I never saw Tony perform, but my wife and I did see him at Birdland in December 2019 when the pianist Monty Alexander made the audience aware of his presence; Tony was sitting at ringside with his wife Susan and a few others. I don't think he got up, but he did acknowledge the introduction, turning his head back toward the audience.
As the first show was over and we were leaving, there was a bit of a scrum outside the entrance as Tony left with his wife and others. He looked like he was doddering a bit, but I did mange to get his attention by yelling out "Tony, North Beach." He turned his head to acknowledge.
You'd have to be Tony's age, or around people who were born around the same time as Tony, to know anything about North Beach. Basically, it's where LaGuardia airport is now, created by landfill adjacent to Astoria.
The story goes that Mayor La Guardia was coning back to New York on a flight, but there was no airport in the city to land at. They had to land at Newark, New Jersey. New York City didn't have an airport. Under Mayor La Guardia's command, what was North Beach became landfill and what is now appropriately named LaGuardia Airport.
Tony remembered North Beach, My father, born in 1915, and growing up on Second Avenue in Manhattan would tell me about how his mother took him and his younger brother Jimmy (the two older brothers weren't interested) to the beach via the 2nd Avenue elevated train that ran to Astoria, going over the 59th Street bridge. I have a destination sign from that train, appropriated I do not know by whom or when, that I've given to my oldest daughter Nancy: Astoria via 2nd Avenue. You might say it's been in my family for years: an heirloom.
As he was getting started, Tony was a singing waiter at the restaurant and catering hall Riccardo's by-the-Bridge, hard by the Triboro Bridge. (It closed in 2021.) My wife and I had our wedding reception at Riccardo's in 1975. At the time, I wasn't aware of the Tony Bennett connection.
Ninety-six years is a long life, and 1926-2023 is quite a span of years. Because my father was born in 1915, I feel I know everything about all the years Tony lived in.
I can't seem to corroborate it, but I thought there was a NYC mayor (Mike Bloomberg?) who declared Tony Bennett a living NYC landmark, There is such a thing.
Tony Bennett paid a lot of bills with his recording of "I Left My Heart in San Francisco." But his heart was always in New York, and our hearts were always with Tony.
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