Here Comes Summer

A slide show with images taken in late June of 2008 including the Harriet Tubman Triangle at 123rd Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, Fairway Brooklyn and a PS 397K retirement party.
Music:

"Here Comes Summer" was a 1959 song, which was written and performed by Jerry Keller. The song was produced for Keller by Richard Wolf. It reached #14 on the Billboard Hot 100, and #1 in the UK Charts. The song uses the opening quote from the Stephen Foster song "My Old Kentucky Home" ("The Sun Shines Bright"). It was also recorded by The Dave Clark Five in 1970, but wasn't as successful.
1 week at #1 - 14 weeks on chart
Here comes summer
School is out, oh happy day
Here comes summer
I'm gonna grab my girl and run away
Here comes summer
We'll go swimming every day
Oh let the sun shine bright on my happy summer home
Well school's not so bad but the summer's better
Gives me more time to see my girl
Walk through the park beneath the shiny moon
Oh when we kiss she makes my flat top curl
It's summer
Feel her lips so close to mine
Here comes summer
When we meet our hearts entwine
It's the greatest
Let's have summer all the time
Oh let the sun shine bright on my happy summer home
Here comes summer (here comes summer)
Almost June, the sun is bright
Here comes summer (here comes summer)
Drive in movies every night
(Double feature) Double feature
Lots more time to hold her tight
So let the sun shine bright on my happy summer home
Well I'll want to hold my girl beside me
Sit by the lake till one or two
Go for a drive in the summer moonlight
Dream of her love the whole night through
It's summer she'll be with me every day
Here comes summer, meet the gang at Joe's cafe
If she's willing, we'll go steady right away
Oh let the sun shine bright on my happy summer home
(Oh let the sun shine bright) here comes summer time at last

Joe Bruno's Find Big Fat Fanny Fast: Greenwood Lake Chapter 3

Find Big Fat Fanny Fast -Greenwood Lake Part 3
from Joe Bruno who gave me permission to post these chapters on the KV blog.

I'm writing a spoof novel of the mob in the neighborhood called Find Big Fat Fanny Fast. You can find several first drafts excerpts of Find Big Fat Fanny Fast on my FB wall. The book should be finished in a a few months. It will be available in ebook on the internet and in print a few months later. It can be downloaded to Kindle or any of the other ebook readers. It's much cheaper on ebooks.

Joe Bruno's Find Big Fat Fanny Fast: Greenwood Lake

Find Big Fat Fanny Fast - Greenwood Lake
from Joe Bruno who gave me permission to post these chapters on the KV blog.

I'm writing a spoof novel of the mob in the neighborhood called Find Big Fat Fanny Fast. You can find several first drafts excerpts of Find Big Fat Fanny Fast on my FB wall. The book should be finished in a a few months. It will be available in ebook on the internet and in print a few months later. It can be downloaded to Kindle or any of the other ebook readers. It's much cheaper on ebooks.

Joe Bruno's Find Big Fat Fanny Fast: Tony's Drugstore

Find Big Fat Fanny Fast- Tony's Drugstore
from Joe Bruno who gave me permission to post these chapters on the KV blog.

I'm writing a spoof novel of the mob in the neighborhood called Find Big Fat Fanny Fast. You can find several first drafts excerpts of Find Big Fat Fanny Fast on my FB wall. The book should be finished in a a few months. It will be available in ebook on the internet and in print a few months later. It can be downloaded to Kindle or any of the other ebook readers. It's much cheaper on ebooks.

Joe Bruno's Find Big Fat Fanny Fast: Murder in Knickerbocker Village

Find Big Fat Fanny Fast -Murder in Knickerbocker Village
from Joe Bruno who gave me permission to post these chapters on the KV blog.

I'm writing a spoof novel of the mob in the neighborhood called Find Big Fat Fanny Fast. You can find several first drafts excerpts of Find Big Fat Fanny Fast on my FB wall. The book should be finished in a a few months. It will be available in ebook on the internet and in print a few months later. It can be downloaded to Kindle or any of the other ebook readers. It's much cheaper on ebooks.

Joe Bruno's Find Big Fat Fanny Fast: Chapter Three- Part 1

Chapter Three- Part 1 - Find Big Fat Fanny Fast
from Joe Bruno who gave me permission to post these chapters on the KV blog.

I'm writing a spoof novel of the mob in the neighborhood called Find Big Fat Fanny Fast. You can find several first drafts excerpts of Find Big Fat Fanny Fast on my FB wall. The book should be finished in a a few months. It will be available in ebook on the internet and in print a few months later. It can be downloaded to Kindle or any of the other ebook readers. It's much cheaper on ebooks.

Joe Bruno's Find Big Fat Fanny Fast: Introducing Big Fat Fanny

Find Big Fat Fanny Fast- Introducing Big Fat Fanny
from Joe Bruno who gave me permission to post these chapters on the KV blog.

I'm writing a spoof novel of the mob in the neighborhood called Find Big Fat Fanny Fast. You can find several first drafts excerpts of Find Big Fat Fanny Fast on my FB wall. The book should be finished in a a few months. It will be available in ebook on the internet and in print a few months later. It can be downloaded to Kindle or any of the other ebook readers. It's much cheaper on ebooks.

Joe Bruno's Find Big Fat Fanny Fast: The Fulton Fish Market

Find Big Fat Fanny Fast - The Fulton Fish Market
from Joe Bruno who gave me permission to post these chapters on the KV blog.

