Interesting is that at this time the famous Epstein Twins, who were born on Market Street, just a few doors down from PS 177, were living at 245 East Broadway at this time. Was the murder later part of the plot for some of their screenplays? Did they belong to the Madison Street Club?
The book was not a big seller and is out of print. I found an image of the cover online and added the titling.
One of my favorite late 1940s cans. I like the design, especially the medals on the front. I think these are actually TWO medals, both back and front showing. The ones on the left read "S.A.R. Madame Contesse" and "Exposition Internation (sic) Envers 1911." The ones on the right read "International Dalimentation Exposition Et Dmygiene Paris 1912" (I think, those are TINY letters!) and "Grand Prix." The center medalion reads "Internale D'Alimentation 29th Exp."
Once again we have the story of a German immigrant who sailed to America and became a giant. of the brewing industry (I'm sensing a pattern here). John F. Trommer immigrated from Hersfeld, Germany in the 1840s and settled in Portland, Maine where he worked in a small ale brewery. He eventually moved to Boston and worked in several breweries there. He moved to Brooklyn's Bushwick district where a number of breweries were congregated at some point and became brewmaster for William Ulmer. By the late 19th century there were 58 breweries in a 12 block stretch of road in this area along what was called "Brewer's Row." In 1897 Trommer bought an interest in a new company called Stehlin & Breitkopf and soon changed the name to J.F. Trommer's Evergreen Brewery. John Trommer didn't have time to enjoy his success, however, as he died in 1898 and his son George Trommer took over the brewery. speakers!
At first making only lager beer, Trommer's beer was an all-malt beer. Here's how a buddy of mine who is a professional brewer explained it. Brewers called beers (in the old days, made with 100% barley and wheat malt) "all-malt" or "malt" beers to differentiate them from the newer, cheaper beers using proportions of corn, rice, or cane sugar. Any grain can be malted (germinated to grow like the grass seed that it is, just until all the starch in the seed has been solubilized and the enzymes made to break down the starch) to use for growth, then (cruelly, to the seed) kilned and dried to kill the growth and keep the starches intact). This all happens by the time the root is 1/8 in or so long. Wanna make cheaper beer, that's lighter in body and flavor than an all-malt beer, that will appeal to more people? Use adjuncts (add junk!) like corn grits, corn starch, cane sugar, rice, rock candy (Belgium), millet if you're in Africa, you name it. Old-fashioned or wintertime hearty brews called themselves all-malt to distinguish themselves as a mark of quality. Trommer's continued making an all-malt beer until they closed in 1951. It was a constant them in their advertising.
Like the folks you meet on
Like to plant my feet on the Brooklyn Bridge
What a lovely view from
Heaven looks at you from the Brooklyn Bridge
I love to listen to the wind through her strings
The song that she sings for the town
I love to look up at the clouds in her hair
She's learned to wear like a crown
If you've been a rover
Journey's end lies over the Brooklyn Bridge
Don't let no one tell you
I've been tryin' to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge
All the folks in Manhattan are sad
'cause they look at her and wish they had
The good old Brooklyn Bridge
If you've been a rover
Journey's end lies over the Brooklyn Bridge
Don't let no one tell you
I've been tryin' to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge
You'll miss her most when you roam
`cause you'll think of her and think of home
The good old Brooklyn Bridge
Note: I don't know if this was taken on Pike Street or not. A slightly a gayish pose by the guy on the left, but in the 1930's when I suspect this pic was taken I don't think so. Not that there's anything wrong....yada, yada
More from the fabulous Hellman archives of KV West. These appear to be from around 1950. The first show Neal's mom, Molly with his older brother Bill, in front of the family Sewing Machine repair shop at 19 Pike Street. The second gives us a view of the eastern, even numbered side. Today that side is dominated by Chinese produce markets. Visible is a button on Mrs. Hellman's pocketbook. I wonder what it says. Also visible is a calendar from Trommers' Beer in the grocery store at 21 Pike.Trommers was located in Brooklyn and Orange, New Jersey. From rustycansImmediately after the war Trommer's marketed their all-malt beer as "Trommer's White Label" which appeared in bottles but not in cans. The brand appeared before the war as well, but, judging from the advertisements, the brewery pushed this brand more after the war. The brewery seemed to be doing well, they even added a three-stoy stock house to the Orange facility in 1948. However, late that same year a 29 day brewery driver's strike hit New York. Drivers demanded a shorter workday and two man teams for each truck, rather than the then prevailing single-man units. Unfortunately for Trommer's strikers took over some of the plant facilities. Each brewery has its own strain of yeast that they use in producing their beer. The strikers did not properly take care of the yeast while they occupied the brewery and Trommer's strain died. As a result, when the brewery reopened they had to use a completely different strain and the beer tasted radically different. Sales began to drop. In 1950 George Trommer sold the Orange, New Jersey brewery to Leibmann and in 1951 the original Brooklyn facility went to to Piel's. Piel's continued making Trommer's until 1962 but the brand was then discontinued. The Brooklyn brewery was closed in about 1955 and the Orange facility in 1977
I'M kind of a renegade,'' the Brooklyn-born Brian Merlis says about his obsession -- an obsession with collecting that in the last 20 years has cost him $250,000 -- and his marriage. Mr. Merlis doesn't gamble, scuba dive or fly fighter planes. He is an amateur historian and a collector of photographs and artifacts who has apparently published more books on the history of his native borough than anyone else. Mr. Merlis was born in Brooklyn in 1955 and spent part of his childhood in a 1940's house at 1302 East 51st Street in Flatlands, a neighborhood that at the time was only partly built up. ''I saw Brooklyn as it was still developing,'' he said. ''I could catch butterflies in vacant lots next to 18th-century farmhouses.''
