KV "Father's" Visit J.Edgar Hoover: 1935

A follow up to the previous post on Pepper Martin:

Later I was searching for info on Pepper Martin and I also did a search on the Times' website to see if Jay was written up for any high school athletic accomplishments. I discovered this gem instead: A 1935 article of boys from University Settlement visiting J. Edgar Hoover in Washington D.C.
The list of boys included Hy Bueller, Moe Altcheck (my childhood doctor) and Jack Sosinsky (Joel and Ron's uncle). The boy standing to the right of Louis Bohar (misspelling, it should be Behar,a sephardic name) looks like it could be Hy Bueller.

Read this doc on Scribd: hoover-university2

KV Synchronicity 5: Pepper Martin

from wikipedia:

Johnny Leonard Roosevelt “Pepper” Martin (Temple, Oklahoma, February 29, 1904 – McAlester, Oklahoma, March 5, 1965) was a Major League Baseball player. Martin, who was also known as the “Wild Horse of the Osage”, was a third baseman and outfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals' “Gashouse Gang” during the 1930s. He was one of the most colorful and exciting players of his era.
Martin spent seven years in the Cardinals farm system. In 1930 he batted .363 for Rochester in the International League. In 1931 Martin took the place of center-fielder Taylor Douthit who was traded to the Cincinnati Reds. He batted .300 as the Cardinals won the National League pennant. In the World Series that year, Martin batted .500 and stole 5 bases as the Cardinals defeated the Philadelphia Athletics 4 games to 3. During the series Martin was asked how he had learned to run so fast; he replied “I grew up in Oklahoma, and once you start runnin' out there there ain't nothin' to stop you”. That year Martin was selected as male athlete of the year by the Associated Press. Martin was a speedy runner who was often was near the league lead in runs scored, triples and stolen bases. In 1934 Martin helped the Cardinals to win the World Series again as he batted .355 and stole 2 more bases to beat the Detroit Tigers in seven games. Pepper has the third highest World Series career batting average ever at .418, and is tied for ninth in stolen bases with seven. Martin retired at the age of 40 in 1944 having played his whole career with the Cardinals. Over his 13 seasons he had a .298 batting average and stole 146 bases. After retiring Martin tried his hand at managing minor league baseball teams. While managing Miami of the International League he was suspended and fined for choking an umpire.

I was speaking to the KV "enforcer", Bruce, recently. He told me a story about his uncle Jay Bueller, who was a great lower east side ballplayer. (Hy, Bruce's dad, was an excellent athlete as well). Jay had a tryout with the Cardinal organization in the late 30's and became a lifelong friend of his idol, Pepper Martin. Jay even visited him in Oklahoma on several occasions.

Knickerbocker Village: NY Times 6/13/1943

A "gift" from Carol Franken's grandparents

KV Synchronicity 4

The place: A meeting with colleagues learning about blogs and wikis.
Me: Have you seen the knickerbockervillage blog?
Carol: Hey, my grandparents lived in Knickerbocker Village.
The result: The sharing of these great treasures from Carol's family archive collection, scans of her grandparent's lease from 1940. Click for enlargements.

KV Synchronicity 3

The scene: Washington Irving High School
A teacher: I like to a project on the history of the school.
Me: There's great material on that. I happen to know the son of someone of note from my childhood home, Knickerbocker Village, who once taught here.
from wikipedia:

Several famous women attended Washington Irving. Researching an article for the 1960 year book brought up the names Claudette Colbert (Movie star of the 1930s and 40s, notably It Happened One Night), Gertrude Berg (Molly Goldberg star of The Goldbergs on 1940s and 1950s radio and TV), and Bella Spewak, author and librettist with her husband Sam of Broadway plays and movies, including "Kiss Me Kate" (composed by Cole Porter). Also there has been several famous men to attend Washington Irving such as the legendary duo of Damian Rodriguez & Maximo Perez.The author of the book The Courtship of Eddie's Father (later a movie and TV series), Mark Toby taught there in the 1950s.

KV Synchronicity 2

The scene: A bar in the financial district, after the most recent uft delegate's meeting. Note*-no one discussed below is pictured
The action: A union activist and "un hombre con cajones" decries a situation where a colleague, of exceptional character and ability, is being unjustly brought up on charges by a principal seeking revenge.
The dialogue :
Him: A lot of people are afraid and don't want to lend support.
Me: I think my old KV friend might work there. His name is Lee
Him: Lee! Great guy, a real professional. He does his job, he cares about the kids

KV Synchronicity

Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events which occur in a meaningful manner, but which are causally un-related. In order to be 'synchronistic', the events must be related to one another temporally, and the chance that they would occur together by random chance must be very small.

Case 1: My PS177 classmate Susan Miller's younger sister Melanie is a recent addition to our growing crew. She lives in Marlboro, NJ. I was curious about Marlboro and looked it up on wikipedia:

famous residents:
Ronald "Monkey Man" Filocomo, Bonanno crime family associate, convicted murderer of Bonanno capo Dominick "Sonny Black" Napolitano.

