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Anthony Olszewski

Second Thief, Best Thief: The Tunnel Bar Paperback – February 1, 2006

by Anthony Olszewski (Author)

6 customer reviews

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This is a really great collection of Jersey City stories that will fascinate everyone, particularly the true crime fan.

Second Thief, Best Thief: The Tunnel Bar records episodes in an inner-city tavern in the decade starting from the late '70s. This unique time in America -- post-industrial and gentrification not yet rooted -- was an alchemist's brew of decay and renewal.

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I discovered a marvelous little collection of stories entitled Second Thief, Best Thief: Tunnel Bar by Anthony Olszewski. All of the eight stories take place in and around an inner-city tavern called the Tunnel Bar, just outside the Holland Tunnel in Jersey City. It's a bar that does not have ferns. The author, a native born at the Margaret Hague Maternity Hospital in 1956, has unimpeachable credentials to speak for Jersey City. The book is clearly auto-biographical since the author actually worked as a bartender at the family-owned Tunnel Bar. The stories are set in the late 1970s when Jersey City was postindustrial and not yet gentrified. This was time before the pretentiously spelled Newport Centre was built, and the Hudson River waterfront was full of abandoned warehouses and railroad yards.

Olszewski's short stories come out of a bartender's oral storytelling tradition, so they are really miniature anecdotes that are quickly sketched and come right to the point. The stories are written in the hard-boiled style of Dashiell Hammett. The characters talk and act as real people do. The main customers at the Tunnel Bar are from the Jersey side of the Holland Tunnel -- truck drivers, warehouse workers, and factory laborers. These regulars are supplemented by others who stop off after traveling through the tunnel from time to time.

The narrator for the stories is the bartender, Sal Jr., clearly a stand-in for the author. Sal is a hard-hearted and disillusioned observer of the human condition. At on one point, he gives us a vivid description of the interior of the bar:

Late one night a belligerent wino, upset with the tavern owner's "attitude," threw a brick through one of the panes of glass. The hole was boarded over and -- since the glass was never replaced -- remained so. In an attempt to prevent burglary, metal bars from a scrap yard were bolted behind the intact glass in the one window and behind the plywood covering the space left by the other. After decades of cigarette smoke, a layer of yellow tar covered everything except for the rows of shiny bottles on the counter behind the bar.

Through the narrator we meet the gin mill crowd, an interesting cast of characters. There's the homeless James O'Leitnin, who hangs out at be bar, seated by the phone. He takes it on himself to answer the phone on a basis, "having assumed the imaginary job of bar receptionist." Then there's a big ex-convict named Hal, who, at six feet four inches and 260 pounds, intimidates any who might argue with him. In the old days, Hal's specialty was armed robbery, but now he's content to do enforcer work for loan sharks and bookies.

Olszewski has a good ear for local dialect; he captures the flavor of Jersey City with his wit and wordplay. The characters are often con men. They defraud their marks by exploiting their weaknesses, such as greed and dishonesty. But there's some humor the old saying "You can't cheat an honest man." Like the short story writer O. Henry, Olszewski is fond of the clever surprise ending. Typically, the author puts one of his low-life characters into some impossible jam, and then extricates him at very end with a wry twist. In one story a homeless man, Vinny Buchelle, is accused by detectives from the Jersey City police of murder, and kidnapping. Things look bad for Vinny. How is he going to get out of this one? (I don't want to spoil the surprise.)

Reading this collection of short stories set right outside the portal of the Holland Tunnel on the Jersey side, we get the feeling that anything can go wrong in this dingy spot.

Crossing Under the Hudson: The Story of the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels

By Angus Kress Gillespie

About the Author

Anthony Olszewski was born in Margaret Hague Maternity Hospital in 1956. During his college years, Mr. Olszewski worked as a bartender in a tavern owned by his family, the Tunnel Bar. He also operated an exterminating business and raised canaries and parakeets for sale.

