BLOGFINGER RE-RUNS. This feature is from August, 2011:
Mike Pallotta, the knife sharpener
By Paul Goldfinger (photos and text). Editor @Blogfinger
We heard the odd ringing of a bell. It was much different from the ice cream man’s. It could have been a tug boat bell, but there are no boats around here except for the swan boats, and they run silent.
Then we spotted an old green truck parked at Main and Delaware. It was Mike the knife sharpener. It was his bell. People told me about him in the past and said that we should do an article about him, however he wasn’t in the phone book, and I never spotted him in the Grove. But I never forgot about him and today I got lucky.
Mike Pallotta of Elmont, Long Island is in the family business. His dad started sharpening knives, scissors and other tools in 1941 in Brooklyn, New York. Mike still drives his dad’s 1941 Chevy truck with the wooden interior. Although Mike’s main job is director of security at a high school in Long Island, he comes to the shore every summer with the truck and stays with a friend in Avon. His wife comes down on weekends, and today Mike is accompanied by his grandson Frank Pallotta, who is a high school sophomore.
Frank likes to pose for photos and he, like Mike, is a big smiler. Frank helps out in a variety of ways, but one of his jobs is to keep an eye on Princess, an old dog who doesn’t seem to know any tricks. Her job is just to hang around and look content.
Mike and Frank spend their summer days going to shore towns to sharpen knives, garden tools, and scissors. The truck is equipped with original 100-year-old stone grinder wheels. Mike says that the ability to do the job properly is mostly about know-how.
People come to the truck window and hand their knives to Frank. Mike, a friendly bear-like guy, begins to grind away. He is focused because this is dangerous work. Sparks fly off the grinder. Frank gets the job of honing the finish.
While the customers wait, they chat and marvel at the sight of the truck and Mike and his vintage equipment. Somebody recalls the iceman. Somebody else remembers the peripatetic knife sharpeners ringing their bells on the streets of New York. We met William Schlenger, an artist, who was admiring the hand-painted lettering on the side of the truck. He had no knives to sharpen; he just wanted to wax nostalgic about painting trucks the old fashioned way.
Mike tells us that he spends a great deal of time in Manhattan in the winter because those fabric cutters in the Garment District depend on properly sharpened scissors.
Eileen had a bunch of her kitchen knives sharpened. Mike insisted that she carry them away on a tray because they are ultra-sharp. He demonstrates by making neat slices out of a small stack of paper.
You can’t make an appointment with this old-style craftsman. He comes into the Grove every few weeks in the summer. You just have to get lucky.
Here’s Bobby Darin with Mack the Knife:
I haven’t seen this particular guy, but SharpenIT is a Neptune guy who offers mobile sharpening services
Meredith. This was a re-run of our piece on Mike the Knife from 2011. We haven’t seen him since, but we have had some considerable traffic on Blogfinger about this piece. So we are showing it again because it is interesting. We don’t know if Mike is still active.
If anyone has contact Info for them, maybe times & dates could be arranged. I wasn’t home today, & am sorry I missed them. I would gladly get in line…….
Every time I take out my dull garden clippers, I think of him. I wish he and his happy dogs would come back to OG!
I hope to catch him again this summer! I love to see and hear him in his truck slowly rolling down the street…Hope Frank takes over the business!
Does anyone know if Mike still visits Ocean Grove? I havent seen him in about 3 years and always hoped I’d see him around again. Very friendly guy,had 2 dogs and was willing to stop and chat, whether you had something to sharpen or not.
Nice group of photos Paul!!!
Very special and interesting. I remember the small insulated box on the front stoop placed there for the milkman and even the Diaper man…way before Pampers. In a much simpler time, lots of products were delivered…sure would be fun to take a step back.
I too heard that distinctive bell ringing and was delighted to see the Knife truck. I had a chance to speak with Mike and I asked him if he ever went to Morris county. He told me that he didn’t but that his father used to. Turns out that when I was little and living in Morris county in the 1960’s my mom got her knives sharpened by Mike’s dad and when I was raising my children in that same town in the 1980’s, Mike’s dad sharpened my scissors! And he drove the same truck as Mike now drives! Now if we could just get the Dugan bakery truck and the Sealtest dairy truck to come back and make deliveries–how great would that be!
Hi, people of Ocean Grove. See your comments, thanks for using our service. Thanks from – Mike and Frank and the dogs.
When I heard that particular ringing as his trunk slowy rolled on Broadway it brought me right back to the Bronx of the 1940’s
I saw this truck for the first time yesterday…I got all exited about having my garden tools sharpened and then I got distracted. Not 1, not 2 but 3 happy dogs just waiting for me to be slobbered on! What a joy to be greeted by those happy faces and talk to this very friendly knife man.