Success School

Thursday Feb 21

by

Enjoyed dance given by
3rd dist Z.O.A. at the Parkway Palace.

My brother in law received
a summons to court from
the Success School,

My sister came up and
called me to go with her to
the School,

Because I told the School man
twice before that my brother in law
and out of work, he agreed
to teach him English for the
whole term on payments
of $2.00 a week, on account
I gave him the 2nd 5 dollars
I am glad this is off my
head, I will gladly pay for
him every week as he at present
cannot afford it.

—————

Matt’s Notes

I’m not sure where the Parkway Palace or the Third District of the Zionist Organization of America were located, though I’d say any establishment with the word “parkway” in its name was probably in the Bronx. Hopefully I can make it over to the New York Historical Society to look into it a little more…

Of more interest, though, is Papa’s description of his brother-in-law Phil’s problems with the Success School, which was obviously a vocational or language school catering to immigrants. If it had existed in modern times, it probably would have advertised itself on the subway.

I wonder what the atmosphere was like. Was it a second-floor classroom with a sign in the window and a bunch of typewriters sitting on old school desks? Was it close and stuffy, like the sweatshops its students work in? Maybe Papa’s meeting with the “school man” (his English vocabulary must not have included the words “headmaster” or “administrator”) took place in a dark hallway or staircase. It could have even happened in the classroom while class was in session — sounds like the “school man” wanted to get rid of Phil in favor of a full-tuition student, so he might have deliberately made Papa argue right there, thinking he’d be too embarrassed to discuss Phil’s discount arrangement in front of other students.

In any event, Papa’s sense of duty is once again on display as he forks over $5.00 to keep Phil in class (if a previous commenter on this blog has the conversion right, this would be the equivalent of $60 in 2007, which was probably no small chunk of Papa’s salary). My mother says the words “I am glad this is off my head” really jumped out at her because, for Papa, this would have been an over-the-top expression of impatience. But, these are Papa’s private thoughts, and if that’s as annoyed as he got I’m sure no one noticed.

Phil, by the way, was a Russian immigrant who came to America after his first wife “broke her head,” as Phil apparently put it, in a buggy accident. He would outlive three more wives, all of whom, including Papa’s sister Nettie, died under strange circumstances. This earned him the nickname “serial killer” among certain members of my family. According to one story, Phil half-jokingly offered to make Papa’s other sister Clara his fifth wife when she was around eighty. “No,” she replied, “I’m too young to die.”

Wednesday Feb 27

by


When I went up with Philip
to the School to pay for him
$2.00 the owner called him
out of the class and told me
and him that we would have
to pay the balance of 50 dollars
at once and when I told him
that I cannot do it besides
we have last week made up
for $2.00 a week, he sent
Philip and myself home,
saying ‘you can go home
Good night, good night’

I think it is an outrage
the way that school man
acted, I intend to take
action I will consult Sat.
Counsellor Levine about it,

Spent rest of the Evening
at hom adjusting my correspondence

—————

Matt’s Notes

This is a continuation of a saga involving Phil, who was Papa’s brother-in-law, the Success School, where Phil took English lessons, and Papa, who was paying for Phil’s lessons on an installment plan he’d arranged with the school’s headmaster. As I noted earlier, I think the headmaster wanted to kick Phil out in favor of a student who could pay in full. I don’t know why he needed the $50 so badly, but since he gave Papa so much grief I’ll take license to say he was an opium addict who’d promised Phil’s seat to one of the many prostitutes he owed money to. Poor guy. It’s hard to think straight when your brain is scrambled by syphilis and you’ve sold all your children to cover your gambling debts.

“Counsellor Levine” was, I expect, on retainer with one of the immigrant-oriented mutual aid societies Papa belonged to, most likely the Order Sons of Zion or the Sniatyn landsmanshaft. This would be a perfect example of why the services provided by landsmanshaftn were so important to people like Papa. He never could have afforded representation on his own, but for a few dollars a year in club dues he knew he could talk to a lawyer when jerks like the Success School’s headmaster tried to shit on his family.

—————-

Additional Notes

Sometimes little details in Papa’s entries really do a lot to illustrate the texture of his life in the 20’s. In this case, the headmaster’s bullying phrase “you can go home, good night, good night” (I can’t help but think of how Gene Wilder dismisses Charlie and Grandpa with a tight “I said good day sir…I said good day!” in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) and Papa’s mention of “adjusting my correspondence” feel especially Edwardian to me. We shouldn’t forget, either, that Papa wrote this entry in a clothbound journal by gaslight, probably just before bed and just after using the communal toilet down the hall. The concerns of his life — political work, romantic adventures, sick parents, nasty school masters — were timeless, but his day-to-day experiences were, of course, strictly 1924.

Wednesday Mar 5

by


Sent home 20 pounds of Matzos for the
Passover holiday in 2 packages
I hope they get them in time.

Nettie received a letter
from the School to come and
pay up for her husband, when
she went there with Mrs Breindel
asking what does he mean by
writing letters when he rejected
Philip from School, also reminding
him that he was agreed to me and
her on $2.00 a week.

He chased them out of the office
without any reason whatever
this is outrageous.
I shall stop from work for some
time tomorrow and go to Lawyer
Levine about it

———

Matt’s Notes

To recap: Philip, who was married to Papa’s sister Nettie, was taking English lessons at a place called the Success School. Papa was paying for the lessons but couldn’t raise the $50 tuition fee all at once, so he’d arranged to pay the school in installments of $2 a week. The school’s headmaster agreed to this arrangement but later changed his mind, tried unsuccessfully to get full payment from Papa, and finally kicked Philip out of school.