I'm writing a spoof novel of the mob in the neighborhood called Find Big Fat Fanny Fast. You can find several first drafts excerpts of Find Big Fat Fanny Fast on my FB wall. The book should be finished in a a few months. It will be available in ebook on the internet and in print a few months later. It can be downloaded to Kindle or any of the other ebook readers. It's much cheaper on ebooks.

Joe Bruno's Find Big Fat Fanny Fast: Chapter 2

Chapter Two --- Find Big Fat Fanny Fast
from Joe Bruno who gave me permission to post these chapters on the KV blog.

I'm writing a spoof novel of the mob in the neighborhood called Find Big Fat Fanny Fast. You can find several first drafts excerpts of Find Big Fat Fanny Fast on my FB wall. The book should be finished in a a few months. It will be available in ebook on the internet and in print a few months later. It can be downloaded to Kindle or any of the other ebook readers. It's much cheaper on ebooks.

How You Become King Of The Lower East Side

A compilation of stills and video encompassing the scavenger hunt destinations for the King of the Lower East Side contest.
I had a lot of trouble because I thought Lasky's Shoe Store
and Sosinsky and Sons Shirts would be on the tour and I couldn't find them.
from Newsies

A pair of new shoes with matching laces!
A permanent box at sheepshead races!
A porcelain tub with boiling water!
A Saturday night with the mayor's daughter!
Look at me I'm the King of New York!
Suddenly I'm respectable staring right at ya lousy with stature.
Nobbin' with all the muckety mucks I'm blowing my dough with gowin' deluxe.
And there I be aint I pretty?
It's my city I'm the King of New York.
A corduroy suit with fitted knickers.
A mezzanine seat to see the flickers
Havana cigars that cost a quarter
An editor's desk for the star reporter
Tip your hat, he's the King of New York.
How 'bout that! I'm the king of New York.
In nothing flat he'll be covering Brooklyn to Trenton, our man Denton.
Makin' a headline out of a hunch.
Protecting the weak and payin' for lunch.
When I'm at bat strong men crumble.
Proud yet humble.
I'm (He's) the king of New York.
I gotta be either dead or dreamin'
'Cause look at that pape with my face beamin'
Tomorrow they may wrap fishes in it
But I was a star for one whole minute
Look at me I'm the King of New York.
Aint ya heard? I'm the King of New York!
Holy cow
It's miracle
Pulitzer's cryin'
Weasel, he's dyin'
Flashpots are shootin' bright as the sun
I'm one highfalutin' son-of-a-gun
Don't ask me how
Fortune found me
Fate just crowned me
Now I'm king of New York
Look and see
Once a piker
Now a striker
I'm the king of New York
Victory!
Front page story
Guts and glory
I'm the king of New York!

Pride Goes East: LES Special Scavenger Hunt, June 19, 2010

Tamara Greenfield tells all about this new and unique event that's part of Pride Goes East. The event was coordinated by the Fourth Arts Block.
see the character who would later win the scavenger hunt

I'm Sitting On Top Of The World

I tried to get a shot of Knickerbocker Village, but Confuscius Plaza was in the way.
At The Year of the Tiger Party for Fourth Arts Block
Cooper Square Hotel, June 17, 2010

For years, Manhattan artists have been fleeing to the outer boroughs, chasing the ever-receding rainbow of affordable rent. The artistic community on E 4th St, however, is still vibrant. In 2005, Mayor Bloomberg designated the area as an official Cultural District, and sold eight properties to various arts organizations for one dollar each, including the New York Theater Workshop, La MaMa and the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Tonight's party in the penthouse of the Cooper Square Hotel benefits the so-called Fourth Arts Block, with performances by Sidra Bell Dance, palm readings, a fortune-cookie raffle, a silent auction and hors d'oeuvres from Faustina.

I'm sitting on top of the world,
Just rolling along
Just rolling along
I'm quitting the blues of the world
Just singing a song
Just singing a song
Glory hallelujah, I just phoned the parson
Hey, par, get ready to call
Just like humpty dumpty,
I'm going to fall
I'm sitting on top of the world
Just rolling along
Just rolling along

Samuel Koenig: Obituary 1955

Koenig Obit

Abe Vigoda: Who's Almost Who In KV History

btw, Tessio is not Italian. Abe was born in 1921, but in 1918 has father was living at the above address.
Later the family moved to Brownsville.
About Abe:

