Homeless Man's Death Touches Many

By Carl Glassman
POSTED MARCH 2, 2007

It was fiercely cold—8 degrees and windy—on the morning of Feb. 5, when a homeless man known only as Larry rose from his outdoor window nook on Desbrosses Street and walked a block to the Hudson Square Cafe, at Canal Street. As usual, he ate breakfast at the small table by the door, where a wall heater helped bring relief from hours passed in the frigid night. It was there, where Larry sat every morning for years, that he slumped down in his chair and died. The Medical Examiner’s office had yet to determine the cause of death late last month and Larry’s body continued to lay in the city morgue, unclaimed. Police identified him as Larry Lytch. Nothing else about him, a spokeswoman for the Medical Examiner’s office said, has come to light. Yet Larry was well known in his own way. And along the few north Tribeca blocks that defined his world, he was mourned.

Henny Garfunkel, a long-time Vestry Street resident, said she burst into tears thinking about him. “Here was this person who was a complete stranger, and yet not really. He was somebody who is in your life every day, and I think we all took comfort in knowing he survived.”

“When I found out he had passed away I had an emotional reaction as if my own brother had died,” said Elizabeth Rossa, whose Shri Yoga studio is on the second floor of 443 Greenwich St.

Rossa said Larry was always there, a comforting presence when she left the building at 2 and 3 a.m. in the weeks before opening her studio. “Sometimes he was sleeping, sometimes he was up smoking a cigarette. He had the most kind and peaceful and protective essence of almost anyone I’ve ever met.”

“He was always there to look you right in the eye and acknowledge you,” she added.

Neighbors left flowers, candles, notes, and even sketches of Larry in the two outdoor alcoves of 443 Greenwich Street, one on the Desbrosses Street side, the other on Vestry, where he slept and spent much of his time. At Alberts, a printing firm on the fifth floor of 200 Hudson Street, across the street from the cafe, they placed a vase of artificial tulips on a table in their office, with a card beside it. “Rest in Peace, Larry,” it said. “We talked about him at lunch time the day he died,” said the company’s owner, Valerie Perkins. “I said to my guys, ‘I hope you talk about me when I’m gone.’ I mean, no one knows this guy and we’re talking about him. What a great tribute.” Neighbors spoke of Larry’s knowing smile and a “sparkling” in his eyes that drew people to him. He often spoke to himself, but he had few words for others beyond a friendly “hello.” Many people gave him money, they said, because he never asked for it. “You got the feeling he wanted it private, so you didn’t intrude,” said Amy Wolf, who lives across the street from the building where Larry slept.

She sent e-mails to the other residents in her co-op announcing his death.

“Because he lived outside you witnessed his life publicly,” she said. “He clearly battled the elements and sometimes his own sanity. But at the same time, he was a gentle person.”

No one seems to know how long Larry made Tribeca home. Junior Smith, who works for Umanoff and Parsons Bakery, 467 Greenwich St., said Larry was living in the neighborhood when he started the job 17 years ago.

“I’ve seen him all the time, right at that corner,” he said.

Those who watched Larry over the years said that money did not seem to be a problem. He paid for his own meal at the cafe each morning and was seen with plenty of cash. Henny Garfunkel said he once ran after her with the wallet she had left in the cafe. A printer in the area, who asked not to be identified, said he would give Larry money several times a week because he never had his hand out. He believes he was the last person to give him money on the day Larry died. Now, he said, “I look at that spot in the cafe where he used to be. I almost expect someone else to show up there, to fill the void.” “No one sit there. Only his spot,” declared Sophie Rhee, the manager of the Hudson Square Cafe.It was a slow Saturday morning, more than two weeks after Larry died, and Rhee, a Korean-American with limited English, was explaining that maybe one day a customer would sit at Larry’s table again, but not yet. “Everybody know that,” she said. Behind Larry’s chair, Rhee had placed an artificial orchid.

“This place proud because we take care of one person,” she said. “Hudson Square Cafe was his last home. He stay here and go to paradise.”

“You talking about my friend?” a man called out from a nearby table. Renard Hyacinthe, a large, middle-aged man from Brooklyn, sat alone with a tall beer in his hand. He was eager to talk about Larry, too. “A hell of a man,” he called him.

Hyacinthe said he has been coming to the cafe every Saturday morning for  four years, and Larry was always there.

“I used to sit here and drink my beer and he used to sit right there. And he used to have two bags of luggage. He had to carry that stuff so he was a pretty strong guy.”

He recalled telling Larry that he could get help. Larry said he was doing all right.

“I think the homeless situation is what he wanted,” Hyacinthe said. “He could have got a room because I know he got a check or something. But he liked the freedom of being out there on the street.”

Hyacinthe said he called the Coalition for the Homeless, hoping they could give Larry a funeral. “You think you guys are going to get a funeral together for him?” he asked a Trib  reporter.

Hyacinthe looked over at the empty table where Larry sat.

“He’s a decent man. I don’t want him to go to Potter’s Field with the homeless and destitute and all of that. Let him get a nice coffin, a nice funeral so people can come.” He paused and his voice softened. “I want to see him one more time, man.”

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