Shrine Built for NY Starbucks Homeless Man

Fleming may not have had a family to go home to but he sure found one at Starbucks. Once you read what they had to say when Fleming died, you'll know what I mean.

A Shrine for a Friend Who Made a Starbucks a Village
By PETER APPLEBOME
Nyack’s coffee drinkers are still coming to grips with the death of a compulsively affable, flirtatious, apparently homeless man who held court at a local Starbucks.
One by one, people made their own small contributions to the purple velvet shrine for Fleming Logan. Or was it Fleming Taylor? Everyone just called him Fleming, so we will, too.

There were red roses and modest bouquets, letters, cards and trinkets all left on the purple padded chair at the Starbucks on Main Street where he sat, chatted and took in the world every day for more than a year.

Some of the messages had the feel of letters to a child away at camp or a friend off on some long trip.

“Dear Fleming,” began one. “We all love you and miss you. It’s not the same without you here. You are a gem of a person. The joy you brought to our lives is incredible.”

Others were full of regret for words not spoken or things not done.

“Dear Fleming,” began another one. “I wish you were here now because I never got to tell you that I enjoyed our conversation and that you had a warm, funny personality. I liked when you’d see me coming down the street and say, ‘There she is,’ that hilarious voice like I was some famous movie star. I wish I had taken the opportunity to buy you that coat you said you needed and to be a lot kinder.” It was signed, “Love in Jesus, Stephanie.”

They found Fleming’s body in a stairwell just up the street from the Starbucks at 10:45 a.m. on Nov. 26. The Rockland County Medical Examiner’s office determined that he died of a cerebral hemorrhage. He was 62. A week later, Nyack’s coffee drinkers are still coming to grips with the apparently homeless man who, it seemed, had found a home, at least from the time Starbucks opened at 6 each morning until it closed at 10 p.m.

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