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 T his is a di fferent blog tha n I usually write. It's more of a memoir and a eulogy for a plac e that played an in tegral part of  the molding of a young boy an his friends in New Rochelle. It's gone now, just a memory that I will cling to until I can no longer speak. If you don't want to go on and read it, my dear friends, I will thoroughly understand. This is somet hing that is close to my heart, and close to the hearts of the young men and women that I grew up with. I wrot e it for them. I wrote it for myself. But it is open to any who have had places t hat meant so muc h to them be torn down or shuttered. The New Modern Pizzeria                                                  The Original Modern Through The Years                                                             Memorial Day, 2012   On Lincoln's Birthday, this past Saturday, February 16, 2013, the boys that grew up in New Rochelle in the '50s and '60s of the l ast century, had t

Tribute To Mayor Ed Koch John Zaffino  February 1, 2013 · So Ed Koch is gone. The Lawyer and Politician who always strove to speak for the common man, because, stripped of his titles, he was Ed Koch, Citizen Of New York and the World. He was witty and lovable and plain spoken, never hesitating to say what was on his mind or to share what was in his extremely large heart. He love New York and all of it's multitude of characters and all of it's turmoil and troubles. As a councilman, and as Mayor, he attacked them all with a gusto, determined to make the city a better place to live, and he did! He stood with his beloved Police Department, but when the cops were wrong, he was not afraid to say so. He stood up to gay slurs during that campaign against Mario Cuomo, when slogans started showing up which said "Vote for Cuomo, not the Homo". Ed, with out saying it, declared that a person's sexual preference was a private matter, and I always adm