Staten Island
Disclaimer: I was born and raised on Staten Island and just like black people can call each other ‘nigga’ I can call other Staten Islanders ‘big dumb retards.’ Because they are. I’ll be the first to defend the many hidden pleasures of the misunderstood borough, but I won’t deny that many of those unfortunate stereotypes non-Islanders have about us are, in fact, completely true. Do you know how the NYPD punishes a wayward officer? By transferring them to Staten Island. (Unless they live on Staten Island, in which case they’re sent to the Bronx. True, too.)
Currently, there are three OTB branches left on the southernmost county of New York. As late as last year, there was four; the Hylan Plaza branch, one of our nicest facilities and a mainstay of that particular stripmall with it’s neon horse heads since before I can remember, was shut down because it couldn’t renew its lease. The Bay St. branch closed a few years earlier, creating a diaspora of poor Jamaican immigrants who love to gamble, and the ill-fated La Sabia restaurant teletheater couldn’t reconcile its classy atmosphere with the average, not-so-classy, customer.
The many disappointed regulars of the Hylan Plaza branch wandered to the three remaining sites on Statty Isle—Amboy Road, Richmond Ave., and Forest Ave. Each has its own distinct personality, but the three all share very common characteristics that separate them from the herd. No business can last as long as it has on Staten Island without becoming, in essence, a Staten Island business.
First thing I notice as an employee is that the branches are decidedly more casual. Whether it’s because they’re less crowded than the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Bronx branches is up for debate. Possibly it’s because the employees and management are more casual, which I’m guessing is because of the distance from OTB headquarters in Times Square, and the fact that most co-workers are actually from Staten Island and have a stress-free travel experience, unlike everyone else who travel all over the city to get from their home to their branch. Staten Island is the promised land for many workers—you have to have crazy seniority to earn one of its precious few spots permanently. But, yeah, casual—there’s less fights with the customers, less fights between the customers, slightly less drama between the co-workers, and less murders and robberies and what have you.
Unlike the rest of the city branches, ninety-percent of the customers are white. Mostly Irish or Italian guys, like poorly written characters on The Sopranos. The only significant minority is the Chinese, usually on break from the token take-outs sharing strip mall space with the OTBs. This is actually a good thing for me, not because I’m a xenophobe and hate minorities, but because they mostly speak English with clear accents. Well, obviously they have thick Staten Island accents, but at least they’re descipherable, which, through bulletproof glass, is a Godsend. It’s ridiculous how much I’ve learned to translate from the other-boro branches, whether it be Spanish, Chinese, or mostly broken-hybrid-thick-accent “English.” Less translating means less mistakes means less stress and less shortages for the betting clerk. So, at least white people got that going for them, which is nice.
Few other random Staten Island quirks I’ve noticed:
-Some guys actually whistle the Godfather theme. All day long. Like it’s a real song.
-Everyone has a cigar in their mouth, even this old guy who is a dead ringer for George Burns. Keep in mind there’s no smoking allowed in the branches anymore, nor do they ever step outside to smoke the damn things. They just keep them in their mouths, getting soggy and soft.
-Customers call the Aqueduct, Belmont and Saratoga tracks “New York” as in gimme the 2 horse in New York. Granted, all these tracks are in the state of New York, but nowhere else but S.I. do customers refer to the tracks that way. That’s like calling Disneyworld “Florida.” Why? Why only here? These are the questions that keep me up at night.
-There’s posters of cats all over the walls of the break rooms and bathrooms in the workers’ area. Like lions and pumas and stuff, no labels, just posters of the cats. This isn’t a strictly Staten Island thing, I’ve noticed it in Brooklyn, and come to think of it, in the 7th and 8th grade I had a bus driver obsessed with tigers. What the WTF?
-This isn’t a Staten Island quirk, but I saw it in a Staten Island branch. You know those “Hey Kids, No Hope in Dope!” bumper stickers you see all over? (Well, you see all over if you live in ghetto neighborhoods?) Someone tore it in half and stuck it to the wall, where it remains: “Hey Kids, No Hope.” How uplifting.
There’s a lot more I can say about the pecularities of the Staten Island OTBs, and maybe one day I will, but for now I’ll end with a vignette about one of my finer compatriots:
I saw a high roller last week lose 15 grand in about ninety minutes, which by far isn’t the worst I’ve seen on the job. He was drunk off his ass and really obnoxious. Thing is, this was one of his better days. Once, he was coked up beyond repair, spilling powder all over the men’s room floor. He could barely walk, he pissed himself, tried to stumble to his car in the parking lot. (He’s since stopped driving, now he’ll turn to random customers and offer them four hundred bucks or whatever to drive him home, or sometimes just call a car service like a normal human being.) A customer witnessed this embarassing display and expressed his shock, but we explained it was the norm. Then he told us that the guy was his kids’ little league coach, and that they had a game in two hours.
Come visit us, the ferry’s free.
