lenny

i don’t know a whole lot about lenny except i know i like him. my best guess is lenny in somewhere in his late 70’s and has some kind of temperature regulation problem, but he sure doesn’t let it get him down. he’s a big man and likes to wear an oversized blue parka. often i’ll see him with a white towel wrapped around his neck – even in july when it’s 90 degrees. if it’s exceptionally hot, lenny may wear shorts and keep his parka unzipped. he’s always smiling and happy. he crosses 1st avenue and gets breakfast to go at the diner between 73rd & 74th streets. ivan and i go for our morning walk right around the same time lenny goes for his breakfast. if we run into lenny on his way home from the diner, he almost always stops to share his egg sandwich with ivan. later in the day i can always count on seeing lenny at the corner of 75th and 1st. on the south west corner of 75th street and 1st avenue is a small esplanade with a row of attached chairs affixed to the garden wall where lenny is almost a permanent fixture. i believe this esplanade belongs to the upscale high rise residential building on 75th street although the park dwellers are obviously not from the building. along side lenny there are usually between 2 – 6 homeless folks planted in the immobile chairs along the wall. lenny feeds the birds using bagels donated from a local shop owner each day.