August 2, 1926 - Brooklyn

[Note: To see large scans of Papa's letter, click the thumbnail images on the right of this page.]

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New York Aug 1. 1926

August 2, 1926

9 P.M.

My dear Jeanie: -

I am glad at this time to inform you
that Honey is O.K. I called up Rose
just before, Sally answered the phone
she said that he isn't home any more
he is all well and at this time playing
outside with the kids.¹

I tried to call up your father but there
was no answer, I suppose that he must
be in the restaurant now.²

I was in C.I. last night, I took the
Iron Steamboat to the Battery, oh how
it was lonesome, my other friends do
not seem to interest me much now. -- ³

Oh Jeanie, you ought to be glad to
be away from the City, this is another
hot day like those of 2 weeks ago
a little shower would be a great relief,⁴

I do not write much now as I am a little
fatigued from business, but one of this weeks
letters will surely be a bigger one.

Regards to dear mother.

With love,

Harry

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1 - Honey, as we've mentioned before, was the nickname for Harold, the son of my grandmother's sister Rose. My grandmother and great-grandmother, who were both vacationing at the Lakeside Inn in Ferndale, NY when Papa wrote this letter, would have been anxious to hear about Harold's health if he had been ill. My mother tells me that no one in my grandmother's family liked to use telephones, so this may have been the first news they had of Harold's recovery.

2 - My great-grandfather was, according to family lore, a rather imperious, traditional sort of man. As such, he certainly wouldn't have been able to cook for himself, so he must gone out to eat a lot when his wife and daughters weren't around. I imagine he ate at the same restaurant all the time since Papa refers to it only as "the restaurant" and not by name.

3 - The Iron Steamboat Company started running a ferry from Manhattan to Coney Island in the late 1800's, and at the time Papa wrote this letter would drop its passengers exclusively at Steeplechase Pier. (Steeplechase Pier was was an entrance to Steeplechase Park, one of Coney's most famous amusement parks. The Iron Steamboat Company started bringing passengers there in 1911.) The undated postcards below (from a site hosted at USGenNet.org) show a couple of Iron Steamboats in action:



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Papa seems to attribute his loneliness and lack of interest in his friends to my grandmother's absence, but, interestingly, this isn't the first time he's been hit with a blue mood on a Coney Island ferry. His June 22, 1924 diary entry describes a similar experience:

The heat chased me out
to Coney Island, where I
took the first dive in the
cool ocean. Lonely I spent
there several hours and
in the evening I certainly
was refreshed by the cool
ocean breezes on the boat
ride back to town.

I could have stayed on the
island later, but I escaped
the gay throngs on the boardwalk
there was no place for a lone
sad man, to get that boat, but
on the boat again were gay couples
which in my loneliness tended to
make me sadder.

Papa wrote this diary entry a few weeks after his father's death, a time when he was subject to long bouts of melancholy. In subsequent weeks he would visit Coney Island frequently, but he often felt low and would occasionally take leave of his friends to say kaddish in a nearby synagogue. I wonder, then, if he continued to associate Coney Island with those difficult times and if, when he wrote the above letter to my grandmother two years later, his mournful memories triggered his "lonesome" feelings and his seemingly inexplicable desire to separate from his friends.

I've also speculated that crowded boats full of people like himself recalled even more distant memories of his passage to America and, by extension, the family he left behind and missed so terribly. Did all this make his longing for my grandmother even more keen, his loneliness more pronounced?

4 - Temperatures were at 88 and rising on the day Papa wrote this letter, though the late July heat wave he refers to was even worse, with temperatures topping off at 97. The New York Times headlines of the day told tales of massive Coney Island crowds and heat-related deaths and prostrations (see references below). It was certainly a few degrees cooler and less dangerous in "The Mountains", as my grandmother called the Catskills, where the Lakeside Inn was located.

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References:

• Information on the Iron Steamboat company appears in How We Got to Coney Island (via Google Books).
• The Wikipedia entry on Steeplechase Park has some good basic information and links to interesting Coney Island sites
  
• BREAK IN HEAT WAVE ENDS 97-DEGREE DAY IN WHICH TEN DIE; Forty-three Are Prostrated as City Swelters in Hottest July 22 on Record Here. - The New York Times, July 23, 1926
• HEAT KILLS 3 MORE; MERCURY FALLS, BUT HUMIDITY GRIPS CITY; 24 Prostrations Are Reported Here on the Third Day of the Wave. - The New York Times, July 24, 1926
• High Humidity and Heavy Fog Stifle City; Mercury Up to 88; Showers Expected Today - The New York Times, August 3, 1926
• Four Die, 13 Prostrated as City Swelters; Mercury at 92; Some Hope of Relief Today - The New York Times, August 4, 1926

Tuesday Sept 30

2nd day
Visited Mr. Surduts home
this evening, and then
went to a meeting of the
C.I. Talmud Torah

Interesting but it tired
me out so.

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Matt's Notes

"2nd day" refers to the second day of Rosh Hashanah, a.k.a. the Jewish New Year, one of several major milestones clustered on the Jewish calendar in early fall. As I've noted over the past few days, Papa would have taken this holiday's focus on repentance, renewal and self-evaluation quite seriously, and today he demonstrates his religious state of mind by riding all the way out to Sea Breeze Avenue in Coney Island for Torah study.¹ (I expect he developed his connection to the Coney Island Talmud Torah during the summer, when he would frequently visit Coney Island with friends but take leave in the evenings to say Kaddish for his father in the Coney Island Synagogue.)

As we've also noted, these were the first High Holy Days Papa would observe since his father died back in May. His diary entries over the past few weeks have been either non-existent or cursory, indicating, I think, how emotionally overwhelmed he now feels, all his homesickness and unhappiness amplified, mixed together, adding up to a feeling too exhausting to put in words. Remember, too, that Papa's father was a Talmud Torah teacher himself, so Papa's presence in a Talmud Torah would have brought forth an additional torrent of memories and emotions, probably surprising in their intensity and timing. (I can't help but allow my personal experience to fuel this speculation; even eleven years after my own father's death I find myself ambushed by, flooded with, unexpected feelings at inopportune times). No wonder his trip to Coney Island tired him out.