Abraham Charles "Abe" Vigoda; (born February 24, 1921) is an American movie and television actor. Vigoda is well known for his portrayal of Sal Tessio in The Godfather, and for his portrayal of Detective Sgt. Phil Fish on the sitcom television series Barney Miller from 1975–1977 and on its spinoff show Fish that aired from February 1977 to June 1978 on ABC. Vigoda was still also appearing on Barney Miller at the same time as he was on Fish during the 1976–1977 TV season; at the start of the 1977–1978 season, his character retired from the police force and left Barney Miller to focus full time on the spinoff.
He made regular appearances as himself (usually in skits relating to his "advanced age") on the television show Late Night with Conan O'Brien, including a cameo on that show's final episode.
Vigoda was born in New York City, the son of Lena (née Moses) and Samuel Vigoda, Jewish immigrants from Russia. His father was a tailor and his brother, Bill Vigoda, was a comic-book artist who drew for the Archie comics franchise and others in the 1940s.
Vigoda was married once, to Beatrice Schy from February 25, 1968 until her death on April 30, 1992. They had one child, a daughter, Carol. Vigoda gained fame through his supporting character roles, notably as elder mobster Salvatore Tessio in The Godfather (1972). He gained further fame playing Detective Sgt. Phil Fish on Barney Miller, and then led its brief spinoff Fish until it was canceled in 1978. Before Barney Miller, he made a few appearances on the ABC TV soap Dark Shadows. He has also appeared in several Broadway productions, including Marat/Sade (1967), The Man in the Glass Booth (1968), Inquest (1970), Tough to Get Help (1972), and Arsenic and Old Lace (1987). His trademark hunched posture and slow delivery of lines made him appear older than he really was.
On January 23, 2009, Vigoda appeared live on The Today Show. He said he was doing well, joked about previous reports of his death and in fact announced he had just completed a voice-over for an H&R Block commercial to air during the Super Bowl. On December 30, 2009 Vigoda was invited back to The Today Show to appear live on the set for Matt Lauer's birthday party. Vigoda was warmly greeted by Lauer who called him "our favorite guest of all times" on the show. Vigoda then sat and discussed his long career with Lauer.
Vigoda appeared alongside Betty White in a Snickers commercial that debuted during Super Bowl XLIV on February 7, 2010.[5] The actor has also been honored with pop culture references, many in connection with false reports of his death (see below). Jazz bassist Eric Revis's song "Abe Vigoda" appears on saxophonist Branford Marsalis's 2009 album Metamorphosen.

Henry Roth's Lower East Side School?

PS 36, built in 1876. Now it's Henry Street Settlement Day Care #3;

The Holy Land Found On The Lower East Side

At 122 St. Marks Place, between Avenue A and First Avenue.

Public National Bank & Trust Company of New York Building: Landmark Designation

Public National Bank

Public National Bank & Trust Company of New York Building

In Call It Sleep Davy meets Leo whose mother works in the Public National Bank on 7th Street and Avenue C

The Public National Bank of New York Building in the East Village is a highly unusual American structure displaying the direct influence of the early-twentieth ­century modernism of eminent Viennese architect/designer Josef Hoffmann. Built in 1923, the bank was designed by Eugene Schoen (1880-1957), an architect born in New York City of Hungarian Jewish descent, who graduated from Columbia University in 1902, and soon after traveled to Europe, meeting Otto Wagner and Hoffmann in Vienna.
Although little remembered today other than as a furniture designer (whose objects are highly sought by collectors), Schoen was for the first half of the twentieth century in the forefront of modern American design, a revered contemporary of many well-known colleagues. He practiced architecture primarily from 1904 until 1925, when he was said to have been inspired to become largely an interior designer after attending the international exposition in Paris, opening his own New York gallery. The New York Times at his death stated that “Schoen was regarded as one of the leading exponents of modern architecture and design and as such helped to develop the movement here.”
This was one of the many branch banks that Schoen designed between 1921 and 1930 for the Public National Bank of New York (Public National Bank & Trust Co. of New York after 1927), which had its headquarters on the Lower East Side. Originally two stories, the structure had a monumental ground-story banking floor and upstairs offices. Clad in light grey granitex (having the color and texture of grey granite) terra cotta (recently painted) above a polished grey granite base, it was designed with an angled corner bay with the entrance, flat capital-less fluted pilasters, and a broad, highly stylized molded cornice with a lower band with bosses, the latter features direct references to Hoffmann’s work.
The entrance is surmounted by notable polychrome Viennese-inspired terra­cotta ornament in the form of a decorative band above which is a cartouche with a wreath of fruit (which originally held a clock) above an eagle, flanked by curvilinear forms and decorative urns. The building’s terra cotta was manufactured by the New York Architectural Terra Cotta Co. Sold in 1954, the building was converted into a nursing home, with the addition of an intermediate floor, and into apartments in the 1980s.

The Italian American Museum: 155 Mulberry Street

an excerpt from the Wall Street Journal, by Ralph Gardner

Until I visited the Italian American Museum last week, I was unaware that Italians, among them the great Metropolitan Opera singer Ezio Pinza, were sent to U.S. detention camps during World War II, though in smaller numbers than Japanese-Americans. "He was at Ellis Island," Dr. Joseph Scelsa, the museum's founder and a professor emeritus at Queens College, said as he pointed out one of the pink cards issued to detainees. "They had to carry them like identity cards. [Mayor] La Guardia was able to get him out after several weeks."The museum is housed in a three-story building at the corner of Mulberry and Grand that was once the Banca Stabile, an institution that opened in 1885 and provided not only traditional banking services but also arranged steamship passage for immigrants and found them housing and even jobs once they arrived. The museum opened at its current location in 2008.There's a frankly hodge-podge cast to the exhibits—organ-grinder carts, hand-carved puppets, Frank Serpico's service revolver and a framed basketball jersey from the Knicks' Danilo Gallinari compete for space and attention with historical artifacts such as the $30 steamship ticket that brought a relative of movie director Francis Ford Coppola to the U.S. in 1903 and a "Black Hand" letter—an extortion note—sent to one of Dr. Scelsa's relatives in 1917. "We will burn the face of your daughter," it reads in part, and for good measure it includes rudimentary drawings of skulls with daggers through them. "Probably stilettos," Dr. Scelsa observed. "They were small gangs that existed at the turn of the century and used the cover of anonymity of the Black Hand. You'd be surprised how many people visit the museum and tell me similar stories."

