Papas Diary Project – A life in New York, 1924

Monday Oct 13

October 10, 2024October 13, 2007 by munger

[no October 13 entry; Papa accidentally wrote his October 20 entry on this page]

————–

It was long ago when I joined Jack and Julius and Nathan on Broome street, we dipped black bread in salt and sipped tea and talked late into the night of girls and our plans and of days to come. They kept leather everywhere, strips on chairs, bolts on their bed and the floor, it was a factory of their own. Jack and Julius always at work at the table, they passed each other tools and dropped rivets into cans and tea cups. Nathan joked would they give us a job when we got back from the war, he said the men at the registration office meant to send us right back to the old country to our old homes.

So much has happened since those endless days can it be I am still the same? What are these days then? They do not seem to me like memories to come.

—————-

For those of you just joining us, the above passage was not written by my grandfather; on days when he hasn’t written in his diary, I often write fictionalized interpretations of what I think might have been on his mind. Try the links below to see what he has to say about some of the major subjects he’s covered:

– “The 20th Century Girl”

– The New York Academy of Music

– B’nai zion, a.k.a. Order Sons of Zion, the fraternal order my grandfather belonged to

– Baseball

– The Capitol Theatre, one of New York’s great movie palaces

– Cars of the 1920’s

– Coney Island

– Calvin Coolidge

– The 1924 Democratic Convention, the longest and most contentious in history and the first to be broadcast live on the radio

– The Brooklyn Dodgers and Ebbets Field

– Fraternal organizations and mutual support societies, a.k.a. landsmanshaftn

– The New York Giants, 1924 pennant winners

– Keren Hayesod

– Silent Movies (1924 was a great year for movie lovers like my grandfather; several monumental films including The Thief of Badgad, The Ten Commandments, Sherlock, Jr., and D.W. Griffith’s America were out that year. I’m not sure if he saw any of those, but I do know he saw at least The Song of Love, The Unknown Purple, The White Sister with Lillian Gish, and A Woman of Paris, Charlie Chaplin’s first serious directorial effort.)

– The Metropolitan Opera

– Papa’s Father’s Injury and Death

– Prohibition

– Prospect Park

– Early radio (Papa was an early radio adopter and frequently wrote about what he heard on New York stations like WEAF and WNYC)

– Sniatyn, Papa’s Ukrainian home town (part of Austro-Hungary when he left in 1913)

– The New York Subway

– Telephones in 1924

– Tenement life

– Woodrow Wilson

– The New York Yankees

– Yom Kippur

– Zionist Organization of America

Tuesday Oct 14

October 14, 2007 by munger

[no entry today]

—————-

Papa didn’t write anything in his diary on October 14th, 1924 (he accidentally wrote his October 21st entry on the October 14th page, which is why you see writing on the image of the October 14th page at right). So, for those of you just joining us (perhaps you read about this site in today’s New York Times) below are links to posts about some of the major subjects my grandfather has covered thus far:

– “The 20th Century Girl”

– The New York Academy of Music

– B’nai zion, a.k.a. Order Sons of Zion, the fraternal order my grandfather belonged to

– Baseball

– The Capitol Theatre, one of New York’s great movie palaces

– Cars of the 1920’s

– Coney Island

– Calvin Coolidge

– The 1924 Democratic Convention, the longest and most contentious in history and the first to be broadcast live on the radio

– The Brooklyn Dodgers and Ebbets Field

– Fraternal organizations and mutual support societies, a.k.a. landsmanshaftn

– The New York Giants, 1924 pennant winners

– Keren Hayesod

– The Metropolitan Opera

– Papa’s Father’s Injury and Death

– Prohibition

– Prospect Park

– Early radio (Papa was an early radio adopter and frequently wrote about what he heard on New York stations like WEAF and WNYC)

– Sniatyn, Papa’s Ukrainian home town (part of Austro-Hungary when he left in 1913)

– The New York Subway

– Telephones in 1924

– Tenement life

– Woodrow Wilson

– The New York Yankees

– Yom Kippur

– Zionist Organization of America

Wednesday Oct 15

October 15, 2007 by munger

[no entry today]

—————

Matt’s Notes

Papa’s periods of diary silence usually occur when he’s overwhelmed by difficult emotions, often in the aftermath of birthdays, holidays, or other milestones designed to trigger introspective stock-taking. We’re now five days into his latest quiet period (he accidentally wrote his October 22nd entry on his diary’s October 15th page, which is why you see writing on the October 15th image at right) related, I think, to the October 8th Yom Kippur holiday in which he mourned his beloved, recently-departed father for the first time.

