Joe Sullivan & Uncle Rocco

Long before the city was put to death, Joe Sullivan built a new building for his liquor store. He had moved up from Congress Street on Rock Alley, also known as Wall Street. That neighborhood is going down the hill in several ways. He is long gone, with most of his hopes and dreams, yet the building, now a corner store on Congress and 14th street, with its steel beam rail protecting the side of the wall -- the very one I walked across -- is still there with my memories of Joe. With his white shirt and tie and V-neck sweater vest. I used to cut boxes up and bundle them.

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Is Uncle Rocco really in Heaven? I try to figure out just where his barber shop was using the new bridge and where the old one was. I end up at the sterile brick backside of the Price Chopper plaza on Broadway in Watervliet.

From the south corner, which is still here, stood Sherlock's Bar and Grille, with a green shamrock corner sign hanging. A tack and bridle horse saddlery, called "Peaches" where I love looking into the window. Up the stairs to Uncle Rocco's with the union scale displayed prominently, the hot lather black and silver box, and the smiling face of my uncle. Next door, the furrier with the very bad wig. The alley, then Mr. Jonson's furniture store. Across the street in the summer, Carmen Goody Chrysler Plymouth and one of the first swimming pools he sold for backyard use. On 90 degree days, I just stared at its rippling waters dreaming.

("I tried to draw a picture of my uncle Rocco but it looks nothing like him.")