And leave it to the NYT to put a sheen on an activity that's been going on ever since someone plucked something out of the trash and put it to their own use. It was disgusting, but I used to see what were once called "bums" pull cigar and cigarette butts out of the trash in the 14th Street area of Third Avenue of 3rd Avenue, fittingly just a few blocks from what was then New York's Skid Row, the Bowery. Any length long enough to smoke was good enough for them.
As always, @CoreyKilgannon has proved to be a muse for my memories. The at-large NYT reporter has linked a Tweet to a story by a colleague about how the pandemic has seemed to elevate the quality of the trash that is sitting out there on Manhattan curbs waiting to be picked up; and that until it is picked up, it is fair game for strolling scavengers, or Internet-guided hawks who swoop down and walk off with the "other man's treasure" and furnish their living quarters with items of used, but desirable quality.
Of course there is an Instagram account where two people have made it their lot in life to post photos of desirable items, provide the curb locations, and let the market do its thing.
I can just see being pummeled by Alec Baldwin who has rushed out of a cab and wrapped his fists around a lamp you were led to by the Web account. Alec has seen the same image, and is now ready to fight for the curb item. It's got to happen. He's flunked anger management several times.
The NYT, always a paper given to thinking about things, attributes the elevation of the quality of the trash to people staying at home because of the pandemic and suddenly seeing their surroundings as a place that needs improvement. After all, the Web has plenty of online opportunities to consider as replacements for their threadbare items.
People are spending more time inside their places of abode, and are probably sober at home for more hours than they used to be, so it's only natural that they'd like to jazz the joint up a bit.
Dumpster diving is nothing new, and calling it "stooping" is not a new term, despite what an anonymous couple @stoopingnyc claims to be their invention of the word. "Stooping" may soon appear as getting the William Safire treatment by Ben Zimmer in the WSJ.
The term has long been applied to those at an OTB (there are still OTBs, but nowhere nearly as many, and none in NYC) who scour the floor for discarded tickets and see if perhaps there is still value on them that the "dropper" missed.
You'd say, "who would throw away a winning ticket" but you have to know a little more about horse racing. The scratching of a horse after bets have started will entitle the holder to a refund. This is often overlooked by the ticket purchaser.
A change in the order of finish after the race has been reviewed by the stewards after a claim of foul will create new payoff numbers. If the holder of a ticket doesn't realize they've been "moved up" and discards their ticket, they are throwing away a winner.
If the stooper is any good, they will pick up any and all discarded tickets and run them through the machine that day, or even a day later. Somewhat like a MetroCard reader, the validity of the ticket will be displayed, along with its value. There's gold in the discards.
There is however a lot less of it than there used to be. There are far fewer OTBs and a great deal of wagering is placed online, where no tickets are issued, but accounts are automatically debited and credited. Thus, if you deserve a credit because of a scratch, the computer posts it to your account.
There was one fellow who years ago basically derived all his income from "stooping" from discarded tickets. He had the janitor from the Seventh Avenue Winners Circle OTB, save the trash bags for him and run the tickets through the reader. But the closing of the OTBs and the online platforms have put a crimp in his "found" income.
There have been others beside Jesus at 7th Avenue. There has even been a casino version of the racetrack stooper, the slot machine scooper. When there were pay telephones and coin returns protected by a swivel scoop I used to always see guys hustling past the pay phones, quickly tip the scooper to see if anyone left their change, or returned money for an incomplete call. They always worked fast because it was a quick dipsy doodle, and there were a lot of pay phones in a rail or bus terminal. Not so now.
And before that, when there was just a drop, not protected by a swivel scoop, the clever stuffed tissue paper up the chute to block the money from hitting the bottom of the coin return. Periodically, these folks would pass by their territory and pull the tissue out and hopefully collect a little windfall that came their way, almost like tapping maple trees for syrup. Times change.
But back to dumpster diving. If my father were still alive, we'd be able to furnish a second home these days. Because the home I grew up in was certainly furnished with other people's furniture.
My father was born in 1915, so the Depression was a reality for his family of four boys and mother and father. But they did okay, even owning a flower shop, selling a commodity that you'd like no one would have any money for in those times. Not so.
But he did have a mentality of used being just as good as new. Rugs found their way home, and I distinctly remember a "drum" table that came from the Sabatini's trash two houses away. The table tilted a bit, but the beer bottle and glass of scotch didn't fall off, so it was good enough to keep. He didn't even try and level it off. As is was good enough.
I never got that drum table in the living room out of my mind And when one of the Keno brothers declared one an antique on 'The Antiques Roadshow' I wished my father had been alive to hear that. That's how I then knew that while I'm sure we didn't have a valuable antique there was now a design name I could attach to something that came from in front of the Sabatini house.
Like father like son? Not really. But I will confess that only a few weeks ago I picked up one of those lime green/yellow fluorescent vests from outside a LIRR waiting room and tucked it in my bag on my way into the city.
I no longer run, but I knew it could be used as a great reflector vest for running, because that's what it was, a reflector vest. There was nothing wrong with it. No stains. No rips. Like new. When I brought it home to be washed my wife questioned its origin. I confessed, and then I really confessed.
I described finding it outside the waiting room. "And you brought it into the city, and then brought it home?"
"Yes."
I was getting a look from my wife that Red Smith once described as that of a man who just bit into an apple and found half a worm. I further felt compelled to give even more disclose, to admit that I took the SHOP AND STOP name tag off before keeping it.
The waiting room is nowhere near a SHOP AND STOP, so I saw nothing wrong with this. No one was going to come rushing out of the woodwork to reclaim it.
"So, now there's a kid pushing shopping carts through a parking lot who's not wearing his reflector vest?"
"I don't know. He should get another one I expect."
The vest was thrown out. It never made it into the wash. I was then called my father's first name, Ted. The daughter I saved the vest for heard the story and also made a face like she had just bittern into an apple and found half a worm.
When she next dropped me off at the train station I was instructed: "Do not pick anything up this time."
I love it when they make fun of you.
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