Friday's visit was for a totally different reason, but for one I'll save for a later date. The contrast between a NYC precinct and a Nassau County one is night and day. While a NYC precinct can seem like rush hour in Grand Central Terminal, a Nassau county precinct can resemble a church cellar with a Cub Scout meeting scheduled for later.
The lobby was like walking into a bank in Vermont. After being buzzed in I was directed to sit down at one of the two desks in front with two visitor chairs at each desk. I was the only civilian in the place. There were three uniformed officers behind a bit of a high wooden ledge, a barrier that it was clear you weren't supposed to go near.
While waiting for an officer to attend to me I looked around. There was a long steam radiator along the wall by the desk I sat at. There were photos of the COP OF THE MONTH. There was a small ledge behind me where you could write something if you had to, or take a brochure about crime.
There was what looked like an ATM machine alongside the door that was of course not an ATM, but rather a receptacle, like a small clothing drop box, that you could dispose of your empty prescription bottles. NO NEEDLES, please.
This surprised me, because I didn't think an empty Rx bottle represented medical waste that needed to be disposed of . But perhaps it was for unwanted, unneeded medicine. I didn't explore.
It was not hard to notice the huge bronze plaque that I could easily read from where I was seated that told me that the building was built in 1968 and dedicated by Eugene H. Nickerson, the County Executive. Lesser names beneath his didn't mean anything to me since I lived in Flushing Queens in 1968 and considered anything east of Bell Boulevard to be almost requiring a passport for entry.
Easily being the oldest person in the place, I was familiar with the name Eugene Nickerson from newspaper stories, and particularly from his stint as a Federal judge for the Eastern District, which includes Staten Island, Queens, Brooklyn Nassau and Suffolk counties.
In 1988 I was called for jury duty for the Eastern District Federal Court. A lot of people were part of the call and the process is to herd you into a large courtroom, describe the case to you, and wait for your name to be possibly called.
If called, you are asked to sit in the jury box, and when there are at least 12 people seated the judge gets to ask the potential jurors questions—not the defense or prosecuting attorney. The judge rules who stays, who goes. The lawyers are allowed a few preemptory challenges, sort of like replay challenges these days.
Typical for me: something always reminds me of something else. At one of the sessions I was pulled into Eugene Nickerson was the Federal judge. I hadn't seen him in years. I knew him from some TV news interviews, and knew he had a dulcet-toned way of speaking. Almost like William F. Buckley Jr. But right now it was obvious he had aged from the last time I saw him. He was how he was described in the 2002 obituary I later reread, wearing, "square lens glasses at he tip of his nose."
I wasn't called from the general pool to sit in the jury box and be interviewed this time, but when there were 12 or so people in the box I couldn't help spotting a somewhat elderly fellow who had all the appearance to my trained eye to be a Greek immigrant, someone I've seen in countless diners and flower shops growing up.
Judge Nickerson asked the gentleman a question and it was clear from his thick, Greek-accented English response that he was from Greece. Nickerson and the potential juror went back and forth with questions and answers, and it was clear the gentleman was polite, and was not trying to "throw" his answers to get out of service; he was genuinely not grasping the questions. He and the judge went back and forth a few times until Nickerson politely said that if they were to continue like this that it was going to turn into a Bob Hope and Bing Crosby routine. The Greek fellow didn't understand, but I know I laughed, as did a few others. He was not selected.
I remembered reading the obituary for Judge Nickerson, but when I got home I refreshed my memory. He was of a pure patrician background. On his father's side he was descended from a relative who in 1637 bought Cape Cod from the Indians (price not given) and who eventually founded the town of Chatham. His mother was a direct descendent of President John Adams, and by extension John Quincy Adams. The obituary described what was on display that day in the courtroom: "a soft-spoken, often humorous man." Judge Nickerson went to Harvard, and of course Columbia Law School. Ivy all the way.
Immediately to my right was a free-standing dispenser of hand sanitizer, the new accessory to almost any public setting due to the pandemic. I couldn't tell if the dispenser had been moved from another location, but the paper sign taped to the pole did seem to have advice that might be premature for someone just sitting in the lobby:
Do Not Use Hand Sanitizer Before Being Fingerprinted.
No problem here.
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