As an adult he began collecting picture postcards of Brooklyn and soon expanded to ephemera -- old printed matter like posters, ads and theater programs -- and, especially, documentary photographs. ''Even as a kid, I wondered what things had looked like in the past,'' Mr. Merlis said. Mr. Merlis said that he loves to sink his eyes into the fine grain of a print from a glass plate negative: the store signs, the passersby, the life on the streets. He said he has collected more than 10,000 pieces of ephemera, 5,000 negatives and several thousand prints. ''Images are what run the world these days,'' said Mr. Merlis, whose full-time job is as a teacher of vocal music at Springfield Gardens High School in Queens. Mr. Merlis also runs Brooklyn Collectibles, buying and selling photographs, ephemera and other items. He has put out six books of historic photographs, through various publishers: ''Welcome Back to Brooklyn'' (1993), ''Brooklyn: The Way It Was'' (1995), ''Brooklyn's Gold Coast: The Sheepshead Bay Communities'' (1997), ''Brooklyn: The Centennial Edition'' (1998), ''Brooklyn's Park Slope: A Photographic Retrospective'' (1999) and ''Brooklyn's Bay Ridge and Fort Hamilton: A Photographic Journey'' (2000). Four of the books were written with other authors: Oscar Israelowitz for ''Welcome Back to Brooklyn,'' I. Stephen Miller and Lee A. Rosenzweig for Sheepshead Bay and Mr. Rosenzweig for Park Slope and Bay Ridge. Mr. Merlis said that he sees each book as a step forward in introducing new images to the public, rather than leaving them buried in a library or a historical society. ''So many books use the same stock photos,'' he said. ''You see them over and over again.''
As they recall schoolboy crushes, ice cream trucks and stickball, their reminiscences also conjure up a safer, simpler world. Maybe that's why what began as a video scrapbook of their joint 70th birthday celebration wound up an award-winning film, The Bronx Boys, which has appeared on Cinemax, played at a few film festivals and begun appearing on PBS stations this fall. Carl Reiner is the host of the film, which was edited and directed by Benjamin Hershleder. 'They have something special, these 15 guys,' Hershleder says
In the history of American TV, the four-season run of Route 66 was as personal a writer’s creation as Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone, perhaps more so. The writer was Stirling Silliphant, who co-created the show with executive producer Herbert B. Leonard and wrote about two-thirds of the episodes. (Their previous achievement was the groundbreaking cop show Naked City.) The first 15 episodes are in this box, which shares a tendency with several recent TV-on-DVD packages that don’t provide an entire season at once. The show marries Shane to Jack Kerouac. Several westerns, an overworked staple in ‘50s TV bleeding into the ‘60s, were about peripatetic yokels wandering on their horses from one town to the next, passing through a weekly anthology series of new plots and characters before moving on, ever responding to the call of the unknown, never entangling themselves with any one woman or putting down roots. In other words, never growing up or getting a job—the better to serve out a romantic notion of knight errantry on the frontier. Some of these shows were quite panoramic and philosophical, such as Wagon Train or Have Gun Will Travel with its Paladin (who technically did have a home in a San Francisco hotel). Silliphant revised and updated this form via Kerouac’s beatnik image as a semi-intellectual wanderer down America’s open roads, an image created through his travels with Neal Cassady. This updating would in turn lead to the wave of fugitive dramas exemplified by The Fugitive, where the protagonist isn’t simply restless and disaffected with civilization but driven and persecuted by it. Here’s how Marc Alvey puts it in the Museum of Broadcast Communications website: “The search that drove Route 66 was both a narrative process and a symbolic one. Like every search, it entailed optimism as well as discontent. . . . The show’s rejection of domesticity in favor of rootlessness formed a rather startling counterpoint to the dominant prime-time landscape of home and family in the sixties, as did the majority of the characters encountered on the road. The more hopeful dimension of Route 66 coincided with the optimism of the New Frontier circa 1960, with these wandering samaritans symbolic of the era’s new spirit of activism. Premiering at the dawn of a new decade, Route 66 captured in a singular way the nation’s passage from the disquiet of the Fifties to the turbulence of the Sixties, expressing a simultaneously troubled and hopeful vision of America.” In this series, Jack and Neal become Tod Stiles (Martin Milner) and Buz Murdock (George Maharis). Tod is a rich college boy who cruises America in a blue Corvette left him by his late father. His pal Buz, a hard-nosed orphan who grew up in Hell’s Kitchen, comes along for the ride, or something. They have a curious dynamic, more or less Buz the fighter and Tod the thinker, though that isn’t quite fair. Still, these early episodes are top-heavy with unnecessary and tiresome bouts of fisticuffs, mostly to prove Buz’s street cred. At least once per show, somebody gets clobbered in rituals that range from senseless meanness to elaborate codes of sizing people up and making friends. These scenes function partly as gratuitous “action” in a show that would otherwise be all dialogue, and partly—let’s say it—as a spectacle of male intimacy, which is simultaneously provided and denied.
