Podcasts

Woman Around Town’s Editor Charlene Giannetti and writers for the website talk with the women and men making news in New York, Washington, D.C., and other cities around the world. Thanks to Ian Herman for his wonderful piano introduction.

Mary Poppins

Street Seens: Uncle Albert Lives

04/02/2017

And even if his name is Mr. Turvy, (who knew there were so many magical Uncles in the six sequels P.L. Travers wrote from 1934 to 1989!) I firmly believe he is the Mary Poppins relative who can be credited with the rare gift of being able to fix “everything but broken hearts.” And more to the point, I have evidence that he is alive and well and working in this urban village’s zip code.

Here’s how you can recognize the aforementioned “fixer.” When you have an issue that has no obvious “go to” person to address it, you decide on a sort of hunch, that you will listen to the third-party endorsements of your neighbors. Or you might just decide to launch a test balloon to see whether Marco or Nick or Lyle might have some talent developed in their primary businesses that would prepare them not to laugh when you come to them with an unpredictable request.

nick1Nick Bender of Ciel Bicycles

In short, these are the “tip-offs” that a local entrepreneur is living proof that Uncle Albert lives. And better still that he can invest that skill in providing unexpected solutions to your problems. Here are some examples. A person in this village depends upon well engineered crutches to support the mobility of her amazingly active life of teaching and socializing. Now here’s the surprise “Uncle Albert” effect. She told me that one of the vital secrets for her peace of mind and security is found in the unlikely precincts of a bicycle shop. A bicycle shop?

Having been launched into the realm of the unexpected by her fulsome praise of the bicycle shop and its proprietor, I had a lightbulb moment. I can’t imagine how the cycling expert has helped my neighbor. But I can imagine how a cycling guru might be able to solve a problem closer to home. Now that I look at them with my neighbor’s insight, I notice that the cables that allow a bicycle to put on the brakes have a remarkable similarity to those that keep a walking device from rolling down the length of a city bus, destroying its value as a defense mechanism. The wise advice of a practical therapist was that such a device was a handy way to protect against the extreme enemies of navigation to be met on the streets of this urban village. It functions as a sort of “wake up call” to distracted walkers focused on texting and makes sidewalks ravaged by subway construction less challenging.

ciel interior

That’s what brought me to Ciel Bicycle Stores to meet Nick Bender, the Uncle Albert of two-wheeled devices and all their supporting mechanics. Believing it was worth a try, I stopped at the shop on East 65th Street and wondered aloud whether the bicycle/rollator relationship was worth pursuing. Fortunately, I thereby found by just opening the door, a Brown University alumnus who decided to apply his pre-med degree to a more varied set of mobility issues. While I sat, and became the center of a most energetic frolic of the resident French Bulldog Pogli, and his current amour, a 4-month old kitten, Nick worked his magic and I set off with my reborn/re-secured “Rolls Royce.”

On a return trip to take some Android photos, I found Nick at work on what he said was his favorite sort of project, one he describes as “finding a way to solve a problem for which there is no easy solution.” Nick was at work rebuilding a gear changing mechanism that the manufacturer placed at a lower level and the bike owner wanted to have nearer the handle bars. But that would not be achievable by just moving the gear from point A to point B. So, Nick figured out that he would have to build a new gear mechanism from scratch.   He had just achieved that when I visited Ciel. That’s the thing about “Uncle Alberts”: they specialize in creative answers to unexpected questions. So, evolution moves on and the son of two physicians imagines and performs highly imaginative operations. www.cielbikes.com/

marcoMarco Andrade of Marco Shoe Repair

I call Marco “the Uncle Albert” of shoe repair. Like Mary Poppins’ uncle he seems truly to be able to fix everything but broken hearts. And I wouldn’t rule that out, given his unfailing “can do” attitude. When his own heart was broken by the fact that his beloved dog Chulo’s walker dropped his leash when threatened by Upper East Side traffic, Chulo disappeared into the winter snow and traffic.

But true “Uncle Alberts” don’t retreat into regret. So, Marco prepared a flyer with Chulo’s photo, contact numbers and the promise of a “Good Reward,” and papered the streets and local newspapers with them. Many weeks later the phone rang and a kind woman who lived in the West Village reported that she had seen the ad, and thereby rejoiced that she had solved the mystery of how this obviously cherished pet had found his way to her door and would soon enjoy a homecoming. “Soon” was an understatement. Marco turned the key in his shop door and virtually flew the scores of blocks to reclaim a pal as resourceful as he.

Marco Andrade, the craftsman whose eponymous shoe repair establishment is to be found on Second Avenue near 63rd Street, descended from the Third Avenue shop presided over by his father. When Marco opted to move here from his native Ecuador with dreams of attending art school, his father urged him to pursue a different form of creativity. As one who had himself been first a mechanic and next a self-taught photographer, Marco’s father taught his son the shoemaker’s art. Although Marco now sketches and draws at every opportunity, he earns his living and his customer’s gratitude as an artist in repair and reconstruction.

I met Marco when I dared to present a handbag so ancient it could, if human, had qualified to vote. In its long life, the once elegant black cross body bag with just the right number of compartments, had visited dozens of airports and trade shows, freeing my hands and allowing me to negotiate the various challenges of life on the streets of our urban village and the mind-numbing demands of convention centers in more than a handful of states. Noting that Marco advertised an ability to “repaint” the soles of shoes that started life with a certain crimson designer panache (or any other you might prefer). Again, the phrase, “It may be worth a try” brought me in Marco’s door. And once again, I found a craftsman who didn’t laugh but threw himself into the miraculous transformation of a gently greying leather bag reborn as a glamorously black 21st century beauty.

marco shp

That was just the tip of the iceberg. When a well-meaning friend insisted that my walking companion of a “Rolls Royce” would indeed fit into the sleek trunk of her sleek little car and smilingly slammed down the trunk lid, I was left with a paraplegic. And then, you guessed it, Marco to the rescue. “I can fix that,” he said when “the patient” and I went to his shop to collect the shoes he had brought from torturous to downright comfy. And fix it, he did, revealing the unique combination of the mechanic’s skills and the artist’s eye that he inherited, and now advances every day. If this were a math formula, I would interrupt the narrative by noting: Point Two of the Uncle Albert Recognition standards: For him, nothing is impossible!