-----------------

This entry contains the name of a person whose home Papa visited, but I can't quite read it. It looks like "Mr Surdut," but that doesn't seem right. Any thoughts?



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References:

1 - The 1919-1920 American Jewish Yearbook lists a Coney Island Talmud Torah on Sea Breeze Avenue. Subsequent editions of the Yearbook, including those covering 1924, cut their listings of local educational organizations way down, so I haven't yet confirmed that the Coney Island Talmud Torah still existed at that location in 1924. Still, it seems like safe bet. The Ocean Parkway stop on the Brighton Beach BMT line (which seems to have evolved into today's Q) was just a couple of blocks away.

Sunday June 29

Another day in Coney Island
with the boys, another dip
in the ocean.

We took a locker for the
season at Hahns at 31 st. sr
and went back to city with
running board of Rothblum's
auto.

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Matt's Notes

I thought Papa wrote "we took a locker for the season at Hahus at 3rd. st." when I initially transcribed this entry, and I figured it might refer to a street intersection or a public park or something like that. But, thanks to the good people who aided my inquiry into the matter at the coneyisland.com message boards, we now know that Papa was talking about Hahn's Baths at West 31st Street. This map from The Coney Island History Project shows that Hahn's was right on the Boardwalk and adjacent to the much larger Roosevelt baths (a housing development now stands in their place).

Interestingly, the Coney Island History Project also features several studio shots of people sitting in prop cars, so I wonder if the photo of Papa below was taken in a Coney Island photo studio:



The real car he rode in was, as we discussed during the first appearance of "Rothblum's auto" back in March, was probably a Model T sedan like the one below:


I asked my friend Sixto, who earns a fat salary as the Director of Automotive Research for Papa's Diary Project and is no stranger to New York City history, what it would have been like for Papa to ride the running board of a car all the way from Coney Island to the Lower East Side. Wouldn't the roads have been less congested and faster-moving than they are today, even with slower cars? Was Papa some kind of crazed daredevil to attempt such a trip? No, says Sixto:

Many cars had running boards (and they were very
sturdy, I've stood on several although not while
moving)...

By the mid 20's the city could be quite congested with
traffic at times so it could have taken a long time. I
wouldn't be surprised if they sat in a traffic jam or
two leaving the very popular Coney Island area. June
29th was a Sunday, there could have been half a
million people there easily and probably more, and
while most took the subway, I'm sure there were also a
lot of autos on the street.

Good to know. Meanwhile, a world away in midtown Manhattan, the Democratic Convention took a Sunday break from its contentious proceedings. This allowed pundits time to speculate on how damaging the fight over anti-Klan language in the Democratic platform would be (as Will Rogers noted in a New York Times article, "It is a Sunday...so they can't do anything. If you can keep a Democrat from doing anything, you can save him from making a mistake. ")

I'm sure Papa was distressed, as were many other Democrats, over the convention's ongoing troubles. By now it was clear to most realistic observers that neither William McAdoo nor Al Smith, the frontrunners who stood on opposite sides of the Klan debate, would be able to muster enough votes to secure the nomination in an early ballot, if at all (as a Herald Tribune editorial pointed out, the whole debate was "portentous of disintegration.") By contrast, the Zionist Organization of America had just held its twenty-seventh annual convention in Pittsburgh and, without much ado, reelected Louis Lipsky as its chairman. Perhaps, as Papa sat at home that night glowing with sunburn and reading the evening papers, he was happy to know that at least one of the organizations he cared about had managed to behave itself.

--------------

Update:

Here are a bunch of cars in the real world (this is a detail from a 1923 photo of Coney Island's Dreamland parking lot). Check out the groovy motorcycle at left, too:





References:

• Will Rogers Runs Into One Delegation That He Admits He Is Unable to Rope
  (from the June 30th, 1924 New York Times)
• SOCIETY OF ZIONISTS ELECTS 1924 OFFICERS; Louis Lipsky of New York Again Chosen Chairman -- Great Palestine Work Described. (from the June 30th, 1924 New York Times)
• NEW YORK.; Peril to Party Seen. (from the June 30th, 1924 New York Times)
• TEXT OF THE KLAN DEBATE; Arguments For and Against Censuring Order by Name. (from the June 29th, 1924 New York Times)

Saturday June 28

Went this morning to
Shapiro, and went to
services in a Borough Park
Temple, later visited with
him Harry Eisenkraft
and winded up the day
in Coney Island where
I went to the evening services
in a synagogue there

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Matt's Notes

Papa hasn't mentioned his Saturday worship habits that much throughout his diary, so I'm not sure if he typically went to synagogue twice on Saturdays or if this day was an exception for some reason. As far as I can tell it was not a Jewish holiday (Shevuoth was three weeks earlier) or a notable milestone in his mourning process (his father died five weeks ago). If you can enlighten me in any way, please write or drop a comment.

We do know the locations of Coney Island synagogues of the 20's thanks to the fantastic Coney Island History Project (via a tip on the coneyisland.com message boards) so do yourself a favor and check out some of the site's maps and information. For a number of reasons I think Papa went to the synagogue at West 31st street (listed on this map as Center Bikur Cholem) with his friends Shapiro and Eisenkraft, though I'd like to confirm this somehow.

Also among the throngs at Coney were 5,000 or so Democratic Convention delegates on an outing organized and led by New York's Mayor Hyland himself (according to the New York Times, they were "escorted by the Police, Fire and Street Cleaning Departments' bands to Steeplechast and Luna parks" among other distractions). They probably wished they could have stayed out there, too. The Convention proceedings at at Madison Square Garden had become rather sticky, due in part to 80-plus degree temperatures but mostly to the continuing battle over the influence of the Klan on the party platform. With balloting about to start, the Klan-induced schism was dominating all other Convention story lines, and delegates were digging in for a long fight.