East Village Memories At The Samuel and Sadie Koenig Garden

I was curious to find out who the Koenigs were. They actually lived at the address of the gardens at 237 E. 7th Street.

The small print at the bottom of the second picture states that 7th Street, between Avenues C and D was known as Political Row because of all of the politicians that live there. That was in 1908
About Sam:

(September 7, 1872 Kingdom of Hungary - March 1955 Manhattan, New York City) was an American lawyer and politician. He came to the United States as a small boy with his parents, and they settled in New York City. He attended the public schools until the age of 13, then went to work as a clerk. While working by day, he studied law in the evening, and graduated from New York University Law School in 1896. In 1891, he entered Republican politics as a campaigner for Jacob Sloat Fassett who was defeated in his run for governor. From then on he was continuously involved in ward politics, eventually becoming the Leader in the Sixth Ward, and managed to get Republican Gustave Hartman elected to the New York State Assembly in 1903 and 1905 in a heavily Democratic district. He was Secretary of State of New York from 1909 to 1910, elected in 1908 but defeated for re-election in 1910.

About Sadie

also known as Sadie Prince — of Manhattan, New York County, N.Y. Married, June 26, 1898, to Samuel S. Koenig. Republican. Presidential Elector for New York, 1920; member of New York Republican State Committee, 1930. Female. Jewish. Died, from a heart attack, in Manhattan, New York County, N.Y., June 18, 1939. Interment at Union Field Cemetery, Ridgewood, Queens, N.Y.

2010 Reunion Memories

bob's memories about lunchtime treats
marv's memories about invented games
steve's memories about kremos
mark's memories about kv weekends
norma's memories about friday puncball games
ron's memories about a dare at the automat
paula's memories about a busted mahjong game
marty's memories about catching a fly ball
howie's memories about hot summers and the sounds from the journal american
marion's kv memories about new year's eve
donald's memories of the knish man
nancy's alfred e. smith houses' summer memories: the taste of ices from savoia's and st. joseph's, the sounds of a capella singing and the smells from the fish market
arlene's memories about frappes from k and k's

Henry Roth On The Lower East Side 4

roth-bio
from Redemption: the life of Henry Roth By Steven G. Kellman and here I thought I was such a "big macher" because I figured out where Roth lived on the les when the information was available in his biography! Last night I heard a discussion about Roth's last book, An American Type . I have to admit I just don't get why Call It Sleep is considered such a masterpiece. There all kinds of reasons given by the panelists as to the motivation for his later writings. The discussion last night barely touched upon the aspect of Roth's life cited below. No wonder he was seeking redemption! By many accounts Roth wasn't the great guy that his editor, Robert Weil, was describing. For most people it is tough to rise above a brutalized childhood (Roth's father) to become the sweetheart that Weil encountered. An excerpt from the nyobserver

A Sister's Angry Letter Unravels Roth Incest Tale, By Elizabeth Manus, May 17, 1998
Did the late Henry Roth, like Ira Stigman, his fictional alter ego in the four-volume autobiographical novel Mercy of a Rude Stream , carry on an incestuous relationship with his sister? A newly revealed letter written to Roth by his younger sister, Rose Broder, and a curious contract agreement between the two, may finally help settle that question. The true nature of Roth's relationship with his sister–hinted at by Roth, tugged at by critics–has been pointed to as the reason for the decades-long writer's block that followed Roth's 1934 publication of the classic Call It Sleep . While finally writing, in veiled form, about brother-sister incest in 1995's A Diving Rock on the Hudson may have unblocked Roth's creative spirit, it unblocked something else in his sister. So troubled was Broder by the portrayal of Ira's lustful relationship with his younger sister that she threatened to sue Roth and his publisher, though it was unclear on what grounds. Eventually, Broder released Roth from the threat by accepting $10,000, and something of arguably even greater value: his agreement to edit out sibling incest material from the already written manuscripts of the remaining two volumes of his opus.

Groucho Marx On Father's Day

The closest Groucho got to the lower east side was the address of his maternal grandparents, Louis and Fanny Schoenberg (or Schonberg). They were living st 376 E. 10th Street from 1880-1885. This information came from a Marx brothers' site Harry Ruby who wrote the song was a Bronx boy. In 1920 he was living at 347 E. 173rd Street

Today, Father, is Father's Day
And we're giving you a tie
It's not much we know
It is just our way of showing you
We think you're a regular guy...
You say that it was nice of us to bother
But it really was a pleasure to fuss
For according to our mother
You're our father
And that's good enough for us
Yes, that's good enough for us.

The Brother Who Sent the Rosenbergs to the Electric Chair

a clip from a film by Clara Kuperberg and Robert Kuperberg, Wichita Films.

events surrounding the release of the film
Fri, 06/18/2010
20th Anniversary Benefit Reception
Join us at one of 20 events in 20 cities in 20 months, to mark the Rosenberg Fund for Children's 20th anniversary!
Meet Robert Meeropol and hear his inspiring story, at a benefit to celebrate 20 years of the RFC's work helping the children of targeted activists in the New York City area and across the country. RFC beneficiary families have been active in the struggles to wage peace; safeguard the environment; preserve civil liberties; and organize on behalf of workers, prisoners, and others whose human rights are under threat.
At the home of Alice Shechter & Lee Ornati
Co-hosted by Rachel Meeropol & Tomas Hunt, Terri Nilliasca & Jeff Meyer, Katie Unger, and Billy Rothberg & Gail Miller
Friday, June 18th
5:00-7:00 pm
Brooklyn, NY (this event is in a private residence but is open to the public. For info including street address, contact Alice with the info below)
To RSVP by June 16th contact Alice at alishec@aol.com or (917) 207-2097
Donations to the RFC, a 501(c)(3) organization, are tax-deductible.

