My Saratoga betting mate still lives in Flushing and frequents Leiser's liquor store for his selection of wines. Leiser's itself is a bit of an institution, being at the same location at Sanford Avenue and 162nd Street for decades. The store has grown in size over the years. My wife still makes pilgrimages to Leiser's to load up on her supply of the nectar of the gods, because somewhat like the old Crazy Eddie's, their prices are insanely good.
Checkout at Leiser's is quick, and they safely package the precious bottles with pieces of cardboard and newspaper. You're good to go when you leave there.
One of the bottles my friend brought over for dinner still had some of the packing Leiser's used, in this case pages from the Queens Examiner, a free weekly newspaper that reports on all things local. Apparently, one of their features is one of those look-back-on-this-day columns titled 'Back in The Day.' Reprints of front pages from what was one of the many newspapers that served New York City 'back in the day,' the Long Island Star Journal. This was an eight column broadsheet that covered all things Queens and New York City in general. Pictures of newborn babies was a feature. I was in there.
The paper was a household fixture. Like most people, we had it delivered by a kid on a bike with a canvas bag between his handlebars. His tosses usually made the front steps.
So along with the bottle of Bogle that made it into the house were also two reprint pages of the Long
Island Star Journal featured in the 'Back In The Day' section of the Queens Examiner.
Both pages were from before I was born, but the format of the paper brings back memories. One page from May 14, 1940 headlined "Plane 'Crashes' At North Beach; Mayor Misses His Breakfast"
North Beach was the area in Queens adjacent to Astoria that was a beach, and later the location of what became LaGuardia Airport. My father would tell of going to North Beach as a kid via the Second Avenue El that used the Queensboro Bridge to get to the terminus in Astoria, next to North Beach. In those days you could go in the water, which was really the East River, without contracting a disease.
Turns out an American Airlines transport place carrying 9 passengers skidded on the runway while landing when its landing gear collapsed. "As the landing gear collapsed, the transport slid along on its fuselage, tearing up the sod for more than 100 feet." Imagine that, the runway was packed dirt. No one was hurt, but it seems the passengers were in a lather to get their luggage.
As was Mayor Fiorello La Guardia's habit, be arrived at fires and emergencies with regularity. There is a famous photo of him being driven to the scene of something in a motorcycle sidecar. He tended to take charge at these scenes, and the article reports that La Guardia worked off his impatience by "playing redcap for three passengers who insisted they wanted their luggage immediately." One wonders if a tip might have been construed as bribe. I'm sure La Guardia would have refused a gratuity.
As noteworthy as the accident surely was, there is a smaller story underneath that tells of 'Kidnapers To Get 20-Year Sentence.'
Talk about 'The Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight.' It seems two "Brooklyn hoodlums who kidnaped Charles Giangarra, an Astoria olive oil dealer and demanded a $10,000 ransom from his family" were caught when neighbors responded to the loudness of their arguing with each other in an apartment in Brooklyn where they were holding Mr. Giangarra, and broke in. The jig was up at that point.
Apparently "the jury deliberated only four hours and 10 minutes--with an hour for supper--when they returned their guilty verdict to County Judge Charles S. Colden in Long island City." As the verdict was read, the two defendants "took the verdict calmly, as did their relatives in the courtroom, although some of their womenfolk sobbed quietly."
Those emotional womenfolk. At least they didn't make a big scene.
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