Escalators 101

It’s time to start enforcing the law of escalators. That law is: When riding an escalator, stand on the right and walk on the left. This is by no means a law exclusive to New York. It applies anywhere in the world there are escalators. Stand on the right. Walk on the left. It’s easy and simple.

No one is required to walk up the escalator if they don’t want to. By all means, relax and enjoy the ride if it amuses you or if you are injured, elderly or just tired. But be sure that you stand to the right to let others pass. Your condition is no excuse to deprive others the precious freedom of movement or delay their getting home to their loved ones.

And when someone says “excuse me” on an escalator and you’re standing on the left, move. Step immediately to the right and let people pass. I don’t care how much luggage you have or how much you like standing next to the person you’re with, move. Tired after walking all day? Move. Don’t understand English? ¡Muévete! Bougez! 이동! Muoviti! 移動！Move immediately and without complaint or accept being shoved or trampled. A good rule of enforcement is to say “Excuse me” politely three times. If the person is still in your way, knock them to the right where they belong or stomp them down so you may walk over them.

Think of our sidewalks, stairs and walkways as roads with lanes. Just as the left lane is for passing on our highways, it’s for passing on our walkways as well. You know that horribly frustrating feeling you get when some doofus is driving 55 miles per hour or slower in the passing lane? Imagine that same feeling amplified 10 times when you see the train you are trying to catch and a polite “Excuse me” goes unheeded several times.

I understand that New York is filled with many people from parts of the country and world where escalators may not be common. When I worked at JFK Airport, the escalator in the American Airlines arrivals terminal would be shut off when the flights from Haiti arrived because passengers from those flights were so unfamiliar with escalators. People from the third world or rural parts of the U.S. get a six month grace period to learn how to use an escalator; that’s being generous.

Let’s educate our fellow man and enforce the law of the escalator with sharp elbows and steel-toed boots.

Merry Christmas from Queens

Last month I said a fond farewell to Inwood and moved to Flushing Queens, where the Korean restaurants are open 24 hours and the Cherry Valley Deli is a short distance away. I am making Double Satanic Deviled Eggs—listening to SLAYER makes them Double Satanic—to bring to a family gathering later.

Flushing is imbued with the Christmas spirit like other parts of the city. There are plenty of lights and other decorations about, though the decorations here cannot hold a plastic candle to some of the over-the-top light displays that have made some New York neighborhoods famous.

Queens is New York’s largest borough. Like The Bronx, Queens was a jumble of different towns and villages before it became part of New York City in 1898. It maintains that scattered identity, though people from Queens are proud of it and the borough has produced some of our most talented New Yorkers. Queens gave the world both The Ramones and Run DMC.

With the exception of Astoria and maybe Long Island City, the neighborhoods of Queens have not acquired the kind of cultural cachet that parts of Brooklyn have acquired. This is a great hidden blessing, as Queens has maintained much good New York character and not suffered from price-inflating gentrification that has eaten away the many once working-class neighborhoods of Brooklyn and Manhattan.

I miss Inwood and its many unique features but Flushing is an interesting place as well and there is a lot to discover here too. This has been an interesting year and 2012 promises to be interesting too.

I hope you are all taking the time to enjoy the holidays. Those of you in New York City, don’t forget to enjoy the holiday scenery and don’t be ashamed to be a tourist in your own city.

A Final Farewell to ZAK

Joseph Bernard Zak, more affectionately known as ZAK, was a poet and songwriter who dedicated his life to writing poems and songs.

One day in 1997, ZAK went to a photocopy shop to make copies of some of his song lyrics. At the same time, members of a punk rock band named Team Spider were there making copies of fliers for an upcoming concert. ZAK struck up a conversation with the band and soon had an invitation to come to their show and recite poetry. He began reciting poetry at the band’s shows and Team Spider made him a member of the group. He performed with them for nine years until shortly before his death in December 2006.

ZAK was 80 years old when he died and didn’t join the punk band until he was 71. He was an unlikely and inspiring presence on stage and became a revered figure in the New York punk scene.

He had no real family, having been sent to a boys’ home during the Great Depression by his parents. Team Spider became his family. It was members of Team Spider who visited him in nursing homes when his health began to fail. It is members of Team Spider today who maintain a storage space filled floor to ceiling with boxes of ZAK’s poems and song lyrics.