Sat, 06/19/2010
"The Brother Who Sent the Rosenbergs to the Electric Chair"
Join Robert Meeropol,
son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg,
on the 57th anniversary of his parents’ execution
at the New York premiere of a film about his dramatic family history
4:00-6:00 pm (doors open at 3:30)
Judson Memorial Church*
55 Washington Sq. South, New York, NY
(handicap entrance - 243 Thompson)
$10 admission at the door (no advance tickets or reservations)
proceeds benefit the Rosenberg Fund for Children,
celebrating 20 years of helping the children of targeted activists
Following the film, Robert will answer questions; sign copies of his memoir, AN EXECUTION IN THE FAMILY; and describe his 20-year journey leading the Rosenberg Fund for Children.

Henry Roth's Sleepy Serenade

As mentioned before, I believe Roth may have lived at 749 E. 9th Street. The second image is of Henry with his father Hyman, his mother Lena and his sister Rose. It was taken in 1911.
Other images are representative of that era and area of the les from Berenice Abbott
below
an excerpt from the nytimes

Breathing Life Into Henry Roth
By CHARLES McGRATH
Published: May 23, 2010
The writer Henry Roth was a tortured, hard-luck case who at the end life enjoyed an unexpected redemption. Blocked for decades, full of doubt and self-loathing, he began writing again in his late 80s, even though crippled by rheumatoid arthritis, and finished four new novels, two of which he lived to see into print before his death in 1995. Now, almost miraculously, there is a fifth, “An American Type,” which W. W. Norton will publish on June 7.
That the book exists at all is largely due to the efforts of Willing Davidson, a 32-year-old fiction editor at The New Yorker, who in background and bearing couldn’t be less like the prickly, self-doubting Roth, but nevertheless felt a deep connection to his life and work.
“An American Type,” like everything Roth wrote, is autobiographical, and describes a trip he made to the West Coast and back in 1938, hitchhiking and riding on freight trains for part of the way. It’s by far the sunniest thing Roth ever wrote and ends with the marriage of Ira Stigman, his fictional alter ego, to a character called M, a stand-in for Muriel Parker, a composer who was married to Roth for 51 years of Job-like hardship.
Roth’s first novel, “Call It Sleep,” is now considered a classic, a luminous evocation of a Jewish immigrant childhood on the Lower East Side; but when it came out in 1934, it sold poorly and was attacked by left-wing critics for being too artsy and politically unaware. A chastened Roth, then an ardent Communist, determined to write a proletarian novel and worked on it unsuccessfully for years before finally burning most of it. In 1964 “Call It Sleep” was reissued in paperback, and in a front-page essay in The New York Times Book Review the critic Irving Howe called it “one of the few genuinely distinguished novels written by a 20th-century American.” Roth, however, tried to dissociate himself from the novel. “The man who wrote that book at the age of 27 is dead,” he said. “I am a totally different man.” He was living in self-imposed exile in rural Maine, where after a series of odd jobs and a stint as an attendant at the state mental hospital he was working as what he called a “waterfowl dresser,” slaughtering and plucking ducks and geese. He hadn’t published a word in years.

Henry Roth On The Lower East Side 3

Roth Criticism
parts of a critical easy on Roth by
Hana Wirth Nesher

Henry Roth On The Lower East Side 2

roth-les-2
selected pages from Call It Sleep that reference the 9th Street and Avenue C and D area

Henry Roth On The Lower East Side

On Monday June 14 the Museum at Eldridge Street hosting a Tenement Talk on Henry Roth

Henry Roth: A panel at The Museum at Eldridge
A discussion of the works of Henry Roth, author of the classic novel Call It Sleep with Harold Augenbaum, Executive Director of the National Book Foundation, Robert Weil, Executive Editor at Norton, and Willing Davidson, fiction editor at The New Yorker. THIS EVENT IS AT THE MUSEUM AT ELDRIDGE, 12 Eldridge near Division.

 According to Roth's bio he lived for a while on the lower east side. I tried to figure out where and after re-reading parts of Call It Sleep I think I did. If the novel follows fact then the address is 749 E. 9th Street. (See page 432 of the 1964 Avon edition) Supposedly Roth lived on the lower east side between ages 6-9 (1911-1914) before his family moved to East Harlem. If he did his path might have crossed Benny Leonard, Yip Harburg, Sam Levene, Jimmy Cagney and my maternal grandparents. My mother wasn't born until 1919. They all lived on 9th street, near Avenue C. Leonard and Harburg both lived amazingly at 649 . 749 East 9th  is on the NE corner of 9th and Avenue D.  Artie Shaw was living about 6 blocks away. Roth could have gone to nearby PS 36. The book frequently mentions the stables that were nearby.

