There works on the first floor of New Rochelle City Hall a Mets man through and through. New Rochelle is Yankees country as City Manager Charles B. Strome III well knows ”“ Bomber fans roost beneath the very roof of his own house! ”“ but his office is something of a shrine to Shea. Â
Strome ”“ who goes by Chuck ”“ has surrounded himself with autographs from Ed Kranepool (“one of the original Mets”), Tom Seaver (“clearly the greatest Met ever”) and, framed in living color, the John Hancocks of Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner and Met legend Mookie Wilson on a photo taken at a certain moment in the 1986 World Series when Wilson”™s dribbler slipped through Buckner”™s wickets.
“The funny thing is, you look at that picture and I would tell you Mookie was going to be safe even if Buckner made the play,” Strome said, having parsed the moment with the same intensity required of, say, atomic fusion or space flight.
Strome acknowledged he is in the baseball minority around City Hall: “They”™re mostly Yankee fans here ”“ I get a lot of good-natured kidding,” he said. “Long Island was always considered Mets country and Westchester was for the Yankees.” Even his New Rochelle home address is, to some degree, enemy turf. Wife Agatha and daughter Nicole, a student at Syracuse University, are Yankees fans. The city manager and son Carl, a student at New Rochelle High School, are Mets fans. “My wife says I brainwashed him,” Strome laughed. The split allegiance made the Strome domicile a house divided in 2000 when the Yanks and Mets played in the World Series. “I can tell you my son and I got the secondary TV in the house,” Strome said of the Subway Series.
Strome grew up as a very young boy near Philadelphia, formative years that have left him a lifelong NFL Eagles fan. But his family moved to Ossining “around third or fourth grade” and his dad took him to Shea Stadium to see the Mets battle the Phillies, a game that saw Phillie slugger Richie Allen homer twice. “I was a Mets fan from that day, but 1969 really sealed the deal,” he said.
The year 1969 for Mets fans is roughly analogous to 1776 for Americans and the year zero for Christians: the year of the Amazin”™s. Names that are trivia to other baseball fans ”“ Tommie Agee and Ron Swoboda ”“ are like Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio to 1969 Mets fans.
Strome attended Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Va., and then returned to Westchester to work at WVOX radio station. Marriage and Nicole”™s pending arrival sent him out looking for a better-paying job. He called upon his work covering government to secure a job with New Rochelle as director of emergency services. Since 2002 he has served at the pleasure of the City Council (six members and the mayor) as city manager, essentially the CEO of New Rochelle, running all the departments. At 75,000 residents, New Rochelle is the largest city in the state to embrace the city manager form of government.”
“We”™re doing very well,” Strome said of the Queen City of the Sound. He ticked off a list of attributes that included, a revived downtown, “a city with a small-town feel and a lot of diversity,” and nine miles of waterfront. On the docket is the development at Echo Bay with 600-plus residences near the Sound and a concomitant relocation of the city”™s public works lot away from the waterfront to Beechwood Avenue. There is also a coming shift at New Roc City away from entertainment (except movies, which will remain) and toward more retail and restaurants. Modell”™s will stay, Strome said, and Kohl”™s and Target will be built where currently there is bowling, skating and billiards.
If Strome is invariably upbeat about his city, he is rooted in historic reality regarding the Mets. He points to Mets like Seaver and Mike Piazza (he hopes Piazza enters Cooperstown as a Met, not as a Dodger) as high-water marks, but notes of Mets history: “There have been a lot of turning points, mostly bad.” He audibly groans at mention of the infamous September meltdown that doomed the ”™07 Mets.
But a fan is a fan and Mets fans have certainly had their heroic teams; Strome has their plaques on the wall: 1969, 1973, 1986, 1988, 1999, 2000. “I need to get 2006,” he said. He already has a framed shot of him with Mr. Met, the club”™s baseball-headed mascot.
Strome likes the young Mets talent. “They have the potential to be good for many years, or at least to be competitive for many years,” he said. Being a Mets fan, however, he does not expect clear sailing: “When they win, they certainly do it in exciting style.”