----------------

Update:

Shows you what I know. My mother writes:

Religious Jews say Kaddish for the entire year, morning and night. When Papa died, Cousin Jeanie and Aunt Clara gave money to some organization on the lower east side, where aged men say Kaddish for the designated person, particularly if they are unfortunate enough to have no sons to do it.

And:

I just remembered the name of the lower East side organization that said Kaddish for Papa. It was called The Old Sages of Israel.

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The Coney Island History Project also has a photo of a brochure touting Coney Island's role as an entertainment destination for Democratic Convention Delegates.

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Update 10/30/07 - After The New York Times Sunday City section published a story on Papa's Diary Project on October 14th, I got an e-mail from the grandson of the above-mentioned Harry Eisenkraft. It looks like Papa's father was the brother of Harry's mother (making Papa and Harry cousins and the man who called me my own distant cousin). The photo below shows Harry Eisenkraft and his wife, Jennie, on their wedding day.

Sunday Jun 22

The heat chased me out
to Coney Island, where I
took the first dive in the
cool ocean. Lonely I spent
there several hours and
in the evening I certainly
was refreshed by the cool
ocean breezes on the boat
ride back to town.

I could have stayed on the
island later, but I escaped
the gay throngs on the boardwalk
there was no place for a lone
sad man, to get that boat, but
on the boat again were gay couples
which in my loneliness tended to
make me sadder.

--------------------------

Matt's Notes

Papa's description of his lonely trip to Coney Island reminds me of his New Year's Eve entry, when he used similar words to describe the sense of isolation and longing he felt among the "gay throngs." It's a cinematic, melodramatic scenario in which the fine weather and ocean vista remain nearly unseen as we maintain tight focus on a single, sad man; in which happy couples materialize and whirl toward him from every angle like leering funhouse ogres; in which his only moment of respite comes when he makes his way to the bow of the Coney Island ferry, turns away from his fellow passengers and their contentment, faces lower Manhattan, and closes his eyes against the "cool ocean breezes."



Of course, to cut from Papa, lonely in Times Square on New Year's Eve to Papa, lonely in Coney Island on the cusp of summer, is to mislead the audience. A casual viewer might see only a montage of a man boxed in by melancholy, a man who wanders, unmoved, from throng to throng without allowing anything to intrude upon his detachment. Yet the pages of his diary attest to six months of unrelenting personal change: a new job, a new apartment, two new nephews, a new title in a new Zionist organization. And, more importantly, a new world: a world without his father; a world without the illusion of an untouched, unchanged childhood home; a world without the prospect, long-treasured, of returning to what he once knew.

Six months earlier, he pushed through the crush of Times Square and wondered why he felt so melancholy. He need not wonder anymore. Instead, the question brewing on his boat ride to Manhattan is how he will find something new now that his old life, an ocean away and eleven years gone, is finally, truly lost.

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Image Source: View of the Boardwalk and Beach from Steeplechase Pier, 1923. Courtesy of Brooklynpix.com.

Thursday July 10

C.I.

Sent home $15
5 for Mother, 5 Gittel,
3 Ettel, and 2 for Fule

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Matt's Notes

Papa has been spending a lot of time at Coney Island since he and his friends took a locker for the season at Hahn's Baths on the Boardwalk at 31st Street. I don't have any photos of Hahn's, but I do have this picture of what a Boardwalk bath house (in this case the Washington Baths at 21st street¹) would have looked like in the 20's:

Here it is a little closer:












And closer still:














As nice as it was for him to spend his days at the beach, Papa would have preferred to be at work. He was on a forced vacation due to his factory's slack season, but he disliked idleness and, especially in the aftermath of his father's death, dreaded free time, saw each unoccupied moment as a hazardous, risky invitation to depressing, worried thoughts.

He had also vowed to give more support to his family in the old country now that his father was gone, but working less obviously made this more difficult. I think that accounts for the careful distribution, and this entry's careful accounting, of the $15 he sent home. I'm sure he gave to each person according to his perception of her needs, with his newly-widowed mother and his sister Gitel, who recently let him know she and her family were starving, getting the most and Ettel and Fule, the oldest and youngest sisters respectively, getting the least.

Regardless of Papa's financial constraints, his siblings surely analyzed and discussed whatever messages, preferences and signs of failing generosity his disbursement described. If his previous descriptions of their attitudes are accurate, they thought the streets of New York were paved with gold and were sure he held out on them. Papa has described of both his guilt over not having the means to do more and, in one unusually dark moment, his resentment of their demands, and I can't help but find some signs of related tension in this entry. He has never described who got what in such detail, and he also leaves out his brother Isaac, who has been the most vocal about his dissatisfaction with Papa's support. Did Papa not name Isaac for this reason, or did he feel that Isaac, as a man, did not need as much help?

In any event, the women Papa mentions above are pictured below. They are, clockwise from the bottom right: Gittel (in a photo from 1938) Ettel (in a photo from 1895) his mother, Fagale (from an undated photo, but probably taken in the 1910's) and Fule (in the photo with Gittel from 1938).

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References

1 - According to a 1930's Coney Island directory archived at the Coney Island History Project, the Washington Baths were a place "Where young and old enjoy the swimming pool, handball courts, athletic fields, and tennis courts" and also "nude sun bathing." The same brochure also touts "Baby Incubators," "where premature infants first see the light of day. An educational journey through a miniature hospital." If that grabs your interest, do yourself a favor and check out the Coney Island History Project's collections.

Sunday July 6

Enjoyed with friend
Blaustein the cooling waters
at the beach at C.I. concluding
the evening at an open air
movie at Brighton.

