As I was working in the Brill Building for Reprise Records, a label which was just formed by Frank Sinatra with Stanley Kaye, staff person….. I had been going and coming into and out of this famous building on a daily basis until one day I witnessed this crazy story.
There was always a vagrant who hung out right near the front door of the Brill building, who begged for money, almost every person who passed by. He was raggedly dressed and probably hadn’t had a shower in months or even, longer. He had the name, “Larry Gunboats”! He was a disgusting figure of a smallish man who weighed no less than 200 pounds, and stood no more than, 4 feet tall!
One morning, a well dressed woman tried to pass by but was blocked by “Gunboats”! Then she shouted loudly, “SHOO SHOO” … “Get out of my way!” …. Larry cursed at her with every profane word, imaginable! She quickly ran and opened the big brass doors, got into an elevator and disappeared.
Within five minutes after she left the scene, a very successful gentleman, an executive in a sliver colored suit, who worked for a HUGE PUBLISHER in the building walked up to Larry, grabbed him by the trousers and deposited him upside down into an open trashcan. This was her very angry husband!
With Gunboats’ legs flailing in the air, the gentleman wiped his hands and walked back into the building with a host of bystanders laughing out loud! I believe that was last time that Larry Gunboats was ever seen hanging around that building. I am not really sure that Gunboats was escorted away by building security or Gunboats left the scene, willingly, but for sure, he was embarrassed and still cursing.
I never saw Larry Gunboats, again. BTW I really can’t remember how he ever got himself out of that trashcan!