METROPOLITAN DIARY
Finding Home
Dear Diary:
On a trip to New York City, I convinced my wife, Linda, to join me on a baseball pilgrimage: a walk to the spot where Ebbets Field’s home plate once was.
After taking the subway to Prospect Park, we wandered toward Sullivan Place and the large apartment complex where the Dodgers’ ballpark used to be.
We spotted Jackie Robinson Park down the street, but we could not find a sign pointing us to home plate’s former home.
Suddenly, we heard a loud voice bellowing from a distance.
“Are you looking for the home plate?”
We looked up toward the apartment building entrance and saw a female security guard with a big grin.
Linda and I looked at each other and laughed.
“Yes,” we yelled back.
“Follow me,” she said, waving us up the stairs.
Soon, we were following her along a walkway and down a set of stairs to the parking lot at the back of the complex.
“I have people like you coming by here all the time looking for home plate,” she said as we came to the end of our impromptu tour.
“Here it is,” she said. “You can take your pictures now.”
We thanked her and took a couple of photos.
She turned and walked away while my wife and I stared at the plaque: “Site of Ebbets Field Home Plate. Home to the Brooklyn Dodgers 1913-1957. At this location on April 15, 1947, Jack Roosevelt Robinson integrated Major League Baseball.”
— Gary Poignant
Staten Island Ferry
Dear Diary:
In 1969 I was 21 and visiting New York from Vancouver, British Columbia. I had never been away from home, and had been lured to the city by Broadway and every old movie from the 1930s and ’40s.
My first night in Manhattan, I was excited to get on the Staten Island Ferry. I was hoping that someone would sing “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” à la Astaire and Rogers.
Wondering which side of the boat had the best view of Manhattan, I asked a deckhand where I should go to see something beautiful.
“Florida,” he said.
— Verna Hall
(((HAHAHA! NONONONO!!!))
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/25/nyregion/metropolitan-diary.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
