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FLEETING INFAMY Many are called, but few are frozen in spotlight By MICHAEL O. ALLEN and RICHARD T. PIENCIAK, Daily News Staff Writers

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

Sunday, May 4, 1997

Most people who grab fleeting notoriety — Sukhreet Gabel, the kid who stole the A train, Lady Bing and Yankee switcher Fritz Peterson — disappear quickly and quietly.

Then there are those like Burton Pugach, resurrected at regular intervals, and Donald Trump, who never seems to leave the stage.

Pugach has defied the odds by stretching his fame to 45 minutes with front-page appearances in 1959, 1974 and 1997.

The 70-year-old ex-attorney first surfaced when he paid three goons $2,000 to throw lye into the face of a girlfriend who had discovered he was married. After serving 14 years in prison, Pugach hit the front pages again in 1974, when he married the woman who had been blinded in the attack.

His third major foray into the public arena concluded last week with his acquittal in Queens on charges that he had threatened to kill his most recent ex-mistress.

In Trump’s case, his soap opera — separation from Marla — is just beginning.

Here’s a reprise of what happened to some others who just faded away:

Howie Spira

Howie Spira, George Steinbrenner’s one-time archrival, would love to return to center stage. These days, Spira has an entertainment lawyer and a literary agent; he’s hawking a book and movie about his life and says he is dating a beautiful 25-year-old airline employee from California.

Howie’s big moment in 1990 produced dire consequences for a variety of people: The Boss got suspended from baseball; Fay Vincent ultimately was booted from the baseball commissioner’s office; and Spira ended up in federal prison.

Spira claimed Steinbrenner had paid him $40,000 to dig up dirt on slugger Dave Winfield. The FBI charged him with extortion.

Several weeks before his parole in October 1993, Spira made the acquaintance of another inmate, former New York Judge Sol Wachtler.

“He was very upset,” Spira, now 38, recalled. “I introduced him to people. We became friends.

“It’s been very, very difficult. The same people who to this day chase me for autographs or want to talk baseball will not give me a job because of the stigma. . . . I’m frightened about my future.”

Francine Gottfried

Front-page allegations of sexual harassment lodged last week by several female employees of a Long Island brokerage house suggested that the more things change in Wall Street circles, the more they stay the same. Take the case of the Wall Street Sweater Girl of 1968.

At the time, Francine Gottfried was 21 years old, stood 5-foot-3 and earned $92.50 a week as a data processing operator for Chemical Bank. A completely different set of numbers brought intense public attention to the Brooklyn native: her 43-25-37 figure.

The frenzy over Gottfried began spontaneously; several brokerage house employees noticed she exited the BMT subway station near the New York Stock Exchange each workday shortly before 1:30 p.m. The workers told their friends and colleagues, who told more people.

During a two-week period that September, the crowds grew from several hundred to more than 15,000 — all in search of a glimpse of Francine in her extremely tight yellow sweater.

“A Bust Panics Wall Street as the Tape Says 43,” blared one Daily News headline. Added The New York Times: “10,000 Wait in Vain for Reappearance of Wall Street’s Sweater Girl.”

Meanwhile, Francine began considering whether to charge for interviews and photos. “I’ve got a million dollars of publicity already, but no money,” she said. “This is the biggest thing to hit Wall Street since the Crash of ’29, and I should be compensated.”

But Francine eventually dropped from the radar screen by taking a different route to work.

Keron Thomas

On May 8, 1993, at the age of 16, Keron Thomas took Duke Ellington’s musical advice one step too far: He didn’t simply take the A train, he stole it.

A train buff since his childhood in Trinidad, Thomas rode the subway at all hours.

Thomas became such fast friends with trainman Regoberto Sabio that one day he found himself behind the controls of the shuttle between Franklin Ave. and Prospect Park.

Psyched by the experience, Thomas called the 207th St. subway yard in Inwood, identifying himself as Sabio and requesting an overtime shift.

The dispatcher failed to ask Thomas for photo I.D. or his employee badge, which enabled the older-looking teen to take control of a 10-car train.

An estimated 2,000 passengers were aboard during the ensuing three-hour ride.

Thomas might have gotten away with the caper had he not exceeded a 20 mph speed limit, tripping an emergency signal.

The sheer brazenness of Thomas’ act captivated New Yorkers. Friends at Brooklyn Automotive High School took to calling him “A Train.”

