LIFE ON "A HUN 19"

I was born and brought up in East Harlem. Some people might say, "Tsk, tsk, that must have been awful." Actually, it was great. It was never boring. The tenement buildings on East 119th street (pronounced “a hun 19”) had 7 apartments on each floor and there were 6 floors in each building. The higher you had to climb, the cheaper the rent.   I was lucky to live in one of the brownstones on the block. We had a small cement back yard which my dad had painstakingly turned into a garden, with a lilac bush, rose bushes and a cherry tree which never blossomed. 

There it stood, year after year, an empty promise. One year, my grandfather decorated the branches with store-bought cherries, draping them all over the tree as you would Christmas ornaments. Then he excitedly called the family to come see the miracle!

Our cherry tree never bloomed, so one spring my grandfather draped store-bought cherries all over the tree and then called the family to "come see the miracle."                    

In nice weather we would sit in our little garden, dwarfed by a big apartment house next door.  Since there was no air conditioning, you shared your neighbors lives through their open windows.  On the second floor lived the McCarthy family. Mary, Pat, and their two small sons.  Once when Pat had a beer too many one evening we heard Mary exclaim, “You knocked me down!” and her husband answered, “Did not!”  “Then what am I doing on the floor?” she wailed.  My father was always nothing if not helpful. He rushed up to the apartment and knocked on the door.  Pat opened the door immediately and offered him a beer. Mary picked herself up and asked after the family.  Peace and quiet prevailed.

Did we have number runners and loan sharks in East Harlem? Yes of course we did.  Everybody likes to gamble.  Some people couldn't afford to bet a whole dollar so they would play just one of the three numbers, and the runners would walk up and down the street holding up the numbers as they came out. Playing the numbers then was of course illegal.  When a person needed money but had no collateral they borrowed from a loan shark. Contrary to what you see in the movies, they didn’t always beat up a person who missed a payment. They weren’t all cold hearted monsters. Sometimes when you needed help it was better to go to your local capo than your local cop.

Holy Rosary church was located in the middle of our street.  Every Sunday afternoon there were three or four weddings and when the bride came out besides rice she was pelted with nickels and dimes and the occasional quarters. We scrambled for the coins every Sunday!

Holy Rosary Church, 444 East 119th Street

Just staying home on your own street was not boring because there were more families on one block than in some small neighborhoods. There was a grocer and a candy store, a shoemaker and a tailor and there was Holy Rosary where something was always going on. Every Sunday morning the cadet corps would parade in their uniforms and the band would play stirring marches. 

There was the wonderful weekend every May when the street would be filled with dozens of young girls dressed as brides and the young boys in their suits with scrubbed faces and skinned knees waiting for the bishop to come out of the rectory.  When he appeared with his tall mitered hat, blessing everyone, people cheered from their windows and lined the curbs, applauding.

Feast of Mount Carmel

We looked forward to it every year, almost as much as the 16^th of July, which was the feast of Mount Carmel.  Then the whole neighborhood was festooned with banners and lights crisscrossing the streets.  The portable Ferris wheel was set up and wonderful odors from food being cooked out on the street filled the air. The excitement mounted daily and every night you dressed up and walked over to the main street to hear the band play and hoped some boy might talk to you and ask you to ride the Ferris wheel with him.  Nobody went to sleep on the 16^th. There was a mass every hour and people came from all over the city to attend on that special night.

Ohio could have its state fairs—we had our fiestas.  This big holiday was followed by smaller fiestas for lesser saints until September came and school started and summer was officially over.

Like I said, people might say, "You grew up in East Harlem? How awful." And again I say, actually it was pretty great.