His entries leading up to Yom Kippur were either non-existent or uncharacteristically abbreviated, and, with the exception of a long, lyrical passage on the eve of the holiday, he has maintained his quiet for almost two weeks. I have speculated for months on the nature of his grief and on the complicated internal struggles triggered by his father’s death but, no matter what I say, Papa’s own feelings remain, for him, inexpressible.

———

We know, of course, that Papa’s inherent optimism and capacity for constructive change would win out in the end; those who knew him would forever admire his sense of calm and warm, contented vibe. I expect, then, he would be satisfied by yesterday’s reaction to an article about this project in The New York Times, which has had results both expected (my mother enjoyed the article but felt it was too short) helpful (people have chimed in with research ideas and good comments) and fantastic (at least one e-mail from a long-lost relative and two from the descendants of a character who appears several times in the diary).

Meanwhile, for those of you just joining us, I’ll repeat yesterday’s list of links to posts about some of the major subjects my grandfather has covered thus far:

– “The 20th Century Girl”

– The New York Academy of Music

– B’nai zion, a.k.a. Order Sons of Zion, the fraternal order my grandfather belonged to

– Baseball

– The Capitol Theatre, one of New York’s great movie palaces

– Cars of the 1920’s

– Coney Island

– Calvin Coolidge

– The 1924 Democratic Convention, the longest and most contentious in history and the first to be broadcast live on the radio

– The Brooklyn Dodgers and Ebbets Field

– Fraternal organizations and mutual support societies, a.k.a. landsmanshaftn

– The New York Giants, 1924 pennant winners

– Keren Hayesod

– The Metropolitan Opera

– Papa’s Father’s Injury and Death

– Prohibition

– Prospect Park

– Early radio (Papa was an early radio adopter and frequently wrote about what he heard on New York stations like WEAF and WNYC)

– Sniatyn, Papa’s Ukrainian home town (part of Austro-Hungary when he left in 1913)

– The New York Subway

– Telephones in 1924

– Tenement life

– Woodrow Wilson

– The New York Yankees

– Yom Kippur

– Zionist Organization of America

Thursday Oct 16

October 17, 2024October 16, 2007 by munger

Attended membership
meeting of the downtown Z.
district. It certainly did
not turn out, the way I wanted
it to.

I feel a little apathetic
toward the membership work

My pep in this direction of
former years is gone.

————–

The “downtown Z. district” likely refers to “the First District,” or Lower East Side chapter, of the Zionist Organization of America.¹ We learned back in January of the First District’s attendance woes when Papa, under the supervision of a mysterious figure named “Blitz,” spent several weeks organizing a membership meeting and pitching the Z.O.A. to various other groups and clubs around town. The results were disappointing, and we’ve heard so little about the First since then that I figured it had given up the ghost. Looks like it’s still limping along, though, and Papa is still involved with its care and feeding.

Despite the First’s discouraging difficulties, I find Papa’s harsh assessment of his own dedication to Zionism to be rather incongruous. He has spent countless hours attending lectures, receptions, talks and dances and running fundraising drives and meetings, and he would in fact remain an enthusiastic activist for the rest of his life. How could he say his enthusiasm of former years “is gone” when only nine months he could be found on the street giving out membership flyers when the weather was too brutal for even his closest associates?

I think, perhaps, the overall sense of loss Papa has struggled with in the wake of his father’s death — attenuated, at this time of year, by the intense mourning associated with the Jewish holidays — colors just about everything else in his life. It must be especially difficult when he deals with “dying” things like the Z.O.A.’s first district; why else would he speak with such exaggerated finality when, as we know, he was by nature such an optimistic dreamer?

———

1 – The Z.O.A., formerly known as the Federation of American Zionist, had about 40,000 members at the time and counted among its affiliates Haddasah, the Jewish women’s organization, Keren Hayesod, the Zionist fundraising group, and B’nai Zion, the fraternal order and mutual support society to which Papa belonged.

Friday Oct 17

October 17, 2024October 17, 2007 by munger

[no entry]

————

Today I shaved my face and watching the soap and water flow down the drain the blues came over me. The blues hide and wait and find me at the most unexpected times, when I wash and when see the book man with his stack of books and when I see someone alone at a counter with a plate of eggs.

Even this afternoon as I left the factory I felt a sadness, of course I will be there on Monday but I wished to embrace each worker as if they were never to return.