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Matt's Notes

Papa and his friend Blaustein (who was also Papa's brother in the Zionist fraternal organization Order Sons of Zion) were among half a million visitors to Coney Island on this day. The large crowd was apparently well-behaved, though one young man was arrested for violation of the Volstead Act and another broke his neck diving into shallow water. (My grandmother, who lived nearby and would have been 15 at the time, probably heard about this incident and vowed never to so much as say the word "dive" within half a mile of water for the rest of her life.)

I like to think that the "open air movie" Papa saw was something appropriate to the surfside setting like the recently-released The Sea Hawk, a rip-snorting tale of Spanish galley adventures deemed by the New York Times to be "far and away the best sea story that has ever been brought to the screen." If first-run films weren't available to Brighton Beach exhibitors, Papa might have seen something that had hung around for a while, like The Thief of Badgad, The Ten Commandments, or Girl Shy with Harold Lloyd.

My own memories of visits to my grandmother on Brighton Beach make it hard for me to picture the screening setup (I keep thinking that someone must have just pointed a projector at a makeshift screen near the end of the boardwalk where my grandmother and her friends would congregate at night) but I'm sure it must have been in a formal outdoor amphitheater with wooden bleachers and roving concessionaires and a regular weekend movie lineup. I wonder if the memory of this night stuck with Papa: images flickering on the screen, ferris wheel turning lazily in the distance, ocean breeze blowing cool. Did he close his eyes for a moment, think to himself that everything would be okay if he could just find some way to stay right there? Did he remember the feeling years later when he moved out to Brighton to raise his family?

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Update:

Here's how the parking lot at Coney Island's Dreamland looked on a crowded day (this photo was taken on July 22, 1923):



References:

• Review of The Sea Hawkfrom the June 3, 1924 New York Times
  
  
• HALF A MILLION AT CONEY ISLAND; Visitors Top the High Record of 450,000 Made on the Fourth of July.

Sunday July 20

Bathing in C.I. with
my friends.

---

I wonder how some
people can enjoy real
happiness, no matter
how rich they are, if they
do not devote a part of
their lives to help other
human beings.

All humans are alike
and when death calls them
forth poor and rich alike
and they have to stand the
same suffering of death

Also I cannot conceive the
idea of some people being real
happy without a having a sense of under-
standing for classical music
which appeals to the very soul,
and other arts.

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Matt's Notes

I'm trying to imagine why Papa's trip to Coney Island or what other recent events triggered this meditation on the nature of happiness. Certainly yesterday's celebration of the new Torah at the Sniatyner Synagogue reminded Papa of his father, a religious teacher who schooled his students in the sacred, spiritual joys of altruism. Papa had also, on more than one occasion, looked upon large groups of happy people -- in the movies, on the streets, during previous visits to Coney Island -- and found himself wondering what, exactly, they were so pleased about.

Perhaps this day's record crowd of 600,000 Sunday celebrants at Coney, so many of them smiling and laughing and frivolously splashing about, boggled Papa's mind or clashed with the serious thoughts running through it from the previous day. Even his friends (and here I'm thinking of the rakish Rothblum) might have demonstrated too little seriousness and disturbed Papa's mood. I wonder, too, if Papa was additionally frustrated with himself for not just relaxing and enjoying his day at the beach, making him feel even more self-absorbed detached.¹

Regardless of what triggered it, I sort of like the strident, idealistic tone of this entry. It's almost like the protestation of an undergraduate activist ("Dude, how can you sit there and eat cotton candy when people out there need help?") especially since it switches subjects so suddenly from Death, the great equalizer, to a complaint about peoples' taste in music ("Dude, if you don't like this record you just don't get it.")

I don't mean to say Papa's feelings weren't genuine, though. He maintained his devotion to idealistic pursuits -- Zionism, the labor movement -- long after most youthful enthusiasts put aside such things. He would, in fact, retire as a shop steward after a lifetime of union activism. I'm sure being a union rep in the garment industry wasn't a storybook job, but I expect, whatever it entailed, he was happy to have devoted "at least a part of" his life "to help other human beings," just as he had intended back in 1924.

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1 - My own experience, most recently the office party I went to the other night, is interfering heavily here, I think.

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References

• 600,000 VISIT CONEY IN A DAY OF RECORDS; Fifty Get Into Trouble Over Bathing Suit Rules and Thousands Cut Feet. (From the July 21, 1924 New York Times.)

Wednesday Aug 20

Just a little ride to C.I.
with Blanche.

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Matt's Notes

I'm pretty sure Papa's Coney Island companion on this day was a new character named Blanche, though I might be reading the name wrong (the "a" after the "l" doesn't look exactly like his usual "a," but I can't think of what else it might be):



Whatever her name might be, I wonder who she is and how Papa met her. Could she be "Miss R.," the "American girl" who expressed her affection for him a couple of days ago? He said he planned to take her out, and he often did his romancing on public transportation trips like train or ferry rides to Coney Island. He certainly would have been happy to be among the couples strolling the boardwalk rather than wistfully observing them from afar, as he has done in the past.

On the other hand, Papa said he planned to take Miss R. to a concert, and this entry seems a bit brief and offhand for a description of such a potentially important date. The phrase "just a little ride to C.I." could indicate the jaunty cheerfulness of someone who's had a great time with a new gal and can't be bothered to describe it right now, or it could literally mean that his trip to Coney with Blanche was nothing remarkable. We've never met Blanche before, but since Papa's diary isn't a novel it often introduces his well-known acquaintances without ceremony, as it recently did with Clara II. Is Blanche just an old friend?

Saturday July 12

Coney Island again
until a late hour

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Matt's Notes

With a lot of time to kill and little money to spend during his factory's slack season, Papa has become a Coney Island regular over the summer (especially during the last week of 80-plus degree weather, when he visited five times).




As previously indicated, Papa liked to get there via the ferry that ran from the Battery in Manhattan (a good walk or short ride on the elevated train from his apartment on Attorney Street) to Seagate, where he and his friends had rented a locker for the season. (Alas, the Battery-Seagate ferry no longer runs, and had in fact been falling out of favor since the advent of subway service to Coney).

