Page 10 Echo Feature Going home again with Pete Hamill

By Pat Fenton he points to a long ago picture were the ones filling in the [email protected] of a young Pete Hamill just blanks.” home from the Navy, not he sun splashed along knowing that one day he FARRELL’S LEGEND the tops of the factory would be far away from this Talking about bars, there’s a buildings in Tribeca, safe Irish working-class world Windsor Terrace legend that Thighlighting the rows and and writing about people like still exists today about a night rows of water tanks on this Frank Sinatra, people that once in the 1970s when Pete Hamill perfect fall morning. As I came only existed for him inside a took the actress Shirley up from the A Train at Canal juke box. And drinking with MacLaine into Farrell’s, at a Street and started to walk them. And dating people like time when Farrell’s, like many downtown to interview Pete Jackie Kennedy and the movie of the saloons in the neighbor-

www.irishecho.com / Irish EchoHamill, / OCTOBER 8 - 14, 2014 / my mind wandered star Shirley MacLaine. hood, didn’t serve women at back to a long ago time in the “There’s Jack Daugherty, and the bar, and she demanded to 1970s when I sent him a sample Frank Cioffi. That’s Patty Rat- be served. of my first, early uncertain tigan behind the bar. I’m not The story told over and over words. He was writing for the sure who this is. But that’s the again by different customers of Village Voice at the time. The place. Almost every corner had Farrell’s has different endings next week I got back a long, abar,”hesays,ashetakesme that have been passed down type-written letter from him back to his “drinking-life through the generations. In that urged me to keep writing. days.” some, Shirley MacLaine makes And throughout his career “You had Diamond’s on the abigsceneatthebarandde- he did that over and over again corner of 9th Street and 7th Av- mands to be served. She gets with so many other writers just enue, and Denny’s directly served, and she changes every- starting out. across on the other side. You thing. Standing in his Tribeca loft I came up from the subway and What actually happened that commented on the walls and there it was. night? walls of books he has. Lining a “Then the next block over on “That night I was with her in long hallway are book shelves 10th Street was Fitzgerald’s ,” Hamill recalls, reaching from floor to ceiling, and 11th Street was Rattigan’s. “and it was St Patrick’s Day. holding over a thousand On 12th Street was Unbeatable And I ran in to the Gates broth- books. Joe’s. Quigley’s was on 13th ers from the neighborhood. “I call them the tenements,” Street. There was nothing on One of them was a fireman. he says. “The Irish tenement is Pete Hamill will be presented with the Eugene O’Neill Lifetime the corner of 14th Street and And someone said to her, over from where you’re stand- Achievement Award on Monday, Oct. 20, by the Irish American 7th Avenue. That’s where the ‘Okay, Shirley, have you ever ing. Then there’s France, and Writers & Artists. Minerva movie house was. been to Farrell’s? And she Italy and . And over there They insisted that it be treated goes, ‘uh, no.’ ‘Come on,’ and are all my books.” like a religious institution,” he into the cab we go.” The one book that stands out DIFFERENT, NOT BETTER go to the university. I didn’t says, smiling at the memory of “Was it something she was the most in his section of “the He talks about talking to a know a single person who ever aplaceheoncespentsomany looking forward to?” I ask tenements” is a book about his local real-estate guy on 7th Av- went to a university. Until later innocent Saturday afternoons Hamill. “Had she heard you mother called “Anne Devlin enue a few years ago while when I got older and was in in his youth. talking about Farrell’s Bar be- Hamill, An Irish-American working on a story about how the Navy and some guys had But there was also violence fore? Odyssey.” The Hamill family the neighborhood changed. gone and were urging me, and mixed in with the innocence of “Yeah. She went to high put it together. It is turned so The man, John Burke, who other of my fellow dropouts to the neighborhood. Previously, school, and she was smart. But that the full cover of the large grew up here, once made his make sure I get the GED and he had recalled for me on the she didn’t go to college. So she book is facing the room. On the living working a milk-truck then go on and go to the uni- phone an evening in the 1950s had a kind of curiosity. That front of it is a picture of her as route. versity. when a young gang member brought her to many places ayoungBelfastwoman,her “I remember asking him, the “I don’t know if the drug sit- from the Tigers, Giacomo For- that college wouldn't. That eyes filled with hope as she new people arriving here, what uation is better now than when tunato, was shot and killed at a brought her to Farrell’s Bar. stares out at an image of the are they like compared to what the heroin arrived in our gang fight with the South But she wasn't there to say, ‘try Statute of Liberty. we were like? He said, ‘we neighborhood in 1951. And Boys that took place to talk me out of it.’ She didn't “Did you call the neighbor- came from barracks. They that changed lives for the at nearby Prospect Park’s Swan do that. It was not confronta- hood when you came from dorms.’ And I’m worst. You know 17th Street in Lake. The next day a group of tional,” he says, as he describes were growing up in Brook- not against it by the way. You Windsor Terrace where you the Tigers stood under the how she just went up on her lyn?” I ask him. “A lot of peo- know I hear people bitching came from was one of the marquee of the Minerva, some own and ordered a drink. ple who came from Windsor about the yuppies, but gentrifi- worst hit.” of them crying as they read the “They gave it to her. The bar- Terrace always just called the cation is better than heroin.” He then mentions an insti- news of his death in the news- tenders were not the old guys. whole neighborhood the “How would you describe tution that was a favorite of his papers. They were younger. She got Slope.” your childhood growing up in father’s and that he has written “The bars were all so very im- served, she had one drink and “Where I lived on 7th Av- Brooklyn and the kids that are about often in his newspaper portant to the neighborhood. It then we headed back to Man- enue and 12th Street we really growing up there now?” I ask. columns, and in his books. was not just the fun they hattan.” didn’t call it anything,” he “It was simpler. There were “If you go over there,” he would have, and the jokes in We talk about some of the says. “What I loved about the various reasons for it. One was says, pointing, “you’ll find a these places. The men could other bars of the neighbor- South Brooklyn Boys, as they there was no television. We picture of Rattigan’s Bar on my meet the local ward-heeler hood, some that were once in called themselves, Junior Per- had radio, serials, we had Cap- desk.” who would come around once the heart of Windsor Terrace, sico and those guys, they lived tain Midnight, Jack Arm- Rattigan’s Bar is the place aweek,andtheycoulddo some on the borders of it. All of in North Brooklyn. When you strong.” where it all goes back to for some kind of favor for some- them caught forever in the lit- looked at the map you realized “Does that make it better?” I Pete Hamill, a safe place where one who was going to give erature of Pete Hamill’s books. that. But they called them- say, “Or is it more complicated much of his life began in a them six votes forever. The “Here you are as a young selves the South Brooklyn than that?” tough Irish working-class whole family would. And they man on Saturday nights, hang- Boys. Geography was not one “No, I think it makes it dif- neighborhood of dock workers got jobs. I remember clearly ing out in places like Boop’s of their strong suits,” he says ferent. It’s not whether it’s bet- and cops, a place he often calls, guys saying ‘Jeez, I just heard Bar on the corner of 17th Street smiling, as he talks about a ter or worse. It’s better now in “the parish.” And there he that they are hiring at Ameri- and 10th Avenue, and the neighborhood street gang, so many ways. Race is so much stands in the old black-and- can Can.’ Which was out in Caton Inn down on Coney Is- many who went on to become better. It’s infinitely better than white picture, forever young at Bush Terminal in Bay Ridge. land Avenue near Park Circle. part of the Mafia. Junior, aka, when I was a kid and Jackie 20, a whole new world outside And that was where they had Places you could slow dance to Carmine the Snake Persico, Robinson came. Although waiting for him, a world he to go to work. while the juke box played would become the Boss of the most of the people where I was could never imagine looking “These were guys who didn’t songs by Joni James. What’s Colombo crime family. were all for Robinson. He through the windows of Ratti- duck the war, but it was for your memories of those “So my neighborhood was could hit the ball, you know, gan's Bar. reasons like my father who had nights?” this unnamed place, between put men on bases. The picture is placed on the one leg, and now what are you “It was a rough bar,” he re- Park Slope and Windsor Ter- “There were opportunities. coffee table in front of him, and going to do, put him in the in- calls. “There was a bouncer in race. But now it’s been re- The reason for that is the GI it stirs up memories as he looks fantry? [His father, Billy, lost the Caton Inn named Ray named by the real-estate guys Bill. That really changed every- down at it. his leg after being injured in a as the South Slope.” thing. The fact that you could “This is me here,” he says as soccer game in Brooklyn.] They Continues on page 16 Page 16 Echo Feature

