Phil Simkins

New York had been baking for days when homeless inventor Phil Simkins called from a midtown pay phone with an idea to "revolutionize" travel in the infernal subway.

On a "queen-sized" park bench on Fifth Avenue, near the Guggenheim, he dreams the grandest dreams in a city of dreamers.

Simkins, 52, was speaking enthusiastically about his "Kool Rope," a rubber tube you take out of the freezer and wear as a "personal air conditioner" on sweltering subway platforms.

The tube can be molded to your body, around the neck and under the arms to keep you cool for up to one hour.It is hard not appreciating any attempt to improve life in the Dantean subway, and it really works.

A self-made catalogue of Simkins' inventions includes a sketch of four adults and a child wearing Walkman-sized, hand-powered Kool Ropes devices around their waists as a No. 1 train pulls into a station.

It is an idea that Simkins has been refining for years.He said firefighters, police officers, Con Ed workers, Parks Department employees and even a trainer for the New York Yankees have praised the device after using it.Still, nobody will commit to developing it.

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What's most fascinating about Simkins is the heart and determination of this eternal optimist, who has been living on the streets since March.Before that, he spent nights sleeping on a chair at the Open Door shelter on 41st Street and Ninth Avenue, and before that, he split his nights between YMCAs in Brooklyn and Harlem.

He has lived this nomadic existence since his mother, Bernice Alston, 74, died in his arms after a heart attack on New Year's Eve a dozen years ago.He couldn't pay the rent on their 96th Street apartment.

Though Simkins said he graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1972 and made a little money after inventing a checkerboard game called Panic Button, the drifter life appeals to him.

"I've been on a mission to get this stuff out," said Simkins, who is 6-foot-3, freckled and has a mane of unruly gray hair."When I was living at the YMCA in East New York, I had a nice bed with clean sheets.But there was a certain amount of complacency.Should I go into the city today?Being in the middle of Manhattan is like sleeping on pins and needles.You have to get your butt up and work."

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Simkins conducts his research in public libraries such as the Science, Industry and Business Library at 34th and Madison, where he is well-known by the staff.He's up at the crack of dawn, walking or riding the subway to various library branches to sign on for Internet time.

"It's not like I sit on a park bench thinking all day," he said."Every day is preplanned."

In addition to the Kool Rope, Simkins is constantly fine-tuning his Teletron, a concave mirror device that makes photographs appear three-dimensional.He has also invented plastic sleeves that he hopes will someday enable the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to place ads on subway turnstiles. (Simkins can be contacted about his work at philsimkins@yahoo.com.)

"This is my job," Simkins said."This is what I was meant to do."

Simkins survives on a $30 weekly allowance from an aunt in Harlem.For nourishment and washing up, he counts on the many church-run soup kitchens and homeless outreach programs in midtown Manhattan.

"If you have no money," he said, "you will never die of hunger in this city.The churches serve thousands of people every day."

Though Simkins realizes that perhaps his chances at success have been hurt by his nomadic life, he wouldn't have it any other way.

"Even among friends, there is that nagging little thing: You're not the same as a regular person.You're not all there," he said."Many people don't realize how close they are to being in my position.For me, it's like climbing Mount Everest.I'm more satisfied than if I had money and a place to stay."

Email: ray.sanchez@newsday.com

The Bloomberg administration and inclement weather have conspired to displace homeless inventor Phil Simkins from the Fifth Avenue park bench where he hatched some of his zaniest ideas.

"The police were on us like a swarm of locusts," Simkins was saying early yesterday at the Columbus Circle subway station."One of the cops said to me, 'You can thank the mayor.'"

Now Simkins, 52, plops his 6-foot-3 frame in a chair at the Open Door shelter in midtown for several hours of rest before rising at half past four in the morning.He has coffee and collects two ham and turkey sandwiches from St. Francis of Assisi Church.He stuffs the extra sandwich in his backpack for dinner and strolls several blocks to an Internet cafe in Times Square.

"The Internet has opened up avenues to the downtrodden," the homeless man with a Yahoo e-mail account was saying.

The police have been unable to erase the vestiges of homelessness from Michael Bloomberg's New York.

Take the two dozen street people and their advocates who gathered on the steps of City Hall on Christmas Eve.They carried a $3,000 check for a transit bureau cop suspended for refusing to arrest a homeless man. Right there under the mayor's nose.
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Simkins was saying."It was Bloomberg's sister.Had I an inkling who she was, I would have put the tray down and given her a message for the mayor."

We last heard from Simkins during an August heat wave.He was promoting one of his longtime projects, the "Kool Rope," a rubber tube you take out of the freezer and wear as a personal air conditioner in the sweltering subway.Firefighters, transit and parks department workers have tested the device but Simkins has been unable to get anybody to develop it.

"I don't do this because I'm a lunatic," said Simkins, a Rochester Institute of Technology graduate who has lived a nomadic life since the death of his mother, Bernice, a dozen years ago at the age of 74."I want to inspire people.I want to show that even people in the lowest station in life can overcome the biggest obstacles."

"You can have the most brilliant mind," he added, "and still be a step away from homelessness."

Simkins' latest project is a plan that he says will save the city from financial ruin.The centerpiece involves the sale of 20,000 ornate, jewel-encrusted boxes.He once turned down a million dollars, he says, because the idea was worth so much more.

"They are the contemporary Fabergé egg," he said.

They are square boxes and round boxes and boxes that open like flowers.He has a seven-minute video of these unique "Revelation Boxes," which would sell for millions of dollars with proceeds to be split between artisans, Simkins and the cash-strapped city.

"I think the mayor should buy the first box," Simkins was saying."They are going to be the most famous boxes in history.The mayor could get his friends from Carnegie Hill to buy them."

Simkins also has a plan to preserve the $1.50 subway fare.It involves plastic sleeves that would enable the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to generate money from ads placed on subway turnstiles.

New York had been baking for days when homeless inventor Phil Simkins called from a midtown pay phone with an idea to "revolutionize" travel in the infernal subway.

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Simkins, 52, was speaking enthusiastically about his "Kool Rope," a rubber tube you take out of the freezer and wear as a "personal air conditioner" on sweltering subway platforms.

The tube can be molded to your body, around the neck and under the arms to keep you cool for up to one hour.It is hard not appreciating any attempt to improve life in the Dantean subway, and it really works.

Full story at Newsday