Editor’s note: A version of this story was originally published in 2019. It has been updated by Nicolette Cavallaro.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Three hours and 45 minutes. That’s how long my round-trip commute took every day to Manhattan in the late ’80s/early ’90s as a college student.
Bus to the Staten Island Ferry, ferry to the subway, and then a walk up and then down a big hill to City College of New York in Harlem. Four years.
Thirty years later, some memories of the ferry remain. The catatonic crush of 7:20 a.m. commuters; the precise folding and reading of broadsheet newspapers; the styrofoam feel of a large, hot McDonald’s coffee in my palm that I’d bought in the terminal before the big doors slid closed; the shoe shine guy.
Yes, the shoe shine guy.
Carmine Rizzo shines a shoe on the Staten Island Ferry in this Jan. 27, 2000 file photo.Staten Island Advance
Years ago, I’d read in the Advance his name was Carmine Rizzo, and he polished shoes for more than 30 years on the Staten Island Ferry, retiring in 2000 at the age of 76. He was paid $2.50 a shine.
There was something oddly comforting about the shoe shine guy. His voice was familiar. His presence, routine. My routine. He was woven in the fabric of my years as a quintessential New Yorker.
“Shine, shoe shine,” he’d say in his hoarse voice that matched his tired appearance, up and down the ferry aisles. Commuters, like me, largely ignored him.
Shining shoes of Rich Santo.staten island advance
Sometimes, he’d be summoned by a customer whose shoes had lost their sheen. Once, it was the guy sitting right next to me.
I immediately looked up from my organic chem notes (or whatever test I was cramming for) and watched the shoe shine unfold, so up-close. Like a little pre-internet YouTube tutorial on shoe-shining.
The shoe shine guy had a system. Once hired, he knelt down by his customer’s feet on an old, tattered, dark blue pillow, as if in supplication.
Carmine Rizzo attends to another of the countless pairs of shoes he has buffed during his long career as a “shoe shine guy” on the Staten Island Ferry.STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE
He’d then grab, one by one, the armamentarium housed in the shoe shine box, which looked handmade, and was toted all day long.
The brass handle doubled as the heel rest for his customers.
I imagined it made it over from the Salerno region in Italy to Ellis Island.
A shoeshine kit belonging to Carmine Rizzo, who buffed ferry passengers’ leather for 35 years, is on display. staten island advance
As he got to work on my neighbor’s wingtips, I peeped the contents of his shoe box cubicles: Shoe polish — one black Kiwi tin, and another brown; a raggedy shoe shine cloth that was barely white anymore; three varieties of brushes; maybe a shoe horn?
The look of the shoe shine man’s hands are indelible in my mind, too. His arthritic fingers were aged and chunky, his wax-stained cuticles and fingernails, jagged from years of honest, hard work.
I had great respect for him, for that.
With his knee cushion on his lap, Carmine Rizzo, one of the Staten Island Ferry’s two “shoe shine guys”, takes a moment to relax and read.STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE
I sometimes wondered if the shoe shine man had a family to support, and if hawking his services, every half hour of every day on ferry boats was enough to put food on the table.
I sometimes wished I wore shoes that needed shining (I wore mostly sneakers and sandals in warmer weather) or that I could just give him money to help him out.
Carmine Rizzo on his final round as shoe shine guy on the Staten Island Ferry.STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE
I thought better of it, though, because one, I was a broke college student. And two, I was afraid to insult him. Who was I to think a man making an honest living, no matter how modest, needed help?
Nobody, that’s who.
Carmine Rizzo making his rounds.Staten Island Advance
Fast forward from my college years to today, 33 years since my strap-hanging days.
My ferry commutes are irregular at best now, centered around cultural jaunts or visiting my own daughter in college, ironically also in the Upper West Side.
Memories flood back each time.
Ferry rides seem less romantic now, than when I was a young woman, but remain awe-inspiring upon approaching the White Hall slips, gazing the skyline where the glistening Twin Towers once were.
The Shoeshine guy, Carmine.staten island advance
Things seemed different then. Fuller with life’s promises, maybe? Or was I just young and innocent?
I’m not sure if the ferry and subways were safer back then or my naivete shielded me from the horrors in the news these days, but things were just somehow better.
But one thing’s for sure.
After 35 years of shinning shoes aboard the Staten Island Ferry – and clowning with friends like Richard Estrada of Mariners Harbor – Carmine Rizzo put away his brushes and uttered his famous “Shine!” greeting for the last time.staten island advance
There are certain things in my mind of “growing up Staten Island” that will never be erased. Like the ferry. The wafting of the smell of hot dogs on the ferry home. The view of Lady Liberty. The old, brown wooden benches. The shoe shine guy.
Thanks for the memories, Mr. Rizzo.
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