Carnegie Hall and the Coats

The first time I heard the story about the coats, Madison Square Garden, and the Six-Day Bicycle Race it came from a retired NYPD detective who spent some time each day hanging out in the family flower shop in the1960s. Barney Greene, a retired 3rd grade detective who started on the police force so long ago he told of the era when the patrolmen spent tours of duty that lasted days as they slept in the station house. They weren't called New York's Finest then, but perhaps New York's Most Fragrant.

Barney looked every bit a retired detective. Clean-shaven, pink faced, fedora, three piece suit, white shirt, tie, cuff links, collar pin, NYPD tie clasp, polished black shoes, and overcoat that he never seemed to take off. He was the house dick in the hotel lobby in any movie you ever saw, and that you'd now see on Turner Classic Movies. He lived in the neighborhood, was a bachelor whose brother played with my father as kids. He smoked cigarettes and didn't speak much, but did occasionally tell a story.

At some point in the 60s they renewed the Six-Day Bicycle Race at Madison Square Garden. This was the "old" Garden, on 8th Avenue and 50th Street. Six Day Bike Races were once very popular, but like a lot of things, disappeared.  The Six-Day Bike Race was six days of 24 hours of riding by bicycle teams from all over the world, competing on a banked, indoor track.  In today's lexicon I guess it would be billed as 24/6. Sundays were taken a little more religiously then.

Barney's taciturn story went that when people in the audience stood up and cheered during one of the special sprint portions of the race program, thieves would pop out of the old Garden's stairwells and scoop up the overcoats and minks left on the back railings and head for the exits, loaded down with whatever outerwear looked good enough to steal.

It was these special sprint portions of the program that drew a wider audience and a more flamboyant crowd that liked to bet on the outcomes. Typically mobsters and their girlfriends. Thus, better coats.

I was reminded of Barney's story when I read Jimmy Breslin's coat-grabbing account in "A Life, Damon Runyon."  The book is a biography of the reporter Damon Runyon and is filled with stories and characters from his era, described in Mr. Breslin's own descriptive, wise-cracking, sarcastic style that is as much a part of New York as Times Square.

Mr. Breslin, being a newspaperman himself, and a writer, describes the same scene, but in rich detail. Basically, the same thing happens, as it would repeat itself throughout the six day event. In Mr. Breslin's account, a coat with bullets in it goes accompanied out the exit with a new owner, a coat Damon Runyon was holding for someone.

The other night at intermission at Carnegie Hall I wandered toward the back of the hall on the main level and stood looking at the stage from the back railing. Just inside the railing I was leaning on was an inner railing that ran the width of the seats. Seats were empty for intermission, and several coats were draped over this inner railing. All within easy reach.

I could only think about the story from the flower shop and Jimmy Breslin's description. No one appeared from the shadows and made off with the coats. A colorful selection of North Face puff coats. Not a damn one was worth stealing.

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