My new Lydia Chin/Bill Smith book, FAMILY BUSINESS, is set in Chinatown and concerns real estate. (Well, this IS New York.) To celebrate we’re showing some (mostly vintage) Chinatown photos here on the blog. This is Pell Street in 1949.
The photographer is Angelo Rizzuto. Related to Phil? Who knows? This is New York.
For more info: https://bit.ly/3H6xINZ
My new Lydia Chin/Bill Smith book, FAMILY BUSINESS, is set in Chinatown and concerns real estate. (Well, this IS New York.) To celebrate we’re showing some (mostly vintage) Chinatown photos here on the blog. This Library of Congress photo is from 1903. The shop on this corner, though under a different name, still sells imported porcelains, dolls, toys, etc.
To learn more: https://bit.ly/3H6L10Q
Hey, youse guys (as we say in the Bronx)! The 2022 SJ Rozan Calendars are here! For your gift-giving, including to yourself, pleasure. Extra added attraction: all profits from this year’s calendars will go to Planned Parenthood. Because dammit. Helpful hint: click the link, not the photo.
My new Lydia Chin/Bill Smith book, FAMILY BUSINESS, is set in Chinatown and concerns real estate. (Well, this IS New York.) To celebrate we’re showing some (mostly vintage) Chinatown photos here on the blog. The Library of Congress calls this one, from 1909, “Police Detectives Guarding Chinatown.” I may be wrong, but these guys don’t seem entirely on top of things…
Until the 1970’s the NYPD had virtually no Asian cops. The White officers and detectives at the 5th Precinct couldn’t speak Cantonese. As far as the NYPD was concerned Chinese crime wasn’t their problem unless it interfered with White tourists. The Chinese residents, for their part, didn’t trust the NYPD at all. They felt the cops couldn’t protect them from the tongs and gangs, and they were right. So both groups wanted to have as little to do with the other as possible.
Which is the true (and racist) meaning behind, “It’s Chinatown, Jake.”
For more on this photo: https://bit.ly/3F0noVR
My new Lydia Chin/Bill Smith book, FAMILY BUSINESS, is set in Chinatown and concerns real estate. (Well, this IS New York.) To celebrate we’re showing some (mostly vintage) Chinatown photos here on the blog.
View from the Manhattan Bridge along E. Broadway, Manhattan
Vergara, Camilo J., photographer
I just typed “shellshocked” in a new chapter, and then checked the spelling to make sure the word doesn’t need a hyphen. Turns out it does. Okay, fine. But Spellcheck also gave me the choice of spelling it as two words without the hyphen — or, in case “shell shocked” were not the two words I wanted, it offered “shells hocked.”
And bingo, I was off. What shells could be valuable enough to hock? Would all pawnbrokers recognize them, or you’d need a specialist? Or maybe these aren’t seashells, they’re mortar shells. If you had mortar shells, why would you hock them? Because you knew you were about to get raided by the FBI…
It ain’t easy corralling this kind of brain.
It’s spring and the waterfowl on the river are busy as bees, or beavers. This morning two pairs of mallards were swimming around, with a male Gadwall in attendance. One of the male mallards swam away from the little flock, which caused two events. First, the female he’d been with zipped over to him, swam right in front cutting him off, and then settled in right beside him, reminding him who he belonged to. The Gadwall, meanwhile, came over to harass them. That left the other mallard pair on their own, but not to worry: a female Gadwall came flying in, landed behind them, and started annoying them. What does this say? That the Gadwalls, as they’ve done before, are nesting in the bushes by that stretch of river and the mallards were getting too close in their own search for a nest site. Also, that female mallards like to keep their males in line.
And speaking of nesting, those of you who remember the goslings born last year on the rocks by the Sanitation Pier and raised in the park by Mama and a very fierce Papa may be happy to know M and P have nested again, and I think she must have eggs in there because he’s been swimming back and forth patrolling for enemies. This is the best photo I could get so I’ve circled them in red. Papa in the water, Mama in the upper left of my circle right up by the wall. Just after I took this a crow flew in and landed near her. Papa lifted out of the water and flapped over, practically sat on top of it. It left in a hurry. Hatchlings coming, I hope!
Got my second shot Moderna
And I’m feeling kinda great.
Got my second shot Moderna.
I was early, couldn’t wait.
Got my second shot Moderna
Up on St. Ann’s Avenue
Where the golden sun was shining
And the sky was brilliant blue.*
Got my second shot Moderna
Up here in Mott Haven
Across the Bronx from the small house
Wherein Poe wrote “The Raven.”**
I checked in with my QC code
They said, “SJ, welcome back!
Just go on in here to the school,
Talk to the man in black.”***
He waved me to the lunchroom
Where the tables were all set up
And nurses, docs, and volunteers
Were wearing sterile get-ups.****
The nurse at table number 5
Swabbed my arm and stuck it
Then she smoothed on it a Band-aid
And said to me, “Good luck! It*****
Might swell up a little
And you may start feeling sick
But if you do, don’t worry —
That part is over quick.”
Then she sent me to the gym to wait
A fifteen minute span.
I sat there and I people-watched,
Enjoyed my fellow man.
When time was up I headed out
To E. 138th
To get café con leche
And some cake to celebrate(th).”******
So as of now I’m fully vaxxed
And it’s a happy day
And I hope you all soon get your shots
And COVID goes away!
*You saw that coming, right?
**Irrelevant, but true.
***It wasn’t Johnny Cash, no.
****Just cut me some slack, okay?
*****Not what you were expecting?
******Okay, that one’s awful.
It’s 2021. Well done, all. Here’s to peace, good health, and good work in the new year.
