WORDS OF WISDOM


Wise Words from Frank Finger of Finger’s Radiator Hospital


NARSA/IDEA’S Executive Director Mark Taylor and President Bobby Duran recently interviewed Frank Finger on “Solder & Soot: a NARSA/IDEA Podcast.”


Here’s a transcript of Part 1:


The Early Days of Radiator Shops


Frank Finger: My father was born in Hell’s Kitchen, New York in 1889. At 12 years old, he was working in a blacksmith’s shop. My mother was born in 1889 and immigrated from Germany to New York. Between my father and I, we had worked in the radiator business for over 100 years. My dad started shoeing horses. There were no cars. Very few. This was like 1900. So he transitioned from shoeing  because there were no radiator shops. And when people had a problem with their cars or a tractor or a radiator, they took it to the blacksmiths’ shops. And that’s where he  My father learned a lot of things in that blacksmith’s shop. He could do just about anything. He could weld, bend


metal, heat metal, stretch metal. He learned so much so many hands-on things, and he was just a remarkable repair man and a very patient father with me.


Mark Taylor: So, it’s around 1900. Your dad and your mother are married and living in New Jersey where your current radiator shop is, is that correct?


Frank Finger: Yeah, they moved from New York to North Brunswick, New Jersey because my grandfather became ill, and he lived in North Brunswick. And back in those days, there was no such thing as Medicare or Medicaid. Families, Italian families anyway, took care of their own. So he went to North Brunswick to take care of my grandfather. And in order to make a living, he borrowed $500 and built the one-room radiator shop that is presently our


Frank is home celebrating his 85th birthday with a glass of LOUIS XIV Cognac.


Frank Finger and his father by the original Finger’s Radiator Hospital shop sign.


 door, which was just two rooms: a kitchen and a bedroom. He built it all himself in between   business.


Some of the first employees at Finger’s Radiator Hospital in the 1950s. 6 | THE COOLING JOURNAL | January/February 2022


Mark Taylor: Did your dad  in the radiator business  in the marketplace? He’s a blacksmith. He’s shoeing  for carriages and probably  this sort. And then, all of a sudden, this business starts to slow down? Or is it that one day somebody showed up with a radiator and the light bulb went off? And he goes, “I


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