Ever since I saw Dick Bartolo’s video of how he’d arranged with the NYC parks department to install a bench plaque commemorating the late, great William M. Gaines —

— I’ve been wanting to make a pilgrimage to that spot.

And yesterday morning, November 19, 2025, I finally did!

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For nearly forty years, I’ve been trying to find out the truth of something that happened to me—and I’m starting to realize I may never know that truth. Recently, I decided to pitch This American Life on the idea of doing a story on the incident, thinking they could either find out what really happened, or failing that might be interested in pulling together a themed episode on multiple people who have mysteries about their lives which may never be solved. And when I mentioned on social media that I’d done this, a few of you were intrigued, and wanted to know more about this mysterious event.

Since it’s unlikely This American Life will be interested, and since, who knows, perhaps one of you could solve this mystery, I figured, why not share it here?

This incident occurred in the mid to late ’70s, prior to November 2, 1978. I say this because that’s the date on which I began keeping an almost daily diary, and when I searched through my entries for a contemporaneous accounting from then until the day I left New York in 1985, I found nothing. I would surely have written about this, so it had to have happened earlier, probably in 1975 or 1976, when I would have been 20 or 21.

One afternoon, I was sitting in front of the McGraw-Hill building on Sixth Avenue with my back to a giant, gleaming triangle that tracks solstices and equinoxes. (If you live in New York, you’ll know exactly where I mean.) I often hung out on that spot, because my father was an Art Director for McGraw-Hill, and I’d wait there until it was time for us to have lunch, or for him to get off work. But on that day, something unusual happened. (more…)

While on the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn yesterday heading for a visit with Mirthful Marie Severin (about which more later), traffic came to a standstill. Not really a surprise on the Belt Parkway, but in this case, the reason was.

Up ahead, we could see a police car’s flashing lights, and on the other side of the vehicle, motorcyclists circling, with nothing but clear road beyond them. After 5-10 minutes of blockage, the motorcycles moved on, the police car shut its lights, and we were free to continue.

Then, one exit down the road, it happened all over again!

What was this about? I had no idea, but since since my wife was driving, I was free to search Twitter to see whether anyone had tweeted what was going on. I never did find out whether it was some strange police exercise, a biker protest, or perhaps even (yes, my mind went there) the scattering of a dead friend’s ashes.

After another 5-10 minutes, they took off, and we weren’t stopped again. (At least, not by that. After all, it is the Belt Parkway.) I never did find out had happened, but I did discover that the collected tweets about Belt Parkway paint a pretty noirish picture … one Irene classified as existential angst.

If you’ve never driven the Belt, this will give you some idea what it’s like. And if you have … well … these ought to bring back some pretty crappy memories.

I might as well just live on the belt parkway

— Peter Castellotti (@PeterPdoubleC) October 12, 2014

Belt parkway blows

— JUSTIN (@j_rhoadess) October 12, 2014

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After having shared with you two self-serving snippets from the April 2, 1972 episode of the Malachy McCourt radio show on which I was a guest, I feel I should present you with some excerpts that are a little more public-spirited—so here are three commercials and a news report, all with an old timey feel that makes them of much more general interest.

First up, an odd Planned Parenthood ad—odd because, until the song which takes up most of the airtime finishes playing, I had no idea what the ad was even about.

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