Monday Nov 24

by


Heard Mefistofele
with Chaliapin in the
title role at the Metropolitan
Opera House very good

————

Matt’s Notes

If Papa had told an opera fan in later years that he saw Chaliapin in Mefistofele, it would have been like telling a baseball fan that he saw Babe Ruth swing a bat. Feodor Chaliapin was the most famous bass of his day, and he’d earned living legend status not only for the quality of his voice and his rise from humble Russian roots, but because he set new standards for stage presence and acting style. He “would have been an actor of world-wide reputation if he had been unable to sing,” read a New York Times editorial tribute to Chaliapin after his death in 1938, “he linked together, as few singers of any era, the potencies of drama with song.”

The Times reviewer Olin Downes was complementary toward the Mefistofele production Papa saw, though only grudgingly so; he seems to have disliked Arrigo Boito, the composer who based Mefistofele on Goethe’s Faust. “That it is the work of a dilettante need not be denied,” wrote Downes. “It is even questionable whether Boito was responsible for the orchestration.” Still, he did find much to admire about the opera and thought it “well suited to Chaliapin’s powers.” I imagine that Chaliapin’s portrayal of Mefistofele was, in fact, the best imaginable, no doubt a welcome relief to Papa, who had seen an unremarkable performer in the title role of Madame Butterfly a couple of days earlier.

Let’s go back to the YouTube well once again for this recording of Chaliapin singing “Ave Signori (Hail, Sovereign Lord)” from Mefistofele.

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References for this post:

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Image Sources:

Top: Chaliapin in Mefistofele (1924). Library of Congress # LC-USZ62-53994

Bottom: Chaliapin in Mefistofele (1895). From Wikimedia Commons.

Tuesday Nov 25

by


Not worked yesterday
& today business slow
home & dist

————-

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

———–

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.

Thursday Nov 27

by


Thanksgiving Day

Evening with Maccabean
Camp open meeting.

———

Matt’s Notes

Though he felt deep admiration for his adopted country (the contemplation of free elections had brought him to tears as he listened to the Democratic Convention on the radio earlier in the year) it looks like Papa hadn’t developed much attachment to Thanksgiving as of 1924. (This despite the premiere of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in which, according to the New York Times, “a retinue of clowns, freaks, animals and floats” accompanied Santa Claus on a march from 145th Street to the seven-month-old Macy’s store on 34th Street.)

Papa had a couple of days off earlier in the week due to slow business at his factory, but I can’t tell from this post whether Thanksgiving Day was an official union holiday or whether he worked. It certainly seems like he didn’t have a meal with either of his sisters or other relatives, but perhaps the “Maccabean camp” (this was Papa’s chapter of B’nai Zion, the fraternal organization to which he belonged) held its open meeting to give its members, most of whom were immigrants, a place to gather for the holiday.

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My mother adds:

Very few Jews, even when I was growing up, celebrated Thanksgiving the way we know it now…We never had turkeys…I think because there weren’t any kosher ones. Turkey was what we read about in school…Pilgrims, grandmother’s house. etc., mainly consumed by Gentiles. I doubt that Aunt Nettie and Aunt Clara had any clue about the holiday.

Friday Nov 28

by


Movies

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Papa doesn’t say what movie he saw, but a few new choices have come to town since the last time he went:

  • Wages of Virtue, a Foreign Legion story starring Gloria Swanson and directed by Alain Dwan. (Dwan, who made movies from the early 1900’s through 1961, provides one of the more fascinating interviews in Peter Bogdanovich’s Who The Devil Made It.) If Papa saw this film at the Rivoli, he would have particularly enjoyed the accompanying Flying Fist two-reeler because it starred the great Jewish boxer, Benny Leonard.
  • A Sainted Devil, a tale of passion and revenge starring Rudolph Valentino
  • The Price of a Party, a melodrama starring Hope Hampton and the first actor to go by the name Harrison Ford.
  • The Breath of Scandal, panned for its dullness by The New York Times
  • The Silent Accuser, starring the police dog Peter The Great, who, though “not as good looking as Strongheart or Rin-Tin-Tin,” according to the Times, still made a graceful screen star.
  • The Black Swan, a depiction of high-society intrigued dismissed as “very weird” and amateurish by the Times.

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

————

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.

1939 New York City 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?

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