METROPOLITAN DIARY 'We Were Somewhere in the 50s When We Noticed a Brass Quartet'
'A face in the crowd, how to carry a rocking chair and more reader tales of New York City in this week’s Metropolitan Diary.
Masterpiece
Dear Diary:
On a beautiful Sunday afternoon in the late 1970s, my wife and I decided to stroll north on Fifth Avenue.
We were somewhere in the 50s when we noticed a brass quartet setting up in front of a bank.
We decided to listen to them play for a few minutes, and we were rewarded with a stirring rendition of Jean-Joseph Mouret’s brass fanfare “Rondeau,” the “Masterpiece Theater” theme.
A crowd gathered, and we all enjoyed the performance. When it ended, everyone applauded and Lynda and I prepared to continue on uptown.
As we turned north, there in the crowd was Alistair Cooke.
He was smiling.
— Scott Shand
Her Rocker
Dear Diary:
I drove to the Upper West Side on a sunny day last fall to deliver a rocking chair to a young friend who was in her last month of pregnancy. The chair was one my mother had given me decades ago when I was pregnant with my first child.
Because a rocking chair is awkward to carry, I hoped I would find a parking space near my friend’s building. Alas, no luck. The closest space I could find was on Riverside Drive near Grant’s Tomb about a dozen blocks from her apartment.
After some experimentation, I decided that the best way to carry the chair was to hold it by the arms, upside down, with the seat above my head and the rockers up in the air.
I felt a bit conspicuous as I headed off down the sidewalk along Riverside Park. The park was full of people, and I was a gray-haired woman carrying a rocking chair upside down over her head. I was sure I would get some strange looks, and maybe a comment or two.
I needn’t have worried. No one batted an eye.
— Jane Scott
Making Deliveries
Dear Diary:
When I was in high school, I delivered groceries for a deli in Astoria after school.
Balancing heavy boxes in my bike basket, I would make deliveries to many people in a large apartment complex across the street from the deli.
Each building had a courtyard, and I would ride my bike on the sidewalk and turn into the ones where I had deliveries to make.
Two or three times a week, I passed an older man who scowled at me and yelled at me to get off the sidewalk.
Once, during Christmas week, I was riding with a very heavy load when I saw the man.
“Merry Christmas!” I shouted before he had a chance to yell at me. I kept riding and was surprised not to hear him say anything.
When I rode past him the following week, I was taken aback to hear him say, “Hiya, kid.”
He greeted me the same way whenever I rode past again.
— Stephen Beccalori
Big Birthday
Dear Diary:
It was March 2013, and I was having a big birthday. Because the date fell on a weekday, my wife and had delayed going out for a celebratory dinner until Saturday. I was looking forward to that, but my actual birthday just didn’t feel memorable.
Normally, I walked the mile from my home to the office and back, but that night, I decided to take the M102 bus instead. I boarded the bus at 42nd St. and Third Avenue.
“Whose birthday is it today?” the driver said. “It must be somebody’s.”
After thinking it over for a moment, I spoke up somewhat sheepishly to say that it was my birthday. Another passenger did too.
After asking our names, the driver encouraged the bus full of strangers to sing “Happy Birthday” to us.
Which they did, with gusto.
— Richard Rubenstein
‘Try Being Nice’
Dear Diary:
I had a job at the local supermarket in Bay Ridge. Sal, the manager, and I would open up every Saturday morning at 8 a.m. In between serving the occasional customer at the deli or in the produce section, I brought in and put away the milk. I also worked the register.
One of the regular customers, an older man, usually bought about five items. He would place each one on the counter, watch me ring it up and then go on to the next item.
After he paid, he would check each item against the receipt and then he would take out a pencil and make sure it all added up correctly.
Sal sensed my frustration with this routine.
“Try being nice,” he said. “He is probably a lonely old man.”
For the next two weeks, whenever the man came in I would ring each item up patiently, calling out the price as he placed it on the counter. Then I would give him a pencil along with his receipt.
The first time he came in the week after that, he put everything on the counter at once, and I rang him up.
“Sir,” I said as he was leaving, “you forgot your receipt.”
“I don’t need it,” he said.
— Matt Morrone
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/26/nyregion/metropolitan-diary.html
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Thank you so much for posting them! 