The charges were reduced to misdemeanors, and Thomas was sentenced to three years probation.

But 18 months after the A train incident, Thomas was arrested for stabbing a teen.

Charged with attempted murder, Thomas spent 177 days on Rikers Island and pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree assault. He was credited with time served and was released in July 1995 on five years probation.

Last week, Probation Department spokesman Jack Ryan said Thomas’ file was sealed. Despite being 18 at the time of the stabbing, Thomas ultimately was treated as a youthful offender.

Sukhreet Gable

For nine riveting days in 1988, Sukhreet Gabel testified against her ailing 75-year-old mother — a respected judge — former Miss America Bess Myerson, and Bess’ lover, contractor Carl (Andy) Capasso.

The prosecution alleged that Sukhreet had been given a city job in return for her mother’s fixing of Capasso’s divorce settlement. The bribery trial ended, however, in acquittals for all.

“I think I was naive,” says Gabel, now 47. “I might do it differently if I had to do it all again. But my mother’s words always come back to me. What she said was to always tell the truth, and I think those are good words to live by. My mother was a wise woman.”

Sukhreet remembers her moment in the spotlight as having been quite awful.

“So often I would be misunderstood and labeled crazy, when I don’t think I am,” she said. “I’m certainly a character, but I’m not crazy.”

These days, Gabel is busy importing and exporting traditional and high-end contemporary textiles, a job that takes her all over the world.

Lady Bing

At age 22, Carroll Lee Douglass married 65-year-old moviemaker Jack Glenn. Following a divorce, she married William Rickenbacker, son of World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker. In 1987, at 47, she married retired Metropolitan Opera impresario Sir Rudolf Bing, 85 at the time.

The wedding ceremony had taken place only two days after Bing’s relatives succeeded in getting a judge in Manhattan to schedule a competency hearing for him.

Bing and his wife, who took to calling herself Lady Bing, appeared at the hearing on Jan. 12, 1987, but vanished once the judge declared that the groom was incompetent to handle his financial affairs.

Within a month, the Daily News traced the newlyweds to the idyllic Caribbean island of Anguilla.

Eventually, the pair returned to New York, where a judge annulled the marriage; Sir Rudolf entered the Hebrew Home for the Aged in Riverdale.

Last Thursday, a worker at the home confirmed that Bing still is a resident. “He’s doing fine,” she said.

Does Lady Bing ever come to visit?

“No,” the employee said. “She hasn’t been here in well over a year.”

Harvey Sladkus, Lady Bing’s attorney, said she appeared unannounced at his law offices on Park Ave. several weeks ago. “She looked very sad. She had lost considerable weight.”

Lady Bing wondered whether Sladkus would hire her as the office receptionist.

“I told her, ‘We already have someone in that position,’ ” the attorney recalled.

Alice Crimmins

Alice Crimmins may well have achieved her aim of blending anonymously into the community. But more than three decades ago, her crime held the city spellbound.

Her daughter, Alice Marie Crimmins, 4, and the child’s brother, Edmund, 5, disappeared from their Kew Gardens Hills apartment July 14, 1965. The girl’s body was found a half-mile away and the boy’s a mile away.

It took two trials over a six-year period before Alice Crimmins was convicted of her son’s murder and of manslaughter in her daughter’s death. The investigation focused on Crimmins’ many boyfriends.

The murder conviction eventually was overturned for lack of evidence, but she was sentenced to 5 to 20 years for the manslaughter conviction.

On Friday, Thomas Grant, assistant to the chairman of the state Parole Board, said Crimmins no longer is under parole supervision. He said records indicate she was released from a state correctional facility on Sept. 9, 1977, after serving nine years. He said her official file also showed a closure date of Jan. 17, 1993.

Crimmins, who married a Long Island construction contractor while on a weekend furlough, no longer talks to the media. Her last known address was a high-rise in Bayside, Queens.

She consistently has denied killing her children.

Yankee Wife Swappers

Even if former Yankee left-handed pitchers Mike Kekich and Fritz Peterson had produced Hall of Fame numbers, their off-the-field exploits would have overshadowed what they did on the mound.

At the beginning of the 1973 baseball season, the two close friends and free spirits told the world they had swapped wives, children, dogs and houses.

Peterson moved in with Susanne Kekich and her two daughters, Kristen, 4, and Reagan, 2. They married soon after she divorced her husband.

