A life in New York, 1924
munger 
Home.
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Matt’s Notes
A slow day for Papa, so I’ll share this intriguing little artifact that we found mixed in among a bunch of his photos from the 20’s. Is it a self-portrait? A sketch drawn by someone else? Why the decorative hints in the corners?
Papa had a few different “cabinet cards,” or postcard-sized photos of himself used as calling cards, in his collection (a common practice I discussed a little bit in a previous post) so maybe this is a study for one he never had made.
This is workers day, so
I am off resting.
In afternoon attended
game in Yankee Stadium
in Evening Zionist meeting
at Hotel Astor.
Sent home $5.00
Received letter from home
father still ill, but I am
at least relieved by getting
some news from home.
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Matt’s Notes
“Workers Day” refers to International Workers day or Labor Day, a holiday recognized around the world on May 1 and generally associated with the Haymarket Riot of 1886 and its tragic aftermath. (As you remember from your history lessons, the riot took place after Chicago union workers called a general strike in support of an eight-hour workday on May 1, 1886. Four days of mayhem followed. Several protesters died at the hands of the police, though events reached a tragic climax when a bomb exploded in Haymarket Square and killed at least seven police officers and four civilians. Several anarchists were falsely arrested, tried and executed for the bombing, sparking international outrage). Though the riot happened in Chicago, the United States never officially recognized May Day as a holiday, allegedly because its commemoration had quickly become associated with Socialist causes. Meanwhile, more conservative labor organizations had already prompted several states to declare the first Monday in September as Labor Day, and in 1887 Grover Cleveland decided to make it a national holiday.
Papa’s union and employer obviously still recognized May Day as a workers’ holiday in 1924; the New York Yankees, on the other hand, could only wish they had the day off, as they saw their long winning streak come to an end at the hands of the Washington Senators. Papa saw them strand runners on base all day in the course of the 3-2 loss at the Stadium, or, as the New York Times put it, “When a single or a fly meant a run or more, the Yankee hitsmiths struck out or popped out or rolled out in a manner agonizing.”
It looks like the U.S. Postal Service was open that day as well, since, my sources tell me, post offices often served as banks through which immigrants would send money overseas (I can’t be totally sure that Papa sent his $5.00 home through the post office since he had other options as well, but it’s a safe bet). Having received an update from the old country and sent some money to his family, I expect Papa was able to concentrate on his Zionist meeting at the Astor with something like a clear head.
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References:
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Image sources:
Home & Radio
To be alone in the house
to sleep alone in my rooms
is a trying experience.
When evening comes
along I feel more then
ever the emptiness of my
life. I hear the dance
music on the radio, I would
so gladly dance to the sweet
tunes but whom with?
I would talk my heart out
to someone now but whom to?
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Matt’s Notes
When I read passages like this, written when Papa was in his lowest, loneliest moods, I feel like it’s best to leave him alone and let him listen to his tunes meant for two.
What else can I add to such beautiful, sad sentiments, other than to say
Papa, this is you:
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My mother adds:
I’m sure you’d be interested to know that the photo was taken at Flamenbaum’s resort Kerhonkson, N.Y. My memory was jogged by the car in the background. I believe my mother and I stayed up there for the week and Papa came on weekends. One time I was so happy to see him that I didn’t even notice that he had shaved off his moustache.
Audio source:
That Naughty Waltz (1920) from archive.org
Suffered this morning an una-
voidable pain having tooth extract-
ted.
Went to dance of 2nd Zionist
dance at Webster Hall, I sat
in a rather sad mood but
later in the evening I have
been introduced to a girl
who was with me to the end,
She trusted me to implicitly
She is to much of a plain girl
But I’ve made with her two
appointments, I will relieve
a little of my loneliness, She
is a pretty girl.
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Matt’s Notes
Papa never seems to like the women he meets at Webster Hall (he went to a Zionist ball there earlier in the year and got turned off by the “wild women” and “jazz babies” in attendance) though I’m not sure how he could have enjoyed himself at all on this day after having a tooth pulled. (What was it like for him to get dental work done. Did he find a dentist through his union or one of his immigrant support societies? Did he get his tooth pulled in the living room of someone’s apartment, in a clean, well-lit office, or did he have to wait hours in a clinic filled with other people from the neighborhood? I’m stuck on the image of Papa sitting in a chair with his tooth tied to a doorknob by a length of string, but I imagine facilities were a little more sophisticated back then.)