from kirjasto

Henry Roth was born in Tysmenica, Galicia, Austria-Hungary. His father was a waiter. Roth moved in 1907 with his mother to New York, where his father was already living. From 1908 to 1910 Roth's Yiddish- speaking family lived in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn and in 1910 they moved to the Lower East Side, "a virtual Jewish mini-state", as Roth later noted, and four years later to Harlem, an Irish and Italian neighborhood. Roth graduated from the City College of New York. During his college years he started to write. Roth was encouraged by the poet and professor of English literature Eda Lou Walton, 12 years his senior, with whom he lived in her Greenwich Village house. There he met such writers as Hart Crane and Margaret Mead.
Call It Sleep received moderate critical praise and went soon out of print and was forgotten. The story recorded six years in the life of a Jewish immigrant boy, a six- to eight-year-old David Schearl, in a New York ghetto just prior to World War I. David is shielded by his loving mother. His life turns in a nightmare when his paranoid father is unable to hold a job. David's father is tormented by his lack of success and he becomes increasingly menacing to the son, and is finally convinced that David is not his son. After he has survived a deathly initiation game, David closes his eyes, with his mother beside him, and "one might as well call it sleep."

From the May 23, 2010 4th Annual KV Reunion

I Like The View From The Brooklyn Bridge In June, How About You?

from June of 2008.

I Like The Fourth Ward In June

From images taken in June of 2009. There are a few from the 7th Ward

I like New York in June,
how about you?
I like a Gershwin tune,
how about you?
I love a fireside
when a storm is due.
I like potato chips,
moonlight and motor trips,
how about you?
I'm mad about good books,
can't get my fill,
and Franklin Roos'velt's looks
give me a thrill.
Holding hands at the movie show,
when all the lights are low
may not be new,
but I like it,
how about you?

The 4th Ward Version

I like the 4th Ward In June
How about you?
I like the St Joe bells' tune
How about you?
My old pals at my side
With a rooftop view
All the wise ass and funny quips
Skelly and punchball tricks
How about you?
I'm proud of KV writers' books
Can't get my fill,
and Tina Pappas' looks
Give me a thrill.
Hearing tales while wine at Forlini's flows,
Especially when old memories grow
May not be new,
But I like it,
How about you?

General Henry Warner Slocum

from ephemeralny

June 15th marks the 106th anniversary of the General Slocum disaster, when a paddle steamer packed with mothers and children on a church trip caught fire in the East River.
More than 1,000 people, mainly residents of the East Village’s huge German community, perished.
Most New Yorkers know of the S.S. General Slocum. But who was General Slocum the man, and why did his name land on excursion boat associated with the greatest loss of life in city history, aside from  9/11?
Henry Warner Slocum was a Union general during the Civil War who fought in Gettysburg. Prospect Park is home to a heroic bronze statue of Slocum on horseback in battle.
After the war, he became a congressman from New York, then served as commissioner of public works for the city of Brooklyn.
When he died in 1894, thousands of Brooklynites paid their respects by lining the streets to watch his funeral procession go from his home on Clinton Avenue to Lafayette Street, South Oxford, Hanson Place, and then Fourth Avenue.
He was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery unaware of the horror that occurred aboard his namesake ship.

After reading the above I investigated the Clinton Street address and found Henry Warner Slocum living at 457 Clinton Avenue in the 1880 census. It looks like the same house is still there!
I included images I took of the house along with other images I found of Henry Slocum. The music is 
Marching Through Georgia

"Marching Through Georgia" (1865)
by Henry Clay Work
1.
Bring the good old bugle, boys, we'll sing another song;
Sing it with spirit that will start the world along,
Sing it as we used to sing it, fifty-thousand strong,
While we were marching through Georgia.
CHORUS
Hurrah! Hurrah! We bring the jubilee!
Hurrah! Hurrah! The flag that makes your free!
So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea,
While we were marching through Georgia.
2.
How the darkeys shouted when they heard the joyful sound!
How the turkeys gobled which our commissary found!
How the sweet potatoes even started from the ground,
While we were marching through Georgia.
(CHORUS)
3.
Yes, and there were Union men, who wept with joyful tears,
When they saw the honored flag they had not seen for years;
Hardly could the be restrained for breaking forth in cheers,
While we were marching through Georgia.
(CHORUS)
4.
"Sherman's dashing Yankee boys will never reach the coast!"
So the saucy Rebels said, and 'twas a handsome boast;
Had they not forgot, alas! to reckon with the host,
While we were marching through Georgia.
(CHORUS)
5.
So we made a thoroughfare for Freedom and her train,
Sixty miles in latitude, three hundred to the main;
Treason fled before us, for resistance was in vain,
While we were marching through Georgia.
(CHORUS)

