Turtles in Midtown!
Plus: Rubber Band Ball Update! Trash Heap #8!
Hello everyone,
Welcome to Issue #11 of CAFÉ ANNE!
I recently got an email from a reader, Jack Armstrong in the West Village, with a mysterious invitation.
“My friend lives in a building in Murray Hill that houses a tank of turtles in the basement, and I feel like you might want to meet her and see them,” he wrote. “Would you like me to put you in touch?”
His suggestion led to a fun little excursion. Please see this week’s story, “Turtles in Midtown!” below.
In other news, reader Bob K in Manhattan was curious to learn where he can sample the cinnamon bread with marinara sauce highlighted in Issue #10’s Department of Innovations. Bob, I don’t know the restaurant name, but my source tells me it’s located at the southeast corner of Nostrand and Fulton, in Bed-Stuy. I’m planning to check it out for Issue #12. Let me know if you want to come along!
Finally, as always, I love getting questions and ideas from readers. Please email me: annekadet@yahoo.com.
Regards!
Anne
IN THIS WEEK’S ISSUE…
• Weird Trash Heap #8
• Rubber Band Ball Update #2
• Excursion: Turtles in Midtown!
Weird Trash Heap #8
I spotted the below on Joralemon Street in downtown Brooklyn. The closer I looked, the more awe I felt examining the aftermath of this incredible meal: half a pepperoni-and-fresh-mozzarella pizza, shrimp-flavor instant Cup Noodles, a can of black beans, two “Limón Lime” frozen fruit bars and a cigarette. All enjoyed around a tree stump! Was this some sort of bizarro squirrel picnic? If they’d invited me, I’d have finished the pizza.
Please send your sidewalk trash photo to annekadet@yahoo.com and I will include it in a future issue.
Rubber Band Ball Update #2
I first learned of my doorman John Santiago’s rubber band ball when I profiled him in Issue #2. He keeps it in his podium drawer and adds a few bands everyday, donated by the mailman who uses them to bundle the day’s letters.
I gave an update in Issue #4, at the end of October. By then, the ball had grown to 17 inches. Mr. Santiago said his goal was to grow it to the size of a basketball.
I checked in again last week and couldn’t believe what I learned. Mr. Santiago had started a second rubber band ball!
“Why did you start another ball?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I wanted to have a twin brother to it.”
Agreeing that they look similar, I asked if they have different personalities.
“Oh no no no,” Mr. Santiago assured me. “They’re both just here to bounce. They just bounce and look nice.”
He’s been working on the second ball for about a month. The plan is to keep adding bands to the new ball until they are the same size. Then he’ll start alternating.
“I have a crap-load of rubberbands,” he added, opening his drawer. Whoa!
By mid-April, he said, they should both be the size of a basketball.
Stay tuned!
EXCURSION
TURTLES IN MIDTOWN!
I recently got an email from reader Jack Armstrong in the West Village, with the subject line: “Turtles in midtown.”
“My friend lives in a building in Murray Hill that houses a tank of turtles in the basement, and I feel like you might want to meet her and see them,” he wrote. “Would you like me to put you in touch?”
Hello! Jack’s friend Olivia Comm and I exchanged emails. She invited me to come by on a Sunday afternoon to see the basement turtles. I had no idea what to expect.
Ms. Comm’s building was just a few blocks from Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan. I thought the turtle tank might be a whimsical “amenity” of the sort featured in the sleek new high-rise condos buildings sprouting all over the city. But the apartment building was modest, seven-story, prewar affair.
Ms. Comm, who moved to New York City three years ago from Virginia and teaches English to 7th grade students in the Bronx, met me in the tiny lobby, and walked me through the metal door in the back. Behind the door there was a small tank of turtles, which she said are kept by the building’s super. There were four of them, each the size of a dinner plate.
“What’s the story behind these turtles?” I asked.
“I don’t know much,” she said. “I wish I knew more. But the super lives right here. I’m sure he’d be excited to talk about them.”
We knocked on his door.
The super, Antonio Ramos, answered the knock. He was wearing a blue work shirt that said, “Antonio.”
“I have a friend here, a journalist who is really interested in the turtles,” Ms. Comm told him. “She’s wondering if she could ask you questions.”
“Okay!” said Mr. Ramos.
Mr. Ramos got his first turtles 14 years ago. He bought them for his grandson. The reptiles have had many adventures.
In one incident, a turtle went missing. “Somebody stole it,” he said. “I came home one day, I don’t see the turtle. Two weeks passed. It came back. I heard something scratch, scratch. I open the door. They returned the turtle in a little can, you know, the metal ones? I said, “Oh shit.”
“They kidnapped the turtle and brought it back?” I asked.
“They returned her. Because they can’t, like, deal with it,” he said.
The turtles, who live in a hallway nook, like to visit Mr. Ramos and his wife in their basement apartment. “They know you. They follow you and everything. Because you are the one who gives food to them,” he said.
The turtles have a friend, a tenant who lives on the fourth floor. Sometimes they pay him a visit. The tenant has a special turtle pillow they like to sit on.
Sometimes, when he’s not around, the turtles jump out their tank, said Mr. Ramos. He showed me how they climb down the stairs, through the basement hallway, and up another flight of stairs to the backyard:
When the weather is warm, they enjoy relaxing in the backyard turtle pool.
Mr. Ramos, who came to New York City from Puerto Rico when he was 16, has been the building’s superintendent for ten years. He is retired from his job installing windows in NYC skyscrapers. His wife asked him to stop because it was risky.
“I made four times what I make now,” he said. “She said ‘No more. You’re going to be 60. You have a grandson. Forget about the money.’”
He misses his old job: “I love the danger.”
He is also a percussionist. He played timbales, bongos and congas in Latin clubs all over the city. Over the past decade, most of the clubs have closed. But Mr. Ramos still has creative outlets.
He decorates the basement hallway with art found in the trash:
He also installed a basement café table and chairs, and created a plant display.
“I have 40 canaries and everything,” he added. “Inside the house.”
Forty canaries! I asked to take a peek. Inside his small apartment, there were two large bird cages installed catty-corner from a big-screen TV. The birds made a terrible racket.
“I buy eight, for my grandson. I buy a cage and put in half a coconut and they keep putting eggs on it,” he said. “They keep giving birth. They don’t stop giving eggs.”
He’s been giving the birds away, but that’s not helping.
“The tenant on the fourth floor, I gave him two. Now he’s got 12,” he said.
“What will you do if you wind up with 200 birds?” I asked.
“Good question!”
Ms. Comm said she and her boyfriend enjoy seeing the birds and turtles in the basement of their building. “He can’t walk by, into the elevator, without giving them a wave,” she said of her partner.
She’s planning to stick around. “We just re-signed for another year,” she said. “But if there’s 200 birds, don’t ask me to take any!”
Thanks to Jack Armstrong for the turtle tip! Want to send me on an excursion? Write me at annekadet@yahoo.com
Each edition makes me smile. TY
Much-needed joy in every serving of CAFE ANNE. Yay for turtles--and Anne!