Point of view: Three reasons why I love New York

By Ed Silverman

ONE

Recent stories about the anticipated closing of the fabled Jefferson Market in Greenwich Village call to mind an incident about a quintessential New York character who is one of my all-time favorites.

New Yorkers love their street vendors, and street vendors love New Yorkers. And, although former Mayor John Lindsay offended storeowners many years ago when he called the vendors part of “Fun City,” he was right. One of their favorite haunts was lower Seventh Avenue outside the ever-busy Jefferson Market.

It is a summer evening and I am walking past the area when I notice a particularly voluble pitchman extolling the virtues of his wares. He is a well-dressed, middle-aged African- American who has a variety of cosmetic products set out on his portable table. His pitch goes something like this: “Here it is folks, the face cream you and the little lady been lookin’ for. It works like magic. Just rub it in every night and her skin gonna look like peaches and cream. She gonna look like a movie star. Trust me, I know what I’m talkin’ about.”

A fairly sizeable crowd has gathered around him. But I notice an older, rather plain lady standing off to the side, waiting for the crowd to disperse. After the vendor has made a couple of sales and the customers are on their way, the lady approaches the table, and asks him how much he is charging for the cream.

He looks her over for a moment, weighs the merits of a sale versus brutal New York honesty, shakes his head and blurts out, “I’m sorry, lady, but this ain’t for you. What YOU need is a [expletive deleted] plastic surgeon!”

TWO

During the late forties and fifties, while covering the Friday night fights at the old Madison Square Garden, I discover a wonderful old New York chili parlor directly across the street on the northeast corner of 8th Avenue and 49th Street. It is called the J&T Chili Parlor and they serve the best chili this side of Texas. Their specialty is a Texas Wiener, a slightly spiced hot dog, smothered in thick chili and topped with chopped onions and grated cheese.

Let’s face it, the place is a joint — old, long and narrow with Formica-topped tables and an old-fashioned counter lined with stools. A stained-glass display case with an ancient crack in it runs half the length of the counter. The counterman looks like an ex-pug, wearing a nonetoo- clean T-shirt and a stained apron over jeans.

The first time I eat there is obviously some time after its annual sweeping. The counterman is not a talker. A mumble or a grumble is the most you ever get out of him, and never a smile or a hello. But the chili and dogs are glorious and cheap, and I am young and my stomach is acid proof. Over the years I am hardly a stranger at J&T, but you’d never know it from our almost-mute counterman.

My business affairs finally take me elsewhere and I stop going to J&T. About 10 years later, I happen to be in the neighborhood and notice that while the old Madison Square Garden is no longer there, J&T still occupies its old space. Nostalgia and my stomach beckon. I walk in the door and time has stood still. Nothing has changed. It is still between sweepings, the crack in the counter glass is still there, but somewhat darker, and my friend the counterman is still there in what looks like the original T-shirt. He is just as sullen and uncommunicative as ever. Not that I expect a warm welcome, but my ego is somewhat bruised. I rationalize that I am about a decade older and have probably changed.

He takes my standard order of two Texas wieners and a Mission orange drink in silence. About 10 minutes later he unloads my order from his tray, plunks the food down in front of me, looks at me without expression and growls, “Where the hell you been, Vietnam?” Without waiting for an answer he is off to the kitchen. But my day is made. He really does care. He has missed me.

THREE

My last story concerns another restaurant and restaurateur: Toots Shor.

During its heyday in the 50s, 60s and early 70s, Toots Shor’s is legendary — on a par with 21, El Morocco and the Stork Club as a place to see and be seen. It is a men’s club disguised as a restaurant. While women are tolerated, it is understood that it has been designed as a watering hole and haven for macho sports writers, media people, politicians and celebs from all walks of life.

Toots, a big bear of a man, presides over the restaurant with an iron fist. He has his favorites — Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Ernest Hemingway, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra and Jackie Gleason, as well as the entire sports-writing fraternity — especially the baseball scribes. He lovingly calls his friends “crum bums.”

The joint really jumps after a big sporting event, but especially after an important baseball game as the writers and the players, mostly the Yankees, all come by to unwind. DiMaggio always has his private table whenever he shows, while celebs like Charlie Chaplin and movie mogul Louis B. Mayer are made to wait in line for a half hour.

In 1959, Toots sells the lease on his old restaurant on 51st Street and moves to a new location on West 52nd Street, which opens the following year. I get the assignment to do a story on Toots and the new “joint.” He grumbles when I call him, but invites me over the next day to have a private lunch and sit down with him and Jackie Gleason and comedian (Fat) Jack Leonard.

Toots and Jack are there on time, but Gleason doesn’t show and Toots says let’s do the interview without him.

Toots is noted for his sharp and biting wit and loves to cut people down to size. As the interview gets under way, Jack Leonard starts off with his routine shtick. “Don’t touch me, Eddie — I’m a star. Autographs on Tuesdays and Wednesdays only. Next time you’re down in the dumps see if you can find me a fender for an old Ford. How’m I doing?”

Toots takes over. “I’m sorry Gleason’s not here, but he’s been having a weight problem and I think he stopped off at his tailor to have his suits blown up.”

My turn? Mistake! I jump in with, “I wouldn’t complain about Gleason’s weight if I were you guys. Thank goodness I had the cameraman use a wideangle lens so he could squeeze us all in.”

Back comes Shor with, “Is that so, you crum bum, well, with that schnozz of yours if you turn profile we’ll all be off camera.”

I’m caught in a cross fire as Leonard and Shor make a human ping-pong ball of me and my interview has turned into a roast — of me.

I start to respond, when Toots puts a merciful end to it by saying, “Why don’t you just move over here to our side of the table where it’s a lot funnier?”

I am thinking, “It’s a good thing that Gleason never showed up. How humiliating could the day get?”

In later years Toots Shor’s falls on hard times through a combination of mismanagement by Toots and the advent of nighttime baseball. Instead of drinking, eating and schmoozing at Shor’s at dinner time after a day game, the writers are hard at work.

Shor’s, El Morocco, The Stork Club, 21, J&T Chili, the old Madison Square Garden — they’re all gone now, as are the principal players. There’s a saying that the River of Time gradually erodes one’s memory. Yet, the images of the characters, places and events that have played so important a role in my life, and made up the old New York that I love so much, still burn brightly.

Now, if only I can find my damn car keys.

Ed Silverman, winner of 11 Emmys, is a former radio and TV correspondent and analyst for ‘ABC News,’ and a former director of news for Channel 7.