Continued from page 10 them. and evidence. So I have never “That’s why I decided not to been an ideologue. I didn't Grillo, and the only thing I ever be a screenwriter,” Hamill want to be that way. Some con- heard him say to anyone was, says, “But I had to do it for a servatives I admire. I don’t ’Eh, keep the glasses off the juke while because I needed money know what it would be like if I box. ’And people always said, so I could take care of my two never read Edmund Burke.” ‘okay.’” daughters. And they were “You teach journalism at “So here you are, you’re more important to me than my NYU. How do you inspire young,” I say to Hamill, “you’re alleged taste.” these young people with all the down in the Caton Inn on a Sat- high-tech changes moving urday night, Sinatra’s on the WRITER’S BLOCK? through today’s newsrooms. juke box, you’re slow dancing “You quit high school and What do you say to them after in the back room with someone, went to work in the Brooklyn all you took with you from and at some point your life Navy Yard. What did you do working on hard copy newspa- jumps forward. It’s 1974. And there?” pers? you get a call from Frank Sina- “I was an apprentice sheet “What I tell them is, ‘The tra. He says to you, ’Pete, what metal worker. It was called la- piano didn't write the music, are you doing” You tell him borer, but as an apprentice in Mozart did.’ It doesn't matter www.irishecho.com / Irish Echoyou’re / OCTOBER 8 - 14, 2014 / reading a book. ‘Put it the Navy Yard every fifth week what you're writing it on, down,’ he says. ‘We’re at Jilly’s. was spent in a class room and whether you're writing it on Come on over.’ And of course they would teach you how to the computer or a Smith you do. Tell me about that draw up blue prints, how to Corona Portable Number 3. night. What are you feeling read them. Passion is what matters.” when you get a call like that? “But the most important “You never went to J-school, Most people from the neighbor- thing about it was it would but you did try to get into hood only knew that Sinatra’s teach me how to work. I was 16 Columbia Journalism School, world existed behind the glass and I had to be there on time. If and they turned you down? of a juke box that you dropped Iwasn‘t,Icouldn‘texpectto “Yeah, because I hadn't fin- coins into. And you’re invited get paid. So learning how to ished high school.” to hang out with him. How did work helped me with the writ- “What did the interviewer you deal with that?” ing for years. You just got to do you talked to say to you?” “Before I got to know Sina- it. “He said, ‘Have you thought tra, remember I started in 1960 “I remember that after of dental school?’ [laughs] I at the Post, part of what I had Bobby Kennedy got killed, I wanted to say ‘F… no.’ I re- been assigned to do at one was in, I don’t know, a depres- member walking to the sub- point was a Broadway beat sion, which I didn’t recognize, way from Columbia and called ‘On the Town.’ I’d hang but I couldn’t write. And I had thinking about what he said. It out at Lindy’s on 51st Street been in Mexico with my then bothered me, but it pushed me waiting for something to hap- wife and kids, trying to cure on instead of discouraging me. pen,” he remembers. “Some- myself. And I came back to Because I come from a neigh- times it would be a big murder New York and in the second borhood where when people in Times Square, sometimes it week I was back I had lunch get knocked down, they get would be a Broadway show Billy Hamill, with three of his seven children: Tommy, left, Kathy and with Paul O’Dwyer at the Sec- up.” that was opening or closing. the eldest Pete. It was taken on the roof of 378 7th Avenue, ond Avenue Deli. So we order As I get ready to leave, I Whatever it would be. I didn’t Brooklyn, in 1944. COURTESY: KATHY HAMILL and he says, ‘What are you take some pictures of the rows know how to drive so I hung doing? What are you writing?’ and rows of books that line the out with this photographer And I said, ‘Paul, I think I have walls. It is not the library of a Artie Pomerantz, and we’d go tape recorder there, the listener idea for ‘Forever‘. I was sitting akindofwriter’sblocksince man who is inspired by elec- off. would have realized that these down at the Battery. It was in Bob died.’ tronic libraries, whose entirety “So I knew some of these are two guys that….[he laughs] October. I was just sitting there “He looks at me and he you can hold in the palm of guys. My attitude was I’m not they can’t figure it out. They’re alone, thinking, watching peo- says, ‘For Christ’s sake, you’re your hand. going to fawn over them, but driving around New York – ple go by, looking at the sun not important enough to have “Take a picture of Ratti- I’m not going to treat them like alone.” out in the harbor. Trying to awriter’sblock!’AndI gan’s,” he says. shit either. I’m not envious of imagine my mother’s and fa- laughed out loud. And I real- “Do you ever go back to any of these people. By the KNOCKOFF ARTISTS ther’s boats in the port as they ized, of course, he’s right. Windsor Terrace?” I ask. “You time I met Sinatra I must have As we sit in Pete Hamill’s came to America separately [Laughs] And I went back to were an altar boy in Holy been a reporter for about five Downtown loft you can hear from . work.” Name Church in the ‘50s. Did or, or six years. I met him in the honk of horns mixed in “And I said to myself, ‘I wish “In the April 14, 1969, edition you ever go back to walk Las Vegas with Shirley.” with the urgent wail of sirens Icouldliveforever.’AndI of New York Magazine,” I re- through your old schoolyard “What was it like that night drifting up from his city below. laugh to myself, that’s not a mind Hamill, “you wrote on Howard Place and Prospect in 1974 that he invited you to And it is his city, at least a bad idea for a novel.” something that in many ways Avenue?” just drive around New York great, gritty part of it that he “What about your book was a groundbreaking piece of “Yeah. Last year a reporter with him in the back of his captured so well in its daily ‘Snow In August’?” I ask him. journalism called ‘The Revolt from the Daily News had ac- limo, not headed anywhere, newspapers for so many years. “Isn’t someone interested in of the White Working-Class.’ cess to our old apartment at the two of you just talking? “Your book ‘Forever,’ is that making a musical out of it?” As a journalist you never seem 378 7th Avenue. And I went Talking about Babe Ruth, talk- being turned into a TV series? “Yeah, a guy named Peter afraid to break away from the down there and spent a couple ing, about how the New York Ikeepseeingallthesepromos Melnick has just finished the rest of the political pack when of hours with the guy who Paramount is all gone now, on it.” score. He came up here a few you sense a change in the air. lives alone there now. And talking about how New York “It’s a knockoff,” he says. weeks ago and played some of No matter what political party some of the stuff inside was ex- City had changed so much. “Totally knocked off. It’s by the score for me. Which was re- it affects. Would you agree actly the same. The sink we And he’s asking you if you un- ABC. It’s bad enough that it’s ally pretty good. “ with that?” were using in the kitchen was derstand women, because he now the second knockoff. The Although very optimistic “I think that’s true,” he still there. And I was wonder- says that he don’t. And you first one six years ago was about the “Snow In August” replies, “But the one thing I ing, how did we get nine peo- tell him that ‘every day you called 'New Amsterdam' by the project, he talks about the un- don’t like, and I haven’t liked it ple into this place? Christ know less.’” knockoff artists certainty of things being pro- for a long time since the ‘60s, is almighty.” “I’m sure if there had been a “I remember when I got the duced no matter who does the kind of dogmatic thinking that comes with ideology. Be- cause the more I read, say, Or- The 2014 Eugene O’Neill well struggling through the Lifetime Achievement Spanish Civil War, and certain Award Benefit and Cocktail The other people, the more it was Party, honoring Pete clear that ideology is not think- Hamill, will take place on Irish Echo’s ing, it’s a substitute for think- Monday, Oct., 20 from 6:00 ing. to 9:00 p.m. at the www. “And, just as I couldn’t ac- Manhattan Club, (upstairs online digital cept some of the Catholic ide- at Rosie O’Grady’s) 800 7th ology as a kid, as a 15 year old Ave. (corner of 52nd St), irishecho.com at Regis, I had that sort of skep- Times Square, Manhattan. edition: tical thing, fleshed out by the For details, go to: http://i- Jesuits who insist on having am-wa.org. doubt as part of the argument,