‘Godfather Waltz’ [NYT piece by Freeper Silly]

My sister once got a piece printed in this section, but in one time out of a million, they left off her name. Talk about frustration!

Yours is very New York. You never know who someone is around here, so you better watch yourself. Sometimes they seem ordinary, or even down-and-out, but they are great in some way or once were great.

A man who sold books on the sidewalk a few years ago used to be a photographer for Life. Just one example. The Franciscans told me who he was. I was once in Two Boots Pizza and the guy standing next to me at the counter turned out to be the son of a famous philosopher, one of my favorites. It’s endless!

Nice to see you on FR again. Don’t be a stranger.

Here’s one I could submit, but they’d never print it:

One night after working late it was pouring rain and I snared a taxi on Sixth Avenue. I worked right near NBC where SNL was produced. A woman asked if she could share the taxi and of course I said yes. Turned out she was giddy with her work on the upcoming SNL show. I told her I used to watch it but it had gotten so filthy I wouldn’t let my child near it. The fastest end of discussion in world history. Then I was giddy, because I had gotten to tell someone involved with the show just what I thought of it.

I would LOVE to know more about your sister’s piece! I read the digital archives of the Diary, going back 42 years, and I bet you anything with enough detail I could locate her piece. Really, if you can supply details and possibly a time period, I would love to try and find it.

Your SNL/taxi piece is great. You’re right about their not printing it. But it’s a funny thing, with just the right cheek and panache, they might. Just everyone once in a while, they run a piece with a sort of unexpected anti-Diary twist, and the readers eat it up and roar with laughter. It’s a rare treat to see. (Actually, I bet you have tons of great stories!)

I’ve been pestering an old street vendor of used books (Broadway and 95th) to send in some tales he’s told me. Like when the neighborhood was ticked off about a new Godiva shop moving in (why, I would never know, probably a bunch of anti-capitalist morons). So they encouraged pedestrians walking by to run across the street and ask for Mars bars and Snickers.

And one spectacular New York book seller tale: Richard told me of a book store that no longer exists, but in its day, if a customer asked for a book they didn’t have in stock, especially a big glossy expensive one, they would stall and pretend it was hard to locate downstairs, some nonsense to get the prospect’s phone number.

Then they’d send an employee to one of the big stores, shoplift the book (I kid you not), and come back and call the customer. Evidently they did it all the time. He told me the name of the store, and I don’t remember it, and possibly the Times could run into trouble if anyone associated is still around. But Richard has so many great stories, I want him to get published. That’s one the readers would plotz for.

For a terrific quasi-anti-Diary bit of noir, read my piece from last year, “A Stranger in the Building on Official Business.” Every word is true and I will never stop giggling every time I remember the incident and pinch myself that it made Met Diary. I sent it Jan. 16 and they called me the day before Inauguration Day, Thursday the 19th. Fastest response I ever had. Totally made my weekend. tinyurl.com/ddbadge

You must mean Broadway and 85th. There’s a very interesting guy there with great books and he knows all about psychoanalysts in New York and who they treated. He gave me the address for his website and it is a sketch. I don’t know where he got all this information from. There’s no vendor at Broadway and 95th but there is a good one at Broadway and 96th. Somehow I think it’s the 85th Street guy, though.

The neighborhood went nuts when the Victoria’s Secret opened at around Broadway and 85th, and that was because of the window displays. They obviously didn’t know the neighborhood they were opening in. They changed the displays to something less prostitutional and the store is still there today.

I’d love to trade stories with you and Richard sometime!

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