This entry again shows us that Papa’s bouts of extraordinary loneliness (yesterday’s mediation on solitude was one of his saddest) were due not to any sort of social isolation but rather to something more deeply rooted and, alas, not as easy to get rid of as a bad tooth. Even his evaluation of the woman he met at Webster Hall feels muddy and conflicted: She’s both plain and pretty; she’s trusts him, but “to implicitly”; he doesn’t really like her but makes two dates with her anyway. Such ambivalence is, of course, not uncommon for single young men. His ongoing pattern of dating and dissatisfaction would almost be fodder for a good light comedy if only we didn’t know how privately pained he was.
I remember now that I once took a quick look at Papa’s diary when I was in college and saw one or two passages about his intense loneliness, how his sense of isolation resisted, persisted amidst, the bustle of life in 1920’s New York. I also remember thinking I knew how it felt, and for that reason I needed to revisit the diary one day. Now, when I read his saddest passages, I feel the urge to send him notes from his future to tell him everything turned out okay. Did I think his diary was a note from my future when I read it years ago? Do I still?
Attended games at Polo
grounds, and after that attended Maccabean
meeting at Pennsylvania
Hotel.
I am glad to notice
that my beloved camp
is progressing even if
slowly, at every meeting
it is my pleasant duty
to initiate new members.
Our meeting was visited
by guests of various O.B.Z.
camps in the city.
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Matt’s Notes
I enjoy the ironic, playful tone of the New York Times’ baseball writing from Papa’s day, but I think the anonymous New York Giants beat writer is my favorite. Here’s how he (presumably not she) opens his account of the double header Papa saw:
If 42,000 persons had not been present it would be kinder to say nothing about what happened at the Polo Grounds yesterday. But by this time it is no secret that the Giants brutally assaulted the hapless and helpless Phillies, winning both ends of the Sunday double-header, 13 to 3 and 12 to 3. Not all of the 42,000 saw the massacre through, for some were faint-hearted and others wanted to get home while there was still daylight enough to find their way there.
He goes on to wonder why anyone would see the Phillies in the first place, “even though they were twice offered for sacrifice at the nominal price of $1.10.” This serves as a great example of the resourcefulness required of baseball writers to say essentially the same thing 154 times a year (the length of the season in 1924) and also answers my question of what Papa paid for tickets. The Polo Grounds would have had over 10,000 empty seats that day, but I think this photo of the more crowded stands on opening day of 1923 still gives us a good idea of what the field looked like from Papa’s point of view:
I also continue to be amazed at how quickly baseball games were played back then. The double header described above wrapped up in four hours (yesterday’s Yankees double header took 6) allowing Papa plenty of time to hop on the IRT at 155th Street, head down to Penn Station, and make his “Maccabean” meeting at the Hotel Pennsylvania.
“Maccabean,” as noted before, refers to Papa’s chapter of the Zionist mutual aid society B’nai Zion. It looks like the meeting he attended was larger than usual and included members of other B’nai Zion camps (it must have taken place in one of the Pennsylvania’s private dining rooms) because it was an induction ceremony for new members. Papa would have run the meeting and conducted the initiation rituals in his capacity as Master of Ceremonies.
On minor quirk in this entry is Papa’s use of the initials “O.B.Z” to refer to B’nai Zion. This must be an inadvertent conflation of the group’s Hebrew (B’nai Zion) and English (Order Sons of Zion) names, unless I’m reading his handwriting wrong:
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Additional Notes:
The Jewish Daily Forward, descendant of the venerable Yiddish daily that Papa most certainly read in his youth, published a story about Papa’s Diary Project in this week’s English language issue. It’s called “Dear Diary: Back in Time” and you can read it here.
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References:
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Image source:
Opening Day, Polo Ground, 4.26/1923. Library of Congress #LC-B2- 5982-1
Stopped from work at
Zionist Hdqtrs. to attend
to some publicity for the camp
in the Zionist publications.
Attended in evening,
East Side K.H. meeting,
which awakened my interest
to be more active in the cause
that is so dear to me.
