The Little Prince With a Bronx Twang

Seventy years after an enigmatic French author and aviator disappeared over the Mediterranean Sea, one New Yorker is obsessively determined to keep Antoine de Saint-Exupéry alive.

Photos and Audio Recordings by Emon Hassan

“Do you have an iron?”

Howard Scherry is overjoyed when his neighbor Susan responds in the affirmative. He washed his aviator’s scarf the night before — “the kind the pilots wore in the 1920s in the open cockpits” — so that he can wear it next week, but it needs to be pressed. Will Susan iron it?

“Sure,” she says with a smile.

Scherry’s smile stretches even wider, excitement shining in his light blue eyes. He gushes his thanks and promises to take Susan out to lunch at the senior center around the corner. Even dinner, if she prefers - at Hamilton House it costs all of $2. “I’ll be generous,” he says, before turning back to me. “You must get to be sixty years old, you must, quickly! It’s fantastic! You want a human interest story, you come to the senior center and see it operate. It is absolutely delightful, because of the cast of characters there. You couldn’t find such a cast. I’m one of them!”

Seventy-six years old, this cast member happens to b…