AMERICAN FOLKLIFE RADIO PROJECT (RADIO)
Summary
This compilation of reports features various forms of unusual American folklife, covered by independent producer and reporter David Isay. First, Isay examines some of the long-time personalities of Brooklyn's Coney Island. Those interviewed include Matthew Kennedy, who constitutes the one-man Coney Island Chamber of Commerce; and Walter Williams, the "Rollercoaster Man," who is the caretaker of the world-famous Cyclone rollercoaster. Next, the reporter visits with the nation's only professional, husband-and-wife, senior-citizen disk jockey team, as they entertain a room of senior citizens in Flushing, New York. Isay spends one Christmas day with an embittered sidewalk Santa Claus known as "Cynical Santa." This Santa says "the hell with ho-ho-ho's" and is disgusted by the fact that he is supposed to embody "the spirit of Christmas and all that other garbage." Santa's Christmas message to listeners is, "Everybody dies and you wonder what it's all about." Although his beard is stained with tobacco juice and he clutches a racing form, "Cynical Santa" procures more donations than any other Santa working for the Volunteers of America. The reporter's next stop is Shapiro's, the nation's oldest kosher winery and the last one in New York City. The subsequent story concerns the closing of the final Horn & Hardart Automat in Manhattan. The Automat was a popular, self-service cafeteria that flourished in the city in the early part of the 20th century; its coin-operated, stainless-steel vending machines dispensed reasonably priced soups and sandwiches. Isay interviews the final Automat customers while buzzing saws can be heard removing the vending machines. The next segment concerns a funeral service known as Airplane Ashes; for a fee, proprietor Dick Falk, a 79-year-old airplane pilot, will dump the ashes of your loved one over any New York City location you desire. The smiling, grandfatherly man, who is known as the "pilot of death," stores the ashes in oatmeal boxes, and says that the most popular site for the dumping of ashes is the Statue of Liberty. The final story concerns the life of one-legged tap dancer and resort owner Clayton "Pegleg" Bates. Bates was the first African-American to appear on "The Ed Sullivan Show," and he is the owner of the first and only Catskills resort that caters to African-Americans. No commercials.
Details
- NETWORK: NPR National Public Radio
- DATE: November 30, 1999
- RUNNING TIME: 1:07:00
- COLOR/B&W: N/A
- CATALOG ID: R:9204
- GENRE: Radio - News; Radio - Talk/Interviews
- SUBJECT HEADING: Coney Island (New York, N.Y.); Aged - Societies and clubs; Christmas; Coin operated machines; Vending machines; Airplanes, Private; Blacks - History; African-American Collection - News/Talk
- SERIES RUN: NPR - Radio
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- David Isay … Producer, Reporter, Interviewer
- Bates, Clayton "Pegleg"
- Dick Falk
- Matthew Kennedy
- Walter Williams