Downtown Zionist Centre

Wednesday Nov 12

by


District

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Matt’s Notes

It’s taken a while, but I think I’ve finally figured out what Papa means by “District.”

Earlier on in Papa’s diary, “District” appeared as the official term for a neighborhood chapter of the Zionist Organization of America. Papa wrote accounts of his recruiting efforts for the flagging “First District” of the Z.O.A., he wrote separately about the Second and Third Districts, and in one case reported on a “rather stormy” meeting of the “3 down town districts at St. Marks Pl.”

As we’ve recently learned, the “St. Marks Pl.” meeting most likely took place at the Downtown Zionist Centre at 52 St. Marks Place, which Papa mentioned by name in his November 2nd entry. Now I’m starting to think that all of Papa’s “District” meetings took place there. In fact, I’d wager he identified the Centre so closely with District meetings that he just started to call it “the District” for short. So, at this point in the diary, I think any mention of “The District” or “District” refers to the offices, meeting hall, or whatever kind of space was there at 52 St. Marks.

Since Papa doesn’t describe a meeting or event in today’s entry, he probably just dropped by “the District” after work to say hello, plan his recruiting efforts, or see if anyone needed help with anything. What did it look like inside? Was it filled with boxes of files and membership lists? Did volunteers cluster in a corner around a mimeograph machine, cranking out fliers, stuffing envelopes, and sharing cigarettes? Did they all wear coats because they kept the heat turned down to save money? Did Papa linger there because it felt like home?

Tuesday Nov 18

by


Interesting meeting of
Ball Comittee at Down
Town Zionist Dist.

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Matt’s Notes

Papa went to numerous Zionist balls and banquets throughout the year, so it makes sense for him to have been involved in a planning committee or two, as well. The meeting mentioned in this entry most likely took place at the Downtown Zionist Centre at 52 St. Marks Place, and probably had something to do with the Zionist Organization of America’s lower Manhattan districts. (As we recently discussed, Papa’s Z.O.A. district meetings probably took place at the Downtown Zionist Centre so frequently that he came to refer to Centre as the “District.”) If we look at the sort of work he’s previously done for the Z.O.A., I’d say he joined the ball committee to help with its publicity efforts or secure a prominent guest speaker.

Tuesday Nov 25

by


Not worked yesterday
& today business slow
home & dist

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Matt’s Notes

Papa worked in a garment factory and occasionally had extra days off during slack periods. He never much enjoyed these days off, both because he needed money (he worked in a union shop but probably didn’t get full pay or even any pay on days like this) and because he was prone to feeling blue when he wasn’t around people. Lately, though, he’s been frequenting the “dist.” or “district,” which most likely means the Downtown Zionist Centre at 52 St. Marks Place. (I think he called it the “district” because the Zionist Organization of America’s downtown district meetings took place there.)

Though he did have some business to take care of at the “District” — he’d recently joined the organizing committee for some kind of Zionist ball — I think he was also just hanging out there a lot more than he used to because it beat being home alone. It wasn’t exactly around the corner from his apartment on Attorney Street, but with late November temperatures in the high 30’s and low 40’s (the recent slush storm notwithstanding) it was a relatively pleasant walk. (I wonder if his walk always took him past Tompkins Square Park, where, on the way to the District a couple of days earlier, he’d seen some workers putting a statue together at night.)

I recently paid a visit to the Lower East Side to map Papa’s routes and take some photos of the places he mentions in his diary, but both his apartment and the District are long gone. Here’s what Attorney Street looks like today, looking South from Rivington:

Papa’s apartment building at number 94 would have been on the left, where a circular school building now stands. That two-tone building in the middle of the block on the right is the back of the old Clinton Theatre, another of Papa’s favorite haunts.

The former site of the District at 52 St. Marks is ten blocks north and about three blocks west of Attorney Street, but whatever used to be there has been replaced by a new brick building:

Wednesday Nov 26

by


Visited Miss Schwarz during
her Shiva mourning, tried
to cheer them up.

Dist. Sisters & home

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Matt’s Notes

Miss Shwarz hasn’t appeared in Papa’s diary before, but if he called her “Miss” she was probably young and unmarried or maybe even someone he’d dated. Her “Shiva mourning,” the tenseven-day period of intense mourning Jews traditionally observe after the death of a loved one (and more typically referred to as “sitting shiva“) may have been for one of her siblings or parents. Papa, as we know, had sat shiva back in May after he received word of his father’s death from the old country.

