LOOKING BACK I

EXTRA POINTE

East Side

(Siaortsweat lot Winnexs

Continued from preceding page

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54

FRIDAY, JULY 20, 1990

CLASSIFIEDS
GET RESULTS!

Call The Jewish News

354-6060

Bialystok or Kamenetz Po-
dolsk at meetings or organi-
land-
zations called
manschaften. Here were
bookstores, laden from floor
to ceiling with Jewish books
in a dozen languages, where
you could also buy ritual
necessities like a talis and
tefilin. Here one could choose
from a half dozen Yiddish dai-
ly newspapers.
This was grown up stuff, no
concern of mine. I looked
away from the dingy streets
to the river. I was fascinated
by the three bridges which
converged on me. The Man-
hattan Bridge was just an
old, rusty, drab span spoiling
the restless beauty of the
water. The Williamsburg
Bridge was much grander, a
massive gray stone fortress.
But the Brooklyn Bridge, all
lacy webs and pointed arches,
was a picture in a storybook.
lb cap it all, across the river
loomed the Brooklyn Navy
Yard, a gigantic steel-blue
erector set.
The river was the world
beyond. Wind-wafted from
brick-red sea trains came the
earthy pungence of cattle,
poultry and pig, and the
fragrance of coffee and spices.
Garbage scows drifted after
puffing olive-drab tugboats.
Sea gulls followed the scows,
screaming and plunging.
'Nice a day the Boston-bound
steamer blasted a frightening
warning as it rounded the
bend in the river called Cor-
lears Hook. On summer days,
divers ostentatiously crossed
themselves before they hur-
tled from the high pier pilings
at Hecker's Mill into the
dark, fetid waters.
The river was a spectacle,
shining but distant. The
streets were close, intimate,
haimisch. Umbrella- and pot-
menders, knife sharpeners,
fruit and vegetable vendors,
and I-Cash-clothes men kept
up a ceaseless chorus of calls.
Organ grinders, street singers
and merry-go-rounds cranked,
shrilled and tinkled a counter-
point. Dark-skinned men car-
ried cawing parrots that, for
a penny, picked printed for-
tunes from a box with their
beaks.
Vendors wheeled piping hot
delectables in sheet metal
stoves on old baby carriage
wheels: sweet potatoes, corn-
on-the-cob, purple Fava beans
and yellow chickpeas. And
ice-scrapings doused with
syrup, Itirkish halvah and
sesame squares, and cookie
bits wrapped in paper cones
and called schmutz (dirt).
Horses still turned wheels.

I went to sleep to the clop of
horses' hooves and awoke to
a wagon driver's cluck. Spar-
rows fattened on redolent
horse droppings; oats sprout-
ed between cobblestones.
From stables came the clang
of hammer on anvil. On win-
ter ice-slicks horses fell and
lay huge and helpless. After
the savage clatter of occa-
sional runaway horses came
the jangle of ambulances, the
breath of death rising like a
mist from the streets.
East Siders were avid cele-
brants. One holiday barreled
down on the next one. Memo-
rial Day — we called it Decor-
ation Day — didn't end until
the Fourth of July. For a
whole month the streets
heaved and reeked under a
sulphurous barrage of fire-
crackers. On Halloween you
stayed indoors unless you
wanted to be bashed by
stockings stuffed tight with
coal ash and hard as black-
jacks. On Election Day every-
thing wooden and portable,
from unguarded pushcarts to
old sofas and piano parts,
became bonfires roaring up
the roof tops. All day long the
shrilling of fire engines
drowned out the screech of tin
horns.
There were ritual taboos
unheard of elsewhere. A man
wearing a straw hat after
Labor Day was defying the
inevitable. Kids were sure to
knock the hat off his head
and stomp it to bits. The hat,
not the head.
Saturday mornings even
the children of atheists went
to synagogue. Actually to the
backyard of the synagogue
where a stinking ailanthus
raised scraggly arms in bless-
ing. During the long reading
from the lbrah, the tree was
home base for games of ver-
tical tag. Like raucous angels
mocking Jacob's dream in
Genesis, we scampered up
and down the iron ladders.
When there was a Bar Mitz-
vah, we had extra fun pelting
the poor kid with bags of
hard candy and hazel nuts.
Then we fought over the stuff
we had just thrown.
People in cities today can
have privacy and anonymity.
On the East Side we had
neither. If there was a line
between friendliness and
nosiness, no one recognized it.
People popped in and out of
one another's flats. If you
happened to raise your voice,
your next door neighbor
knocked on your door and
asked., "You're having a fight?
Make up already!" Neighbors
lent cups of flour and sugar or