And it was Team Spider who recently laid ZAK to rest, almost five years after his passing.

ZAK made most of his funeral arrangements himself. A devout Catholic, he arranged for his funeral to be held at Our Lady of Peace Church on 62nd Street. He asked that he be cremated and his ashes be scattered at sea.

Not content to let ZAK’s ashes be spread anonymously or comingled with the ashes of others and unceremoniously jettisoned from a plane or commercial barge, the members of Team Spider early on decided they would spread their former band mate’s ashes themselves. Lead singer Chris Ryan very deftly swiped the ashes from the church at the funeral. The funeral director on hand, who was supposed to take possession of the ashes, caught up with the group outside the church, where he told them it was OK for them to spread the ashes themselves, so long as they did so in a way approved by law etc.

You could say that the arrangements of ZAK’s final resting place were made in PRT, or Punk Rock Time. A boat was chartered in 2009 but fell through at the last minute. Other things got in the way. Chris and his wife Allie were married in 2010. Other members have been busy with other bands. Life just got in the way of putting closure on ZAK’s death.

The band invited me along to help them say farewell, an honor I am very grateful for. After meeting at bass player Dave Satkowki’s apartment, a small group set out by car to the Marine Basin Marina near Coney Island, Brooklyn. It is a small marina tucked away in an industrial part of the Brooklyn waterfront. Chris brought ZAK’s ashes along with flowers and video and audio recording equipment. Team Spider hosts a cable access TV show and documents everything.

We met up with the boat captain and boarded the boat, and soon set out for the Atlantic Ocean. We made our way out of the marina where boats with festive names like ‘I’ll Go’ and ‘Why Not’ rested. It was early October and the weather was summerlike and several people were enjoying the last of the summer season, with many apparently living on their boats.

We motored into New York Harbor south of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and went east past the community of Sea Gate and Coney Island and out into the ocean. We continued on until the nearby boats became fewer and the shoreline farther away.

ZAK’s ashes were put in a basket and covered with rose pedals. A few ashes were saved to be spread in Tompkins Square Park. The basket was set on the deck of the boat next a chair that had a framed photo of the departed on it.

Chris gathered everyone on deck around ZAK’s ashes and portrait. We said a few words about ZAK.

Team Spider guitar player Sam recalled one of his fondest memories of playing with ZAK happened in Tompkins Square Park during an outdoor concert the band performed there. While playing the song, ‘Know That I Love You,’ a group of young punk rockers climbed on stage and surrounded ZAK. They began chanting “We fucking love you! We fucking love you!”

I mentioned how when I first saw ZAK at a show at CBGB, I thought he was someone’s grandfather there to see someone play. I mentioned how ZAK did what he was driven to do creatively, not what people expected him to do as an elderly person.

After everyone had said their piece, the boat’s captain lowered the basket into the water. As it began to sink, one of Team Spider’s members pulled a rope attached to the bottom of it, letting the ashes go in a cloud just beneath the water. The rose pedals floated on the water and we each threw a rose into the ocean.

As we watched the roses and pedals float farther out to sea, the ocean was quiet and calm, and buoys in the distance chimed like church bells.

After a little while, we began our way back. A few of us had to go our separate ways, but the Team Spider members met up to have a remembrance dinner for their lost band mate.

Joseph Bernard Zak was an extraordinary man who lived his life to create and found a family among New York’s punk rockers. The members of Team Spider gave him a send off worthy of the beauty and creativity that he brought to the world.

Know that we love you, ZAK, and always will.

Following the Footsteps

This past Sunday I participated in the 10^th annual Tunnel to Towers Run held in New York to commemorate the heroic service of Firefighter Stephen Siller on September 11, 2001, as well as everyone else who gave their lives that day. The run traces the route Siller took from Brooklyn to the World Trade Center.

A water taxi from Wall Street took us to the Ikea parking lot in Red Hook, Brooklyn and a staging area for the race. It’s several blocks away from the starting line, and we spent at least an hour or more standing on a crowded street waiting for the race to start.

Once it gets under way, there are a lot of ceremonial things happening before the race starts, with plenty of breaks in between to allow for television coverage and its commercials.