Mr. Olszewski was the Web Site Editor for Bret Schundler's 1997 campaign for Mayor of Jersey City and the 2001 Gubernatorial campaigns (primary and general elections) against James E. McGreevey. Anthony Olszewski established and maintained the Web Sites and email systems that were the Internet facet of the organization and coordination of the Word of Mouth marketing of the "Schundler Army."

Mr. Olszewski has written on a wide variety of topics, including Jersey City short stories, tropical fish, running with your dog, the genetics of cage birds, the poetry of Amiri Baraka, the portrayal of African-Americans in popular culture, and Jersey City politics. He is the author of a booklet on Hudson County history that is sold on Amazon.

Anthony Olszewski currently provides Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing through a number Web Sites and is a member of Mensa.

Paperback: 24 pages
Publisher: UrbanTimes.com (February 1, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0977760014
ISBN-13: 978-0977760015
Package Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces
Average Customer Review: 6 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,550,483 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #40214 in True Crime (Books)

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Brooklyn Gal

A good read, capturing the grittier side of Jersey City life

November 8, 2011

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

After reading Thomas Fleming's Mysteries of My Father, a memoir of family and public life with his father, a war hero, Hudson County sheriff, and life-long functionary of the Hague organization, I ran across Anthony Olszewski's paperbacks while doing on-line research into Jersey City politics The on-line excerpts captured the eccentrics and oddballs and boozers whom I enjoy reading about, and so I bought "Second Thief, Best Thief" and "Hudson County Facts" through Amazon.com.

Olszewski captures the personalities and incidents that are a part of gritty working class life as well as the irresistible ambiance of a neighborhood bar, even one as specialized as the Tunnel Bar. As Mary Chase wrote in Harvey, "We came as strangers -- soon we have friends. They come over. They sit with us. They drink with us. They talk to us. They tell us about the great big terrible things they've done and the great big wonderful things they're going to do. Their hopes, their regrets. Their loves, their hates. All very large, because nobody ever brings anything small into a bar."

If one wants a measured, scholarly history of how Jersey City was transformed from the kingdom of Frank Hague to a gentrified bedroom community for yuppies working in Manhattan, look elsewhere. But if one wants a flavor of what the town was like back in the day, read Olszewski.

One person found this helpful

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Gwendoline F. Healy

entertaining

September 6, 2008

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

You have to be from Jersey City to really understand this book,especially the lingo, but nonetheless it is very entertaining. I shall probably read other titles by this author.

4 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Five Stars

August 7, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

only in New Jersey

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J. Cowie

Great Stories

May 11, 2010

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I used to live 3-4 blocks away and bought many six packs there. These stories show the real flavor of Jersey City.
I didn't know any of the charactors first hand but can imagine them quite well from these stories. Wish I still lived there.

2 people found this helpful

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Harry Von Holland

A home computer published pamphlet NOT a BOOK!

October 25, 2011

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Thinking I would get a little flavor and history of the wrong side of the tracks, and once seedier side of the now gentrified and upscale condo-ized- town I now live in; DownTown Jersey City. I ordered this so called " Book" from Amazon because of the recommendations that pop up when I bought something else.
What a mistake!! Just 7 pieces of 25lb stock paper printed on both sides vertically,to make 28 pages with a 40 lb Blue stock cover page folded over and stapled in the middle, is what arrived in the mail.
It has nothing to do with Thieves,( as title reads " Second Thief Best Thief" suggests) Mobsters , or Gangsters of the Old Hudson County New Jersey. area!
Instead I got totally uninteresting and disjointed anecdotal recount of minor episodes of long gone homeless drunks and local bums. Absolutely no insight to how this city changed from the working blue collar water front to the current "Yuppie Homestead Homeowner ".
No Wonder Schundler Lost if THIS Olszewski GUY was his Campaign manager!
WORST BOOK EVER ON AMAZON

3 people found this helpful

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barbara rebori

One Star

June 12, 2015

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

drippy----no story at all

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Second Thief, Best Thief: The Tunnel Bar Paperback – February 1, 2006