R.I.P.: Bill Smith

Usually, I offer obits about someone famous, someone most people have heard about. Today, something different.

Back in 1981, I had been surveying for 12 years, and had theoretically accumulated enough “experience” to sit for the exam.

Unfortunately, most the experience was in upstate New York, and I had recently moved down to the City, where things were done quite differently. I hooked up with a City Surveying company in Queens, hoping to fill in the blanks in my resume, and before I know it, I’m hired as a party chief. On my first day, we went out in the van with the owner and a crotchety middle-aged instrument man named Bill Smith.

We get out of the car at First Avenue and East 67th Street, a city park next to Julia Richmond High School. We were there to do the final as-built survey. The I-man gets out of the car and leans over to me and says “You’re runnin’ the party.”

I said “Huh?”, as we started to set up, and then it became apparent to me (for a variety of reasons) that what he said would have to be the case. This was my introduction to Bill Smith, one of the best surveyors I ever met, who taught me a lot about city surveys.

Bill had worked for the big three surveying companies in Manhattan, and he knew all the tricks. He had also done quite a bit of dock work and heavy construction, so he was pretty experienced. He knew where all the good benchmarks were, and which city clerks to ask for data. He also knew the best bars for lunch, especially in Queens, and wasn’t above having a brew (or two) to go with his corned beef or veal cutlet.

He carried the heaviest plumb bob I’d ever seen, and he used it well. He started the day by strapping on a full tool belt, and I never saw him have to return to the truck to get anything. He never used an EDM or a hand held calculator, never touched an instrument that had buttons instead of knobs. He had his limitations, having only worked in the City, but he knew his ins and outs, and there wasn’t a block in Brooklyn, Queens or Manhattan where he couldn’t work up a pretty good property line offset.
He knew which marks belonged to what surveyor, and how much weight to give each one.He retired in the early 1980’s, but when I started surveying on my own, Bill would often come along, to pick up a few extra bucks, and to keep his hands in the business.

Bill was a consummate Flushing boy, having lived in the neighborhood all his life. (If you are familiar with the persona of writer Jimmy Breslin, that's a pretty close approximation.) After he retired in the mid 1980's, he and his wife moved from a walk up apartment over the donut shop on Main Street to a house in the Queensboro Hill section, where he often asked me to do some minor survey work for one or the other of his neighbors, and he was treated like the mayor of the block. He always sat in a barbers chair in the front parlor of the house, chewing on an unlit cigar, looking right out the front bay window onto the street, where he could watch the neighborhood goings-on.

Yesterday, one of his neighbors walked by and saw him sitting in the chair…..she waved, but he didn’t wave back. He had often told her, if she every felt like anything was wrong, just come on in, so she did. He was dead in his chair, unlit cigar in hand, keeping watch over his neighbors as they cleared the snow from their sidewalks. I never knew his age for sure, but my guess is he was about 80 this year.

Every so often, when I am out in the field, I find myself doing something…….chaining, sighting, directing……and I hear a little bit of Billy Smith coming out of my mouth. And I am grateful for what he taught me. Tonight, I'll hoist one for Bill.

R.I.P., Bill….you will be missed.