By Kwanwoo Jun
ASTORIA, New York - Thomas Wagner is no longer homeless, but he knows his “final resting place” should be under a railway viaduct on a street corner in New York where he used to live.
His attire belies his 13-year life on the streets. Wagner, 61, slings a brown bag over his shoulder. He’s dressed in an unbuttoned brown wool jacket with glasses hanging from his right pocket. His black jeans, snow-white socks and sneakers are all nice and clean.
The vestiges of his former life on the streets are his deep-wrinkled, tanned face and a habit of smoking: He pulls out a Marlboro cigarette, cups his hand to light it and inhales deeply and tastily until it burns completely.
Many of the homeless may be eager to flee their dark past when they finally leave the streets, but Wagner keeps coming back. About 36,000 homeless people are in New York as of Nov. 1 this year, municipal data show.
Born in Hell’s Kitchen, Wagner, an Army veteran and ex-volunteer cop, became homeless in 1994 after losing jobs and failing in two marriages where he had fathered three daughters. His life on the streets lasted until 2007.
Nicknamed Cadillac Man – a name he earned after claiming to be hit repeatedly by Cadillac sedans when he was homeless in the 1990s – Wagner left the streets three years ago. But to this day, he says, he feels more at home on the streets than in his cozy one-bedroom apartment in East Elmhurst.
His last wish is to have his ashes put in a coffee can under a railway viaduct on 33rd Street and 23rd Avenue in Astoria where he used to live on the streets.
Wagner visits the bridge two to three times a week, traveling a dozen subway stops from East Elmhurst where he and his girlfriend Carol Vogel share an apartment.
City officials in May removed the clothing-filled shopping cart he had affixed to the drainage grates. Wagner says he wanted to help other homeless people stay warm by bundling up at night or during the winter.
“I’ll put my ‘wagon’ back there sometime,” Wagner said during his recent visit, pointing to the spot where his cart used to stay.
But to bring his cart back is not good enough.
Wagner wants to have his body cremated after death and his ashes placed under the viaduct – a desire his girlfriend and close friends already know about.
“I told them to scatter some of my ashes there, and the rest should be put in a Chock full o'Nuts can…It says right on the can ‘the heavenly coffee.’ They'll get a laugh out of it,” he said, smiling and reciting the coffee chain’s commercial.
To Wagner, the Astoria neighborhood is special. He made a living there by collecting recyclables, made many good friends and earned fame as a homeless writer.
Last year, Bloomsbury Publishing published his memoir “Land of the Lost Souls: My Life on the Streets,” which drew attention to the issue of homelessness.
The book, recommended reading for urban-poverty studies, chronicles first-hand his experiences as a homeless man on the tough New York streets.
Will Blythe, who was then an editor at “Esquire” magazine and who lived in Astoria, first noted his “homeless” friend’s talent. “Esquire” published an excerpt of Wagner’s journal that details his life on the streets in 2005.
“I thought, ‘Oh my God, This guy can write,’” Blythe told the New York Daily News on July 29, 2009. “I went back to him and I said ‘Do you have any more?’”
Wagner said he began keeping the journal in hope that it should find a way to reach his now grown-up daughters from his previous marriages. He also said he needed something to do in order to stay sane and fight loneliness on the streets.
“Besides maintaining my sanity, it was like comforting to me,” Wagener said, “By writing, it was like talking to another person.”
Life on the streets was vulnerable to violence. Wagner said perpetrators would come to pick on him. They once kicked him all over until he passed out in Manhattan and smashed his face with a bat to break most of his teeth in Brooklyn.
After roaming around the wild streets in various neighborhoods in New York, he later came to settle as a homeless fixture under the railway bridge in Astoria.
He used to greet, meet, chat and make friends with Astorians who gradually recognized him as part of the scenery in the neighborhood. His life there became an invaluable and indelible part of him that he wants to take to Heaven.
“If my ashes are over there, I'll be having visitors all the time,” Wagner said. “They'll know that's my final resting place. It does give me peace of mind.”
(Extra photos)
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