In his realm fall the coins that you drop

This article was originally published in The Philadelphia Inquirer on Oct. 15, 1992.

Poor as he is, Albert Reagan doesn’t rely on charity.

He counts on something more dependable: clumsiness.

Every time you fumble for change in Center City — at the bus stop, the parking meter, the newsstand — Reagan is there in spirit, hoping that a coin will slip free and go PINGing into one of those black holes in the sidewalk.

Reagan is a grate fisherman, an urban mariner. Lost coins are his catch.

On a good day, a few hours spent hunched or kneeling over utility grates may yield him $2 or $3 in nickels, dimes and quarters. He reels the coins to the surface with a gooey wad of chewing gum wrapped around a fishing weight and suspended from a long string.

It's no fortune. But when you're 85 years old and trying to survive in the Big City on $247 a month from Social Security, it helps.

"I call it food money. The street people who hold out their cups make more money than me. Dollar bills," he says, raising an eyebrow. "I just don't have it in me to ask people for money.

"I get along," he says. "I'm not hungry. I stopped drinking and smoking years ago, and I don't fool around with females, so I don't get excited about anything anymore. I don't burn up much energy. "

Reagan's energy, which is impressive, is spent mainly on his morning rounds.

Market, Chestnut, Locust, Broad . . . Every day it isn't raining, he follows the same early-morning route from the boarding house he calls home, shuffling along with his head bowed, shoulders hunched and hands clasped behind as he peers down the dark holes of urban architecture looking for the glint of money.

The sight of a coin lights up his leprechaun's face, making his pale blue eyes shine like new dimes under the brim of his cap.

"It's all in the eyes," he says, tapping a stubby finger against his temple. And, even at his age, Reagan's eyes are still keen enough to see down a 15-foot hole littered with bottle caps, drinking straws, cigarette butts, gum wrappers — all manner of rubbish — and spot a single coin glittering dully in the dirt.

"Other people, they can't see it because they don't need it enough," Reagan says. "Me, I see everything. "

Over the last several years, looking down grates has offered other insights into city life.

Reagan has learned, for instance, that people lose more money on rainy days and in warm weather; that bankers are "fussy," in his words, and that rich people almost never drop money.

"Some places it doesn't even pay to look," he says, passing by a flank of grates outside the Union League on Broad Street. "They don't drop anything here. Too careful. "

Reagan hasn't always been a grate fisherman. In fact, he was trained as a religious painter and sculptor.

Reagan's Irish-born father died in a mine explosion near Scranton when Albert was a young boy. His Lithuanian mother died a short time later, leaving Albert an orphan at 10.

He wound up in a Catholic boys home in Scranton, where he learned the fine arts from Brother Daniel. Although young Albert showed promise, he says he never warmed to the task.

"I used to make pictures of Christ, and Brother Daniel would go from detail to detail, showing me where I was wrong," Reagan recalls. "Catholics go in for detail. Very fussy people. "

In addition to being tedious, Reagan says, religious sculpting wasn't worth much in the Great Depression, when he graduated from the orphanage into the real world.

Reagan found work in the one place where, even in bad times, people have money.

"I traveled all over the country, painting murals on barroom walls," he says. "Historical scenes, mostly. Washington crossing the Delaware. Bootleggers were the only ones who had any money.

"I was a drinking man in those days," Reagan says. "In Cincinnati, you could get 21 glasses of beer for a dollar. "

Eventually, he wound up on Philadelphia's Skid Row, around Eighth and Vine Streets, an area that since has been razed in the name of urban renewal.

"There were bars there, haberdashers, storekeepers, you name it. Everybody made a buck in those days. Big money. From race horses, gambling, whiskey. Money wasn't nothing to them. They could have ice cream 24 hours a day. "

A few of Reagan's mural patrons took a special interest and got him steadier work painting homes, mostly in the rapidly growing Northeast.

"They told me, 'Al, you should have a hundred dollars in your pocket instead of drinking this booze,' " Reagan recalls. "They pulled me out of there, wised me up. "

For more than 20 years, Reagan worked as a house painter. Then along came aluminum siding, which "knocked out the painting business. "

Then a lot of his friends died.

"Time. That's what put me out of business," he says. "I know very few people now. Most of my friends, my business associates, they're gone. In the cemetery. "

About two years ago, Reagan turned to the streets to augment his meager retirement income. Even since then, he says, "money's gotten tighter. "

"A couple of years ago, there was money on the street. I was picking up bills," he says. "Not now. There's no money. Times are tough. You're lucky if you find a few coins. "

Reagan's route, which never varies, crisscrosses Center City, focusing on places where people tend to fumble with change: parking meters, bus stops, bicycle racks. . . .

But not banks.

"You can look, but you won't find anything," Reagan explains. "Around banks, people are careful with money. It makes 'em think."

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At 16th and Market, he pauses wistfully over a series of grates.

"Lots of coins there," he says, pointing down. "Ten, fifteen dollars in quarters. But they're under water. Can't get to 'em. "

On the next block, he passes two more grates. The first he crosses without looking down. "There's a garage down below," he says. "Nothing there. "

At the second grate, he slows but keeps moving. "Thirty feet. Too deep," he says. "Ten, twenty feet is OK. It takes a little practice. But 30 feet is too deep for me, for anybody.

"Have to know what you're doing," he says. "On Chestnut Street, there are lots of wires. Not careful, you could get 25,000 volts in you. "

On Broad Street, just north of Sansom, he peers down, points at a long, slender object that glitters among the soda caps and cigarette butts. ''Looks like gold. It isn't," he says. "Tinsel. "

Passing the Bellevue, he grumbles. "Nothing along here. Rich people are the worst when it comes to money. They don't drop it. "

Farther down is Meridian Bank, and more grates. "Very fussy," he says with a disapproving nod. "They wash the sidewalks with water. You can't pick up anything in water. "

Reagan's avocation gives him a different slant on urban living. Some things that are good for other people are bad for Reagan, and vice versa.

Rainy days, for instance, are excellent.

"That's when they really drop it," he says. "People get excited" as they fumble for change in the rain at parking meters or bus stops. "After a rainy day, you'll find a lot of change. "

And bus shelters, a boon to commuters, are a curse to him.

"They stand there now," he says, pointing to a shelter at Eighth and Market — "not here," he adds, nodding at an empty grate closer to the corner.

Summertime is one thing that both Reagan and his victims probably agree on.

"In warm weather, people are more liberal, easygoing," he says. "There's more money. "

There are only a couple of tricks to his trade. One is heating the chewing gum to make it sticky enough to pick up change. The other, Reagan says, is learning how to see.

He illustrates by pointing to a puddle of water on the sidewalk.

“You see this water?” he says. “It’s got a glitter to it like money. I see it. A lot of people don’t notice. You gotta be trained. Money is like water — maybe in more ways than one.”