Tag Archives: bet on crazy

SOME CHOWDAH, BOBBY by Peter Nolan Smith

Last holiday season Richie Boy had hired me to help with sales and schlepping merchandise between dealers and jewelers. Hlove and I worked together to make sales, but business on 47th Street was murder. There was no foot traffic and my old customers hated the street and all the hawkers shilling to buy gold. “Back […]

THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL OF PASSAICH by Peter Nolan Smith

When Cecil B. DeMille released THE TEN COMMANDMENTS in 1956 and it was an immediate box office success, earning the cinematic retelling of Exodus over $180 million dollars. In 1962 Paramount Pictures re-released the film for screenings at drive-ins across the nation and my father loaded my five brothers and sisters into our Ford station […]

QUEEN OF THE PLAZA March 17 2009

St. Patrick’s Day promised to be another disaster for the Retail Collection of the Plaza Hotel. Hordes of green-clad spectators streamed down the escalator into the basement. Their eyes averted the luxury goods on offer, as their destination was the hotel’s public bathroom. Within the first hour I had given directions to the toilet over […]

St. Valentine’s Day Massacre / BET ON CRAZY by Peter Nolan Smith

Every Valentine’s Day diamond dealers and jewelers on 47th Street anticipated a winter spending spree by lovers for their loved ones, but each year of the 21st Century the sales numbers dropped drastically, as the economic downturn cut into everyone’s surplus, but the rich. Valentine afternoon in February 2011 shoppers crammed the chocolatiers along 5th […]

BOXING DAY BLIZZARD – East Coast – 2010

From 2010 December 23 2010 was my last day of work for the holiday season. Richie Boy and I had worked solid three weeks. That day an extra hour was added to the schedule in hopes of last minute shoppers. There were none. Jewelry was x-ed off Santa’s list this year, although Richie Boy held […]