Thought again of dear H. Eisenkraft taken from us so young and remembered him during evening prayers.

Note: The above photo shows Hyman Eisenkraft (some time between 1910 and 1913) a beloved cousin whose untimely death Papa mentioned on June 16.

Saturday Oct 18

October 17, 2024October 18, 2007 by munger

[Note: Papa accidentally wrote his October 18th entry on the October 11th page of his diary. I’ve included thumbnails of both pages at right]

————-

Obliged Jeans call to
go there, only to meet the
Phila. girl, who does not
appeal to me in the least,
and again to oblige Jean
I promised to take the
girl out Tuesday.

Later in the Eve, I met
two Bettys, Rosenberg
and Ehrlich, the first at
the Stoyjer S.C., a fine type
and the other at the Welcome
House, very naive and
charming, got both
phone numbers.

——————

This entry feels a bit like it’s missing a first paragraph. We know “Jean” is a cousin who does double duty as Papa’s personal love counselor, but where’s the “there” Papa goes at her behest? Perhaps his disappointment with “the Phila girl” (is this a girl from Philadelphia, or someone whose last name is Phila?) and his annoyance with Jean for arranging his date got him too keyed up to provide many details, as if he just wanted to get it over with when he set down to write about it.

The two women named “Betty,” on the other hand, both earn adjectives Papa reserves for women he likes (“naive” usually means innocent or sweet, while “a fine type” means the marrying kind) and both warrant descriptions of the time and place he met them. The “Welcome House” was, I think, a Jewish settlement house on East 13th Street, and like many settlement houses offered a combination of residential and social services for the disenfranchised and also served as a gathering place for the civic-minded. Papa may have gravitated to the Welcome House, where he encountered Betty Rosenberg, because it focused on Hungarian immigrants, at least according to this record from a 1911 book called the “Handbook of Settlements” (excerpted below from Google Books):

I’m less clear on where Papa encountered Betty Ehrlich, but only because I can’t make out his writing. It looks like he says he found her at the “Stoyjer S.C.”, but while I’m pretty sure that “S.C.” stands for “Social Club,” I’m also pretty sure that Papa really didn’t write “Stoyjer.” Please drop a comment or note if you read it differently:

I should also note that Betty Ehrlich shares my wife’s last name, though I don’t think I’m about to discover that I’m somehow related to my wife or anything; Ehrlich is not a particularly unusual Jewish name and, in fact, my wife got it from her stepfather. Still, it gave me a jolt to see it in Papa’s handwriting and triggered a momentary, science fiction daydream in which I discover some overlooked part of Papa’s diary addressed specifically to me. As if, as 1924 entered the home stretch, Papa saw me in the distance and wrote down exactly what I needed to know.

————–

Update: Aviva, one of our most loyal readers and contributors of well-researched comments, added a comment below that I don’t want to go unnoticed:

I believe Papa wrote Stryjer, a benevolent club from the shtetl of Stryj. See URL https://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/stryj2/stre019.html

Strij, as it’s spelled in Google maps, is about 100 miles northeast of Papa’s home town of Sniatyn, and both towns are in what is now known as the Ukraine. It looks like, for whatever reason, Papa spent this evening hitting all of New York’s hot spots for Austro-Hungarian Jews.

Sunday Oct 19

October 17, 2024October 20, 2007 by munger

The day with friends
at Rothblums.

————–

Matt’s Notes

A Rothblum appearance in Papa’s diary usually means Papa’s having a good time, whether he’s motoring around Coney Island with his pals in “Rothblum’s auto,” taking a shvitz on Second Avenue, or socializing, as he did this evening, at Rothblum’s house in East New York. True, the most disappointing romantic saga of Papa’s year started when he met “The 20th Century Girl” at Rothblum’s last party, but presumably he’s forgiven both Rothblum and Rothblum’s wife for making that ill-fated match.

Rothblum was a brother in B’nai Zion (a.k.a. Order Sons of Zion) the fraternal order to which Papa belonged, so I’ll bet the crowd at his Sunday soirée included usual mugs from B’nai Zion like Blaustein, Breitbart, Bluestone, Shapiro, and good old Jack Zichlinsky. I doubt there were too many fraternal hijinks to be had, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Rothblum broke out the bootleg slivovitz for a toast or two.

————————-

[Note: Papa accidentally wrote his October 19th entry on the October 12th page of his diary. I’ve included thumbnails of both pages at right.]

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