September 16, 2013
I am a 69 year old New Yorker probably never comfortable in any other place because this is the city that formed me, that taught me the value of diversity and care. I spent my childhood in Manhattan a place now financially as physically unreachable to me as I am poor and unable to walk without pain. I live in a borough where I can see the shoreline of this great city in a borough that is generally dismissed by most (including my children) as backwards and more akin to Suburban New Jersey, although my area is populated mostly by ex residents of Manhattan and we resent the implications of this prejudice.
As with most New Yorkers were are held captive by Real Estate moguls and our borough is truly run by those, without any consideration of the handicapped or poor. But we Staten Islanders continue to vote those moguls into office, in a frenzied rush to re-capture some sense of a bucolic past (a past that has been destroyed by native Staten Islanders - those born in this borough - and not by outsiders as is generally imagined). If you live as I have, for over 40 years in this borough and love its beauty and die in this place you will be listed in the local obituary as "long-time resident" not Staten Islander (this relegated only to those born here).
These days I feel surrounded by liars and cheats my bones picked clean by banks, credit card, insurance, vendors, news reports, student loan givers, doctors, social services, and bureaucracy in general. I have no idea how my children and grandchildren will make their way through the maze that has been created by an oligarchy that is so totally anti every noble idea I used to have of my beloved country.
I came to Staten Island in 1964 at the age of 20 escaping the slum apartment in Brooklyn where I and my husband had spent two horrible years.
This was Brooklyn in the age of block busting and the brownstone in which we lived (for $46 per month) had been the focus of regular flyers warning our landlords (2 elderly Jewish women) that if they stayed n------rs would rape their daughters and steal their belongings. My husband and I came to a housing project in Staten Island in and area which was very suburban and I initially went crazy over the isolation. I had two baby daughters and we couldn't afford a car.
But it was heaven compared to what we had endured in East New York Brooklyn where an older mostly Jewish neighborhood was devolving into a sort of hell.
My high school years had been in Catholic schools were 1/3 of the school was non-white - most of those being excellent students who had scholarships and whom the nuns hoped to convert from Baptist to even a few Jewish girls.
I do remember one incident where we had a lay teacher for the day who was teaching (ad infinitim) the settlement of the original colonies while we fidgeted and yawned for her to stop. She became outraged at one point and berated us all loudly. I remember her words to this day.
"None of you understand the importance of all this!! My ancestors came over on the Mayflower and we founded this country and its values!!! Most of you have no idea what this mean and you don't really understand what it is to be an American!!!"
I kept my head down. A few of my black classmates tried not to snigger. One of my Hispanic classmates caught my eye with a defiant glance. The tension ran through the class like electricity. Even most of the white girls were of Irish ancestry and they had not been taught to care about the English on ships from Spain. I can really say that I felt vibes of hate between both class and teacher and things did not improve. Luckily this lay teacher did not last long and we got back our regular nun who, while being the usual despot was also an outsider and had been taught her life had begun when she married Christ.
East New York Brooklyn in 1961 was a real teacher of hatred I had not experienced before living in Manhattan. Our street, Barbey was in the throes of hopeful real estate regeneration (it still sucks in 2013.) Our block was lined with decaying brownstones inhabited by the remnants of the original Jewish families who were traditionally religious if not orthodox.
The buildings had become unkempt as younger successful children fled to the suburbs or out of state. Some southern blacks were long time tenants and owners but many of the buildings were owned by slumlords now and the people in them very poor and very black.
On the block in back of us was a whole block in which almost every brownstone was well maintained and inhabited by West Indian Blacks. I quickly found out I was a complete outsider to everyone. My husband's name was Polish (we found the apartment in a Polish Jewish newspaper) and people first assumed I was Jewish (I was a very fallen away Catholic who did not care about religion at all). I first found out the West Indians did not like me as I was white and blamed for the block busting that was destroying their neighborhood.
The West Indians also hated the new poor blacks for the same reason ditto the Jewish landlords. The poor blacks hated me because I was white and the West Indians because they were "uppity."
The Jews left behind (and most of the wonderful butchers, fruit & vegetable vendors as well as many fabric stores were comprised of these hard working people) hated the blacks and the West Indians. They were very sweet to me until one day one of them asked about what services I would have for my new baby. When I told them none they were surprised. When I told them I had been brought up Catholic and was not Jewish they became cold to me.
One day in the middle of the night our two landladies left. Now in a four story building there were only two occupied apartments, our of the first floor and an older man on the third. I think there was a fourth and seemed to remember it occupied when we first rented but I am not sure of this. I do remember the loneliness of the building after our landlords escaped selling to a local real estate dealer and remembering that I had to climb four flights with my wet hand washed diapers to hang them up on the tar roof where I constantly ruined my sneakers in the melted tar.
The building was open and I remember one day hanging diapers on the roof and becoming aware that there was a black man watching me. He was older and very quiet and I was not afraid of him. He and I looked over the roof and he talked about living nearby when he was young talking away about his dead grandmother, mother and sister and the home they used to own nearby. He was very sad and I don't think he had a place to live but he had wandered unhindered into our building and up to the roof. His was a kind face and lives among the thousands that haunt my dreams.
Most of my two years in East New York I lived in a constant state of depression and paranoia. I had left home after my mother's almost fatal suicide attempt as well as the half-hearted one of my own. Home life had been a hell and I had escaped into my husband's arms and gotten pregnant first shot. He was still in college and I had to delay my scholarship on account of my pregnancy.
In East New York I was attacked in the hallway of my building at about 4 PM in the evening. I was pregnant four months with my second child and it was dark and drizzling outside but even though I was aware of a man walking some distance behind me I don't remember fear.
He jumped into the hallway behind and grabbed me from behind choking me with both arms. He was big enough to lift me, a big woman, off the ground and I felt myself blacking out. Desperation will give your strength and somehow I managed to use both elbows and give him a powerful blow to his chest and he loosened his grasp for a moment.
I ran screaming into the hallway calling my husband's name (he was as usual watching some sports and never heard me.) No one came out from our door to the right and I realized my attacker was still behind me so I just kept running towards the stairs and up hoping the male tenant on the second floor might come to my rescue.
My attacker paused and decided against following me so he retreated and ran back into the street.
Terrified I crept down the steps and banged on the door to our apartment. My husband opened the door and I just sagged down the wall. My neck was all bruised and we called the police. Remember this was 1962 and generally police were not interested in attempted rape. My call went sort of this way:
"Hello," I squeaked, "Police - I need help -- sommme one just grabbed me in my hallway and tried to choke me..."
"Did you recognize him," they asked.
"No...no.." I squeaked, "bu...ut he's still out there...don't you...don't you need to take a report from me."
"Call us if you see him again," the voice on the phone said and hung up.
That and a subsequent robbery by teens sent me filling in requests for housing in Staten Island where my father had bought a house. And to Staten Island which is my home and where I hope to die.
Enough for one day. I will continue. This blog is for me something to take my mind off the grief I feel every day - something to say about my lost Willowbrook patients (after Heraldo) my lost brothers - something do so I don't cry everyday now that I am trapped.
September 16, 2013
I started this blog going back to the years before I came to my home town of Staten Island NYC because the grief that chokes my heart is renewed every day as I look out of the destruction of my neighborhood and my mind goes back to the 60's when this place seemed symbolic of the hope I felt for myself, my family and my country. All that has ensued since those years is an American story and I needed to tell it.
Back in Brooklyn 1963 East New York now a slum filled with crime and decay I was waiting for acceptance to the middle income projects in Staten Island. I had been traveling back and forth to take care of my brothers and sister because my mother was in Manhattan State and my father hopeless to cope for his house.
I had traveled to two projects in Staten Island, both relatively new, one brand new. About a mile from my father's house in West Brighton a new housing project was being completed in 1964 with a view of the water and a rather lovely surrounding neighborhood of older Victorian Homes.
This project was geared to low income (i.e. POOR) tenants and friends of mine long time NYC residents told me not to apply. They told me they had been residents in various neighborhoods, some growing up in projects and told me straight out - "If it's geared to the poor the neighborhood will fall. You're better off trying for a mixed financial mix and applying to the Stapleton projects where they accept a mix of lower and middle income people. Low income people means welfare and mentally ill and if they should get so lucky to stop being poor they go leaving the dregs behind.
Go to a lower & middle income project where people wait until they get lucky enough to get high income (rare though that is) and they will work hard because they still believe they'll get lucky."
Now this advice seems sort of elitist and as I was now definitely in the bleeding liberal pinko frame of mind I wanted to ignore this advice and live near my father's home. But a visit to Jersey Street (Richmond Terrace Apartments) gave me the willies. Yes it was new but it was all enclosed and it brought memories of me trying to sell school candy to some Columbus Ave project residents. The halls were dark and enclosed with metal doors and as a NYC child I was well trained to find exits or fire escapes to escape the bad man who might do me harm.
The Stapleton Projects (little more than a year old), on the other hand, were constructed on a design imported from the UK estates where a balcony ran along the front of the apartment and there was access to two elevators from every balcony. The apartment complex also surrounded a park area where playgrounds were open to view. The grammar school was visible from the windows of many apartments. It felt cheerful and the people I met were the people I knew from the upper West Side of Manhattan and the West Village, diverse, hard working and open minded.
We were definitely on the poor side rather than lower middle class, but my husband got a raise from $46 per week to $75 and this project accepted us.
To be continued...
