[SFDXA] Fixated on What He Fixes

[Bill Marx]

The New York Times
October 30, 2011 Sunday
Late Edition - Final

Fixated on What He Fixes

BYLINE: By COREY KILGANNON


 > Peter Guggenheim has worked so long at Stuart Electronics that his feet
 > have worn holes through two layers of tile and an inch of plywood, 
down to
 > the floorboards behind the counter.
 >
 > ''What do you expect? I've spent my whole life here,'' he said last week
 > at the shop, on Parsons Boulevard in Flushing, Queens, where he has 
worked
 > since 1953, when he was 13.
 >
 > The storefront seems frozen in time. Out front, the faded, peeling signs
 > advertise the latest merchandise -- VCRs, answering machines, phonograph
 > needles and cordless telephones; inside, the glass cabinets display
 > miscellaneous sale items that get as modern as the Palm Pilot.
 >
 > But certain services are cutting-edge. For one, Mr. Guggenheim is perhaps
 > the city's foremost seller and fixer of radio scanners, which monitor
 > frequencies used by emergency responders like police officers and
 > firefighters. This makes it the go-to place for spot-news photographers,
 > tow-truck drivers, insurance adjusters and lawyers, who scan for local
 > precinct chatter about car accidents and other incidents that might
 > generate work. Also, Mr. Guggenheim -- get this -- actually repairs
 > electronic equipment, an anomaly in today's disposable world. People are
 > always bringing in radios of the ham, citizens' band and walkie-talkie
 > varieties. New York City and many other municipalities buy them here, 
too.
 >
 > ''These scanners here are going to the N.Y.P.D.'s intelligence 
division,''
 > Mr. Guggenheim said on Monday, neatening a pile of boxes on a shelf as a
 > police scanner squawked out its static soundtrack: a running ticker 
of the
 > latest car crashes, purse snatchings and missing children in New York.
 >
 > Business takes a back seat to the shop's running conversation among its
 > police and radio buffs. Mr. Guggenheim is buff-in-chief, with a wardrobe
 > of police-insignia shirts and jackets, and his ''undercover'' Crown
 > Victoria sedan, equipped with three scanners that he monitors
 > simultaneously.
 >
 > By age 11, Mr. Guggenheim was rebuilding Army surplus radios into police
 > scanners. He met his wife, Leni, when he delivered a television to her
 > house in nearby Fresh Meadows.
 >
 > In the early 1960s, Mr. Guggenheim was part of the madcap news-chasing
 > world, in which photographers drove big sedans bearing their newspapers'
 > names, each with a siren on top and a big bulky radio inside to tap into
 > police calls. He worked nights shooting for The Daily Mirror and drove a
 > big red staff car. Ah, but now there is less crime to cover in New York,
 > and far fewer news outlets responding.
 >
 > ''Back then, you'd have 20 photographers at a car crash -- a car crash!''
 > he said. ''Now you have murders that don't even make the papers.''
 >
 > In the '70s, Mr. Guggenheim brought home the first VCR in his
 > neighborhood, along with a constant supply of bootleg videotapes of
 > feature films confiscated by his law enforcement buddies. His sons
 > dissected the films, which turned out to be perfect training for 
Hollywood
 > moguldom -- all three are now movie and television writers and producers.
 >
 > ''He could absolutely retire, but he does it for the love of the game,''
 > said the oldest, Marc, 41, whose credits include shows like ''CSI:
 > Miami.'' ''You couldn't script something like this.''
 >
 > Actually, Marc Guggenheim has tried. When he was a writer and 
producer for
 > ''Law & Order,'' he wrote an episode broadcast in 2004 about a 
dispute his
 > father had with the city over his shop's water bill. In the episode, the
 > fictional Queens radio repairman, Peter Rubin, winds up killing a city
 > official. The senior Mr. Guggenheim would not rent out his storefront to
 > film the show.
 >
 > ''For what?'' he says now. ''To tie up my store for days?''
 >
 > By now Mr. Guggenheim speaks like one of his radios -- jumping abruptly
 > from topic to topic, and speaking in police jargon. He can recite the
 > police's 10-code list and has memorized hundreds of radio frequencies.
 >
 > ''You're not using 470.8375 for citywide emergencies? Are you nuts? Hand
 > over that scanner. No 154.190 for citywide fire?''
 >
 > So goes the scolding as he scrolls through the digital frequencies and
 > tells you -- oh, geez -- your citywides are mixed in with your borough
 > commands.
 >
 > He will then reprogram your device to track everything from terrorist
 > attacks to the lifeguard schedules at the local city pool.
 >
 > His clients' livelihoods depend on Mr. Guggenheim's calibrations, as do
 > the social lives of legions of recreational scanner buffs whose idea of a
 > perfect Saturday night is to obsessively follow the communications of
 > airplane, train and boat traffic in the city.
 >
 > Then there are dollar van drivers, like the one who walked in Monday
 > seeking to replace a stolen radio antenna.
 >
 > ''You want to buy it back?'' Mr. Guggenheim kidded.