APRIL Fool’s Day has been encroaching on us bit by bit in the form of urban archaeology. What is happening to us? Are we to become a nation of North Fork Banks?
As stocks go down and homelessness goes up and poverty becomes endemic and health care is unaffordable and the servant class is strictly Third World immigrants and adjustable-rate home mortgages are forcing foreclosures and there are fights to raise the minimum wage above a cup of coffee at Starbucks and a midlevel Manhattan apartment is $10 million and there’s unemployment because businesses are closing and Social Security is a crapshoot and people are living longer and this country is in hock to China – is it that all we’ll have left on our streets besides the bag ladies living on it is another bright and shiny North Fork Bank?
Meander around Park Avenue. It’s Chase Bank, Dime Bank, Citibank, Atlantic Bank, Sterling Bank – whoever they are – New York Bank for Savings, Emigrant.
We’ve got us Bank of Japan, Bank of Nova Scotia, Bank of Canada, Bank of Ireland, Bank of America, the Israeli Bank, Federal Reserve Bank, probably even some cockamamie Kazakhstan Savings and Loan. There’s Greenpoint, Barclays, First Republic, Deutsche, North Shore, WaMu, HSBC, PNC, UBS, ING Direct, Sovereign Bank, Commerce Bank and – ready? – Piscataqua Bank, which is out of New Hampshire someplace and which I know we’re all dying to line up for to start an account, right? There’s World Savings Bank, Franklin Savings Bank, Cambridge Savings Bank, American Savings Bank. How about Presidential Online Bank. It’s North Fork, East Fork, Southern Shore, City & Suburban, Super Suburban, Valley National, Up Yours, probably someplace even called Frank’s Bank or Hank’s Bank.
How’s Wachovia? Astoria Federal Savings & Loan? Figures some yutz out in Hauppauge will save up his lunch money and open Pete’s Piggybank. Who are these people?
And where are those gentle folk some of us grew up with? The local shoe repair guy who’d ask, “How’s your mom?” The corner candy store whose forever owner knew your favorite sweet. The block’s neighborhood grocer who if you had no money would trust you for a bottle of milk. Your friendly pharmacist who genuinely cared.
Today archaeologists go into the Gobi and dredge up dinosaur bones. Generations ago excavations in Israel discovered layers and levels of civilization. Italy’s got more history than pasta. Sail the Nile to Luxor and see what Egypt has besides the Sphinx. Greece, Cyprus, Mesopotamia, Jordan. Turkey’s unearthed so many genuine Byzantine treasures that they no longer need to dump brand new antiques on tourists.
And come Year 3007 what will New York yield? Let’s say they’ll tunnel under their newer and ruder North Fork Banks and larger and lousier Duane Reades and newly omnipresent electronics stores that are even taking over Fifth Avenue. And tunnel they will because they’ll still be digging out that stupid Second Avenue Subway. So what may they find? Remnants of an ancient time when the antiquated 21th century had such quaint outmoded relics as mom-and-pop shops, family-run newsstands, tiny bakeries with the aroma of fresh-baked bread, small funky gift shops where you could rummage through artsy crafts stuff.
There used to be ice-cream shops, baby’s clothing stores, greeting-card places where a human being said hello to you instead of a security guard staring at you. Little coffee shops, little delis, little variety 5-and-10s, little houseware places. Little bills actually handed over instead of plastic cards. Gone.
Dying for a bagel and coffee? Run out to the store for a quick five minutes and what’s there. A branch bank. It’s spring and you need that pink blouse and you race to the shop on the corner and it’s gone. In its place a branch bank. And there once was etiquette. A salesperson would actually hang up a phone to come over and ask, “May I help you?” Etiquette today is knowing which finger to raise when your waiter rushes by.
And there used to be general practitioners. Not specialists who are so specialized that if your athlete’s foot moves from the right foot to the left you have to switch doctors. They were kindly hearts who’d make house calls. Who didn’t expect sick people to get out of bed with a fever of 103 and trudge to their office. Today nobody makes house calls. Not even plumbers. Your toilet’s stuffed up? Bring it over and he’ll fix it.
Near me there’s a sidewalk vendor. With an outdoor cart. Parked in the road. Right at the curb. He hustles hot dogs. He was missing last week. This week, right out in the gutter, right where his sauerkraut used to be, there’ll probably be another North Fork Bank. And it won’t smell as good.