“They don’t make ’em like Nick anymore”

It was 20 years ago: St. Patrick’s Basilica was packed to the rafters with a crowd of more than 3,000 paying their final respects. The scene following the funeral was bedlam as police had to cordon off streets to make way for a boisterous procession — led by a Dixieland band — as it snaked its way west to Crescent St., where much tippling would take place until the wee hours of the next day.
A sendoff for a hockey star, singing vedette or mayor? Not quite. This outpouring of em