Though Papa was remarkably empathetic and caring, I wonder if his attempts to cheer up Miss Shwarz and her family suffered somewhat because he was far from over his own father’s death; Papa struggled each day with the thoughts it raised about his own adulthood, his future in America, and his increasingly pronounced longing for a family of his own. Perhaps this need for family made his round of visits to his sisters’ homes, a daily occurrence he usually didn’t mention, seem significant enough to write about today. Perhaps it’s also why he felt the need to visit the “Dist.” (a.k.a. the “District,” or Downtown Zionist Centre on St. Marks Place) where he’d lately found a surrogate family of sorts among his fellow Zionists.

Saturday Nov 29

by


Oh how monotonous my
present life.

Afternoon at place at factory
waiting for customers who
disappointed me.

All evening with District

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Matt’s Notes

I’ve been wondering, since Papa started selling women’s dresses on the side a few weeks ago, whether the dresses came from the factory he worked in by day or if he had an arrangement with some other company. While we don’t know if the factory where he spent this afternoon waiting in vain for customers was his usual workplace, this entry does tell us that he was selling directly for a manufacturer and not some other kind of distributor.

Since Papa’s Diary Project is, in part, my attempt to spend more time with Papa and revive the feelings I had when I was around him as a child, I find myself annoyed at the people who blew him off and wasted an opportunity to be with him in person. This might be entirely irrational, but no one could blame Papa for being in a bad mood afterwards. Still, the way he chooses to express his disappointment — “oh how monotonous my present life” — refers to more than his wasted afternoon, and reminds me of the things he’s written during his darkest, loneliest times. It looks like he even sees an evening at the “District” (I think this means the Downtown Zionist Centre at 52 St. Marks Place), where he has lately gone for companionship and to work on Zionist projects, as part of a monotonous routine.

I think this is a worrisome sign. The blues might be lurking.

Sunday Nov 30

by

Dist & Bronx
relatives

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Matt’s Notes

Once in a while Papa made a trip up to the Bronx to visit his relatives (sometimes catching a baseball game along the way) though I’m not yet sure who they were or where they lived. I am pretty sure that if he started his day at the “Dist,” a.k.a. the “District,” a.k.a. the Downtown Zionist Centre on St. Marks Place, he most likely took the 2nd Avenue IRT from 8th Street to 149th Street in the Bronx and transferred to another train there.

photo of IRT map

The more I think about “The Dist,” the more it seems like the title or subject of a TV melodrama: a bunch of passionate twentysomethings from different places, all with different problems, priorities and professions, gather each night to work, flirt and find common cause at “The Dist.” And here’s the twist: It all takes place in the roaring 20’s!

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I’ve been thinking, too, about Papa’s Thanksgiving entry, and how, in looking around for something interesting to mention about Thanksgiving that year, I learned that 1924 was the first year of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. It seems like there were so many seminal events that year: It was the first time a Presidential campaign played out on the radio, it was the year Adolph Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in prison, it was the year Jewish Labor got behind Zionism, the year of the Leopold and Loeb trial, the year J. Edgar Hoover became head of the FBI, the year the Washington Senators finally won the Series. I’m not a historian, but it looks like the modern era was a-birthing right in front of Papa’s eyes. Does every year seem this important when examined closely? Would I have been as impressed with 1925 if Papa kept his diary that year?

Tuesday Dec 2

by


Club district

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Matt’s Notes

The phrase “club district” almost certainly does not, as it might seem, refer to a New York neighborhood packed with nightclubs and speakeasies. The closest thing to that in Papa’s world would have been the stretch of lower Second Avenue known as “The Yiddish Rialto” for its concentration of Yiddish theaters and Jewish hangouts (like Cafe Royale and Kessler’s Second Avenue Theatre, and the Second Avenue Baths) but I think what he means here is the Downtown Zionist Centre on St. Marks Place.

As I’ve mentioned before, I think he referred to the Centre as “the district” or, when he was in a hurry, “the dist” because his Zionist Organization of America district meetings took place there. He may have written “Club district” in this entry because some other club he belonged to met there as well (perhaps the ball committee he joined a few weeks ago had something to do with this unnamed club) though I think it’s more likely that he had just come to think of “The Dist” as a clubhouse.

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