Month: March 2015

I looked everywhere and couldn’t find the video of our Bach flash mob at the West 4th Street Station. It was supposed to be released yesterday. Thankfully, a fellow participant sent me this link to a video that was made by someone who was there. Maybe the video they thought they’d release just didn’t come out so well. It was a wonderful thing to do in any case, thank you Dale Henderson and Harold Rosenbaum.

I’ve been passing by this store, Kaas Glassworks, for thirteen years (117 Perry Street). They make such beautiful pieces and you can see from this picture of their window how charming this place is. I’d love to have a storefront shop to decorate. I have nothing to sell. Oh, well, my books. Ha. My cats would love to sit in the window, I’ll bet. I’d put a sign over them saying, “The cutest cats in the whole wide world. Sorry. But it’s true. Don’t hate them for their fabulousness.”

I might have posted this before, but this is a picture of me in 1974, trying to learn to play banjo. It’s something I’ve been trying to do on and off ever since. I get into it for a while and then I move on. It makes no sense. Playing banjo is one of the more fun things in life. It’s almost impossible to strum that thing without smiling.

Is there something you’ve been meaning to do but have just never gotten around to it?

I’ve been scarce because I’ve been at the Municipal Archives every day, and I’m about to leave now. A picture of some of the boxes I’ve been going through is below.

But I just read about the death of Tram Thuy Nguyen, who was killed by a piece of plywood from a construction site. It just got to me, the randomness of it, and the bluntness of it. You’re walking along, talking on your phone, and pow, you’re dead. It just feels so brutal. I know that happens all the time, and in worse ways, but this was so close to home. This was a street I walk down practically every day.

But the fact that it also happened on that block, and because of work that’s being done to put up luxury housing in place of a much needed and recently torn down hospital. I feel terrible for Tram Thuy Nguyen and her friends and family.

These signs went up in the neighborhood a couple of weeks ago. Flyers of this kind are always so sad. I remember thinking that $5,000 is a lot of money, but if I had that kind of money and lost my pet I’d offer a reward like that too.

Yesterday I saw that they’d upped the ante, which is so sad. I googled #findsugarnyc and learned the backstory. Obviously the dog walker is suffering from something terrible, and I hope he gets the help he needs too.

Florida came up in conversation yesterday, and I mentioned that I went to school there for one semester in 1974, at the Jensen Beach campus of the Florida Institute of Technology. I left quickly because I decided I wanted to study photography, not Oceanographic Technology, and I was in a hurry to start my new life. Parts of the area however, were mysterious and magical, and I hoped to find pictures that captured that.

I scanned these from my photo album. I didn’t have any pictures of the area alas, but a lot of the people I went to school with. I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t remember any of their names, except for my roommate, Elisa Caridi. (And I apologize about not remembering names, it’s nothing personal, I have a very poor memory.) But I’m putting them up here in case any of these people googles “Florida Institute of Technology, Jensen Beach Campus,” as I did, and then they will see pictures of themselves from 1974! There’s a shot of me at the end, which I think I may have posted before.

UPDATE: I’ve gotten names for some of the people below from FIT alum William Davis and others, and I’ve captioned the pictures with their names. If anyone can identify any of the people who are still listed as unknown, let me know and I will update this page with their names.

Names updated 3/2/21.

Row 1: Mike Edsell on the left, Mike Edsell and John Kipp on the right.
Row 2: On the left, Chet King and Tom Kulp, and Mike Kneeland on the right.

Row 1: No guesses.
Row 2: On the left unknown, Bill Atwill, English teacher and crew coach, on the right.

Row 1: That’s me on the right, with my roommate Elisa Caridi.
Row 2: Doug Koontz.
Row 3: Unknown on the left, Bob Keith on the right.

And yes, except for a token shot or two my of roommate, all the pictures are of guys. Come on, I was 18!!

Row 1: I can’t remember his name (this is not personal, I just have memory issues), but I remember he was very nice and would give me rides on his motorcycle, which I loved more than anything. I still remember those rides, the scenery was amazing.
Row 2: Unknown.
Row 3: Unknown.

Row 1: Elisa Caridi on the left, Dennis Morgan on the right.
Row 2: Unknown.

Row 1: Mike Kneeland, on the right Don Cuozzo.
Row 2: On the left unknown, but I remember he was another really nice guy, on the right Doug Koontz.

Row 1: These guys in both shots are unknown.
Row 2: Walter LaFluer.

Okay, this one, where I was trying to get “action” shots of Elisa dancing, shows something of the beauty of the area.

I’m pretty sure I didn’t take this picture. The guys in the picture gave it to me.

Update: I recently heard from the guy on the left! His name is Glen Simms and that is Dennis Morgan on the right.

And these are the pictures I believe I’ve posted before. These were taken for a local newspaper article about the crew team. I was the coxswain. For the record, I was a lousy coxswain. I apologize crew team of 1974!

Update: In the second picture, the guy on the left is Jay Niece.

This is Ken Henke.