Alas, poor New York, I knew it well,
When FDR and La Guardia
Tried pulling us out of hell.
I grew up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn
Shopped the pushcarts on Thirteenth Avenue
Where still warm Jewish Rye and smoked whitefish
Was so damned good it made me cry.
Where I saw and heard the roar
Of the Hindenburg dirigible as it flew by overhead,
And celebrated the Queen Elizabeth
And the Normandy that plowed the lower bay.
I played in Bliss Park when it was fiercely wild
Before it was sadly tamed by the WPA.
The great depression left many empty lots
Where houses once stood but were not disciplined by
Unimaginative architects but were permitted to indulge
In the random creative architecture of natural neglect,
An explosion of the wonders of delightful chaos that donated
Play areas far beyond the rigid nonsense of current playgrounds.
I remember well the tiny cemetery on Narrows Avenue
Where remained the few neglected graves of those who died
In the Revolutionary War were visited every Decoration Day
By old Civil War veterans in gratitude.
I recall the terror I felt to see Fredric March melt
From Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde at the local Loews theater
Where Chaplin, The Marx Brothers, and Eddie Cantor frolicked,
Along with King Kong, Frankenstein, as well as Dracula.
Times were tough, and mornings, along with the clang of the bay buoys,
I could hear the guy go by in his horse drawn wagon cry, ” I cash clothes”.
German bands of street musicians wandered through with saxophones,
Trombones and tubas to milk the listening windows of small coins,
And the hokey pokey horse and wagon sold ice cream and three cent cups
Of orange and lemon ices on ninety degree summer days that soften asphalt streets
That were repaired by monstrous puffing steam shovels and steam rollers.
Occasionally a squirrel would leap off the nearby telephone wires and scuttle
Down the long hallway from my bedroom to the kitchen to steal a breadcrust
And quickly retreat.
Evenings began on the radio with The Singing Lady followed by Uncle Don, Bobby Benson,
Jack Armstrong, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Orson Welles’ The Shadow,
And later, Jack Benny, Fred Allen and Bergan’s Charley McCarthy.
And all sorts of wonders from The Columbia Workshop such as Guy de Maupassant’s The Horla,
Which was so frightening I demanded a bright night light for weeks even though it was invisible.
Plus, of course, there was the Norman Corwin CBS delights to enliven our nights.
When there was a newspaper strike, Mayor LaGuardia read the comics on the radio for the kids.
Somehow, I missed that dramatic thunder where The Mercury Theater invaded New Jersey
With H.G.Wells’ octopods from Mars that over rode any fears of equally fictitious communist conquests.
I read, later, that some New Jerseyite had attacked a watertower, presuming it was Martian.
The poverty of those early days encouraged economic blossoming of second-hand establishments
That became second nature to us all. And when the bank foreclosed our Brooklyn house we absconded
To Manhattan, but before that departure in 1938, the family, plus the dog, Skippy,
Adventured to Florida in a second hand 1935 Cadillac convertible to celebrate our refugee status.
There was no money for hotels, so we slept in the car for the three-day trip and had a kerosine stove
Where my mother cooked our meals as we parked along the highway. We couldn’t afford new spare tires,
So we bought retreaded second-hand tires and we had blowouts each day to stop and change.
Finally, at Lantana north of Miami, a vital engine part failed, to hold us for almost a week until
A replacement for repairs arrived from Detroit, but this was no problem since the raw beauty of Florida
Was everywhere, a wild jungle with hordes of crabs, alligators, turtles and endless empty fabulous beaches.
Both my parents were watercolor artists, and every day was productive in new paintings of the sea and jungle.
Lantana was a mere few roadside houses, and every street was littered with thick outer shelled coconuts.
On the other side of the road was the service station for our car and the motel where we slept.
The beach was reached through the roadside jungle, across the Indian River, to the unending treasure.
Just above the tide line was an endless line of dried seaweed dried tubular sponges, shark eggs, sea beans,
Spectacular snail and colored mussel shells and, very occasionally, amongst the broken coral bits the shell of a paper nautilus.
My brother and I spent many hours rummaging through this treasure of infinite mystery.
The sea itself was warm and gentle to permit the rescue of bottles from its sandy bottom and beware
The Man O’ War jellyfish with their long stinging tentacles.
My parents had hoped to end the adventure in Key West, the terminal island of the island string
At the southern tip of Florida but the long drive through Key Largo determined them to turn back to New York.
But I will never forget that final turnaround point at the small bridge to the next island where we all left the car
To be astounded at the glorious brilliantly colored life of fish and living sponges and all sorts of exotic creatures
Tightly decorating that tiny, wonderful inlet, eighty-three years ago.
Manhattan was a search for some affordable worthwhile place to live and we were very lucky to end up
At 142 East 18 street in the oldest apartment house in New York City which had seven rooms and four working fireplaces.
The rent was about 70 dollars per month, and it was full of artists and writers.
My major experience as a kid then was the 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair where 1960 was the world of the future.
But nothing was said there about men on the Moon and computers were huge things,
Where IBM indicated 5 were enough for the entire world.
There was one rather huge idiot robot who clicked the fingers on one hand and counted up to five.
The biggest exhibition that was impressive was General Electric’s Steinmetz Hall.
Here bolts of man-made lightning scared the bejesus out of everybody.
General Motors had a very neat huge model of the road system of the future.
But the best part of those exhibits were that they were free.
Since we kids had little money, that was the most attractive feature.
* * * * * * * * * *
At the age of 18 I was inducted into The US Army Air Force in 1944 and hoped to qualify for flight training, The army had other ideas and I spent the bulk of my military time in training as a radar technician. After my discharge in 1946 New York and the country was in happy disarray at the war’s victory and the nation began its long climb into establishing its prime position of escape from the massive destructions of WWII and huge buildup of manufacturing and financial dominance as the result of the war effort. The end of the great depression’s deprivations permitted the middle class to benefit and take a substantial share of the new wealth. It took several decades for the wealthier sector to rid the country of the social advances gained by Roosevelt’s programs of labor advances under his New Deal but the fascinating qualities of the multicultural social relationships engendered by New York’s position as a port of entrance for immigration slowly surrendered to the immense power rise of the city as a major financial center. The long cultural democracy of my younger years of free entrance to the major cultural institutions such as the major museums and other cultural centers such as zoos and free concerts slowly vanished into the overwhelming powers of the wealthy and the totalities of the race for monetary wealth changed completely the face of the city that I had grown to love. The latter half of the 20th century erupted into the theater of immense political fears of potential wars so that lesser conflicts that resulted in the deaths of many millions of innocent victims has totally resulted into the general loss of the sense of the unity of humanity at the end of WWII into basically economic and financial conflicts that has left the planet of world hopes far behind and the old face of my New York has almost totally disappeared into a city captured by the small incredibly wealthy sector where the average family cannot even afford to rent an apartment adequate to their basic needs. My old wonderful 142 East 18 street was demolished in the 1950’s to be replaced by the standard huge anonymous apartment house and I live in a much more congenial place far, far away.
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