My discovery of another “Uncle Albert”, this one named Lyle, occurred when I first began writing Street Seens. I told our publisher that I was so curious about the gardens that “frame” my landmark parish Church of St. Vincent Ferrer. When she determined that I knew nothing about how any garden grows, she warned me that the creator of our nearby horticultural miracles did not seem to be eager for self-promotion; and she warned me that he might be more interested in speaking with his trees, shrubs and flowers than in being interviewed by me. Warned, but not deterred I approached Lyle Steele one August day and asked if he might consider answering a few questions about the genesis and flourishing of the gardens so many find enriching, inspiring and altogether amazing.

Uncle albert 3The Garden at the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer

I offered to put together a few questions he might consider. Not only did he not laugh at me and my amateur’s questions, but he returned to me multiple pages of pure gold, marked by everything from impish humor to sensitivity to the surprising description of what he called the “community” over which he presides, and how it challenges and rewards him. Having begun by saying it was like presiding over a group of mischievous school children, he amended the description to say that it was perhaps more like presiding over a community of homicidal sex maniacs, all bent on grabbling the most of sun, soil and space for themselves and their relentless drive to reproduce. That definitely got my attention. There it was: proof positive that I had found an “Uncle Albert” of garden design.

Like our other two, this “Uncle Albert” came to his current niche from a world far away: that of publishing in the prestigious world of Manhattan-based business media/publishing. I was learning that it takes bold and brave decisions to release one’s inner Uncle Albert. I will invite you to return to the archives of www.womanaroundtown.com to revisit the story that grew from a summertime exploration of his responses to my questions and his lyrical insight about the history and growth of the six gardens that are his gift to our urban village. (Maybe he illustrates why I associate the Uncle Albert gift with the laughing Ed Wynn character in the film Mary Poppins!)

Which brings us to a third tell-tale sign that you have encountered an Uncle Albert (even though his website reads www.lylesteelecustomgardens.com). He doesn’t laugh at you when you suggest exploring a new path of inquiry or discovery or doubt that he will find, plant and grow the “holy grail of lotus” on East 65th Street.

And like the other magical spirits portrayed here, he does deal in fixing everything, including broken hearts. I learned that recently, when he invited his list of email contacts to join him in a search for new homes for the two elegant Siamese-blend cats a dear friend had to part with when moving to an assisted living facility. The last time our paths crossed, he was braving the cold winter weather to meet with a potential adopter of his dear friend’s cats. May that hope have taken root and bloomed, as does all that he touches in the gardens that touch me and his grateful neighbors in our urban village.

Street Seens: Healing in Hyde Park

12/18/2016

Which one, you might ask?  There are so many of them rattling around in our memories.  London, where the soap box orators vent?  Upstate New York where memories of FDR are enshrined? The South Side of Chicago where a great university shares a neighborhood with a President’s pre-White House home; gracious 19th Century houses and churches speak of times when space was spent lavishly to accommodate families and worshippers?

hyde-park-cover

I spent the past week in the last of those three Hyde Parks watching my sister benefit from the genius of great doctors at The University of Chicago Medical Center and discovering a hotel with a big brand name and a massively creative take on that name, which manages to achieve both predictable quality and absolutely unpredictable personal touches.  For a few days, I had the feeling I had visited Downton Abbey or the Bellamy residence and that the staff had been directed to foresee and respond to everything needed to make a challenging time into a touchingly positive one.  The Hyatt Place Chicago-South/University Medical Center Team are to hoteliers what Merlin was to magicians. Or perhaps I should compare them to Mary Poppins’ Uncle Albert who was said to be able to “fix everything but broken hearts.”

Need to get from the hotel to the hospital or vice-versa? From 7AM to 7 PM just ask and in 10 minutes Larry or Dwight will whisk you there in a Mercedes bus they operate as if it were a streamlined sedan.  Unfortunately, nothing is needed to shuttle you to the iconic ice cream parlor where tastes are offered any of the scores of original flavors.  Local eateries include the cash only cafeteria President Obama is said to visit whenever in his hometown. A cornucopia of options surrounds the hotel and they make it easy to allow guests to order in to their in-house central delivery facility.  A lavish breakfast is served daily.

Outside the doors is a world of options for all the necessities and niceties to establish a home away from home, from first run cinema to homewares and shopping options.

map500

The “urban village” of Hyde Park is much like that of my Manhattan 10065. A quick review of the December issue of It’s Happening in Hyde Park showed me a stunning catalogue of cultural and historic icons that dot this Southside neighborhood (above).  They range from the singular Museum of Science and Industry to the Du Sable Museum of African American History; the Frank Lloyd Wright Robie House and magnificent Rockefeller Memorial Chapel and U of C’s Court Theater.  A full page shows parks to be visited and others amaze with lists of houses of worship, restaurants and ongoing events.  Everywhere there is the mosaic of people that power the strength and diversity of this enclave.

“Town and Gown” is a phrase that has its own varied meanings wherever institutions of learning live and further inspire their surrounding neighborhoods.  Having seen the Hyde Park neighborhood from a home away from home in its center, I leave with a treasure of hope for what our great nation of villages can achieve.

All photos courtesy of the Hyde Park Herald.