For Mike Kekich and Marilyn Peterson, the exchange had an unhappy ending. They broke up two months after he moved in with her and her sons, Gregg, 5, and Eric, 2.

Fritz and Susanne remain married. Peterson works as a craps dealer at Grand Victoria Casino Boat in Elgin, Ill.

Original Story Date: 050497

May 4, 1997
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77th Pct. Is Champ on Crime: Felonies Take 40% Fall By JOHN MARZULLI, MICHAEL O. ALLEN, and ALICE McQUILLAN, Daily News Staff Writers

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

nullMonday, April 7, 1997

Once notorious for corrupt cops and bloodshed, Brooklyn’s 77th Precinct has a tough new reputation — tough on crime.

It leads the city with a 40% decrease in major felonies — nearly triple the city’s average decline of 15.5% for all five boroughs.

“This place is like a sponge, and we’re still wringing more crime out of it,” said Capt. Ronald Wasson, commander of the 77th.

This turnaround in Crown Heights is among the success stories found in the Police Department’s crime statistics for the first quarter of the year. Throughout the city, an assault on drug-related crimes is credited with the continual drop in crime, quarter after quarter.

It happened in the heart of Brooklyn North where the department a year ago mounted an intensive narcotics campaign intended to make streets safer and to reduce shootings.

A decade ago, 13 cops from the 77th Precinct were charged with ripping off drug dealers. Shootings were so common that one minister recalls the sound of gunfire interrupting his Sunday morning sermons.

Now the area has calmed, both inside and outside the Utica Ave. stationhouse. Instead of constant complaints about gunfire, Wasson said, people call to gripe about loud music.

He credits the change to a crackdown on quality-of-life crimes. His 10 plainclothes anti-crime officers — so effective that all were recently scooped up by the citywide street crime unit and dispatched to other hot spots — took 67 guns off the streets last year. Beat cops shut down more than 80 alleged storefront drug spots for simple administrative violations.

“It’s really the cops, they are doing some job,” Wasson said. “A guy stopped for urinating in the street was found to be carrying two guns. If you keep the pressure on, it really quiets things down.”

The Rev. Frederick Foy, pastor of the Mount Zion Baptist Church on Ralph Ave., has lived in the neighborhood for 38 years and says he feels safer seeing more cops on the streets and in patrol cars.

“I know at one time back in the ’70s there were some people who stopped coming to this church because their cars were burglarized during service,” Foy said. “I haven’t heard of a car being burglarized for quite some time now.”

Each of the five boroughs saw double-digit drops this period, but Brooklyn North led the way with a 21.3% nosedive. Inspector William Taylor of Brooklyn North credits the success to a laser-beam focus on drug trafficking, the engine of most crimes.

“People involved in narcotics either did the crime [or] they know who did it or have the ability to find out, and if they are asked the appropriate question and we have them under arrest, they are more inclined to be cooperative,” he said.

Expanding into upper Manhattan and parts of the Bronx, the anti-drug push has driven down crime across the city, officials said.

Fourteen precincts have yet to log a slaying this year — and nine haven’t recorded a single shooting. Gunfire cases fell by almost 30% throughout the city and, at this rate, New York this year will record the fewest slayings and robberies in a generation.

There were also impressive drops in fatal shootings on the street and in lobbies or hallways — the most common places for strangers to attack. These plummeted by 53%, from 113 in the first quarter of 1996 to 53 during the same period this year.

Still, crime rose in some areas: Rockaway, 9%; Bayside, 3%, and Forest Hills, 3%, in Queens; the lower East Side, .3%; Central Park, 3%, and Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, 5%.

Car thefts dropped by 20.4% citywide, leading the seven major felonies in declines.

But Queens remains the migraine for auto crime cops. Eight of the worst 10 precincts in the city for car thefts were in Queens, topped by a surprise No. 1 — the leafy streets of Forest Hills.

The 112th Precinct in Forest Hills led the city with 486 cars stolen, yet officers there haven’t made a single arrest for auto theft so far this year.

“The 112 is like the bank — that’s where the cars are,” said Capt. Daniel Carlin, head of the department’s auto crime division.

April 7, 1997
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IN THE CITY, SEX IS A RICH EXPERIENCE; Borough Of Queens Sits Atop the Lust List

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments
Monday, January 20, 1997
by MICHAEL O. ALLEN and PAUL SCHWARTZMAN, Daily News Staff Writers

The rich are different from the rest of us and not just because they have more money. They have more sex, more fantasies about sex and more sex partners. But, then again, so do people living in Queens.

