Cheers, and to Better Days

Marching on- As I write, we’re approaching the end of March 2021, Women’s History Month in the U.S. At Tudor City Steakhouse, high atop the enclave at the southern end of Turtle Bay and opposite the UN, they celebrated International Women’s Day with complimentary champagne. And here’s to Skoal, L’Chaim, S’Alainte, and all the ways to say Cheers, Good Health, Better Days.

Back to bags- Unless you bring your own bag when you go grocery shopping, you pay the price for brown bagging it. What once was an almost universal five cents a bag is now generally 10 cents a bag. I’m talking more about supermarket and similar big box stores than of smaller businesses and moms and pops. I get that there’s a charge. But some stores double-bag ahead of time. Before you, the customer, want or need another bag. And to get into the weeds on it, if I want two brown bags, I don’t necessarily want them doubled. Sooo, if you happen to want to have your rotisserie chicken and head of lettuce in a brown bag, that will be 20 cents at the West Side Market on Lex and 92nd. I love the place. It’s clean. Well-stocked. Great produce. Great staff. But 20 cents every time all you want or need is one brown bag? At least at Key Food on Second and 92nd, for the same 10 cents a bag, you get to pick whether you want to pack a brown bag or a reusable bag, which is also 10 cents. If you want it doubled, you have to ask. And of course pay for it. Full disclosure. I wrote about my displeasure with the cost of double bagging at West Side Market some months ago. Then it stopped. They waited. I waited. They won.

Back to Our Town, then- When I wrote in last column that I’d be remembering the early days of Our Town, I reached out and began receiving feedback. It was especially gratifying to hear from Mario Biaggi, Jr., whose dad, Congressman Mario Biaggi, represented the Bronx. He said, “For decades Ed Kayatt was as intricate a part of the City scene as anyone in public service or public life. He was universally respected but most of all liked by those who knew him. I know my father was at the top of the list of his admirers and truly treasured their friendship, a fact dad communicated to me on more than one occasion. Thanks Ed for being part of our lives.” Mario, Jr. conveyed that he, too, had fond memories of Ed. On a personal note, I remember and was especially honored by Congressman Biaggi’s recognition, in the Congressional Record, of my investigative reporting on the ASPCA and animal welfare. A similar recognition was made in the Congressional Record by then Congressman Ed Koch. The Biaggi family tradition of public service lives on with Congressman Biaggi’s granddaughter, Alessandra Biaggi, who is a NY State Senator representing the 34th District which includes portions of Bronx and Westchester counties also represented by her grandfather. Alessandra is Mario, Jr.’s niece.