K.. was a museum docent, in her 80's I'd guess. I kidded her that she got the job because she was related to Babe Ruth. Later we were then joined by an older couple from Chicago. He looked like Connie Mack. Things were going smoothly until I brought up the New Hamphsire primaries ( in part 2) "Connie" described a game he saw between the Cubs and Dodgers. He claimed Leo Durocher was the manager. I knew he was wrong. He must have meant Casey Stengel. Durocher started managing dodgers in 38-9, In 1935 he was playing for the Cardinals
Saturday, September 14, 1935
» Defeated Dodgers (61-75), 18-14 Wrigley Field 90-52
» Starters: Johnny Babich vs Charlie Root
Nathan, you must concentrate on the game. the town is up to here with high players. the Greek's in Town. Freddie Bottle Bates, Scranton Slim.
Nathan: I know, I know, I could make a fortune, but to make a fortune, I need a fortune. a thousand
Bucks, where do I get it?
The biltmore garage wants a grand, but we ain't got a grand on hand.
And they now got a lock on the door to the gym at public school 84.
There's a stock room behind mcklosky's bar, but mrs. mcklosky ain't a good scout.
And things being how they are, the back of the police station is out!
So the biltmore garage is the spot, but the one thousand bucks we ain't got.
Why, it's good old reliable nathan, nathan, nathan, nathan detroit,
If you're looking for action, he'll turn it to spot,
Even when the heat is on, it's never too hot.
But for the good old reliable nathan, oh it's only just a short walk,
To the oldest established permanent floating crap game in new yawk.
There are well-heeled shooters everywhere, everywhere,
There are well-heeled shooters everywhere,
And awful lot of lettuce for the fella who can get us to play.
If we only had a lousy little crap, we could be a millionaire.
Oh the good old reliable nathan, nathan, nathan, nathan detroit,
If the size of your bundle you want to increase,
I'll arrange that you go broke in quiet and peace,
In a hideout provided by nathan, where there are no neighbors to squawk,
It's the oldest established permanent floating crap game in new yawk.
Where's the action? where's the game?
Gotta have the game or we'll die from shame.
It's the oldest established permanent floating crap game in new york.
Written with passion and intelligence, the letters of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in World War II express the raw idealism of anti-fascist soldiers who experienced the war in boot camps, cockpits, and foxholes, but never lost sight of the great global issues at stake.When the United States entered World War II on December 7, 1941, only one group of American soldiers had already confronted the fascist enemy on the battlefield: the U.S. veterans of the Lincoln Brigade, a volunteer army of about 2,800 men and women who had enlisted to defend the Spanish Republic from military rebels during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). They fought on the losing side.After Pearl Harbor, Lincoln Brigade veterans enthusiastically joined the U.S. Army, welcoming this second chance to fight against fascism. However, the Lincoln recruits soon encountered suspicious military leaders who questioned their patriotism and denied them promotions and overseas assignments, foreshadowing the political persecution of the postwar Red Scare. African American veterans who fought in fully integrated units in Spain, faced second-class treatment in America's Jim Crow army. Nevertheless, the Lincolns served with distinction in every theater of the war and won a disproportionate number of medals for courage, dedication, and sacrifice.The 154 letters in this volume, selected from thousands held in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives at NYU's Tamiment Library, provide a new and unique perspective on aspects of World War II.
There is a new Lincoln Brigade exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York and a new book out about the Brigade
"No men ever entered the earth more honorably than those who died in Spain," wrote Ernest Hemingway in 1939. Between the years of 1936-1939, an estimated 1,000 Americans, many from New York, died fighting to protect the elected government of the Spanish Republic against a rebellion led by General Francisco Franco and backed by Hitler and Mussolini. Facing Fascism: New York and the Spanish Civil War examines the role that New Yorkers played in the conflict, as well as the political and social ideologies that motivated them to participate in activities ranging from rallying support, fund raising, and relief aid, to fighting--and sometimes dying--on the front lines in Spain. The stories of these New Yorkers will be told through photographs, letters, uniforms, weapons, and an array of personal and historical memorabilia.