Yes, Queens, that bastion of single-family homes and front lawns, is New York’s most libidinous borough, edging out the reputedly licentious Manhattan and putting Staten Island positively to shame.

So say the findings of the Daily News lifestyle poll on matters sexual.

Overall, the poll found, New Yorkers’ sexual appetites tend more toward the regular than ravenous.

And their thinking is more conventional than kinky on questions like when it’s appropriate to lose your virginity.

“We might like to think of ourselves as being wilder than the rest of the country, but we’re not,” said Julie Weprin, of Blum & Weprin, which conducted the poll.

Still, respondents revealed a wide array of habits and attitudes. Not surprising, perhaps, men and women differ on everything from the frequency of sex to the number of partners.

More surprising, perhaps, the number of New Yorkers not having sex is almost twice the national average.

There also are differences according to age, ethnicity, education, income and residence.

Now, then, everything you wanted to know about New York’s sex life but didn’t know where to ask:

The Don Juan Index

Maybe it’s the potholes, or those long subway rides home, but New Yorkers are not frequent lovers.

Less than half 46% say they have sex at least once a week, and only 20% report three to five sexual encounters weekly.

A tiny minority 4% say they have sex daily, while nearly one in five say they have not had sex in the last year.

The poll also found that New Yorkers, by and large, are not promiscuous.

About half 44% say they have had five or fewer sex partners in their lives, with four being the median number. A minority 15% say they’ve had more than 10 partners, and about the same number report having had only one.

Men vs. Women

Look at how male and female New Yorkers describe their sex lives, and you could fairly conclude that one is from Mars and the other, Venus.

New York men report they have sex far more often than New York women. Nearly 60% of men say they have sex at least once a week, but only 36% of women do. And very few men admit to having had no sex over the past year, compared with a quarter of women.

Men also claim to get around far more than women. Nearly 30% say they’ve had more than 10 partners, but only 4% of women do.

“Men are told from when they’re kids to be with a lot of women,” said Eddie Assad, 45, a Staten Island electrician who claimed he has had 60 sex partners. “It starts in school, how’d you do with this girl, how’d you do with that girl. I don’t think it’s like that for girls.”

Edna Dyepp, 75, of Brooklyn, said she has had only two sex partners in her life her first and second husbands.

“I can only be with one man at a time,” she said. “Men like to prove themselves by being with many women. Women have other ways, cooking or cleaning.”

How the Boroughs Stack Up

While the results were close, Queens residents said they have sex the most, with half the poll respondents reporting they have sex at least once a week. Following by a hair were Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan.

“I’m at a loss to explain it, but I guess it’s a good thing,” chuckled Sherman King, 30, a UPS supervisor who lives in Laurelton, Queens, with his wife and children. “Maybe we got more married people, or more younger people. I know it’s not the air or the water that does it.”

Staten Islanders, on the other hand, may be the borough of the perpetual bedtime migraine. Slightly more than a third of Staten Islanders say they have sex at least once a week. And a quarter have had only one sex partner.

“Maybe it’s the garbage dumps out here, the aroma will kill your desire,” said Edith Jones, 83, a retired nursing attendant who lives on Staten Island. “Who wants to be involved in any pleasure with all that stuff around?”

The Money Factor

No one is more sexually active than those earning more than $ 100,000 a year. Nearly 70% of the big earners say they have sex at least once a week. And almost half have had six or more lovers.

Nearly one in five say they have had more than 20 lovers.

Russ Brink, 28, a Queens businessman, earns more than $ 100,000 and says he has had 20 sex partners.

But he says it has nothing to do with money.

“I had all my partners before I started working, when I was in college,” said Brink, who attended Oneonta College. “College was all about going to bars and meeting women. You were bound to sleep with five or six in a year. All you had to do was keep drinking.”

New York’s wealthiest are more likely to have carnal daydreams, with 14% saying they regularly fantasize about sex. In contrast, only 5% of those earning between $ 10,000 and $ 25,000 say they daydream about sex.

When to Start

The prevailing view is that young people should wait until they are at 17 to 19 years old before they have sex. But that attitude is not shared equally among New Yorkers of all ages. For example, most poll respondents under 30 said they think it appropriate to begin having sex in the late teen years.

