilla extract flavoring, brown sugar, etc, etc...

Pictured below is two recently made apple pies by a longtime friend of mine.  She loves showing off her tremendous cooking skills over on City Island!

Apple pie making has been a long standing tradition throughout many parts of the US.  Many people have their own family recipes for making these.  There are also plenty of online recipes for making these.  When I was growing as a kid in NYC...you could walk up and down the stairs in your building just before Halloween (and certainly during Thanksgiving) holidays and smell the apple pies, the pumpkin pies and the sweet potato pies cooking in someone's apartment.  Hopefully this will be a tradition that will never ever leave the American scene.

If any of my readers have a recipe for making apple pie that they would like to share, please feel free to do so in the comment section.  For now...please pass me two scoops of vanilla ice cream...and a nice, warm slice of apple pie!  

Stop Hatred...Pass It On...

SHOW LOVE AND COMPASSION FOR HUMANITY - PASS IT ON!

The following are the thoughts of great minds and this link is to a great song.

"Let no man pull you so low as to hate him."
Martin Luther King Jr.

"Hate has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one."
Maya Angelou

"Racism is man's gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for the minimum of reason."
Abraham Joshua Herchel

"All the war propaganda, all the screaming lies and hatred, comes invariably from those who are not fighting."
George Orwell

"Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feelings?"
Bertrand Russell

"If you and I are having a single thought of violence or hatred against anyone in the world at this moment, then we are contributing to the wounding of the world."
Deepak Chopra

"Lord make me an instrument of thy peace.  Where there is hatred, let me sow love."
St. Francis of Assisi

There comes a time when good people must no longer sit on a fence, rather we must step down from that fence and cast our voice and our actions into action and reality.  The reality that we are all connected and must join our energy together for the betterment of humanity.

How We Dress And Our Age

When we were youngsters, we used to dress to impress.  Then after we settle in and settle down with our lives, loved ones or careers, dressing for impressing becomes a thing of the past, unless we are going out to someplace special.  Over the summer, I've had coworkers come right into work from staying on the beach with their families and then come into work, put on their uniform and get to work.

However, just this weekend, one of my coworkers came in wearing something, that none of us could figure out.  Are these shorts, or pants that got shrunk?  Or a combination of both - shants?  Those shoes...are they loafers, boots?  Or a combo of both and lets just call them boafers?  The socks...well...they just go with the shoes.

Many thanks to my coworker for allowing me to take this picture and saying that it was okay to publish.  Everyone in the office had a nice laugh and he came into work on a weekend day dressed as comfortable as he wanted to be.  That's the way it should be.  Unless of course...you're dressing to impressing...

Egg Creams Found!

Not too long ago, I reminisced about Egg Cream drinks.  Well, it too me some weeks, but I ventured out to a homemade ice cream store on Long Island and found a place that still makes them.  I posted the picture above on Facebook and immediately received comments from friends about places in Ridgewood, Queens that used to make them, as well as current places in Bayside, Queens that still make them.  It was pretty amazing of how such a little picture produced an immediate reaction and responses.

If you know of any other places that still make good, authentic style Egg Creams, please do share the information with me/us here.  I'm sure that others out there, young and old would enjoy the taste of a good old fashioned Egg Cream drink.

Thanks!