I was at 667 Madison Ave. yesterday for a pick-up (or p/u in delivery lingo). 667 is a pretty good building for messengers. The service entry is right next to the lobby on 61st and the loading dock security guard is a good sized older black gentleman who sits at a desk right inside the door smoking Marlboro Reds. He either signs for deliveries or sends people to the offices to pick up outgoing packages, so it’s one of those places you can get into and out of quickly without needing to bother with locking up your bicycle.

Well, the building employee who was sent upstairs yesterday to get my p/u was a black immigrant who spoke very proper English. I really wasn’t paying attention to what he said to the security guard, but the security guard responded with, “don’t give me any of that Queen’s English. This here is the ghetto.” Then he looks at me as he hands over the envelope and takes a drag on his cigarette. I look at him, smile, and say, “well, I wouldn’t exactly call 61st street and Madison Avenue ‘the ghetto.’” The security guard shot back, “no, this here is the ghetto. There’s more rats here than the ghetto.”

Well, when I saw the front page of the Daily News today, I thought, “whoa…that security guard was right. That neighborhood is ghetto.”

In other 667 Madison news, Sara Gran mentioned the address in her book, “Dope.” In her book, Gran describes 667 Madison as “a modern glass building that stretched up farther than I could see without craning my neck.” The NYT review of Dope (second item) mentions liking the book inspite of its anachronisms. I felt the same way after she described the feel of 667 Madison today, but I knew the building wasn’t that old. Apparently, 667 Madison of the 1950s, the time period that Dope is set in, looked a lot like the Leonori located two blocks up Madison.