hotdogwalk

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Call it appreciation for the finest products of the culinary arts. Call it gluttony. Call it a sense of what is meet and proper on a sunny Saturday in July. But the 4th of July, as well as baseball games, backyard barb-b-cues and Coney Island, USA means hot dogs. (Sorry Bloomberg, but they also mean the Mister Softee truck.) With the aid of 'tour director' historian and photographer Bernard Ente, FNY invaded Fort Lee 228 years after the British did and discovered...frankfurters.

The George Washington Bridge, completed in 1962, is getting some much needed repair work done and so is swathed in protective cladding. Yes, the GWB, while opened in 1931, did not have its second deck finished until 1962.


Midtown from the George Washington Bridge on a rare non-hazy July afternoon. In the foreground are the Henry Hudson Parkway and Riverside Park, and on the Jersey side, the Palisades.
				Fort Lee and its sister fort, Fort Washington, were built on opposite sides of the Hudson River in 1776 in an attempt to stop the British from seizing New York City. Despite cannon fire from the forts and sunken ships placed in the river to block the royal navy, it didn't work and 31,000 loyalist troops had landed in Staten Island in August. They were quickly able to overwhelm Washington's army and only craftiness and bravery allowed him to evacuate enough troops to not decimate American forces. By mid-November Fort Lee and Fort Washington had been captured, and New York City was occupied by the British. In Thomas Paine's words, these were "the times that try men's souls." Today, Fort Lee is a Bergen County, NJ town with a population of about 35,000. Its location, across the river from NYC with spectacular views (as we've seen above) makes it a prime location for high-rise apartment buildings.


	While in Fort Lee I strayed from the group long enough to snap this war memorial and a couple of remaining gumball luminaires from side streets.

Fort Lee's memorial park, under construction in 2004, had been completed by the time we returned in 2005.

				Target in sight. Our quarry was two roadside hotdog stands, each decades in vintage and each provide nearly ten inches of paradise. Hiram's is the old man bar of hot dog stands, with a grizzled clientele and an even more grizzled staff. Hiram's provides a plump, juicy beef/pork mix, almost knockwurst, actually, and a wood-paneled interior with leftover Christmas lights and flags everywhere. Actually, they make Thumann's hot dogs, but the secret is in the preparation. They deep fry the dogs, in what I'd rather not know, but the result is a terrific dog. You know, there are things we don't have words for in English. The Germans have a word for, say, sentimental pessimism (weltschmertz). We have quite a few words for hotdogs, frankfurters, weiners, footlongs, in English. And that, I believe, is quite telling.


If Hiram's is the old man bar of hotdog stands, Callahan's is the McDonald's. Like hamburger franchise Cheeburger Cheeburger, fifties iconography dominates. Did people eat more hot dogs and hamburgers in the 50s? They must have. Service with a smile? Let's say we're here for the food!
Like some of the bus routes in Manhattan and the Bronx, Callahan's has articulated hotdogs, i.e. you get two to a bun. Like Hiram's they fry their dogs to preserve the juiciness. Callahan's, like Hiram's, also has a full fast food menu in case you're not in the mood for dogs. I had their onion rings which are big and crispy, the way they ought to be. Onion rings should not be doughy lest the onion flavor be drowned out, though I make an exception to this when devouring the rings at Junior's in Brooklyn. Mrs. Paul's used to make GREAT crispy onion rings that I haven't been able to find for a decade now. Why do they discontinue the things you like? Fast food joints like this, as well as delis and pizzerias, are where your webmaster takes most nourishment. (So who knows how much longer Forgotten NY is gonna be around! Gotta look after the legacy.) Just down the road on Palisade Avenue from the hot dog stands was Palisades Park in Cliffside Park, which my parents and I made a yearly ritual. We would get an orange and black bus at the Port Authority bus terminal on 8th Avenue (I liked the bus ride almost as much as I liked the park rides). We were in on the last gasp though: Palisades Park was closed after the 1971 season. One of the rides was "Jungleland" which may have inspired a certain singer songwriter. Chuck Barris, years before creating the Dating Game and the Gong Show, wrote Freddy "Boom Boom" Cannon's 1962 smash "Palisades Park"; Cousin Brucie's rock and roll package shows, in which he came out in a leopard skin suit, are still remembered, though I was too little at the time to attend one. Soupy Sales and Sonny Fox were hosts as well.


But in 2005, our second Hot Dog Walk was touched with not a little nostalgia and sadness as we discovered that Callahan's is not long for Fort Lee. Yes, it is to be demolished so yet another bank can rise where cholesterol counts once did. It appears that 2005's Hot Dog Walk, supervised by Queens historian-photographer Bernie Ente (at left in the above photo) will be the final one. Sic transit, Gloria.

Not quite Angkor Wat. We passed the remnants of one of Fort Lee's great masnions. OK, maybe the only one.				The Fort Lee Museum was closed. After all, who could possibly want to visit it on a sunny summer saturday?

You are now forbidden to take pictures of some of the greatest scenery in the world from the GWB. Of course, a sign has never stopped your webmaster.		Fort Lee fire tower



You can't take pitchers on the bridge but you can sho-nuff practice your shooting damn close to it.


2004: There still is a Palisades Park, though this one has no rides: just a spectacular view of the bridge and a small exhibit chronicling Fort Lee history.

Walking back over the GWB I took some time for a walk in Washington Heights, which has some very interesting quirks and historical artifacts. It's very hard to get a good shot of High Bridge (above in the background behind the vehicular Alexander hamilton Bridge) because the bridge, as well as its 1870s water tower, are perpetually gated off. I hope to get better views of it from the Bronx side soon.			Morris-Jumel Mansion, built by Roger Morris and later inhabited by Aaron Burr. Washington really did sleep here.

Nearby Sylvan Terrace is the old carriage road to the Jumel Mansion; it was lined with row houses, most of which look much like they did in the late 1800s when they were built. The Mansion can be sen at the end of the street.
			A Dubya supporter in Washington Heights? It's an eclectic neighborhood... HOME\| LAMPS \| SUBWAYS & TRAINS \| ADS \| TROLLEYS \| SIGNS \| COBBLESTONES \| STREET SCENES \| YOU'D NEVER BELIEVE YOU'RE IN NYC \| LINKS \| ALLEYS \| NECROLOGY \| CEMETERIES \| FORGOTTENBLOG \| SEARCH erpietri"@"earthlink.net ©2004-5 Midnight Fish