Ode to Tinhorn Parlors

I am steeped in NYC nostalgia. Given my own memory, and that of my father's passed on through recollections, I go back a 100 years without being a 100. The best way to be a 100.

When OTB nearly closed its doors this past Friday after nearly 40 years in the business of legally taking bets on horses and greedily taking a surcharge on winnings, it didn't go without my notice. It did it seem to escape the notice of most of the rest of the population. OTB has had more endings than the Polo Grounds, and even when its ending seemed permanently imminent, like Friday, they got a reprieve to await a NY Senate vote on Tuesday that is still not expected to save it.

Much is being made of the passing of Elaine Kaufman, the female Toots Shor saloon keeper who greeted and fed the famous East Side thirsty. Nothing wrong with that. As John Huston's character, the public works tycoon, Noah Cross uttered over lunch in the movie 'Chinatown', "politicians, public buildings and whores all gain respectability if they last long enough." Not that Elaine was any of these, it was just a way of saying if you're around long enough, you are an institution. Like OTB.

OTB never gained respectability, despite its longevity. It started in 1971, opening in its first location, the old ticket windows of the New Haven and Hartford Railroad in Grand Central Terminal. It was an august setting for an operation that was not much more automated than a Chinese laundry. The computer system still hadn't been developed, so you got a tearaway receipt for your bet that if you won, you presented back to someone at a window. They in turn matched it to its first part that was being kept in a small file box; they punched a hole in the matched tickets when they paid you, and you were back on the street ready to go again.

Eventually there was a computer system and telephone betting. I was able to bet the 1971 Kentucky Derby for several people in my office through my freshly established phone account, accessed by a user id and password, basically how it works today. You did have to talk to someone though, which wasn't bad and really was what you expected to do. But when a woman at work wagered $4 to win on Canonero II, a rank outsider from Venezuela, and he won, I got nervous. The returned value was supposed to be $118 that I was now responsible to give this co-worker. It worked out. The bet was properly recorded, and I was able to withdraw the money from the account and get a check. Thankfully, the woman wasn't in a hurry for her money. She was so tickled by winning she gave me a photo book on New York City.

OTB parlors, and soon there were over 100 of them throughout the city, basically became vilified as hangouts for undesirables. Still, I always thought one of the most observant comments of its patrons was made by the inestimable sports reporter for the NY Times, Robert Lipsyte, who commented that they really reminded him of people at the public library, because where else could you see so many people reading and writing?

And every time I went to the library and filled out a call slip with a 3" yellow pencil from a small box, I have always been reminded of how those pencils resemble the 3" green pencils OTB made available to fill out its betting slips.

OTB and the library. Connected by carbon. A binding element of the universe.

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