The Arsenal is one of only two parks department buildings that take heat from the district steam system run by Consolidated Edison. The problem was it was taking two hours for steam to reach the radiators once it had passed through the PRV station, which had people very upset.

When I got older and was at the bar with my father, I was thinking about Billy. I asked my father about him and those two pair of pliers he always kept so close at hand. My father smiled as he remembered.

Training is for dogs, dancing bears, and little kids who crap in their pants. Is that the way we think of apprentices? Maybe that’s the real problem.

I think about how many hands must have touched these things before they came to me, how many jobs they helped size, and how many problems they helped solve. Think of all the time they saved — and not one of them needed a battery.

I turned 64 in January, and if I knew I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself. 

The year I served as the potted plant, Sheraton was building a hotel out on Lawn Guyland. This is where things got tricky.