A snippet from my “On This Corber ” Series for the Arizona Republic

“The Big Apple”

By

Gerry Niskern

The busiest intersection in downtown Phoenix in the mid 40’s was at 2nd Avenue and W. Washington. The Wells Fargo building stands there now, but back then the old Ford hotel occupied that space. The corner newsstand at the hotel was a popular stop for the streetcar passengers waiting to take the Eastlake car to Sixteenth Street or the Capitol car heading west on Washington all the way to 22nd Avenue. If you had to transfer on your nickel ride to the Brill or Kenilworth line heading north; sometimes it was quite a wait.
The heavy set man who owned the corner newsstand, sat high above his display, smoking cigars and keeping an eagle eye on his merchandise. He carried newspapers, magazines, comic books, cigarettes, cigars and candy bars. However, the items that I remember coveting were the huge, shiny red apples he kept by the cash registrar. Those enormous apples that were marked ten cents apiece fascinated me.
On many Saturday mornings, when I was twelve, during seventh grade, I had to transfer to the Brill streetcar. I rode it north to East McDowell Road where our dentist was located in the Grunow clinic. And every Saturday as I waited for the northbound trolley I paced back and forth in front of that newsstand and agonized. You see, I usually had the dime but I also had a voice in my head. That was the indignant voice of my mother declaring, “ Ten cents for an apple…who ever heard of such a thing? Why, you can buy a loaf of bread for ten cents” You see, our family had recently moved here from a little farm in the East that had a large apple orchard and I missed that luscious fruit.
So every Saturday, I went to the dreaded dentist and then agonized while waiting for the Capitol trolley to take me home again, always without a huge, scrumptious red apple.