Coffee Maven
Thea Stern offers more than morning snack
By Sarah Seltzer
Every morning at the Hamilton Senior Center on the Upper West Side, guests can head over to a small table and pay 25 cents for a cup of coffee or a muffin. But they know that they're buying more than just a little morning pick-me-up.
Presiding over the goody table, day in and day out, is 100- year-old Thea Stern. Today, she is dressed elegantly in a soft green and brown striped sweater and beaded necklace. "You want a coffee?" she asks passing residents, even those who just stop by to say hi because they know she's there. Her place at this table is so solid that the cash box she uses has been labeled "Thea's box."
Stern, at 100 years old, describes her daily duty on coffee patrol as her lifeline. Since the death of her husband, she's been living alone on the Upper West Side, and the social contact she gets each day at Hamilton keeps her going.
"I feel so alone on weekends," she says in slightly accented English. "If I didn't have this," I don't know what I would do."
Despite living solo, Stern has a network of people looking out for her. A van service for the elderly and disabled picks her up every day and takes her to the center.
"Everyone is nice to me and worries and wants to help me" she laughs.
Recently, when she forgot to change her clock an hour forward, she was still getting ready when the van arrived. Her doorman and the van driver came upstairs to make sure she was all right. That's how thoroughly she sticks to her routine at the senior center. Stern says she has been at Hamilton "rain and shine" since it opened about 40 years ago. When she arrives at the center, the staff sets her up with her pastries, coffee and cash box and her day begins.
Stern has an assortment of visitors each morning at the coffee stand. One repeat customer has an obsession with new quarters, and as soon as he notices four shiny ones on the cash box cover, he hands Stern a dollar and grabs them to add to his collection. Other residents arrive and sniff at the pastries, wondering what ingredients they have and whether they√re too fattening--or not fattening enough.
Another lady in a wheelchair zips over to the table, gestures at Stern, and says, "She's fantastic, a very unique individual!" before disappearing into another room. "They like to visit me," says Stern proudly.
On the other end of the room, a senior yoga class is taking place. "Breathe in, breathe out," the instructor guides the par- ticipants. Stern is proud of all the activities offered at Hamilton, she says, while continuing to bargain and cajole several resi- dents into their morning cup of coffee. As the morning class ends, two amateur yogis get into a loud fight, denouncing each other to friends across the room, and another woman berates the crowd at the coffee table for talking during her exercise. Nonplussed, Stern tends to her wares, apparently unmoved by the vicissitudes and rivalries that affect others at the senior center.
"I don't fight," she says, perhaps explaining her longevity. Stern was born in Vienna, Austria, and left in 1938 because of the Nazi threat. Half her family was lost in the Holocaust, and the rest moved to Israel, she says. Her Israeli family wants her to come live with them, but she likes to stay put.
"I don't want to depend on nobody," she says. "It's hard, everyone goes to their family. It hurts me when I see the families." But she's proud of being able to handle herself and her own finances.
As the morning wraps up and the senior citizens get ready for lunch, one last customer arrives at the table, trying to get the price of a loaf of bread down another 25 cents.
After Stern reluctantly parts with the bread, she shakes her head. "She thinks only on herself. She hassles for a quarter. What's a quarter? Bread costs over a dollar at the store!" she says. She counts her money, starts cleaning up, and gets ready for lunch. But she'll be back tomorrow. ■
West Side Spirit, March 29, 2007 | p. 27
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