More on General Slocum

Henry Warner Slocum (September 24, 1827 – April 14, 1894), was a Union general during the American Civil War and later served in the United States House of Representatives from New York. During the war, he was one of the youngest major generals in the Army and fought numerous major battles in the Eastern Theater and in Georgia and the Carolinas. Controversy arose from his conduct at the Battle of Gettysburg, where he was accused of indecision and a dilatory advance to the battlefield, earning him the derogatory nickname "Slow Come".
Slocum was born in Delphi, a hamlet in Onondaga County, New York. He attended Cazenovia Seminary and worked as a teacher. He obtained an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he did well academically—considerably better than his roommate, Philip Sheridan. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the 1st U.S. Artillery on July 1, 1852. He served in the Seminole War in Florida and at Fort Moultrie in Charleston Harbor, married Clara Rice in 1854, and was promoted to first lieutenant on March 3, 1855. He resigned his commission October 31, 1856, and settled in Syracuse, New York.
Slocum had studied law while bored at garrison duty in the army. He was admitted to the bar in 1858 and practiced in Syracuse. He served as the county treasurer and was elected to the State assembly in 1859. During this period he also served as an artillery instructor in the New York Militia with the rank of colonel.
[At the outbreak of the Civil War, Slocum was appointed colonel of the 27th New York Infantry, which was a two-year regiment mustered in at Elmira, New York. He led the regiment in Maj. Gen. David Hunter's division at the First Battle of Bull Run, where his regiment suffered 130 casualties and he was wounded in the thigh. In August 1861, he was appointed brigadier general of volunteers and commanded the 2nd Brigade, Maj. Gen. William B. Franklin's 1st Division, I Corps during the Peninsula Campaign and the 1st Division, VI Corps at the Seven Days Battles, distinguishing himself at the Battle of Gaines' Mill.
On July 25, 1862, Slocum was appointed major general of volunteers to rank from July 4, the second youngest man in the Army to achieve that rank. Still in command of the 1st Division, he led it covering the retreat of Maj. Gen. John Pope after the Second Battle of Bull Run. At Crampton's Gap during the Battle of South Mountain, he and his subordinate officers overrode their indecisive corps commander, Maj. Gen. William B. Franklin, assaulting the enemy line behind a stone wall and routing it. On October 20, 1862, he assumed command of the XII Corps after its commander, Maj. Gen. Joseph K. Mansfield, was killed at the Battle of Antietam, a battle where Slocum's division was kept in reserve. He led the corps in the Battle of Fredericksburg (where he fortunately arrived too late on the scene to see any real action in that Union catastrophe) and the Battle of Chancellorsville, where he commanded the right wing, including his corps and those of Maj. Gens. George G. Meade and Oliver O. Howard, a force of 46,000 men. Slocum executed well and maneuvered his wing into the rear of Gen. Robert E. Lee's army, only to be halted prematurely at Chancellorsville by Army of the Potomac commander Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker.[4] He publicly criticized Hooker after the battle and was one of the "cabal" of generals that attempted to have him removed from command.
Slocum was known as an unassertive, exceedingly careful, by-the-book officer. By the summer of 1863, he was relatively young, at 36, to be a major general, but he possessed a manner that inspired confidence in his men. When Hooker was relieved of command of the Army of the Potomac, Slocum, being the most senior general in that army, was in line for command. However, he was not seriously considered, and agreed to serve under Meade.
At the Battle of Gettysburg, Slocum received some criticism for his corps' slow march to the battlefield, which led to his derisive nickname, "Slow Come". The XII Corps stopped at Two Taverns on the Baltimore Pike, about 5 miles southeast of the battlefield, by midmorning on July 1, 1863. Sometime between 1:30 and 2 p.m., he received an urgent message from Maj. Gen. Howard requesting immediate reinforcements at Gettysburg. Slocum later claimed that he had been unaware of the start of the battle, possibly because of an "acoustic shadow" caused by intervening hills. Officers on his staff, however, reported that by 1 p.m. they heard the sound of cannon, increasingly heavy musketry fire, and could see smoke rising high over the hills and the bursting of shells. In any event, the receipt of the message from Gen. Howard was clear evidence and unrelated to the acoustic situation.
Historian Larry Tagg claims that Slocum "spent the entire afternoon vacillating, neither bringing forward his corps nor going ahead himself to take command by virtue of his rank." Some historians have explained Slocum's indecision by citing the "Pipe Creek Circular", Meade's contingency plan for a defensive line in Maryland, saying that it directed Slocum to stop at Two Taverns and into thinking that Meade wished to avoid a general engagement at Gettysburg. However, Meade's supplementary order to Slocum, which placed the V Corps as well as the XII Corps under his direction, explicitly made any retrograde movement dependent on the decisions of Maj. Gen. John F. Reynolds in Gettysburg. (Reynolds had been killed earlier that day, but Slocum was unaware of that fact. The actions in Gettysburg made any immediate provisions of the circular irrelevant.)
It took the arrival of three additional messengers at Slocum's headquarters before he moved into action. Captain Daniel Hall, carrying a message sent at 3 p.m. by Gen. Howard, considered Slocum's response to Howard's request to be "anything but honorable, soldierly, or patriotic."[10] Some students of the battle believe Slocum could have mitigated the rout of the XI Corps if he had arrived earlier than 6 p.m. on July 1 and had marched both of his divisions directly up the Baltimore Pike to provide reinforcements. Historian Edwin Coddington, otherwise critical of Slocum's dilatory response, found that it was highly doubtful whether they could have deployed beyond the town in time to mount a counterattack in support of the retreating XI Corps.
As the ranking general on the field, Slocum commanded the army for about six hours after the fighting that day, until Meade arrived after midnight. Meade planned an attack from the Power's Hill area into the Confederate left flank, to be led by Slocum the following day, utilizing the V Corps and the XII Corps as the army's "right wing". Slocum resisted the suggestion, claiming the terrain was too difficult for an assault, but he continued to fancy himself the right wing commander for the rest of the battle, leaving Brig. Gen. Alpheus S. Williams temporarily in command of his XII Corps during this period.
When Meade ordered Slocum to send the entire XII Corps to assist the defense against Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's assault on the Union left flank on July 2, Slocum wisely recommended holding one brigade back in its position on Culp's Hill. This brigade, under Brig. Gen. George S. Greene, was able to hold out against a massive Confederate assault and saved the critical hill for the Union.
After Gettysburg, the XI Corps and XII Corps were sent to Tennessee in the Western Theater, under the command of Joseph Hooker. When Slocum found out he was going to be serving under Hooker, he submitted two letters of resignation to President Abraham Lincoln stating his derogatory opinion of Hooker as both an officer and a gentleman. Lincoln refused the resignation and assured Slocum he would not have to serve under Hooker. A compromise was reached whereby one division of the corps, under Slocum, was assigned to protect the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad while the other division served directly under Hooker. During the summer of 1864, Slocum commanded the District of Vicksburg and the XVII Corps of the Department of the Tennessee.
When Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson was killed in action during the Atlanta Campaign, command of Army of the Tennessee opened up, and when Hooker did not get it he resigned his commission. Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman selected Slocum to command the new XX Corps (formed from the remnants of the XI Corps and XII Corps). Slocum's former XII Corps men cheered their previous commander's return. When Atlanta fell to Sherman on September 2, 1864, Slocum's corps was the first to enter the city.
At the start of the Franklin-Nashville Campaign, Sherman left Slocum in command of 12,000 troops in Atlanta as Sherman pursued Confederate Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood and his army. Sherman later placed Slocum in command of the newly created Army of Georgia, composed of the XX Corps and the XIV Corps from the Army of the Cumberland, which served as the left wing in Sherman's March to the Sea and Carolinas Campaign. The other wing, consisting of the XV and XVII Corps of the Army of the Tennessee, was commanded by Oliver O. Howard. Upon reaching Savannah, Slocum recommended to Sherman that Confederate Gen. William J. Hardee's corps, whose only escape route was north over a causeway, be cut off. But Sherman rejected Slocum's plan, and Hardee escaped, to fight again at Bentonville.
During the Carolinas Campaign, Slocum's army was heavily engaged at the Battle of Averasborough and the Battle of Bentonville, where Slocum successfully held off a surprise assault by Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. After the Confederate surrender, Slocum commanded the Department of the Mississippi before resigning from the Army on September 28, 1865.
Slocum ran as the Democratic candidate for Secretary of State of New York in 1865, but was defeated by fellow Gettysburg General Francis C. Barlow. After resuming work as a lawyer, and declining an offer to return to the U.S. Army as a colonel, he was elected as a Democrat to the 41st and 42nd Congresses (March 4, 1869 – March 3, 1873). Slocum worked in Congress for the exoneration of Maj. Gen. Fitz John Porter who was court-martialed after the Second Battle of Bull Run. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1872. Instead, he resumed the practice of law in Syracuse. He was appointed president of the department of city works of Brooklyn, New York in 1876 and was involved in many civic improvements, from surface transportation to the Brooklyn Bridge, where his name is prominent on a bronze tablet. He advocated unsuccessfully for having no bridge tolls.[13] He was again elected in 1882 as a representative-at-large to the 48th Congress (March 4, 1883 – March 3, 1885). He was president of the Board of Trustees of the New York State Soldiers' and Sailors' Home in Bath, New York, and was a member of the Board of Gettysburg Monuments Commissioners. Henry Slocum died in Brooklyn, New York, and is interred at Green-Wood Cemetery, where Gen. Porter also is interred.
A steamship, the General Slocum, was named for him; it had a disastrous fire onboard in 1904 with much loss of life. Fort Slocum, New York, guards the entrance to New York Harbor from Long Island Sound. A statue of Slocum is in Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn.

