Stay Busy or Die
Today we’ve arrived at the second half of the millenium's first decade. As good as any day for me to begin View from Yorkville, a blog on topics based on my “characteristic preoccupations”, to borrow Marilynne Robinson’s phrase.
Professionally, I'm an urban planner. I am 53, born in Mineola, New York and currently live in Yorkville. “Where’s Yorkville?” you say.
Yorkville is one of New York City’s smallest neighborhoods, five avenue-blocks running from Lexington east to East End between 77th and 86th Streets. It's one of Manhattan’s oldest neighborhoods, founded in the 1840s by German, Czech, and Hungarian immigrants. Unlike the more famous or hipper neighborhoods of Manhattan, Yorkville generates so little attention, locals will still take notice when fleeting reference is found in the press.
Take this morning, for example. Dianne and I were lounging around, soaking up the first half of the Sunday Times that’s delivered on Saturday mornings. This was after a long New Year’s Eve that found us bringing in the new year in an East Village club called Tribe.
“Oh look, there’s Yorkville,” Dianne said while deep in the Business section. I was in the shallow end of the Times bath, reading about how handsome actors don't win Oscars.
Dianne was reading a business profile of Sidney Frank, a liquor importer who recently sold a brand of vodka for $2 billion. “Just call me Sid. Everyone else does,” the article opens up with, to tell us Sid is eminently approachable as a subject for a Times business profile.
Sid was a new widower and 53 when he aquired his first distributorship, which took off in sales several years later. According to the Times, “He had discovered the product, Jagermeister, an odd-tasting liqueur from Gernmany, in the lean years, on his strolls through Yorkville, New York’s old German neighborhood.”
Sid is 85 now, and intent on distributing his astonishing new wealth to the people, places and causes dear to him, but he has no plans to quit working. “I believe in the old saying, ‘Stay busy or die,” he says. “Besides, I’m having too much fun.”
These days the “old German” part of Yorkville lives on primarily at two venerable businesses on 2nd Avenue, the Heidelberg Café, the only German restaurant left in New York City, and Schaller & Webber, the deli where it's possible Sid saw his first bottles of Jagermeister which led to him making his $2 billion sale last year.
Sid looks like he’ll be one of the truly lucky ones, finishing up the full course of a marathon lifetime when it's his time, loving every step along the way. While Yorkville was the reference that pulled me into the article, what I left with was the old saying.
Stay busy or die.
Thank you, Sid, for passing that on as another new year begins.
Professionally, I'm an urban planner. I am 53, born in Mineola, New York and currently live in Yorkville. “Where’s Yorkville?” you say.
Yorkville is one of New York City’s smallest neighborhoods, five avenue-blocks running from Lexington east to East End between 77th and 86th Streets. It's one of Manhattan’s oldest neighborhoods, founded in the 1840s by German, Czech, and Hungarian immigrants. Unlike the more famous or hipper neighborhoods of Manhattan, Yorkville generates so little attention, locals will still take notice when fleeting reference is found in the press.
Take this morning, for example. Dianne and I were lounging around, soaking up the first half of the Sunday Times that’s delivered on Saturday mornings. This was after a long New Year’s Eve that found us bringing in the new year in an East Village club called Tribe.
“Oh look, there’s Yorkville,” Dianne said while deep in the Business section. I was in the shallow end of the Times bath, reading about how handsome actors don't win Oscars.
Dianne was reading a business profile of Sidney Frank, a liquor importer who recently sold a brand of vodka for $2 billion. “Just call me Sid. Everyone else does,” the article opens up with, to tell us Sid is eminently approachable as a subject for a Times business profile.
Sid was a new widower and 53 when he aquired his first distributorship, which took off in sales several years later. According to the Times, “He had discovered the product, Jagermeister, an odd-tasting liqueur from Gernmany, in the lean years, on his strolls through Yorkville, New York’s old German neighborhood.”
Sid is 85 now, and intent on distributing his astonishing new wealth to the people, places and causes dear to him, but he has no plans to quit working. “I believe in the old saying, ‘Stay busy or die,” he says. “Besides, I’m having too much fun.”
These days the “old German” part of Yorkville lives on primarily at two venerable businesses on 2nd Avenue, the Heidelberg Café, the only German restaurant left in New York City, and Schaller & Webber, the deli where it's possible Sid saw his first bottles of Jagermeister which led to him making his $2 billion sale last year.
Sid looks like he’ll be one of the truly lucky ones, finishing up the full course of a marathon lifetime when it's his time, loving every step along the way. While Yorkville was the reference that pulled me into the article, what I left with was the old saying.
Stay busy or die.
Thank you, Sid, for passing that on as another new year begins.
posted by Paul Cogley at 10:33 PM
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