It’s a warm and crowded race, and you can’t help but elbow and be elbowed in the course of it. But it is the friendliest big city crowd you will ever be in. There’s a great feeling of camaraderie and patriotism. Chants of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” broke out along the route, and the run is a tribute to the resilience of New York and America itself, but there were plenty of non-Americans there, including firefighters from Germany and the U.K. running in their full gear.

The Brooklyn Battery Tunnel gets pretty hot when thirty thousand people are running through it, but once you’re through the tunnel, it’s very pleasant. And when the Finish Line is in view, it motivates you to sprint to it.

On the Brooklyn side before you go into the tunnel, firefighters lined along the route shout encouragement from their trucks. On the Manhattan side, firefighters in dress uniforms line the route, holding banners representing each of the 343 firefighters lost in the September 11^th attacks. Another long line of firefighters hold 343 American flags. It’s a moving sight.

I did not personally know anyone who perished in the September 11 attacks. But I do know the punk rock band The Bullys and love their music. One of their founding members was Firefighter John Heffernan, a member of Ladder Company 11 and died in the South Tower of the Trade Center. I wore my Bully t-shirt as a tribute and when I came upon the Firefighter holding his memorial banner on the Manhattan side of the Tunnel, I high-fived him. Before the race, I was heartened to see a young woman with a Dead Kennedys tattoo getting ready to run. I hope to be back next year with a small army of Bullys fans, maybe some will have big Mohawks.

There are marching bands, cheerleaders from around the country, rock bands, tourists, yachtsman at the Battery Park Marina tooting their boats’ horns for you, and throngs of well wishers along the route applauding your efforts. It’s a great cross-section of New Yorkers, Americans, and people from all over the world.

The run encompasses all that is great about New York and drives home the point that no matter what horrors strike our city, New York will bounce back and we can’t be shaken.

I finished the run in 43 minutes and 52 seconds and came in 8,877^th place. Volunteers were handing out water and bananas after the finish line. I took some water and ate a banana; it was the most delicious banana I have ever eaten.

See you there next year.

A Better Way to Remember September 11

This was the first year I skipped going to Ground Zero on September 11 since I’ve had the chance to go. I was working out of town on Sept. 11 in 2001 and 2002, and that solidified my desire to go to the commemoration, which is usually easy to do since I have worked close to the site of the attacks since late 2002.

When I first began attending the moments of silence and reading of the names at Ground Zero, there were lots of regular citizens with no personal connection to anyone lost in the attacks who came to pay their respects.

Things took a turn in 2006 at the five-year anniversary of the attacks. Multitudes of conspiracy theorists showed up in obnoxious matching black t-shirts and banners; the somber memorial became more of a circus after that, and the authorities began allowing less room for the general public each year, and now the general public is thoroughly discouraged from attending the ceremonies. Victims’ families are allowed into a restricted area for the ceremony, but there is little space near the site for the general public.

Last year was pretty discouraging. There seemed to be few people there to pay their respects and lots of people there for other reasons. Mennonites handed out literature and had their choir singing while the names of victims were still being read. Tourists dumbly snapped photos. People handed out fliers opposing the Islamic center planned to open nearby or else prepared to rally for or against it.

This year I didn’t feel bad about skipping because it promised to be even more of a circus thanks to it being the 10^th anniversary and the attendance of President Obama and George W. Bush. The police locked down the city pretty tightly and let it be known that travel would be misery. I had no desire to give credence to any politicians in town to capitalize on the event or be a lost soul amid the circus that has become the commemoration of the Sept. 11 attacks.

But I will not let this anniversary pass unobserved. The September 11^th anniversary requires our attention, especially for New Yorkers. Hundreds of people sacrificed their lives that day in service to our city and country; hundreds more were victims of a horrific death.

Do not let the fact that the attacks have been exploited and abused discourage you from attending a memorial event. That our political leaders have done wrong by the September 11 attacks doesn’t absolve us from the responsibility to pay our respects to true heroes who gave their lives to save others.

You can visit the Ground Zero memorial, which is newly opened and in the footprints of the twin towers. Everything I’ve heard about it is good.

