Daily News from New York, New York • 151

ML7 DATLY NEWS, FEBRUARY 1976 By ALBERT DAVILA Paradise is gone. Bob Flanagan's City Island, the movable feast of the '20s and '30s, has become the nightmarish Coney Island of the 70's, and so he's picking up his bags and moving to Florida in the spring. Flanagan, a broad-shouldered saloonkeeper, took one look at the old pictures hanging on the wall yesterday and with one wave of the arm said: "I'm not with-it any more; with the new people and the new music. It's all different now." It was all different back in -1926, Flanagan said, when his father, Charles, who became "sick and tired of the roaches at Vyse Ave." in the Bronx, bought a rouse on City Island "without even looking at the inside of the place." Back then, City Island was a place of few people. Only two-family houses dotted the isle and the industry was mainly shipbuilding.

The clamming and oyster businesses had just moved to Long Island. "It was called the yachting capital ol the world," said Flanagan. "On any given day you could see the millionaires, the Whitneys, Vanderbilts, --Rockefellers." For a young boy growing up, life meant small bungalow school-houses with potbellied stoves "where the diapers were left to dry in the winter. So you can just figure out the smell." What was school like in those days Well, you freeze," Flanagain said. teacher was Mrs.

Dill. She taught everyone in the island until she was more than 80 and she was a disciplinarian, but not unpleasant." For the young. Flanagan living at 610 King fun was a ball game at Pelham Bay Park, clamming on the beach, boating and swimming. "It was heaven," he recalled. "In those days you could still see the tracks of the monorail that went all the way to Bartow Station of the New Haven Railroad," said Flanagan.

"The monorail was imported from Germany and it was the first one in the country." In the 1920s and 1930s, Flanagan recalled, City Island was inhabited mainly by German, Norwegian and Irish families and there was conflict sometimes between Protestant and Catholic families. "Prejudice was mainly restricted to the older folks," he said. "Soon everybody intermarried and decided to bring up the oldest kid as Catholic and the youngest one as Protestant or vice versa. We have no problems now." For a youngster in City Island in the 1920s, a trip to the city meant going to Fordham Road on the main land to buy a $3 pair of shoes. Excitement for the oldsters was going to the Colonial Mansion, a large, six-column, Southern-style plantation house that had a speakeasy in the basement.

City Island is accessible only via a bridge across Eastchester Bay that connects it to Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx. Many of the small one and two-family houses, houseboats and small marinas have given way to apartment buildings, but the flavor of a small, seagoing town remains. The island is a mile and a half long and only a few blocks wide. It has about 5,000 permanent residents. 'Changes began In 1937 when Robert Moses opened Orchard Beach, and we had an influx of people coming in here just for the hell of it," said Flanagan.

"It is much worse now. Every summer, we get hordes from everywhere. They just drive in, have a fish fry at the end of the island, and then drive out. Traffic is impossible." Flanagan plans to sell the bar, The -Village Inn at 288 City Island he has owned since 1952 and join his brother in Lake Worth, to run a small insurance company. "I will always consider this my home," Flanagan said.

"Heck, 111 probably be back here in five months. It's always so beautiful in fall, winter, and spring." News photo by Harry Hamburg Bob Flanagan: "I'm not with it anymore." l. A nf4hc II ric rm mi mmmmuy jieeptt for Siiiglniitoinipip By JOHN LEWIS The Roosevelt Island aerial tramway, a $6 million cable car system that is to shuttle 3,000 persons hourly to and from newly developed Roosevelt Island, trot its first test run yesterday but there was. a light hangup. During the run, in which two if fy; the job, said that the von Roll cable car system of Berne, Switzerland, was selected for the tramway because its product is known as "the Cadillac of tramways." Wyss said that the system is known as the double-reversible, or "jig back" type in which the two cars are constantly traveling in opposite directions.

It is operated by a electrical motor. The entire run will take about five minutes, which includes loading and unloading up to 125 standees in each car, and will span a distance of 3,100 feet, it -is expected to be operational in March and will cost 50 cents, the same as the subways and Currently Roosevelt Island is connected with the rest of the city by a bridge to Queens, very smooth and that the view was beautiful. "There was only a slight sway in the car because of the wind but you could not tell you were moving unless you looked up," he said. Was he frightened riding in a glass-enclosed car about 250 feet above ground "It was not the least bit scary," Kelly said. "But then being an iron worker I am usad to heights." Bossey said that the test lasted about 45 minutes and that it felt like sailing.

There were no vibrations, he added. Further, the car that hit the light pole actually just rubbed against it, he said. Paul Wyss, project manager for VSL contractors for iron workers rode in each of the two cable cars, one of the cars struck a street light pole as it was approaching the 59th St. station. The test was halted while workmen managed to get a line around the pole and bend it downward to permit the car to pass over.

David Ozerkis, chief engineer for the project, said that the city was supposed to have lowered the pole and hadn't. He said it would be done this week. The test was otherwise a terrific success, Ozerkis said. The four iron workers who took the historic ride were Elias Yaple, Richard Bossey, William Woodford and Thomas Kelly. All were members of Iron Workers Local 40.

Kelly said that the ride was News photo by Paul DeMaria Ironworkers tug at lines to lower arm of light pole impending progress on the first trip of the Roosevelt Island Tramway as it crosses 58th St. at Second Ave. '(ids Polish (Srmd id SiesMe Erasmus Hall High in Brookjyn, said that the project had been undertaken in part to offset cutbacks in Board of Education funds for extracurricular activities. "It's fantastic," she said. "Even with the cuts and all, we are showing people we can do some- thing by ourselves.

We are showing we have power even though we are young." That power was evident yesterday in the elbows of those who swarmed around the statue and the surrounding area to take part in the ambitious cleanup. Rose Falco is 14 years old and attends Evander Childs High School in the Bronx. Manning a broom and belting out Cohan songs with gusto, she paused to remark that the project was "very worthwhile and very rewarding." Martin Gregg, executive director of the RFK Theater, said: "These students are not asking for or demanding any handouts. It isn't often young people these days display such initiative." Besides performing, the students are involved in all areas of the presentation, including the sale of tickets for $3 and $4. They decided to allocate half of the ticket proceeds to the city for the specific purpose of saving after-school centers, recently reported in danger of closing because of the cutbacks.

Performances will be given on Friday, Feb. 20 -at" 7 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 21 at 12 noon, 2:30 p.m. and 6 p.m., and Sunday, Feb. 22 at 2 p.m.

and' 4 Tickets may be purchased at the -jttoar. By MARTIN KING You read stories all the time about proposed but unfulfilled pledges to "clean up" Times Square, but the cleanup actually took place yesterday in part at least thanks to the efforts of a group of high school students. Armed with rags, soap and water, brass pol-ish and brooms, the students went to work on the statute of George M. Cohan which stands in Duffy Square at 46th St. and Broadway, "It's beautiful.

It's something that people don't expect of us," said Hilton Garcia, 17, a student at East New York Vocational High School in Brooklyn. "This project," Garcia said, "enables us to do something for they community and ourselves at the same, time." The students, coming from throughout the city, were all members of the recently formed All City Theater Arts Company and hoped to draw attention to the company's first variety presentation, scheduled for, Feb. 20, 21, and 22, at the Robert F. Kennedy Theater, 219 W. 48th St.

The show will feature the music and life of George M. Cohan. The students sang some of the famed Broad- way composer's works, including "It's a Grand Old Flag" and "Give My Regards to Broadway," as they went about thfeir work yesterday-- Ann Sorianjp a. who attends i i News photo by Jack Smith Students; refurbish statue of George M. Cohan in Duffy Square..