I'm trying to learn more about what he might have done there every day, but in the meantime we can at least be sure that his swimsuit was a full-body ensemble, to wit:

Saturday July 5

Radio and C.I.

Like an aimless wanderer
I find myself, I feel rather
pessimistic today, the outlook
is not so bright for the future,
constant worries, a little
idleness, and the continued
loneliness, are beginning
to have their affect on me.

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Matt's Notes

Papa loneliness and worries about the future are familiar subjects in his diary, but for him to say they're only just "beginning to" affect him, as if he's feeling them for the first time, must mean he's caught in a particularly voluminous wave of sadness right now. Unlike those on the beaches of "C.I." (Coney Island) though, such waves do not break predictably and are difficult to avoid if they become too rough.

It is, of course, entirely reasonable for him to feel out of sorts since he's only two months removed from the death of his father and he's on a forced, extended break from work due to his factory's slack season, but that's only easy for us to see. He is simply overwhelmed by it all, and as is his romantic wont he casts is sadness in epic, poetic terms -- "Like an aimless wanderer I find myself" -- as if he's living in a Greek myth, an allegorical hero forever riding between Coney Island and Manhattan but unable to touch either shore.

Yet even though his natural optimism has failed him for the moment and "the outlook is not so bright for the future," we know how the story ends. Papa, this is you:




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Democratic Convention Update:

The balloting deadlock continued at the Democratic Convention, but something new was brewing. If Papa had his radio tuned in to the proceedings, he would have heard the day's session adjourn so candidates' representatives could begin private talks on how to end the Democrats' embarrassing show of disunity. It was impossible to deny that such a solution would have to include the withdrawal of both Al Smith and William McAdoo's candidacies. Headlines from the New York Times tell the story:

• DELEGATES TAKE NEW HOPE; Also They Are Glad to Rest While the "Big Men" Work.
• PEACE MOVE IS WELCOMED; Taggart Plan Is Adopted After Several Others Are Voted Down.
• 4-HOUR CONFERENCE HELD; Preliminary Discussions Lead to Plan for Informal Meeting Today.

Wednesday July 16

Had just a little outing
tonight with friends in C.I.

--------------

Matt's Notes



Papa and his friends probably didn't go swimming on this casual evening excursion to Coney Island. They probably hopped on the ferry or a series of subways from Essex Street to the Brighton Beach line (temperatures were in the high 80's during the day, so I bet they took the ferry to cool off) hit the Boardwalk, and spent the rest of the evening strolling, chatting, and perhaps noticing women, like these fellows on the left:



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Audio Source: "Coming Home From Coney Isle," a 1906 recording by Jones and Spencer via archive.org.

June 26, 1926 (A.M.) - Buffalo

[Note: This postcard is the first note Papa wrote to my grandmother while he was at a Zionist Organization of America conference in 1926. To see large-sized images of the card, click the thumbnail images on the right of this page.]

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Sat. Morning

My dear Jeanie:

Well I am here, I retired
in my sleeper in N.Y. and awoke
this morning in Bufalo. It is
a fine town. I am now preparing
my ammunition to shoot pictures
at Niagara Falls. It feels great
to be here among so many
co-idealists,¹ There is no sea as
in Long Branch² but I'll have
enough of the falls. My friends
are rushing me and the bus is
waiting to take me to the falls.
I therefore write only a card³

Harry

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Matt's Notes

1 - Papa was in Buffalo "among so many co-idealists" at the 29th annual convention of the Zionist Organization of America.

2 - Five days earlier, Papa had gone to Long Branch, New Jersey to attend the convention of Order Sons of Zion (a.k.a. B'nai Zion) the Zionist fraternal order and mutual support society to which he belonged. The New York Times briefly described this gathering:

Sons of Zion in Convention

Long Branch, N.J. June 20 -

Two hundred delegates and as many
more visitors attended the opening of
the seventeenth annual convention of
the order Sons of Zion at the Scarboro
Hotel today. Commissioner W. Stan-
ley Bouse welcomed the delegates.
Louis Lipsky, Chairman of the Zionist
Committee, spoke. The convention
closes tomorrow, when new officers
will be installed.

And, the next day:

Sons of Zion Elect Officers

Long Branch, N.J. June 21.--

The Sons of Zion, meeting in the Scar-
boro Hotel here today, elected Sol
Friedman of New York, President;
Judge Jacob S. Strahl, New York, Vice
President; Jacob I Kiskor, Brooklyn,
Secretary, and Max Fenwick, New York,
Treasurer.

Long Branch was a well-established beach resort community at the time, less than 20 miles as the crow flies from Papa's usual seaside haunts at Coney Island:



Papa probably attended the Sons of Zion conference with the same fraternal brothers, like Blaustein, Bluestone, and Zichlinsky, that he used visit Coney with in 1924. The conference may have been all business, but I'm sure Papa's ocean-loving crew found a moment to join the frolicsome crowds on the beach, like those pictured in this 1923 photo of Long Branch:



Here's a shot of Long Branch's Broadway as it may have looked to Papa during the busy summer season:



And here's the Scarboro hotel, where the B'nai Zion conference took place and where Papa most likely stayed. According to Eddie at historiclongbranch.org (the source of all these Long Branch images) the corner of Bath and Ocean Avenues saw two incarnations of the Scarboro hotel over the years, but by the time Papa got there the newer, modern version was in place:



We should also note that Judge Jacob Strahl, the newly elected President of B'nai Zion mentioned in the Times article above, made a couple of personal appearances in Papa's 1924 diary: one in which Papa accompanied him home from the Bronx after a lecture, and one in which Papa attended a dinner in his honor.

3 - The front of this particular card reads:

67:--Statler Hotel and McKinley Monument, Buffalo, N.Y.