“If you start at 18, it gives you experience,” said Jose Ramos, 22, a plumbing salesman from Sunset Park, Brooklyn. “I started when I was 15, I can’t remember who it was, but I think that was maybe too early. I could have made a mistake, gotten the girl pregnant, then what would have happened?”

Elderly New Yorkers, on the other hand, feel that young people should wait until they are married before having sex.

“I’m from the old school, people shouldn’t do it unless they’re married,” said one Queens respondent who asked to be identified only as Pauline, 75. “That’s the way I was brought up. Morally, it’s the thing to do. It’s proper.”

Getting to Know You

More than half 65% say couples should date for at least a year before getting married. Blacks show the most support for long-term courtship, with 75% saying couples should be involved for at least a year before heading to the altar. Fewer than 60% of whites and 46% of Jews agree.

“You need at least a year to really know someone, so you don’t rush into anything and make mistakes,” said Mary Gonzolez, 26, a children’s store manager from Queens.

At the same time, though, Gonzolez is unlike most New Yorkers 54% who believe couples should live together before marrying.

Respondents earning more than $ 100,000 are the most likely to endorse cohabitation. But less than half of those earning between $ 10,000 and $ 25,000 agree. And men are more likely than women to favor the idea, by 62% to 47%.

“If you live together, there’s less incentive to get married,” Gonzolez said. “Then marriage is just a piece of paper, it’s not something that you grow into.”

Sidebar: ITS OWN WORLD

Staten Island has the fewest people who:

Have sex at least once a week.

Have had more than five sexual partners in their lives.

Say 17 is a good age to start having sex.

Say living together before marriage is a good idea.

Admit having affairs.

It has the most people who:

Have had one sex partner.

Say you should be married before having sex.

Say it’s wrong to have an affair.

Would tell if the spouse of a good friend were having an affair.

Sidebar: NEW YORK CITY vs. AMERICA

Look to your left on the subway, look to your right nearly one out of every five of your fellow straphangers hasn’t had sex in the last year.

According to the Daily News poll, 18% of New Yorkers say they have gone that long without making love.

That statistic is nearly double the national average.

In other respects, though, New Yorkers are typical Americans. They have sex with about the same frequency and have about the same number of partners as everyone else.

“They are neither more or less sexually active than the larger number of folks in the society,” said John Gagnon, a sociologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and co-author of “Sex in America,” a comprehensive 1994 study of sexual behavior.

Why, then, does the city have so many people going without sex for so long?

The answer is likely the city’s demographic composition.

“There are more single people and elderly people in New York, and those are the people who tend to have the least sex,” Gagnon said.

Notes: Graphics by TRINE GIAEVER DAILY NEWS are not available electronically.

Graphics include:

NEW YORKERS WHO SAY THEY HAVE SEX AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK

NUMBER OF SEX PARTNERS

SEX AND MONEY

WHEN TO START

Series: NEW YORKERS THIS IS YOUR LIFE. Second of five parts.

January 20, 1997
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Rudy: Shed Half Of Clothes Tax

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

January 12, 1997

by MIKE CLAFFEY and MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writers

Mayor Giuliani yesterday revived his call for 2-cent cut in the city sales tax on clothing buys — and vowed to press for approval even if the state doesn’t match the reduction.

In an election year bid aimed at city shoppers and stores, Giuliani said he will include plans to halve the city’s 4-cent share of the 8.25% levy in the State of the City address he will deliver on Tuesday.

The reduction, which requires state Legislature approval, would apply to all clothing purchases under $500.

Unlike last year, when the mayor scrapped a similar plan because Albany leaders balked at halving the state’s 4-cent share, Giuliani said he will seek state Legislature approval for a unilateral cut.

“The proposal we’re going to make to them is: I’m willing to cut the New York City sales tax in half, no matter what they do. I can’t see how they can deny us the opportunity to do that,” Giuliani said.

“I believe that there is a very good chance that we will, by Dec. 1, be able to cut our sales tax in half,” added Giuliani, who predicted the plan would stem the flow of shoppers to New Jersey and other localities with no or low sales tax on clothing.

Many shoppers and storeowners cheered Giuliani’s plan — even as it remained unclear whether the projected economic benefit would outweigh the loss of city sales tax income and expand city budget gaps.

“I absolutely think it would help,” said Nancy Ponce, manager of a Conway discount clothing store in Manhattan. “If you buy one item, it’s not really that much. But if you spend a lot of money, it adds up.”

Deborah Morton, a baker from Brooklyn, said “anything is better than nothing.”