I visted friend W. at store
All my credit to him for his
success in business, which is
such a thriving one due to
his ability. If I had
enough money now I’d accomplish
something I sincerely believe.
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Matt’s Notes
Like so many New Yorkers before and after him, Papa worked a day job, attended to his more heartfelt pursuits in the evening, and counted a good night’s sleep among his lower priorities. Since this is so typical, and also because Papa rarely mentions work in his diary, it hasn’t yet occurred to me to ask what his working hours were actually were.
I think the eight-hour work day was established for garment factory workers by 1924, so Papa may well have knocked off at four or five o’clock. (I’ll have to look into this more, but even if the eight-hour day wasn’t official, I’m sure Papa’s factory, which still recognized May Day as a worker’s holiday, hewed to progressive union rules.) This would have given him a decent amount of time to attend to his evening responsibilities, though it still would have been a bit of a scramble.
The “headquarters” he visited were likely the Zionist Organization of America offices at 114 Fifth Avenue (at 16th Street) and the “publicity” he attended to was probably some kind of writeup about his chapter of the Zionist fraternal organization B’nai Zion (an announcement about the initiation ceremony he presided over the day before?) for Dos Yiddishe Folk, the Z.O.A.’s weekly publication. It’s possible that “headquarters” also meant B’nai Zion’s main office at 44 East 23rd Street, but in any event they likely ran all their publicity through the Z.O.A. since they were originally a Z.O.A. spinoff.
So, you might ask, in light of all his running around and hard work, how could he attend a meeting of Keren Hayesod (a Zionist fundraising group) and come away thinking he wasn’t doing enough for his cause? It’s hard for me to answer objectively since I never think I do enough of whatever I do and pretty much motivate myself entirely be being dissatisfied with what I have; I can only assume Papa had the same feelings as a young man and, perhaps, passed the trait down to me. In fact, I need to wrap up this post right now because I have to be somewhere, and I’m entirely sure this post is abysmally incomplete. (Watch for me, stomping down the street in a shitty mood, in about five minutes).
Here are the questions I still wish I’d written about:
Movie at Academy of Music
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Matt’s Notes
As we’ve discussed before, the Academy of Music was a storied venue that had fallen on hard times by the time Papa went there to see movies.
Once the home of New York Opera, and therefore the very seat of Knickerbocker society, it’s primacy came to an end at the hands of William H. Vanderbilt. Some time around 1880 Vanderbilt, who was considered nouveau riche by the standards of Knickerbocker society, was so incensed by the unavailability of boxes at the Academy that he simply decided to build his own opera house. Other like-minded millionaires jumped on board, and by May of 1883 their project, the old Metropolitan Opera House on 39th and Broadway, was in business.1
The Academy, having remained on top for forty years since its 1849 opening, took another forty to expire from Vanderbilt’s vengeful blow. Its popularity (and box seats) were gone by the late 1800’s, and bit by bit it conceded to host lower-brow attractions like wrestling, musical theater, and, finally, movies. The wrecking ball ended its misery in 1926, when the Consolidated Gas Company knocked it down and built new corporate headquarters in its place (the Con Ed building still stands in the same spot at 14th and Irving).
Did Papa know the Academy had but two years of life remaining when he wrote the above entry? We can’t be sure, but we do know he most certainly didn’t see any of that week’s first-run movies like Men, with Pola Negri, or Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall, with Mary Pickford. The Academy wasn’t considered an important enough venue to make the New York Times listings, but it probably showed movies that had been hanging around town for a few weeks, like “The Thief of Bagdad,” “America,” “Three Weeks” or “Beau Brummel.” (While searching the Times archive I did come across a couple of enjoyable feature stories about the sorry state of subtitle writing and Hollywood’s lack of good scripts, complaints that persist today in movie journalism. Check them out if you’re a movie fan.)
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References
1 – As noted by Irving Kolodin in his History of the Metropolitan Opera 1883-1950:
Few of us today could imagine a society in which a mere whim could determine the existence of such a structure as the Metropolitan. Lilli Lehmann has recorded the circumstances in her memoirs, My Path through Life (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons; 1914): “As, on a particular evening, one of the millionairesses did not receive the box in which she intended to shine because another woman had anticipated her, the husband of the former [Vanderbilt] took prompt action and caused the Metropolitan Opera House to rise.”