Buffalo was the site of hotel pioneer E.M. Statler's first permanent hotel. Built in 1907, it featured amenities for which his hotel chain would later become famous: cheerful service, affordable rates, and luxuries, like bathrooms in every room, normally unavailable to proletarian travelers. (As my legions of readers who get together each weekend to quiz each other on Papa's Diary trivia no doubt are aware, my comments on Papa's January 30th, 1924 diary entry quotes a brochure about Statler's Hotel Pennsylvania in New York that advertises these very sorts of advantages.)

Like the Hotel Scarboro in Long Branch, the above-pictured version of the Statler Hotel that Papa stayed in was not the original, but a second incarnation. Statler built it in 1923 (and renamed the first Statler the Hotel Buffalo) so when Papa stayed there in 1926 it must have still felt fresh, novel and impressive. It may well have been the most comfortable place that Papa ever stayed, since until then he had known only Jewish ghetto life in Eastern Europe and tenement life on the Lower East Side of New York. Developers converted the building to office space in 1984 and renamed it Statler Towers, but as of this writing it's under new ownership and on its way to becoming a mixture of condominium, hotel and commercial space.

Interestingly, Papa addressed this card not to my grandmother's home on Hart Street in Brooklyn, but to an address just around the corner at 185 Pulaski Street. No one in my family is entirely sure what was at this address, but we think it was a factory owned by my great-grandfather and that my grandmother worked there. This is probably right. Mail was delivered twice a day in those days, so Papa would have addressed letters to her daytime address to make sure she got them as soon as possible. Perhaps he thought this would give him an advantage over other suitors who, he was convinced, were competing with him for her affections.

------------

References:

• Sons of Zion Elect Officers, from the June 22, 1926 New York Times
• Sons of Zion in Convention, from the June 20, 1926 New York Times
• Statler Hotel information at Wikipedia
• A biography of E.M. Statler at forgottendetroit.com

August 4, 1928 - New York City

--------


New York Aug. 4. 1928

My dear Jeanie:--

I called up this evening at 7 P.M.
figuring that you'd be at dinner, but again
out of luck, it seems that you over there
are also afflicted with the hot spell, for the
propriator told me that all guests went
down to the lake to escape the heat, but
I was happy indeed to hear that you're
getting along fine.¹

The heat last night was the most severe
of the season, the city streets were deserted
and I went moonlight bathing, the beach
presented a strange spectacle at mid-
night thousands bathing in the tall waves
of the ocean while tens of thousands were
sleeping on the sands.²

./.


2.

But I enjoyed night bathing
immensely refreshing myself without
the fear of getting sunburned.

As I sat later on the beach thinking
of you a longing betook me as I heard
an orchestra at some building on the
boardwalk play the beautiful tender
strains of Lehar's Merry Widow waltz, I
would have given part of my life to hold
you in my arms just that moment.³

This evening I visited your folks
Everybody is O.K. Rose and the kids were
there, when Shirley saw me coming she
said Maah Shamah go she says to me
gimmie an Jean. Ain't she smart?
I argued with Sally for not writing
to you oftener.

./.




3.

As soon as I will be through with
this I'll go for another dip in C.I. but
there will be little moon if any cause
heavy clouds are gathering now.

If these clouds should bring rain
it would be a relief especially to my
suffering East side neighbors.⁴

I'm sure that you have already received
the candy package that I mailed you
Thursday morning, this morning I mailed
you some magazines.

If I didn't know you all through
Id get sore but I know that you
at heard didn't mean what you wrote
me that you [were] in a way happy to hear
from me I know that you were all
happy, and I'm only writing to make
you happy, and nothing would be
too big for me to offer for your happiness.

./.


4.

If you meant to tease me please
don't repeat that, enough about that.

What other news can I write you?
Ma went tonight to sleep at Roses house
that she may be early on the beach
tomorrow with her, and by the way if
it interest you to know Rose bought a
nice black size 50 bathing suit but
it is a little tight.

As I am not writing this at home
(to your luck) I have no poem to add
I cannot memorize what I had in thought
to write and my books are at home.⁶

So my dear I am closing with
an earnest plea that you may write
a nice long long letter, and remain

Your Ever faithful

Harry

-------------

Matt's Notes

1 - When Papa wrote this letter, my grandmother was vacationing at the Viola House in Lake Huntington, New York. As we’ve discussed before, my grandmother, like many other Jewish New Yorkers of the Twentieth Century, would spend a bit of every summer at a Catskill Mountain “Borscht Belt” hotel like the Viola.

2 - According to the New York Times, the heat wave of August 1928 was the most severe in 46 years. It would kill at least fourteen people.

3 -



4 - If Papa wound up going back to Coney Island on the night of August 4th as he intended, he would have been caught in a sudden, severe thunderstorm and a resulting 600,000-person stampede for shelter. Oddly, three people would die that night of electrocution: one was a policeman who touched a fallen power line; the second was a swimmer who was struck by lighting; the third was a 16-year-old named Gertrude Neidenberg who fell from the Ocean Parkway subway platform and landed on the third rail.

Here’s a creepy thing: Ms. Neidenberg lived at 36 Attorney Street in Manhattan, just a few doors down from Papa apartment at number 96. It’s grotesquely ironic, but she was literally one of Papa’s “suffering East side neighbors” for whom he hoped the rain would provide some relief.

5 - Remember that my grandmother had been trying to cool Papa’s ardor for three years at this point, so I'm sure she meant to disorient him when she said she was only “in a way” happy to hear from him. I should point out, though, that qualified compliments and other minor jabs like this were not a stretch for her -- they were part of her everyday conversation, and Papa had probably been on the receiving end of them since he first met her.

6 - Papa quoted a love poem by Robert Burns in his August 2, 1928 letter and a one by Robert Browning in his July 31st letter.