Sonny Black was Lefty Ruggiero's (10 Monroe Street) associate. Sonny Black's demise, due to the infiltration of the FBI, was reenacted in the movie "Donnie Brasco."
That's Sonny below (on the right in the picture) Donnie Brasco, real name Joseph Pistone, is on the left

Seward Park Basketball: Chilly Edelstein And Tom "Satch" Sanders

Another sports remembrance from Paul Levine:

I spent many days playing basketball at PS110. Ronnie Edelstein used to play there. His father, Chilly Edelstein, was the coach at Seward Park and apparently played in the NBA or it's equivalent. Also, I used to play with Freddie Sherman who was a couple of years older than me & the captain at Seward. Turns out his mother lived on my floor and I never put the two together. Who knows, Freddy Sherman could be related to Walter Matthau's friend Chubby Sherman?

Above to the left is Tom "Satch" Sanders a Seward Park alumnus and NBA star for the Celtics. He also starred for NYU in college. Below the statistics for the 1948 Trenton team in the American Basketball League. Chilly Edelstein averaged 9 points a game, a lot for those days.

This must be Chilly's son Stewie, who I went with to JHS 12 (Corlear's). He looks just like Stewie would after about 47 years. Maybe he can send us a photo of Chilly.

Executive director of the Universities at Shady Grove, came to the regional higher education center inn 2002. Dr. Edelstein has found his interaction with students to be the most rewarding aspect of his position. He has been impressed by many of the students' career focus and their ability to juggle work and families responsibilities while earning their degree. During his tenure at USG, the number of USM partners has increased as has the number of degree programs. Additionally, he has overseen the construction of SG Building III which will nearly triple the existing classroom space of USG. He has worked closely with Montgomery College and the Montgomery County Public School System to develop programs at USG that meet the higher education needs of the County and the region. Dr. Edelstein is an active member of several Montgomery County organizations. He is on the Board of the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce and serves as the vice chair of its Education subcommittee. He is also a member of the Montgomery County Business Roundtable for Education, the Montgomery County Workforce Investment Board and serves as the chair of the MC/MCPS Cluster Advisory Board for Education. He serves as a member of the Board of Advisors of the Center for Advanced Research in Biotechnology of the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute. In 2006 Dr. Edelstein received a Community Service Award from The Bernie Scholarship Awards Program and the Chairman's Award for his contributions to the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce.

Walter Matthau And Seward Park High School

Paul Levine also sent me a story about Walter Matthau and a Seward basketball player
named Chubby Sherman. It's from an interview that Walter did with sportswriter Ira Berkow

The picture above comes from a 1937 nytimes' article in which Seward played Clinton (and lost) for the city-wide basketball championship. Chubby Sherman played in that game. The full article, including the box score is below:

Read this doc on Scribd: seward-1937

The World Of Our Father's: A Handball Story

The picture is Ben Shahn's. I believe the model was a court on Houston Street, between Eldridge and Forsyth.
Back in March I wrote to some of the crew on the unofficial KV listserve:

Abe Capon was one of the best athletes of my father's friends. He was considered one of the top handball players on the LES and later at Brighton Beach. He would play doubles with Hank Matthow (that's the way he spelled it in his business), Walter's brother. Hank owned an army and navy store on Division Street near the Bowery. He looked just like his brother. Both went to Seward.

Later I found an online record of AAU champion handball players. Hank went to the semifinals in 1951.
Paul Levine wrote to me recently about his step-dad Joe Riesel who was a top handball player as well.

My step father grew up on Pitt St, near Sheriff and Cannon (one of the safest streets, as the old lower east side joke went), in a railroad flat with a bathroom on each floor shared by the apartments on that floor and a bathtub sitting in the middle of the kitchen. In his handball days, poor lower east siders would wear out one sneaker: the righties would wear out the right sneaker dragging the right foot while serving and had to search for a lefty to exchange sneakers with. Similiar story about two guys entering movies for a nickel. Guys would go up and down the line with two cents, in search of guys who had three.

Richard Price At The Tenement Museum

I heard Richard Price at The Tenement Museum last night (4/15/08). Part of the audio I captured is below. Richard talks about his experiences in researching and writing the book. At 1:50 he mentions all the pulp fiction written in the 1950's by guys who experienced life on the lower east side first hand (shades of Jack Karney). At 10:13 he mentions an entry in a police log book (known as the rat book) from 1953 about the execution of the Rosenbergs. The interviewer is Steve Long, the vice president of collections and education at the museum. One disturbing aspect of the visit was the street side presence of workers at the museum protesting their frustrations in securing a union affiliation there. How ironic that a museum that portrays the struggles of immigrants to New York City could possibly be involved in denying workers' rights. I would hope this issue gets resolved.

Richard Price's Lush Life

A great book for anyone with a love of the Lower East Side. A great book period.
The first chapter from the nytimes

The amazon link