Mayor Pauses to Remember Window Washer

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The New York Sun

Mayor Bloomberg quietly dedicated a park bench yesterday in honor of Patrick Larimer, the man who washed the mayor’s windows for the past 17 years.


Larimer, who was known as “the security guard of 79th Street” and was described yesterday as an Upper East Side institution, was killed last month at the age of 65 when he was run over by a car in Jamaica, Queens.


“Pat was an all-around nice guy,” the mayor eulogized, standing at the entrance to Central Park at 79th Street, surrounded by neighbors who had gathered at the mayor’s behest to witness the unveiling and partake of some Dunkin’ Donuts and coffee – Larimer’s favorite meal.


The event wasn’t on Mr. Bloomberg’s public schedule that is released to the press, and the mayor’s name isn’t on the plaque on the park bench he donated.


But the mayor took time out yesterday from preparing for Republican convention to remember the window washer, joining a crowd that included a doorman, a doctor, and a magazine editor.


Frank Vega, a doorman at 39 E. 79th St., said he knew Larimer for 13 years. “He would always bring us a box of jelly doughnuts and coffee every morning, we could count on it,” he said.


“Everybody knew Pat, he’d be at the coffee shop every morning before it opened waiting to buy coffee for the neighborhood,” said a handyman at Mr. Vega’s building, Chris Priseman, who had been friends with Mr. Larimer for 14 years.


“I knew Pat my entire life,” said John Elezaj, 24, a neighbor whose first job was working as a window washer for Larimer. “It is so sad, I miss him.”


The crowd grew hushed as Mr. Bloomberg gave his eulogy yesterday afternoon. The mayor recalled that “Pat, he liked to drink every once in a while, he liked kids, and he was good with a joke.”


“All of us after we die would be lucky to have a group we only knew casually gather like this,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “People will walk by this bench and wonder who he was, that he must have been somebody, and in that way, he will be remembered.”


“The mayor pushed really hard to get this done,” said Ann Tallon, who heads the staff that cares for the mayor’s East 79th Street mansion and helped organize the white balloons that adorned the bench and the table of doughnuts and goodies. “If I ever asked him for anything, he’d always tell me, ‘I’ll chase that down for you,'” she said wistfully, adding that Larimer referred to her boss as “Iron Mike.”


“We were sitting in a circle after Pat died, discussing him, and the mayor suggested the idea of a park bench,” Ms. Tallon said. The mayor was so affected by Larimer’s death that he hired detectives to help locate his elusive family. The detectives came up empty-handed, and mystery still swirls around the whereabouts of Larimer’s family.


“I remember Pat telling me his mother and aunt came to visit last Christmas, but no one has been able to find them,” Mr. Priseman said. “The truth is, we were his family.”


“It is true, we were family to him,” said Nancy Garavuso, who joined Larimer for morning coffee at the Nectar’s Coffee Shop at the corner of Madison Avenue for 15 years.


“You can see we are a real neighborhood. It is almost like a small-town gathering,” said Ellen Levine, who runs Good Housekeeping magazine and lives next to the mayor. Mrs. Levine came straight from work and was standing with her husband, Dr. Richard Levine. “This is very special, we used to see him every day, and it is wonderful to do this,” she said.


Following the eulogies, the neighbors began discussing what they would do now without Larimer to wash their windows.


“It is going to be impossible to find another window washer,” said John Elezovic, who manages a building in the neighborhood. “Pat was so trustworthy, you could leave a million bucks on the table and he wouldn’t touch it, which is going to be hard to find again.”


“My windows look bullet-proof they are so dirty,” said Susannah Bianchia, who lives at Madison and 80th Street.


The mayor’s windows are also suffering, Ms. Tallon said.


While a new window washer has yet to be found on East 79th Street, Larimer’s memory will live on, engraved in a golden name plate at the entrance to the park where he would sip his coffee, munch on his Dunkin’ Donuts, and read the paper.


Larimer’s park bench is one of roughly 8,500 park benches around Central Park. The mayor paid $7,500 to the Central Park Conservancy for the name plate, and it is now one of 1,500 benches that have been adopted, said the manager of the Adopt-A-Bench program, Molly Roberts.


The New York Sun

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