--------------

References:

• RECORD HEAT STIFLES CITY AND THE EAST; THREE DROWN HERE; Five Fatalities in City, Ten Persons Felled on Hottest Aug. 3 in 46 Years. - The New York Times, August 4, 1928
• STORM KILLS THREE, STAMPEDES 600,000; 3 HEAT DEATHS HERE; Crowds Seeking Relief at Coney Make Rush for Trains When Rain Starts. - The New York Times, August 5, 1928

-----------

Audio Source: The Merry Widow Waltz (1907) recorded by the Victor Dance Orchestra. Via Archive.org.

Papa, as we know, was a huge opera fan, so he would have known the "Merry Widow Waltz" quite well.  Here's a video clip of the scene in "The Merry Widow" in which it appears (via YouTube):

About This Project

My grandfather, Harry Scheurman, kept a diary in 1924 when he was twenty-nine years old. He had been in America for 11 years, but much of his family still lived in the central European, Jewish ghetto of his youth. He was a garment worker, union activist and Zionist fundraiser. He was also unmarried and terribly lonely.

I've always found his diary to be fascinating reading, and I've always wanted to share it with people who might find it interesting. So, each day in 2007 (*2008 update below) I'll transcribe and post each day's corresponding entry, and I'll also annotate with contextual details about his life, historical details about the social, political and cultural subjects in circulation that year, and whatever thoughts and feelings his words bring to mind.

Since I have a day job and don't pretend to be a great researcher, I invite contributions from anyone who's interested in the subjects I'll touch on, including immigrant life in the 1920's, the rise of radio as a social force, the history of the Jewish labor movement, the history of New York-based Zionist organizations (particularly the Order of the Sons of Zion) Jewish ghetto life in Austro-Hungary (especially Snyatyn) New York baseball in the 1920's, Coney Island of the 1920's, Calvin Coolidge and the 1924 Presidential campaign. Feel free to add comments to any post, or if you're interested in getting more involved please write to papasdiary 'at' gmail.com with the word "Contribution" in the subject line.

Finally, if you're just getting started with Papa's Diary Project, here are a few good subjects to check out:

• B'nai Zion
• The 20th Century Girl
• Sniatyn
• Papa's Father's Injury
• Radio
• Cry For Help.

----------------------

January 5, 2008 Update: Papa's Letters and more

Now that I've posted every entry from Papa's 1924 diary, I'm going to start posting the letters he wrote to my grandmother (a.k.a. "Nana") during their five-year courtship. My mother had believed these letters lost until I found them in her attic just recently. I think I've got them all, though the ribbon with with Nana tied them together seems to be gone.

As of now I've only read a few of the letters, but it's clear that, not surprisingly, they constitute a different sort of narrative than Papa's diary, less rich in the details of day-to-day life but no less intimate and revealing. I expect to post about one a week throughout 2008, and I'll also be posting updates to my comments on Papa's diary since there's still plenty of research to do. I've gotten great contributions from readers over the last year and hope to get more, so if you see anything you'd like to chime in on (our ever-expanding list of subjects might help you get acquainted with the things we've covered so far) please send me an e-mail or drop a comment on the appropriate post.

Tuesday Jan 22

Light

A Poem by
Francis William Bourdillon
-----------------------
The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
with the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.

----------------

Matt's Notes

Papa has clearly not shaken the wistful, reflective mood triggered by his Hebrew birthday and the arrival of his niece's wedding photo on the previous day. You need only read this poem a couple of times to understand his mood.

------------

Call for research help

It's about to get harder for me to spend as much time as I'd like on research for this project. That's why I'm asking you, my legions of readers -- and make no mistake, your numbers are so vast that to keep count takes almost all of my fingers -- for help.

I've posted a page on this site called "Cry For Help" with a list of the many people, places, organizations, musical references, events and details of New York life that appear in Papa's diary. If you know about or are interested in any of these subjects, please write to me at papasdiary 'at' gmail.com or post comments about them. If you’d really like to dig in to a subject that might require ongoing research or collaboration, let me know and I'll set up a collaborative document for us to work on.

I've added the list of subjects below, but it'll always be available on the "Cry For Help" page of this site.

Note: If you want to delve into anything under a "some information already collected" heading, please let me know and I'll share with you what I've got.

--------------------------------

Organizations:

Total mysteries:

• David Wolpohn Club
• Downtown Zionist Club
• Holland Belgium Club
• Jewish Students Club
• Judea Insurance Company
• Kessler Zion Club
• Kinereth Camp (probably a B'nai Zion camp in Borough Park)

Some information already collected:

• B'nai Zion (a.k.a. Order Sons of Zion)
• Bar Kochba camp of B'nai Zion
• Hebrew Free Loan Society
• Keren Hayesod
• Montefiore Home (later hospital)
• Tikwaith Yehuda club
• Zionist Organization of America
• Information or artifacts and photos relating to Jewish fraternal organizations in general

People (many names are incomplete in the diary, but most of these people would be affiliated with B'nai Zion, Keren Hayesod or the Zionist Organization of America):

Total mysteries:

• "Rabbi Cook"
• "Mr. Graf"
• Rabbi David Horowitz
• Leibel Krebs (described as "a legendary figure from the old country")
• "Dr. Schecter"
• "Dr. Thon"
• And a ZOA organizer mysteriously named "Blitz"

Some information already collected:

• Joseph Bluestone
• David Blaustien
• Abraham Goldberg
• Arthur Ruppin
• "Judge Strahl"
• Maurice Samuel
• "Mr. Zeldin"

President Calvin Coolidge

• Relationships with Zionism and labor
• February 12 speech on radio
• February 22 speech on radio
• Radio announcement of reelection on November 4

Places

Total mysteries:

• Boisy (?) Hotel
• Café Royal
• Malick's Restaurant
• Regina Mansion
• Snyatyn Synagogue
• Spring Valley, New York -- Jewish summer colonies or other Jewish presence

Some information already collected:

• Pennsylvania Hotel

Movies and Movie Theaters

Total mysteries:

• Academy of Music
• "Song of Love"
• "White Sister"
• Lists of releases playing in New York for each month of 1924

