Inspirations:
"In the Subways - He lives on in memory"
by
Ray Sanchez, Newsday; May 31, 2004
When the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue terminal in Brooklyn
fully reopens this summer, a familiar figure will be gone.
His
name was Tony Butler, 53, a homeless man remembered by those
who knew
him as gentle, kind and personable.
To
subway regulars, he was as popular as the Wonder Wheel, which
can be
seen from the elevated tracks rising splendidly above the
high-rise projects
and the distant sea, announcing that Coney Island is near.
"They'll
probably end up naming a station after him," said Marcus
Goncalves, a train operator who knew Butler more than a dozen
years.
Goncalves
might be exaggerating, but it is obvious that of the many
characters who have inhabited the storied southernmost corner
of Brooklyn,
Butler was special. He was one of hundreds of New Yorkers
who spend nights
riding trains to nowhere, the people who cause your eyes to
dart furtively when
you sit across from them.
Butler
died March 4 at St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan, where he
had been
taken by a friend one month earlier. He had contracted pneumonia
and his health
was deteriorating. On April 16, his memory will be honored
during a
storytelling session at City Lore, a nonprofit organization
dedicated to
chronicling urban folklore.
You
could say the sprawling Stillwell Avenue terminal was Butler's
living
room and the people who work there - operating and cleaning
the trains,
directing rail and pedestrian traffic - were his neighbors.
The
old terminal was partially closed for a $250-million renovation
in
2002, but Butler was always around: sitting outside a window
in the transit
crew room, watching sporting events on the television set
that was always on in
one corner. He chatted up conductors and train operators on
breaks from the
long runs into Manhattan. Other times, he sat on the shaded
platform, playing
chess with the men and women who keep New York moving.
"I
remember he always had like 10,000 bags with him," said
Pete Gomez, a
platform conductor with 23 years on the job. "All his
worldly possessions were
in those bags."
"He
would wave at trains as they pulled out of the station,"
recalled
Frankie Gerena, who sweeps and mops the floors of D trains
at the terminal. "He
knew everybody."
Butler
was a man of medium build, with a shiny bald head and no teeth.
He
wore sunglasses and a knit cap. His bags were filled with
towels and wash
cloths, crackers and canned foods, crumpled newspapers and
an old chess set.
"He
never asked for anything, but people always gave him food
and money,"
said Becky Jardim, a conductor for seven years. "After
Thanksgiving and
Christmas, people would bring plates of leftovers for him.
He was so
appreciative.
"There
is nothing bad I can say about Tony," she was saying
yesterday,
saddened by his death. "Sometimes you get so tired of
people asking you for
money on the train. But he never asked for anything. He was
part of the
institution that is the Stillwell Avenue terminal. He was
there night and day
and, when it got too cold, he went underground. Stillwell
and Tony Butler went
hand in hand."
New
York sports consumed him.
"He
lived and died for the Knicks," Goncalves recalled. "He
loved the
Yankees, too."
"Let
me tell you, that man could pick the winners of any Sunday
football
game," motorman Anthony Smith said. "You know the
football betting slips? You
just gave it to Tony and got ready to collect. He would pick
winners for me and
the next week I would split the money with him. I'll never
forget him."
Butler
sometimes stayed in the Broadway-Lafayette Street station
on the
Lower East Side, but Stillwell Avenue was home. He washed
his clothes in the
slop sink used by subway car cleaners at the terminal. "He
liked saying that he
didn't have to pay rent," Goncalves said.
A
St. Vincent's Hospital spokesman said Butler's body had not
been claimed.
Jardim
lamented that Butler will not be around for the reopening
of the
terminal. "I expected to see Tony sitting outside the
crew room window," she
said.
Copyright
2004, Newsday
Inc.
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