To Catch a Thief

Named for the 1939 New York exposition, the World’s Fair Bar & Grill was located on Locust Avenue in the Bronx. Overlooking the East River, the neighborhood was an industrial hub in the 50s. Hoe, Cresca, Caterpillar, and Steinway & Sons all had plants there. In a nearby yard, huge oil tanks received deliveries by river and supplied and endless line of oil trucks filling up with fuel. the “Bar,” as we called it, was mostly a lunchtime eat-in service, and a watering hole for the large number of workers and drivers that worked in the area.

The Bar was bought by Pop and Nana, their son my uncle Vinny, and my dad, Frank, who had married their daughter, Theresa. It was a family business. Dad and Vinny exchanged early and late shifts every week. One would head to the Fordham Market by 4am each morning to buy food supplies, the other came in later but closed up at the end of the day, usually around six. My mom handled the rush-hour cash register. After firing a few sticky-fingered bartenders, Nana took over bar duty.

The World’s Fair was a gold mine in a cash-only economy. There was no establishment nearby that came close to matching the plated food and sandwiches served at the Bar. It was a magnet for truckers and executives alike seeking to unwind. For many of them I suppose it was their best meal of the day.

Summers, I’d go in with my mom to bus tables, mop up spills and deliver sandwiches and hot meals to busy office workers. I worked for tips and did pretty well for a kid still in grammar school. Lunchtime was a crazy-busy time. Every stool the entire length of the bar and grill was occupied, every table as well, and men lined up two deep behind those seated at the counter to shout out their order. The air was so thick with smoke you couldn’t see from one end of the bar to the other.

The Bronx of the 50s supported an underground economy that permeated every section of life, including the restaurant business. Weekly, some shifty guy running numbers would stop by and collect bets. Once, Uncle Vinny hit the spot for a few grand, put the cash in a brown bag and into the freezer for safekeeping. Apparently some of it disappeared mysteriously at the end of the day. Sometimes two burly men in blue uniforms with big belts and nightsticks would stop by for free sandwiches and I suspect some cash “advances.” The city health inspector made regular visits to “inspect” the box cooler located in the basement, and of course he always found one “violation” or another that would call for a friendly handshake to clear to everyone’s satisfaction.

On one occasion the Bar was held up by two crooks, one holding a gun to my uncle Vinny’s head while he emptied the register. Story has it that Vinny was shaking like a leaf. Fortunately, most of the cash take of the day lay in a cigar box under the bar counter a few feet away, waiting to be taken to the bank at the end of the day.

One day, while busing tables during lunch hour dad came up to me and told me to keep an eye on a particular table where a guy was eating alone. He sat at the end of the table away from the wall, not far from the exit. He had a scruffy mop of black hair, a stubbly beard and wore grease-stained blue bib overalls-most likely he came from the oil depot. I went over and casually refilled his water glass, just to get a closer look at him. He seemed nervous. Dutifully I watched him like a hawk from a distance, all the while vacantly sweeping the floor or mopping up a table. After he finished lunch, I saw him push the chair back and sit half-on half-off, looking right and left. He suddenly lurched out of the chair and hustled towards the doors. I ran over to mom who called out to dad who, in his white smudged apron tore down the stairs and out the door after the guy. Excited to be part of the “nab” I was right at dad’s heels. Outside, he yelled out to the man who was about fifteen steps ahead of him. “We know ya didn’t pay for your food-don’t ever come back here or we’ll call the cops on ya!” The guy looked back at dad but kept up a fast pace as he high-tailed it down the street. I was very excited by this whole affair and now imagine I was proud of dad for chasing this guy trying to stiff our business.

Pop passed away in the 60s, and one day in the 80s Vinny announced he had put enough blood and sweat in the business and was leaving for Florida. The Bar was sold.

The name is gone now but the old bar and grill still stands on Locust Avenue between two vacant lots just as it did back then. A cigar box filled with crumpled singles, fives and tens supported three generations of family, and provided a living wage for some memorable people through the years – Rosie, Josie, Sam, Walter and Bobby our dishwasher. Only the oil depot remains. In my mind’s eye I’m watching Old Man Time, sitting at the end of the bar nursing a glass of Ballantine. Suddenly I see him jumping up from his stool and tearing through the glass doors onto the sidewalk. He’s carrying over his shoulder an immense loot bag filled with every thing and person that ever was inside, running across the street and down the block, and me giving futile chase, knowing all the time that he won’t come back, and never will be caught.