He Was a Fancy Freeloader in His Time : At 84, Champion Gate Crasher Getting a Little Rusty

Pinky Ginsberg doesn’t get around much anymore. The days of dining with royalty, infiltrating big events and thumbing his nose at officials are gone.

“I don’t know who remembers me anymore,” he says. “There was a time when they all knew me, though. There was a time when my name was magic.”

The man who once walked into Adolf Hitler’s office and asked for an autograph, attended the coronation of King George VI, crashed 37 World Series, 12 presidential inaugurations, eight Olympics and many other events is a little short of magic these days.

Hyman Ginsberg, 84, who bills himself as the world’s greatest gate crasher, now spends his days in a tiny apartment on the edge of the French Quarter.

An old man’s gait has slowed his travels. So has an old man’s bankroll.

“Social Security. It’s enough to keep you from starving, but not by much,” he says. “I get $400 a month and that doesn’t go far. In my time I made and lost $15 million. I spent $100,000 on a little redhead so quick you wouldn’t believe it.

“In those days it came easy and it went easy. I was a bookie. I owned several nightclubs in the French Quarter. Chez Paris on Bourbon Street, that was mine. I owned a place called Punch and Judy’s, another one next to Arnaud’s Restaurant.”

His thin fingers thumb through his scrapbook, fondling the clippings that yellow there. Clippings in French, Spanish, German, English, along with letters and photographs, fill the book and testify to his many adventures.

The legend on the front of the book reads: “Album of Fantasy, Alright--Let’s Have It, Fantastic--Fabulous, Step & Peep into the Wonderful World and the Pleasant Life of Pinky the Bum. Smiling Pinky Ginsberg, King of the Gate Crashers, International Personality, Professional Gourmet, Wine Sipper and Food Taster.”

The citations making him honorary mayor, colonel, senator, sheriff, cop and quarterback are taped to the wall.

“I can document everything I tell you,” he says. “I have letters from people. See this pin? President Bush sent it to me when he was vice president. I’ve met 12 Presidents, crashed 12 inaugurations. I used to walk in and out of the White House like I owned the joint. All I did was carry some papers under my arm and they thought I was a senator or something. You can’t do that now. The assassinations changed all of that.”

The last thing Ginsberg crashed was the 1988 Republican National Convention.

“Easier than I would have guessed,” he says. “I just copied the pass and walked right in. They put me through the metal detector to see if I was carrying a gun, but nobody even tried to stop me.”

1920 World Series

Ginsberg began his gate-crashing career at the World Series in 1920.

“It was Cleveland against Brooklyn,” he says. “I came from a poor family and didn’t have the 50 cents for a ticket. I bought six newspapers for two cents each, wadded them up and started a fire. When the guy on the gate ran out to put it out, I went in.”

He crashed many other major sporting events, he said. Super Bowls--”Nothing to it.” The Muhammad Ali-Leon Spinks fight in the Superdome--”A piece of cake.” The 1988 NCAA Final Four in the same building couldn’t keep him out either.

“It’s just a matter of looking things over, figuring out the best way in and them acting like you know what you’re doing,” he says. “Once you start, don’t stop and don’t look back.”

Ginsberg was in Berlin in 1939 and decided he had to get into Adolf Hitler’s office. With six white shirts, which he says were hard to get in Germany then, he bribed two guards to turn their backs while he walked past.

“I went in and there he was sitting at the desk,” Ginsberg recalls. “Now I sure didn’t want to introduce myself with a name like Hyman Ginsberg, so I just gave him a big ‘Heil, Hitler!’ and asked for his autograph. He hit the ceiling. Bells started going off. A couple of guys came in and grabbed me and threw me out on the street.”

He crashed King George’s coronation in England wearing a rented tuxedo decorated with a yard of red ribbon and three rows of medals bought at a pawn shop. The same ploy got him into the wedding of the daughter of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco.

He got into a lot of Sugar Bowls and a couple of Cotton Bowls with a $2 camera and a ‘Press’ button he says he got off a Coke machine.

But his best ploys won’t work for him anymore, he says. Nobody will believe an 84-year-old firefighter or cop or doctor might be rushing into an event.