The announcement was the latest in escalating calls for tax cuts as the city and state reap higher revenues generated by Wall Street’s bull market. City Council Speaker Peter Vallone (D-Queens) proposed cutting the sales tax on household goods like soap, toothpaste and diapers.

A spokeswoman for Gov. Pataki, who yesterday unveiled his own $3.4 billion proposal to cut property taxes and boost school aid, said the governor would would study Giuliani’s plan carefully. “The governor is always interested in reducing taxes,” said spokeswoman Eileen Long.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) issued similar signals of approval.

Giuliani estimated the plan would cost the city $70 million in lost sales tax revenue during the 1997-98 city fiscal year and $150 million the following year. Despite new projections of a $500 million surplus by July, the city still faces an estimated $2 billion deficit for next fiscal year.

But the mayor predicted the sales tax cut would more than pay for itself.

Original Story Date: 01/12/97

January 12, 1997
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Teachers, Principals Eye Edition Additions

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

November 9, 1996

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN and LAURA WILLIAMS, Daily News Staff Writers

City teachers and principals yesterday were drawing up shopping lists to spend $70 million promised by Mayor Giuliani for new textbooks.

“I already have my orders worked up,” said Yve Douglass, principal of Public School 3 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

“At the top of the list is to buy new social studies books,” she said. “Then I will buy reading materials. Then I will buy grammar books. I don’t have to worry too much about math books; math doesn’t change too much.”

The mayor yesterday confirmed that he’s earmarked tax revenue from a Wall Street boom to buy books for public schools.

The $70 million comes on top of $69 million already in the schools budget for texts this year.

“The infusion of money is for the purpose of curing what is reported to be a problem for some time — that some of the textbooks are 15, 20, 25 years old, out of date,” Giuliani said yesterday at PS 191 on W. 61st St. in Manhattan.

The Board of Education has begun assessing schools to determine which have the greatest need, said spokesman David Golub.

The money should be available within six months, Giuliani said.

School administrators said the money will help fill a gaping need.

State funding for textbooks allows for about $35 a year per student, well short of meeting demand, administrators said.

“One good social studies book is $35,” Douglass said.

“We have social studies books from six, seven years ago,” said Sheryl Moye, principal of PS 97 on E. Houston St. “In this world, things are changing as we’re talking. Look at Eastern Europe.”

Administrators said they see the funds as a sign that relations between City Hall and Livingston St. have warmed.

November 9, 1996
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89 + 77 = 1 HAPPY TWOSOME

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

Thursday, November 07, 1996

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

He’s 89. She’s 77. For more than a decade, they lived across the street from each other, strangers in their Brooklyn neighborhood.

Yesterday, 14 years after chance brought them together on a bus trip, they tied the knot at City Hall.

And a beaming Mayor Giuliani did the honors.

“I don’t believe this am I dreaming this?” asked an overjoyed Mildred Sussman, choking back tears of joy as she kissed new hubby Al Satloff.

“She is just a very beautiful, very kind lady,” said Satloff.

The storybook courtship took root and flourished at the Trump Houses in Coney Island. Sussman lived in one building, Satloff in another.

In 1982, both signed up for the same bus trip to the Catskills.

Satloff was in the front seat when he saw Sussman struggling with her valise. Ever the gentleman, the Brooklyn retiree helped her with the bag and played Fred to her Ginger during the four-day trip.

Both were alone. His wife had died after 53 years of marriage. And she had lost her husband of 44 years.

After the trip and several dates, they became a happy couple.

“He’s a great dancer, a good lover, everything a girl could dream of,” Sussman said yesterday, recounting how friendship turned to romance.

After living apart, the couple decided to make the relationship official.

Michele Heitzner, a former Coney Island district leader who is a friend of the couple, and Giuliani arranged for the wedding ceremony in the City Hall Blue Room.

Sussman wore a periwinkle blue dress with handkerchief bottom. Satloff sported a blue, pinstriped suit.

The bride’s son, Mark, 52, his wife, Marilyn, and other relatives and friends witnessed the nuptials. Giuliani pronounced himself honored to formalize their union, then pronounced the happy couple husband and wife.

GRAPHIC: THOMAS MONASTER DAILY NEWS PIECE O’ CAKE: Newlyweds Al Satloff, 89, and Mildred Sussman, 77, dig in after City Hall nuptials yesterday. Mayor Giuliani officiated at the wedding.

November 7, 1996
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