Egg Rolls And Tuchis

This elderly gent was not transfixed by these Egg Rolls at the Eldridge Street event on June 6th. It just appears that way. I certainly was.
I had a brief cnversation with him because he was wearing a Minnesota Twins button. I thought he was a friend of Howie, the KV Hebrew Hammer and Minnesota Twin fanatic. He wasn't, but he said he had friends in Minneapolis and always liked the team.

Egg Rolls And Egg Creams, Part 3: June 6th, 2010

From images taken at the event as well as at the Hester Street Vendor's Mart.

Egg Rolls And Egg Creams, Part 2: June 6th, 2010

from the Eldridge Street Synagogue blog

Our numbers for our annual Egg Rolls & Egg Creams Festival are in, and we are proud to share that over 8,000 people joined us for an afternoon of song, dance, crafts and food this past Sunday! Special guests included United States Congresswoman Nydia Velasquez, State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, State Senator Daniel Squadron, Council Member Margaret Chin, and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, whose office provided support for the festival. Thanks to all of those who braved the heat, thunderstorm warnings and threat of tornadoes to make this our best Egg Rolls ever. If you missed it, not to worry: the 11th annual festival is only a year away!

Egg Rolls And Egg Creams, Part 1: June 6th, 2010

from the Eldridge Street Synagogue blog

Our numbers for our annual Egg Rolls & Egg Creams Festival are in, and we are proud to share that over 8,000 people joined us for an afternoon of song, dance, crafts and food this past Sunday! Special guests included United States Congresswoman Nydia Velasquez, State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, State Senator Daniel Squadron, Council Member Margaret Chin, and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, whose office provided support for the festival. Thanks to all of those who braved the heat, thunderstorm warnings and threat of tornadoes to make this our best Egg Rolls ever. If you missed it, not to worry: the 11th annual festival is only a year away!