From the farms, from the cities, from every land
Came the Abe Lincoln Brigade
With a dream in their hearts, with a gun in their hands
The Abraham Lincoln Brigade
No pasaran, no pasaran
So sang the Abe Lincoln Brigade
Across the years and the oceans
We still sing the song
Of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade
Cries from the cities, shouts from the hills
The Abraham Lincoln Brigade
The fire in the hearts that is warming us still
The Abraham Lincoln Brigade
No pasaran, no pasaran
So sang the Abe Lincoln Brigade
Across the years and the oceans
We still sing the song
Of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade
All the teachers, the artists
The workers who died
Oh the Abe Lincoln Brigade
Their stories still thrill me
We work side by side
With the Abraham Lincoln Brigade
No pasaran, no pasaran
So sang the Abe Lincoln Brigade
Across the years and the oceans
We still sing the song
The Abraham Lincoln Brigade
So raise glasses and voices
Give them a toast
Of the Abe Lincoln Brigade
Those who die best are the ones who live most
Like the Abraham Lincoln Brigade
No pasaran, no pasaran
So sang the Abe Lincoln Brigade
Across the years and the oceans
We still sing the song
Of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade
No pasaran, no pasaran
So sang the the Abe Lincoln Brigade
Across the years and the oceans
We still sing the song
Of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade
I think I was doing a search on the Rosenbergs and I stumbled on an incredible document, a list of the members of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and their home addresses. Originally there were 2800, now they number in the tens. Those that are still alive are in their 90's. It set me off on the making another one of my google maps. What I do is plot their addresses and then go off to photograph the site, hoping that the original structure (in this case 70 years later) is still there. It's fascinating (at least to me) to look at two houses, maybe a block apart and then look at the names of two guys in their late teens and with no military experience, probably childhood friends, who came up with the idea in 1936 to go to Spain and fight Fascists. I think about a third of those 2800 never made it home. Survivors came home heroes, got no official recognition for their efforts, were lucky to escape recrimination (many went under alias' because of this) for breaking the law, but were later harassed and hounded because they fought on the side of the Communists. Anyway, when I checked the list there were two guys that came from Knickerbocker Village. One of them was Wolf Kupinsky, aka Harry Milton. He was lucky to survive the war and he is credited with saving George Orwell's life. The American sentry I had been talking to had started forward. ‘Gosh! Are you hit?’ People gathered round. There was the usual fuss — ‘Lift him up! Where’s he hit? Get his shirt open!’ etc., etc. The American called for a knife to cut my shirt open. I knew that there was one in my pocket and tried to get it out, but discovered that my right arm was paralyzed. In the hazy photo (Orwell and Milton), a group of men and one woman pose for the camera behind a wall of sandbags, with their weapons at hand. They do not have the look of regular soldiers, and there are no uniforms. One individual stands literally head and shoulders above the rest. It is none other than George Orwell, or as he was known then, Eric Blair, his real name. The scene is the Spanish Civil War, and the photograph includes ‘the American’ who came to Orwell’s aid when he was shot: Harry David Milton. A small but interesting collection in the Hoover Institution Archives records Milton’s time in Spain, including his encounter with the future author of Nineteen Eighty-Four. The Milton collection sheds light on Orwell’s political development in the crucible of Spain and underlines the role played by American volunteers in Spain who were not members of pro-Moscow Communist Parties and who chose to serve in formations other than the largely Comintern-recruited International Brigades, which received much more attention. Orwell’s vivid description of being wounded on the front lines near Huesca occurs near the end of his memoir of the Spanish Civil War, Homage to Catalonia. Many years later, Harry Milton, describing the incident to a reporter in California, attributed Orwell’s misfortune both to his height and to his somewhat reckless habit of looking over the top of their unit’s fortified position: ‘I heard the crisp sound of a high velocity shot and Orwell [toppled] over. He landed on his back.’ Milton recounts giving first aid, as Orwell waited to be taken to the hospital. In another article about the shooting, Milton claims only a modest role for himself: ‘I simply stopped the bleeding.’ Milton does, however, claim some credit for influencing Orwell’s political consciousness as it developed during his time in Spain.
I wonder what position the candidates currently duking it out in New Hampshire would take on a modern day version of this?
Who can turn the world on with her smile?
Who can take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?
Well it’s you girl, and you should know it
With each glance and every little movement you show it
Love is all around, no need to waste it
You can have a town, why don’t you take it
You’re gonna make it after all (2X)
How will you make it on your own?
This world is awfully big, girl this time you’re all alone
But it’s time you started living
It’s time you let someone else do some giving
Love is all around, no need to waste it
You can have a town, why don’t you take it
You’re gonna make it after all
SEASON 1 LYRICS
How will you make it on your own?
Who can take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?
Well it’s you girl, and you should know it
With each glance and every little movement you show it
Love is all around, no need to waste it
You can have a town, why don’t you take it
You’re gonna make it after all (2X)
How will you make it on your own?
This world is awfully big, girl this time you’re all alone
But it’s time you started living
It’s time you let someone else do some giving
Love is all around, no need to waste it
You can have a town, why don’t you take it
You might just make it after all.
Michaels' essay on watching Gilda has similar moments — he says that seeing the “zipper business” made more of an impression on him than WW II — and is similarly precise about the location of his film-viewing moment. “I saw this movie in the Loew's Theater on Canal Street in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.” After his libinal viewing experience, he says, “I went down Madison Street, passing under the Manhattan Bridge, then turning left on Market Street, walking toward the East River, until I came to Monroe Street, and turned right.” The person writing-remembering this New York street-walking so meticulously is aged 60 or so, across the continent, on the other coast, in California, but the point is clear, and kind of Hemingway-esque. The hard clarity of street names, recited, might undo the terrible moral lesson the film had conveyed: “The creep touched her. I understood that real life is this way. Nothing would be the same for me again.” I first encountered Leonard Michaels' essay on Gilda in the selection of Best American Essays 1992 edited by Susan Sontag. But when I noticed that it had appeared in the Berkeley-based broadsheet cultural journal, The Threepenny Review, it figured. In the early 1990s, while wandering around bookshops in Berkeley, I picked up some copies of The Threepenny Review (though not the issue with Michaels' essay in it) and have kept up with it on and off ever since. (It's partially available on the Net). The Threepenny Review publishes terrific pieces by people I've always enjoyed reading elsewhere — John Berger, Stephen Greenblatt, Luc Sante, Carol Clover, Carlo Ginzburg — and includes poetry, a film section, essays on photography. Hence, it's always a pleasurable and informative reading experience.
I was thrilled when I stumbled upon the information that a favorite author of mine, Leonard Michaels lived in Knickerbocker Village.Leonard Michaels (January 2, 1933- May 10, 2003) was an American writer of short stories, novels, and essays. He was born in New York City and earned a B.A. from New York University and a M.A. as well as a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Michigan, before spending most of his adult life in Berkeley, California. Going Places, his first book of short stories, made his reputation as one of the most brilliant of that era's fiction writers; the stories are urban, funny, and written in a private, hectic diction that gives them a remarkable edge. The follow-up, coming six years later (Michaels was perhaps not prolific enough to build a widely popular career), was I Would Have Saved Them If I Could, a collection as strong as the first. The Men's Club, Michaels' first novel, is a story-like, relatively short comedic work that simultaneously attacks and celebrates the absurdities of men as they gather in a kind of urban support group. In 1986, the novel was made into a popular film, directed by Peter Medak, with the screenplay by Michaels, and starring Roy Scheider, Harvey Keitel, Stockard Channing and Frank Langella. Sylvia is a fictionalized memoir of Michael's first wife, Sylvia Bloch, who committed suicide. Michaels was a professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley. His son Jesse Michaels was vocalist in the seminal underground punk rock band Operation Ivy, a precursor to Rancid.
When I was five years old, I started school in a huge gloomy Vic-torian building where nobody spoke Yiddish. It was across the street from Knickerbocker Village, the project in which I lived. To cross that street meant going from love to hell. I said nothing in the classroom and sat apart and alone, and tried to avoid the teacher’s evil eye. Eventually, she decided that I was a moron, and wrote a letter to my parents saying I would be transferred to the "ungraded class" where I would be happier and could play ping-pong all day. My mother couldn’t read the letter so she showed it to our neighbor, a woman from Texas named Lynn Nations. A real American, she boasted of Indian blood, though she was blond and had the cheekbones, figure, and fragility of a fashion model. She would ask us to look at the insides of her teeth, and see how they were cupped. To Lynn this proved descent from original Americans. She was very fond of me, though we had no conversation, and I spent hours in her apartment looking at her art books and eating forbidden foods. I could speak to her husband, Arthur Kleinman, yet another furrier, and a lefty union activist, who knew Yiddish.
Lynn believed I was brighter than a moron and went to the school principal, which my mother would never have dared to do, and demanded an intelligence test for me. Impressed by her Katharine Hepburn looks, the principal arranged for a school psychologist to test me. Afterwards, I was advanced to a grade beyond my age with several other kids, among them a boy named Bonfiglio and a girl named Estervez. I remember their names because we were seated according to our IQ scores. Behind Bonfiglio and Estervez was me, a kid who couldn’t even ask permission to go the bathroom. In the higher grade I had to read and write and speak English. It happened virtually overnight so I must have known more than I knew. When I asked my mother about this she said, “Sure you knew English. You learned from trucks.” She meant: while lying in my sickbed I would look out the window at trucks passing in the street; studying the words written on their sides, I taught myself English. Unfortunately, high fevers burned away most of my brain, so I now find it impossible to learn a language from trucks. A child learns any language at incredible speed. Again, in a metaphorical sense, Yiddish is the language of children wandering for a thousand years in a nightmare, assimilating languages to no avail.
I remember the black shining print of my first textbook, and my fearful uncertainty as the meanings came with all their exotic Englishness and de-voured what had previously inhered in my Yiddish. Something remained indigestible.
Happy birthday, happy birthday, baby
Oh, I love you so
Sixteen candles make a lovely light
But not as bright as your eyes tonight
(as your eyes tonight) (Oh)
Blow out the candles, make your wish come true
For I'll be wishing that you love me, too
(that you love me, too)
You're only sixteen (sixteen)
But you're my teenage queen (you're my queen)
You're the prettiest, loveliest girl I've ever seen
(I've ever seen) (OH!)
Sixteen candles in my heart will glow
For ever and ever for I love you so (for I love you so)
You're only sixteen (sixteen)
But you're my teenage queen (you're my queen)
Oh, you're the prettiest, loveliest girl I've ever seen
(I've ever seen) (OH!)
Sixteen candles in my heart will glow
For ever and ever for I love you so
(for I love you so)
For I love you so!!!
Well six nights a week I long for you
And then on Saturday night
I hold you in my arms again
I love you so but I'm a fool it seems
For six nights a week I see you only in my dreams
I want to hold you every night
But you won't give me a chance
I have to wait to hold you tight
Until the next Saturday night
So why must we spend six nights a week apart
When night after night I'd love to hold you to my heart
Not really KV, but certainly close enough. The Up On The Roof post recalled Richard Karney's remembrance that the Crests originated from the Smith Projects, "One of our classmates or grade mates' brother was one of the background singers."Johnny Maestro and The Crests
0ne of the most popular of the late '50s groups, the Crests were often thought to bean all black aggregation. In fact, they were about as integrated as a group could get, with four men (two blacks, a Puerto Rican, and an Italian), and one black female. Talmadge (Tommy) Gough (first tenor), Harold Torres (second tenor), and Patricia Van Dross (tenor) were all from the Alfred E. Smith housing projects in Chinatown on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. In 1955, while students at P. S. 160 Junior High, they teamed up with Jay (J. T.) Carter (bass) of Delancey Street to forma singing group. With influences ranging from THE MILLS BROTHERS to THE AMES BROTHERS(with THE HARP-TONES, THE CLOVERS, THE 5 ROYALES, THE FIVE KEYS, THE PENGUINS, and THE ORIOLES thrown in for good measure) the unnamed quartet started performing at hospitals and charity functions for experience while learning the craft of harmonizing from an old singer known only as Mr. Morrow.
In 1956, Mulberry Street resident John Mastrangelo met the group at the Henry Street Settlement House. John's previous group had also been integrated, and reportedly included a young Tony Orlando. Mastrangelo's strong voice and natural feel for R&B made him an instant asset to the group and they joined forces. J. T. Carter came up with the name the Crests (a good many years before the toothpaste). The group found the New York subway system to be an excellent place to polish their sound. On one occasion they boarded the Lexington IRT at the Brooklyn Bridge and took the opportunity to practice. To their astonishment, as the train pulled into the next stop, a woman got up, walked over, handed them a business card, and left the train without even mentioning her name. The card read "Al Browne and Orchestra," Mr. Browne being the well-known arranger who backed up THE HEARTBEATS and other acts. The group scrambled to call him, set up an audition, and by June 1957 were recording two original Mastrangelo compositions. The mysterious lady on the train turned out to be Mrs. Al Browne.
The songs "Sweetest One" and "My Juanita" were tremendous first efforts for a new group, especially considering the medieval production work and studio sound. "My Juanita" was an up-tempo rocker with a slow double-chime prelude, a smooth lead from Mastrangelo (now calling himself Johnny Maestro), and a tight background by the Crests. "Sweetest One" was an understated ballad. Its simplicity was classic, but most in the know would have put their money on "Juanita." On July 15, 1957, the tiny Joyce Records (run out of the back room of a Brooklyn record store) bet on "Sweetest One," putting all two minutes and four seconds on the national Top 100 chart peaking at number 86. "My Juanita7 subsequently became a standard rehearsal tune for every street-corner group.
The Crest's next single was "No One to Love," a beautiful ballad with an "Earth Angel" intro followed by wondrous harmony and an original arrangement. Lightning didn't strike twice, but Maestro recalls that each member received a $17.50 royalty for the tune. It probably went to buy the checkered sport jackets and thin black ties they wore at their local gigs (with Pat in her gown, the performers looked like four Bo Diddleys and a prom queen).
After almost a year of shows, the Crests got a break in the form of an introduction by songwriter Billy Dawn Smith to music publisher George Paxton, a veteran of the Brill building. Paxton formed Coed Records and signed the group just as they became a quartet. Pat was forced to leave when her mother refused to let her tour with the older guys (in 1958 the members were 18 to 19 years old). Had Patricia's younger brother been old enough to do more than hang out to hear the group sing, he would have been an interesting vocal addition to the Crests. His name was Luther Van Dross.
The Crests' first Coed single was "Pretty Little Angel" b/w "I Thank the Moon," the former written by Maestro, arranger Bert Keyes, and Luther Dixon (writer of several SHIRELLE's hits), and the latter by Billy Dawn Smith. "Pretty" did well in New York (for example one Rochester station, WRVM's survey had it at number 25 and moving up on March 31st) but soon fizzled out. The next release was "Beside You," a pretty ballad with loads of harmony and a mid250s sound. When deejay Alan Freed and TV's Dick Clark received their copies they both flipped it over and took a liking to a sentimental birthday song called "16 Candles." The record entered the Billboard pop charts on November 24, 1958, and the R&B charts almost two months later. The group then played the first of many shows for Alan Freed's Christmas party at the Loew's State Theatre along with three giants of rock who would all be dead within six weeks: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper. In the week of January 26, 1959, "16 Candles" was number four nationally and Vileness' "Donna' was number three. J. T. Taylor had a friendly bet with Valens that week as to whose record would hit number one first. On February 3, 1959, Valens, Holly, and the Big Bopper J. P. Richardson) died in a plane crash while the Billboards chart of February 9 had "16 Candles" at number two and "Donna" at number three. Ironically, neither recording ever made it to number one. The record that kept both from that position was Lloyd Price's "Stagger Lee." At its peak, "16 Candles" was selling 25,000 records a day and well on its way to becoming one of the most popular birthday songs since "Happy Birthday." "16 Candles" actually started out as "21 Candles" written by Luther Dixon and Allyson Kent, but since the average age of targeted record buyers was much younger, the number of candles was brought down a few notches.
The Crests were now playing all the major venues from the Apollo to the Paramount along with the prime-time Saturday night radio version of "American Bandstand." (Dick Clark may remember his first encounter with the Crests at the Little Theatre on 47th Street in New York City. The Crests were cavorting in the dressing room when Clark peeked in to say hello. When one of the boys fell against the door Clark got a black eye for his trouble.) The boys appeared on what in those days were called all-star shows-and they really were. On a given night the Crests would appear with the likes of Jackie Wilson, THE MOONGLOWS, Chuck Berry, the Everly Brothers, Bo Diddley, THE FLAMINGOS, DION AND THE BELMONTS, Frankie Avalon, and more saxophone-led orchestras than you could shake a stick at, including those of Sam "the Man Taylor, King Curtis, Big Al Sears, Red Prysock, Earl Warren, and more. From 1958 to 1960 the group was almost always on the road.
Their first single after "Candles" was a swaying, dreamy stroll-styled ballad called "Six Nights a Week" (#28 Pop, #16 R&B). As was the case with many acts, the charts were a relatively accurate barometer of the quality of the Crests records from this point on. "Flower of Love" was bland in comparison to other Crest cuts and only attained a six-week run up to number 79. But the charting proved that the Crests were out in front with deejays and the public; far superior records of the time (such as "Millionaire Hobo ' by the Fantastics, "MY Heart7' by THE CAROLLONS, and "Lovers Never Say Goodbye" by the Flamingos) had less activity.
Reggie Ingram is the son of Reggie Ingram, Sr. The family moved to Rochester, NY as I recall, and Reggie Sr. may have been involved with community youth programs there.According to Marty:
I don't remember Reggie that clearly but I remember his father perfectly. A kind of thick build, a little overweight, athletic, very friendly. I remember playing football and having a baseball catch with Reggie Sr. when I was about six or seven in Tanahey.
I remember Richard Nixon back in '74
And the final scene at the White House door
And the staff lined up to say good-bye
Tiny tear in his shifty little eye
He said nobody knows me
Nobody understands
These little people were good to me
Oh I'm gonna shake some hands
CHORUS:
Somebody line 'em up
Line 'em all up
Line 'em up
Line 'em all up
Line 'em up
Line 'em all up
Line 'em up
Line 'em all up
At that time my heart was all broke
I looked like ashes and smelled like smoke
And I turned away from my loving kind
Try to leave my body and live in my mind
But it's much too much emotion
To hold it in your hand
They've got waves out on the ocean
They're gonna wear away the land
- Chorus -
Oh I've seen corn in Kansas
And I've seen picket fences
And certain cowboy dances
I've gone lining up for shows
I've been safely placed in rows
Sure I know how it goes
Another day goes by
Little time machine
I'm breaking my brain
Over what it might mean
Just to claim the time
And to turn away
To make today today
Who waits for you
Lonely tired old toad
It's your life laid out before you
Like the broken white line down the center of the doggone road
- Chorus -
Yeah, big moon landing
People all standing up
Smiles for the loved ones
They go walking on down the aisles
Each re-engages stepping into the sun
I watch them turn like pages
One by one by one
- Chorus -
About This Video
Added: August 30, 2007
Ahmet Ertegün of Atlantic Records approached Clyde McPhatter after he left the Dominoes and signed him. McPhatter first recruited several members of his former group, the Mount Lebanon Singers: William "Chick" Anderson (tenor), David Baldwin (baritone), and James "Wrinkle" Johnson (bass), plus David "Little Dave" Baughan (tenor). This aggregation lasted for only a single session (from which "Lucille" was the only song released), after which Atlantic asked McPhatter to form a different group. He finally settled on Gerhart and Andrew Thrasher on baritone and second tenor, respectively, Bill Pinkney on high tenor, Willie Ferbee as bass, and Walter Adams on guitar. This is the group on the second session, which produced the group's first major hit: "Money Honey".
After the session, Ferbee was involved in an accident and left the group and Adams died (to be replaced by Jimmy Oliver). Ferbee was not replaced and the voice parts were shifted around: Gerhart Thrasher became first tenor, Andrew Thrasher was now the baritone, and Bill Pinkney shifted down to bass. The group released several more hits ("Such A Night," [1][2] "Honey Love," "Bip Bam," "White Christmas," and "What'cha Gonna Do") before McPhatter was drafted in May 1954 (after which he pursued a solo career). McPhatter had demanded a large share of the group's profits, which he had been denied in the Dominoes, but, upon his departure, did not ensure that this would continue for his successor. He sold his share of the group to George Treadwell, manager, former jazz trumpeter, and husband of legendary singer Sarah Vaughan. As a result, the Drifters cycled through copious members, none of whom made much money. McPhatter later expressed regret at this action, recognizing that it doomed his fellow musicians to unprofitability.
McPhatter was first replaced by David Baughn, who was on the group's first session. While his voice was similar to McPhatter's, his erratic behavior made him unsuitable in the eyes of Atlantic Records executives. Baughn soon left the group, and was replaced by Cleveland native Johnny Moore (of The Hornets). This lineup had a major R&B hit in 1955 with "Adorable," followed by several others ("Ruby Baby," "I Got To Get Myself A Woman," and "Fools Fall In Love").
In the mid 1950s, the Drifters began working with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, legendary songwriters, who eventually became the group's producers as well. A few fans consider this the group's golden age, inaugurated by the 1956 hit "I Gotta Get Myself a Woman." Low salaries contributed to burnout among the members, particularly Bill Pinkney, who was fired after asking Treadwell for more money. Andrew Thrasher left as well, in protest. Pinkney formed another group, called The Flyers, with lead singer Bobby Hendricks, who would leave to join the Drfiters the next year.
Bill Pinkney was replaced by Tommy Evans (who had replaced Jimmy Ricks in The Ravens). Charlie Hughes, a baritone, replaced Andrew Thrasher. Johnny Moore was drafted in November 1957 and replaced by Bobby Hendricks, but to no success; the group was not able to break into mainstream markets. By early 1958, the lineup was: Bobby Hendricks (lead tenor), Gerhart Thrasher (first tenor), Jimmy Milner (baritone), Tommy Evans (bass), and Jimmy Oliver (guitar).
By May 1958, both Hendricks and Oliver had quit, returning only for a week's appearance at the Apollo Theater. During that week, one of the members got into a fight with the owner of the Apollo. That was the last straw for manager George Treadwell, who fired the entire group. Since Treadwell owned the rights to the name "Drifters," and since he still had a year's worth of bookings for the Apollo, he recruited another group, The Five Crowns, featuring lead singer Ben E. King. The group changed its name to the "Drifters" and went out on the road to tour for almost a year, although this new group had no connection to the prior Drifters. (less)
This video was made just weeks after the tragic death of lead singer, Rudy Lewis, who sang the lead for this song on the actual recording......the song was written by Carole King and Jerry Goffen. The lead singer in this video is Johnny Moore, who takes over for the original lead singer to this song Rudy Lewis who had passed away when this performance was filmed.
Big stories to inaugurate the new year. To begin with an email from Mrs. Decker, a much loved 5th grade teacher from PS 177:I am indeed the Ursula Decker who taught at PS 177. That was early in my career and those days are some of the fondest memories I have to this day. It was great to hear from you and realize that some of our students do think of us. Believe it or not we also retain memories of former teaching assignments and the students we met along the way. After leaving PS 177 I continued my career in the public schools on Long Island, retiring in 1993. Along the way I had 3 daughters, finished my doctoral degree, did some part-time teaching at the university level, got in a lot of traveling and am approaching my 54th year of marriage to my marvelous husband, Gene who is also a teacher and continues to teach part time at the college. Thanks for the contact. Have a great NEW YEAR
Ursula
1. What former resident of 10 Monroe Street saved George Orwell's life during the Spanish Civil War?
2. What late Kver has been described as such?
"He was one of the most important prose writers of 20th century America - a writer whose sentences were composed with the care of poetry, and whose voice came through clearly in both fiction and nonfiction," said Wendy Lesser, editor of The Threepenny Review, where ...... was an advisor and contributor for more than 20 years.
"Lenny had a wonderful, hilarious, dark sense of humor and a great respect for serious things. He was irreplaceable," said Lesser, who first met.....when she was his student at UC Berkeley. .... received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the Pushcart Prize and the National Endowment for the Arts. His work was translated into about 10 languages.