Looks like the headmaster now tried to get the full tuition from Nettie, who brought Mrs. Breindel (a neighbor?) with her for backup since Papa was at work. Papa’s use of the phrase “chased them out of the office” strikes me as absurd, as if the whole episode is a scene from a silent film: the headmaster, wearing a mortarboard and robes, chasing after Nettie and Breindel with a pointer as they bustle down the hall, flinging Yiddish curses and trying not to trip over their skirts. It’s not absurd at all, of course, since assholes like the “school man,” as Papa called him, were (and still are) all too common in the lives of immigrants. I’m sure they didn’t go a day without someone trying to exploit, intimidate or quietly cheat them in some way.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to picture how Papa sent 20 pounds of Matzoh back to the old country. There must have been dozens of shipping companies around, and probably plenty geared toward specific immigrant groups. Did he just walk over to one of their offices with two ten-pound boxes? Did the landsmanshaftn have special services to help transport perishables around the holidays? In my dream, I answer my questions when I find a 1924 photo of a shipping company storefront with Yiddish signs in the window. I would have to read Yiddish to know what I was looking at, of course, but since it’s a dream I can do that, too. While I’m dreaming, I’ll also throw in some way of doing nothing all day but working on this diary project. Maybe I’m a pitcher for the Mets and have a lot of free time in the off-season.

Anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised if Papa bought his Matzoh at the fabled Streit factory, or if he even knew and admired the Streits. They opened their shop only three years after he arrived in New York and only two blocks from his first apartment, so he would have watched them grow, found encouragement in their success, and admired the mix of old-world tradition (matzhoh making) and American-scale ambition (a matzoh factory!) in their example. I really can’t remember the last time I bought Matzoh, but this year I’m definitely going to pick up a box of Streit’s, which still has a factory on the Lower East Side.

————

Additional references for this post:

  • Here’s a page on koshertoday.com that discusses the history of Matzoh in the U.S.
  • This piece in wirednewyork.com discusses the changing Lower East Side and mentions Streit’s

(Thanks to Beth at Jewcy.com for the pointers)

—————-

Updates:

My mother adds:

It just occurred to me that Mr. Breindel was the man who met Papa and Nettie when they disembarked at Ellis Island. I think this is correct, but I’m hazy about it. Could he be the one that brought them to his apartment to sleep in the same bed as his three daughters? They were distant cousins –this may be why Mrs. Breindel was so helpful to Nettie.

Also, I learned earlier today that Beth at Jewcy.com, who pointed me to the links above, also wrote a nice little post about this project on her blog.

Thursday Mar 6

by

Tried to see my lawyer after work
as per appointment but he was
not at home

I went to Miss Weisman
delivering the banquet picture
I spent there 2 hours in con-
versation with her,

Later me the manager
of the Success School Mr. Lubow
at the Parkway Restaurant
accidentally, he came over to
my table!

After a brief talk about my
brother in law, he declared he
would drop the whole matter
that he would not sue and
declared the incident closed

————–

Matt’s Notes

So, here ends our subplot about the dastardly Mr. Lebow — head of the Success School and the very man about whom Papa tried to see his lawyer earlier in the day — and his mistreatment of Papa’s brother-in-law, Phil. Since I have trampled on his memory already, I’ll keep it going and assume he only dropped the matter of Phil’s tuition (remember, he kicked Phil out of school and tried to collect tuition anyway) because he was drunk, fresh from a visit to an opium den, or feeling flush because he had just burglarized an apartment.

He couldn’t have been all bad, though, because he knew where to go for good chopped liver. The Parkway Restaurant, where he ran into Papa, must have been the very Allen Street Roumanian schmalzateria Calvin Trillin pines for in the “Mao and Me” chapter of The Tummy Trilogy. Like Sammy’s Roumanian Steakhouse, the only such restaurant I’ve ever been to, the Parkway is said to have had singing waiters and pitchers of chicken fat on every table, though I expect it didn’t strive for such novelty in 1924. Incidentally, the photo Papa brought to Miss Wiesman was from a banquet he attended with her at Greenberg’s Roumanian Casino. This means he ate Roumanian food at least twice in the span of two months, making his mere survival until spring something of a miracle1. Papa finds more ways to win my admiration every day.

Anyway: A trip out to Brooklyn to see his old flame, a happy ending to the Success School Saga, and a nice piece of chicken (or maybe a veal chop) at the Parkway. Not such a bad day for Papa.

————-

Additional notes:

1 – Quoth Trillin:

The standard line about Romanian-Jewish cooking is usually credited to Zero Mostel, a great fan of the Parkway: “It’s killed more Jews than Hitler.”

I hope to learn more when I get my hands on another Trillin article from 1974 in which he profiled the Parkway in more detail for the New Yorker. Perhaps it’ll reveal if the Parkway Restaurant and the Parkway Palace, which Papa referred to earlier, are one and the same.

————-

My mother writes:

I still wish I knew more about the elusive Miss Weisman. If she was an old flame and Papa took her to banquets and brought her pictures of their evenings together, why was she still Miss Weisman? Why not Eva or Sally or whatever her first name was? Such formality. Well, she couldn’t have been too smart if she didn’t see Papa’s worth and grab him for herself.