Some information already collected:

• Capitol Theatre
• Clinton Theatre
• "Woman of Paris"

Sports

Some information already collected:

• Abe Goldstein (a professional boxer; won a title fight in 1924)
• 1924 New York Yankees
• 1924 New York Giants
• 1924 Brooklyn Robins (a.k.a. "Dodgers")

Leisure

General and specific information needed:

• Central Park in the 20's, esp. scenes of people rowing
• Coney Island of the 20's (overall experience, transportation, summer rental lockers)

Music (history, clips, general background, 1924 prevailing opinion, reviews or performances and recordings):

• "Drigo's Serendade"
• Eastern European Folk tunes that would have been played in immigrant-oriented Radio in 1924
• Gypsy String Orchestra (particularly their radio presence in the 1920's)
• "Gypsy Chardash"
• "Indian Love Lyrics" (?)
• Kessler's Theater
• "Kreuzer Sonata" (at Kessler's theater on 10/9/24)
• "Rubenstein's Romance"
• "Shubert's Waltz op 64#2"
• "Sleeping Beauty
• "Straus's Waltz, Artist's Dream"
• "Tosca"

Opera (history, clips, general background, 1924 prevailing opinion, reviews or performances and recordings):

• "Cavalleria rusticana" (March 8th Performance)
• "Carmen" (December 4th performance at the Met)
• "Le Roi de Lahore" (March 26th at the Met)
• L'Cock D'or (heard on radio march 30)
• L'Oracolo" (heard on radio march 30)
• Madame Butterfly" (November 22nd performance)
• "Martha" (December 5th performance)
• "Mefistofele" (with Chaliapin, November 24 performance)
• "Pagliacci (March 8th Performance)
• "Tannhauser" (November 5th at the Met)
• General History of the Met, the New York Opera scene, and what the Opera experience would have been like for cash-strapped immigrants

Radio events and history:

• 1924 Democratic convention coverage radio coverage
• November 4 Election returns coverage
• November 5 Coolidge reelection announcement
• 1924 Democratic convention coverage, esp. June 26, June 30, July 8
• April 14 Daughters of the American Revolution ceremony
• Radio Station WEAF
• WNYC history esp. early broadcasts in July and August

Lifestyle:

• Cars (Photos and information regarding cars available to immigrants in the 1920's)
• Writing instruments (Photos of pens and pencils used in the 1920's)
• Telephones (usage and technology in 1924, images of private phones in 1920's)
• Public transportation (trolley and subway history, maps, fare information, usage in 1920's)

Sunday July 27

Again C.I.

I am so unhappy

I went to the C.I. Synagogue
to say Kadish

I always had the greatest
sympathy for those who
said Kadish

and now I am one of
those unfortunate

-----------------

Sometimes I feel irrationally helpless when I look at Papa's entries, as if I could relieve his unhappiness if only I tried hard enough. He seems to have tapped a new vein of sadness, too, recently remarking on his hard luck and boredom and constant worries. Even Coney Island, where he at least enjoyed the water and the breezes and the scenery once in a while, registers as little more than another place to mourn, as if its only attraction was a surreal, synagogue-themed simulacrum off the Boardwalk.

I have little more to say right now other than Papa, this is you:


I miss him today.

Saturday Aug 9

During the day in the cool
ocean waves of C.I. In evening
I deserted my many friends
in whose company I'd spent the
day, to go the Prayer services to
say Kadish.

Tisha B'ab Eve

Thousands of years after the
destruction of Jerusalem a big synagogue
on the gay seashore of C.I. on a hot
summer night is crowded to capacity
bewailing the greatest disaster in
Israels history. Many removed
their shoes sitting on the floor,
Slowly the familiar mournful melody
of "Aichu" is read. Among them
I sat with eyes moist bewailing a
land which neither I nor my parents
or my great great parents ever saw
but still no near to me.

That is the miracle of Israels eternal life

-----------------

Matt's Notes

In a religious tradition with its fair share of sad holidays, Tisha B'Av is the saddest Jewish holiday of all. It commemorates the destruction of First Temple and the Second Temple, both of which occurred on the same date, as did a number of other subsequent tragedies. I've never personally worshiped during Tisha B'Av, though I know the mournful "Aichu" Papa refers to is usually written as "Eicha" and means "Lamentations."

Religious faith is, as I've mentioned before, one facet of Papa's character I cannot locate in my own -- I am simply not a person of faith. Still, I'm touched by the intensity of Papa's devotion, the image of tears in his eyes as a sad prayer is read, the sense of eternal connection he shares with past and future generations of Jews through the mournful ritual of Tisha B'Av. The sadness is a miracle to him because it makes the long-lost land of Israel almost tangible, and no doubt sustains his faith in the eventual success of his Zionist efforts.

This year, though, I'm sure deep spiritual contemplation of destruction and recovery is even more important to Papa since he is in the throes of his own violent personal change. His father's death has, I think, wrenched away any thought he ever entertained of recovering the sense of belonging he felt with his family in the old country. As Papa himself has written, his father represented to him everything good in the world, and his death triggered a feeling in Papa akin to "lost paradise."

In short: Papa had experienced, with the death of his father, the destruction of his own temple. His tearful awe over "the miracle of Israels eternal life," maintained through mourning, must have touched him profoundly as he sought a way to maintain his father's legacy. Perhaps Papa's own efforts to help reinvent and rebuild a new, modern Israel inspired by ancient faith helped him realize that he, too, could build a new life for himself inspired by his father's example. Was that understanding, not yet consciously realized, partly responsible for the tears in Papa's eyes on this hot August night?

[posted from Mexico]

--------------------

The guy who sold me the photo below claims they're of a Coney Island synagogue, and while I don't necessarily believe him, I am relatively sure they were taken in Brooklyn in the late 1920's:



Here's a closer look at the synagogue:



I wish I knew what the guy with the pushcart was selling. Looks like it might be ices of some sort: