Counter Intelligence : Want to Know What N. Y. Thinks About the Candidates? Just Ask at the Argo

You wanna slice of New York? Something more than just pastrami on rye, and maybe even a little food for thought? Come on down to the Argo.

The Argo coffee shop, that is. Corner of 90th and Broadway, on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. A bit of common ground in the Big Apple, where Greek waiters shout the orders and there’s usually an extra seat at the counter. The kind of place where customers speak their minds--whether you ask them to or not.

This week, the New York Democratic primary is the hot topic, with patrons divided over Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton and former California Gov. Jerry Brown. We open with a quiet scene, as morning dawns over the city:

“Clinton? He’s a sleazeball,” snaps construction worker Norman Lion, sipping a cup of coffee at 9 a.m. “God save us from Bill Clinton.”

Down the counter, packed with diners, secretary Joyce Howell hears Lion and yells back: “A moron! This guy Brown is a moron!”

“Will you please shut up?” says another diner, slapping down his newspaper. “I’m not voting for anybody, and so should you.”

Ever since the political circus came to town, the local media have issued storm warnings to all candidates: This ain’t Kansas. Get real. And talk New Yawk. The nation’s largest city wants to be pandered to in the primary next Tuesday and won’t tolerate flimflam. Particularly from out-of-town politicians.

Does Clinton have a detailed plan to solve the nation’s problems? Put him on the A Train to Harlem, and then we’ll talk. Can Brown, a former wheeler-dealer, end political corruption in our time? Fugghedaboudit.

It doesn’t help that both candidates have been slow to address city problems, such as homelessness, AIDS, street crime and deteriorating schools. Irked that neither Brown nor Clinton is focusing on local issues, Mayor David Dinkins summoned them Tuesday to an “urban summit” at City Hall. With the campaign almost over, the men have finally agreed to a series of debates.

And they’d better not flub their lines. The Democrats gather in New York for their convention in July, so candidates will have to brace themselves for a rerun of the Gotham pressure cooker in less than four months.

Meanwhile, President Bush sails on to certain victory in New York because he is unopposed on the ballot. There has been virtually no GOP presence in the primary, although voters voice discontent with the White House as well.

“We aren’t going to waste our votes on sending a message,” says New York Newsday columnist Gail Collins, referring to the Democrats. “There is nobody to send it to. No wizard behind the curtain, running the show. Brown or Clinton. Let the games begin.”

At the Argo, they’re in full swing.

Customers rushing off to work spout opinions on everything from Clinton’s reputed sexual history to Brown’s flat tax. They may be loud and pushy in a New York way, often interrupting each other, but their opinions matter. For better or worse, they reflect the restive middle-class constituency that Democrats and Republicans hope to capture in this turbulent election year.

Drawn from a neighborhood of old apartments, new condominiums and tenements on upper Broadway, the Argonauts include seniors, yuppies, college kids and middle-income families with children. Outside, there’s a supporting cast of hookers, crackheads and mentally ill homeless.

Open daily from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m., the Argo is more grit than gourmet and nothing to write home about. But don’t be deceived: The little coffee shop with graffiti on the outside and cheesecake on the inside is a cross-section of contemporary New York that political pollsters dream about.

“Sometimes I think you see the whole Upper West Side parading through this place,” says customer Richard Greczko. “You’ve got everybody here, and they all have opinions. They come to Argo, and it’s a place to talk.”

It’s also a second home for people who haven’t cooked in years. Waiters here know their steady customers and bring them their favorite dishes without being asked. They inquire after their children and sometimes baby-sit for them at the counter. If regular patrons run short of cash, it’s no big deal.

“I’ve been coming to this place for 20 years and it’s almost like family,” says Ann Jaimes, a piano teacher who has lived in the area since 1955. “You’ve got a better chance of having conversation with a stranger here over coffee than you would in a small Midwestern town.”

Lately, the conversations have focused on the 1992 election. It’s a particularly popular subject among coffee-klatchers who gather at the counter during the week. Some nights, the guys get pretty loud.

“Talk, talk, talk,” says owner Fotis Hilas. “I didn’t know Americans talked so much. They talk about Clinton. Other days, Brown. Some like him, but don’t like the scandals. We don’t like scandals in this coffee shop.”

Given the mix of people in New York, it’s no surprise that the Argo feeds muttering stockbrokers by day and muttering lunatics by night. Diversity is a fact of life in Manhattan, but many of the customers see their community changing for the worse, especially when it comes to crime. They fear for the future and worry that candidates aren’t even talking about these problems.

Take Nettie Kaim, a seventy-something widow who has been trooping to the Argo every day for 10 years. Wrapped in a black coat and hat, the diminutive woman orders tea and settles into a booth like clockwork. Before she gets inside, however, Kaim has to make her way through a small army of panhandlers lining the sidewalks. She doesn’t feel safe in the neighborhood.

“It’s a shame that an elderly woman can’t walk here alone at night without an escort,” Kaim says. “I used to think that George Bush cared about us, but I don’t anymore. He doesn’t help us. He gives money to foreign countries and Montana. He’s not talking about the city.”

Are the Democrats doing any better? Listen to Rosa Liebowitz and Edna Morris, two women at the counter exchanging photos of grandchildren.

Liebowitz: “That Clinton, what a pretty boy. But that’s all he is.”

Morris: “That’s all he is. A pretty face. Now who’s the other guy?

Liebowitz: “The other guy. Who’s he?”

Morris: “Jerry Brown. The nut.”

Liebowitz: “The nut.”

Morris: “That’s what I said.”

Liebowitz: “That’s what I said. Yes.”

It’s hard to blame customers for feeling skeptical, because neither Democratic candidate seems to be getting a New York message across. In recent days Clinton was shouted down by hecklers in Harlem and taunted by an AIDS demonstrator at a fund-raiser. Brown got the same treatment at a Union Square rally, where opponents chanted throughout his speech. There’s a mood of anger and impatience in the city that seems unprecedented in campaign ’92.

“I’ll be damned if any of these guys is talking to me,” says Lion, 61, a crane operator and part-time playwright. “The country’s going broke, the national debt is out of control, and none of these guys stands for anything real. You know, I’m a Democrat, and a lot of my friends think the same way.”

As he finishes, a woman lurches to the last open seat at the counter and plops down with a load of dry cleaning. Barbara Steinberg, a former teacher, hears the drift of the conversation and jumps right in.

“Maybe these guys (Brown and Clinton) don’t say anything real to us here because New York isn’t part of the United States,” says Steinberg. “I mean, neither is California. They’re both very big but very fringe places.

“Look at the New York schools. They’ve put gun detectors in hallways now, and that’s a sign of anarchy. You don’t have this problem in other areas.”

At the Argo, political disenchantment is becoming contagious. Just before leaving, Liebowitz complains that Clinton and Brown “look like train conductors, not Presidents.” Steinberg grumbles something about Eleanor Roosevelt having more integrity than all of the candidates combined.

The day wears on, and customers voice similar complaints. Life is tough in New York, and when you think that politicians don’t care, it makes politics irrelevant. During dinner, Ann Colonosca tells how her husband left work in Midtown last week and was surrounded by four muggers with knives.

“They began slashing at him and cut holes in his suit,” she says, seated in a booth with her daughter, Flora. “He was lucky to get away, and then I had to explain to my kids why Daddy had knife marks in his clothes.”

As a waiter collects her plate, Colonosca looks downcast. “I don’t hear any of the candidates talking about those problems,” she says. “It’s like they’re on a different plane, like we don’t exist.”

For some Argo customers, the only solution is to kiss off the election and get back to real life. Werner Nochum spends hours with a collection of antique pipes, polishing them at the counter in between bites of strawberry shortcake. To him, the campaign seems light-years away.

“I haven’t voted in an election since the New Deal,” he declares. “To me, the two parties are the same. They’re no good, and the election is a horse race where the two horses are owned by the same guy. So who cares?”

By 12:45 a.m., there are only a few diners left and Hilas is preparing to lock up for the night. At the end of the counter, Elizabeth Rogers, a writer and artist, reads a mystery novel but puts it down with a chuckle when asked about the presidential candidates.

“Maybe we expect too much of these guys, because they’re only politicians,” she says. “As for me, I’m thinking about voting for none of the above. That’s one guy who will neve r let you down.”