And if you haven’t heard of it before, I invite you to join me in the Tunnel to Towers Run. The Tunnel to Towers Run honors the memory of Firefighter Stephen Siller, who ran from Brooklyn through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel to the World Trade Center on September 11^th. He ran more than three miles with more than 60 pounds of equipment on his back.

Every year near the anniversary of the attacks, the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation holds a running race that traces the footsteps of its namesake hero. Many firefighters run in their full rescue gear, as Siller did. The foundation focuses on helping children who have lost parents. They hold other events during the year and running races in other places besides New York but the New York run is the cornerstone commemoration.

The Tunnel to Towers Run is a way to honor the heroes of September 11^th, 2001 in a way that is positive and free of political exploitation. It raises money for a worthwhile charity and it’s a way for ordinary New Yorkers to pay their respects to those we’ve lost.

This year the run is being held in New York this Sunday, September 25. You can register at the last minute. See you there.

40%

A few years ago, I went to Battery Park in lower Manhattan to attend a ceremony unveiling a flag that honored those who died in the September 11 attacks but whose remains were never recovered. There were no more than a few dozen people there, if that. It was fittingly held at the Korean War Memorial.

The organizer was a Marine Corps veteran who had been active in many veterans issues and other patriotic, flag-waving efforts. It was all good and fine, though it bothered me that no television news organizations, not even New York 1, bothered to show up.

But the part of the ceremony that hit me like a sock full of concrete was when the mother of a firefighter killed in the attacks spoke. She mentioned that 40% of those families who lost a loved one in the September 11 attacks had no remains to bury. No evidence of almost half of those lost that day exists.

Bone fragments from victims of the attacks were still being found years later in some of the buildings near the site. In the initial cleanup, debris from Ground Zero was taken to the Fresh Kills land fill on Staten Island and sorted for human remains. People are still working to identify small bone fragments found at the sites of the attacks.

“Our loves ones' remains were taken to a garbage dump,” said the grieving mother, her voice strained with simmering anger.

How we treat the bodies of our dead is important. It reflects the love and respect we had for them in life, and signifies the pledge we make to keep their memory alive. For nearly half of those who lost someone in the attacks, there is no gravesite to visit, no picturesque site where ashes were spread, nothing for them to point to say that this loved of theirs lived and is still with us in some tangible form today.

Survivors of the attacks have been given short shrift also. People who worked there and have since been stricken with cancer are still not covered under legislation specifically enacted to help them.

Tomorrow, as political officials flock to the site of the attacks and heap encomiums on the first responders— some of whom haven’t been invited to attend—please remember that as a city and a nation we have not done right by either the living or the dead.

Staten Island Yankees: Baseball Done Right

Discouraged from travel outside the five boroughs by various obligations and the fact that much of upstate New York and New England is still damaged by tropical storm Irene, my woman and I decided to remain in the city for the Labor Day weekend.

Friday we spent on Coney Island, where I accomplished all my goals, which included riding the Cyclone, eating at the original Nathan’s, and seeing the Coney Island Sideshow.

Last night was for baseball and a trip to Staten Island to see the Staten Island Yankees play.

The Staten Island Yankees, a minor league team for the New York Yankees, play right next door to the Staten Island Ferry, which is free. It is an easy walk from your poor-man’s cruise of New York Harbor.

The stands were filled with the kinds of working people who used to frequent the major league ballparks until attending them with regularity became prohibitively expensive. The family next to us was part of the special all-you-can-eat deal and arrived at their sets with a cardboard box filled with cans of soda, burgers and hot dogs and bags of potato chips. The concessions were overpriced but not to the extent they are at major league ballparks and it’s damn affordable.

Richmond County Bank Ballpark is not a fancy place, but it fulfills its basic function as a ball park and allows for attendees to see the entire game, which is more than anyone can say for the monstrosity now calling itself Yankee Stadium in The Bronx. There’s not a bad seat in the park. You also get a view of New York Harbor and the lower Manhattan skyline. There was even a fireworks show after the game.

Sadly, the SI Yankees did not do as well on the field that night. They lost to the Brooklyn Cyclones by a score of four to 11.

But get yourself to Staten Island for a good time and a taste of what going to a baseball game is supposed to be like.