Growing Up Bank Street. Donna Florio

article—again take it from Mr. Bendtsen—go to the Subway every time!

      He must have loved this, I thought.

      His career continued to flourish. In 1919 another admiring review declared that Bendtsen “is a young man of whom Broadway should see more . . . he has versatility as well as cleverness.”

      Bendtsen looked handsome in an ordinary, nondescript way in his publicity photos, with neatly combed straight hair slicked back and pleasant, even features. A bit like F. Scott Fitzgerald, I thought, but hard to recognize as my bowlegged old neighbor with warts and liver spots. I squinted hard, trying to find the cheerful old man who’d called me “Little Miss” and thanked me for sharing my Hershey bars with him by bowing low, hands fluttering in the air by his sides, and elaborately kissing my hand. His dramatic thank-you performance was our special time to giggle together. Plus, we both loved chocolate.

      “No wonder he beat all of you at that crossword puzzle,” I crowed to my parents and the neighbors, brandishing copies from his file. “And look at these reviews. When did he even sleep?” It was a good question. By 1926 he’d performed in thirty-nine Broadway premieres, thirty revivals, and seventeen Shakespeare plays. He’d acted in works by Molière in French and dramas by Ibsen in Danish. I blew up the photos too, to show the neighbors. “Look at him as a young actor,” I said. “Can you believe it? He did movies, radio shows, and musical comedies too.” They shook their heads as they looked at the pictures. “I had no idea,” Rose said. “This is amazing.”

      He managed well on his own despite his advanced years until the early 1960s. Then, maybe after a small stroke or advancing dementia, his behavior went downhill. Rose, luckily, was walking up the steps on her way home as he opened the front door, buck naked, about to step onto the stoop and take a walk. “He’d always put clothes on when he left the building before,” she said. “He was elegant, in fact, with a silk cravat and a silver-headed walking stick. He was mortified when he looked down and realized what he was doing, the poor man. I felt awful for him.”

      Mom and the other neighbor ladies brought meals downstairs. Rose made a point of stopping by to check on him on her way home from work. Ramiro, our super, swept his apartment when he cleaned the halls. But our thespian was too fragile to live alone any longer. I was seven or eight. He still thanked me profusely for bars of chocolate as I held them up to him but couldn’t manage to bend into his bow.

      A tearful group of us waved goodbye from the sidewalk on the day that white-coated attendants carried him down the steps in a wheelchair. He had a box of chocolate-covered cherries tucked at his side, our parting gift. He was dressed up, with a silk scarf draped theatrically around his neck and a plaid blanket over his legs. I reached out and gave him a hug. He swept those fluttering arms out to us, a graceful curtain call at the footlights, and blew kisses. It was a classy, fitting, exit. He moved to the nursing home on Abingdon Square around the corner, where he tarried awhile, then bowed and quietly left the stage for good.

      Everyone missed him. We’ve seen all sorts of things at 63 Bank Street but never again those perfect, inked Saturday night puzzles.