Apparently the snow removal in NYC from the recent storm went well. If it hadn't, then the Acting Commissioner, Edward Grayson, wouldn't have received a piece of praise from a newspaper that has always had trouble finding that there are four boroughs (counties) attached to Manhattan by what, 21 bridges and tunnels, but still endure the designation as "the outer boroughs." The Sulzbergers don't want to know what my wife (da Bronx) calls the paper. It's not flattering. And I hear it every time I pick the paper up. And usually agree with her.
But 45 years of marriage can't change my readership habits, so I got a kick out of Mr. Kilgannon's piece about Mr. Grayson's rise from someone who took the civil service test at 18 to someone who is now the commissioner, since Kathryn Garcia (yes, a woman) has left the job after 6 years in order to run for mayor. There are openings at the top in city government. It's an equal opportunity employer.
Mr. Grayson's mother and father both worked for the Department of Sanitation, and he grew up in Middle Village, a section of modest homes in Queens that are owned by multi-generational families.
The story about Mr. Grayson's third grade teacher who poo-pooed his answer that his goal when he grew up was to become a "garbage man" rings familiar. I have a friend who is now 76 and living in Simi Valley, California who grew up in Brooklyn who was discouraged by his parents from taking the civil service for Sanitation. Bob saw the goal of a pension after x years as a reasonable inducement to employment. He was already big and strong and liked to lift weights, so why not? Didn't happen.
In high school one of the electives that we could take was Electrical something or other. The teacher, a pill of a guy named LeSeur, like the canned peas, chastised us why were in the class when we could be apprentices in the electrician's union and eventually make beaucoup bucks. He obviously was jealous of a blue-collar wage that was probably paying more than the teacher's union and required a college degree. He was a bitter guy.
It is a nifty piece about Mr. Grayson and how he actually rehearsed his charges back in October for what could be the need to remove snow once it got here. Weather is highly unpredictable, and there has been many a storm that has left a lot of people pissed off at weak efforts to remove the white stuff.
I've seen photos of Mr. Kilgannon and seen him appear on a CNN interview about the bar in Staten Island, Mac's, that's flouted the order to close so I can guess Mr. Kilgannon's age. So when he recounts the tale of the 2010 storm that embarrassed Mayor Bloomberg I laugh somewhat, because the most famous failure to removed snow was in 1969 when young Mayor Lindsay was in charge and didn't even know Queens was an "Outer Borough."
Mr. Grayson's mom and dad remember this, as does anyone who lived in Queens at the time and who is not dead or shuffling through the halls of a nursing home waiting for lunch. The February storm that dumped 14" in the borough, and really throughout the city, was not met with a plow for days! Days. As in multiple 24 hour periods.
The story came out later that the street Ralph Bunche lived on in Forest Hills, or Kew Gardens got plowed. Bunche was a U.N. mediator and Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1950 for his efforts in Palestine. He was obviously a VIP, so his street got plowed. Where it lead him to would be another story, because of course he couldn't go any further without walking.
So our street, 41st Avenue didn't get plowed, but it did get dug out to some degree by the neighbors and my father. 41st Avenue at the corner connected to Murray Street, which didn't get plowed, despite the firehouse that was half a block south.
And the fire trucks were needed later that evening when our upstairs tenant fell asleep on the coach and started a fire while his wife was visiting the neighbors. I ran to the firehouse in my stocking feet because I wasn't satisfied that the pull box on the corner was working fast enough
The trucks could not get in front of the house, but were of course able to run water from a hydrant nearby. No one was hurt, but the damage was extensive.
The suburbs were always considered to have more reliable snow removal than the city, which was always a bit hit or miss, but never as bad as the 1969 winter. Floral Park, a Queens/Nassau community that straddles the border could always count on having one side of the border street be more passable than the other. Guess which one?
Mayor Lindsay is long passed away. But hardly forgotten.
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