Coney Island Odyssey

By Murray Koren

In this memoir, the author has captured the spirit and breadth of Jewish folklore, which once existed in the life of Coney Island. From the struggle of his parents; his father who paid dearly for his citizenship through an era in the thirties; his mother who attempted to decorate a dismal six family walk-up; and to himself who passed through a difficult Bar Mitzvah, his poor mother bargaining slyly with the salesman for an appropriate suit. His education at Stuyvesant High School, a premier institution for gifted children, prepared him for his further studies at Brooklyn College where he earned his BS. This culminated in a Masters in Chemical Engineering from NYU followed by earning a PE (Professional Engineer) license.

His college studies were interrupted by his Army life in Korea. From hilarious episodes in devious trading of condoms in exchange for food; the condoms later used as balloons in the camp’s movie theatre; to building an outdoor latrine including using the largest soldier’s buttocks as the pattern. How does a nice Jewish boy end up in these predicaments, even eating the Army’s non-Kosher food?

Upon arriving back in Coney Island after Korea, the author meets some unbelievable characters including three girls who were all named Betty, and who wanted his services. The humor, struggles, and coming of age of a first generation Jewish son detailed in Coney Island Odyssey, will deeply touch you, move you and delight you. Read the book and get lost in the adventure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Murray Koren
• Release date: Oct 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310163951

Murray Koren

The author was born and bred in Brooklyn, NY and spent his early life in Coney Island with a brief interlude in the Army at the end of WWII. His education in Stuyvesant HS, an institution for gifted children prepared him for his further studies in Brooklyn College where he earned his BS and culminated in a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering from NYU and then a PE (Professional Engineer) license. His college studies were interrupted by Army life in Korea, which was an interplay of military service and very humorous episodes. At the time of Coney Island’s decline he was influenced by and introduced to a unique and fascinating group of characters. He resides in NYC with his wife of 50 years who influenced him into writing this memoir about the events and characters he met in the Army in Korea and in Coney Island. He has two children and is completing an additional memoir.

Book preview

Published by Maverick Books

Woodstock, New York 12498

Copyright © 2007 by Murray Koren

Registration Number TXu1-352-386

Front-page graphics, Dr. Lori Todd

This work is based on incidents of my life as I remember them.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

Ebook, November 2012

to my wife and children

always...

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

PART ONE Hershel and the Finisher

PART TWO Education of Murray

PART THREE Military Maneuvers

PART FOUR Return

About the Author

PART ONE

Hershel and the Finisher

1

It was 1926 on Seventh Avenue in the fur district in New York City. At 11:45 every morning, the owner of one of the smaller fur shops, a short balding man of 22, sent his errand boy Melvin for a pastrami on rye sandwich and a Pepsi Cola for his lunch. A half hour later, when the boy returned a petite, delicately built girl, one of the finishers so innocently called, Max, so what’s in the bag you’re bringin?

Melvin was annoyed, You talkin to me? I’m Melvin, not Max. Why you call me Max? My name is Melvin. Max is a name for a Greener. Call me Melvin. Anyway in the bag is Hershel’s lunch, a pastrami on rye with mustard, a pickle and a Pepsi like every day. You think it’s sometin else? Hershel never orders sometin else.

She coyly smiled, Max is a better name; it’s a name for a kinig. But you want Melvin so I’ll call you Melvin. So let me see what’s in the bag.

Dis you say every day and every day you take. You can’t take!

Who’s talkin? Don’t worry Melvin I wont take. So let me see already.

Alright, look but don’t take. Hershel will kill me if you take. And sure enough, she takes the drink and sips it slowly with a satisfied knowing smile.

When Hershel received his lunch he looked in the bag and angrily remarked, So where’s my Pepsi? Every day you bring me my sandwich, a pickle and there’s no soda. I paid for the soda didn’t I? The soda, where is it? What happened to the soda? Hershel didn’t have to ask the question. He knew the answer he would receive. It was always the same.

That pretty young finisher, Ida, the one who sews in the linings, she takes the soda.

Are you a dope? What you mean she takes the soda? It’s not hers. She didn’t pay for it. I pay for it. Why you give it to her every day?

I didn’t give it to her. I never give it to her. She takes it. What can I do?

Oy are you a shlemiel. What can you do? I’ll tell you what you can do! You can bring me the soda I paid for. That’s what you can do. Don’t forget, don’t let her take. You gotta remember I paid for the soda; it’s my soda, not hers. Next time you come back without my soda you’re fired. You hear me? For sure you’ll be fired! And her, her I’ll fix good. She gotta know what she’s doin and she gotta know who’s the boss.

Hershel knew the situation could not continue. He knew something had to be done but what? He knew he was an intelligent man. Didn’t he become the boss of a going business at an early age and also made more money than everyone in the family? But this stumped him. What could he do? But she knew, she surely did. Every day without fail she took the soda. And every day Hershel yelled at his errand boy. And in January, 1927 she married her boss in a white satin, beaded, twenties dress. Nine months from the wedding, I was born. And nine months from the wedding day, the finisher who looked very much like a sprite became my mother.

2

My father watches as his wife is feeding his two young sons and knows this is where he belongs; this is the country where he will raise his family. His father made the right decision leaving the old country. And now my father is going to night school to learn English in his first steps to become an American citizen. He will never return to the old country. In the Jewish immigrant community on the lower east side of Manhattan it is believed that one must have the services of a maven, an expert, to become a citizen. It is 1933 and the maven’s customary fee of $100 is very expensive in the depths of the Great Depression, it is a small fortune but if that is the cost of becoming an American citizen then so be it. My father contacts the maven recommended by his father, his uncles and his cousins. This maven recognizes that here he has a prospect who has been to night school, he can read English and therefore needs no preparation; he’s a prospect who will pay his fee and then be ceremoniously sent to the Immigration and Naturalization Service where he fills out the application, takes his test in English and is eventually sworn in as a citizen. In this instance the maven provides no real service; he supplies information that is readily and freely available to all; and soon thereafter an agent from the INS asks my father if he is acquainted with a man who is reputed to be selling American citizenships. When pop relates his experience and agrees to give evidence in court, the agent advises that this maven might have unsavory connections so it would be prudent for us to move from Brooklyn to another location until the trial is over. As I am six and my younger brother, Sidney is four we become tremendously excited by the thought of going into hiding, just like in a gangster movie.

The decision is made to relocate from Brooklyn to the lower east side. The first thing we notice is the buildings are old, very old and the streets are crowded with old Jews, young Jews, and religious Jews. Many men wear black overcoats and fedoras and some are bearded while many of the women cover their hair with a scarf or a sheytl (wig). We move into a cold water flat in a tenement on Rivington Street above a barbershop near my grandparents, Bubbe and Zayde. There is an exterior steel stair and platform leading up to the building entrance and a barbershop on the first floor. Sid and I are fascinated by the shop window with long hanks of women’s hair on display. A little old man can be seen in the window hunched over a small table covered with watches and watch parts. The man is wearing a yarmulke and a beard and has a magnifying loop in his right eye to aid in his repair work, a sight that my brother and I find unbelievably intriguing.

It‘s winter and very cold. My father crumples newspaper into the broken window in the bedroom to keep the wintry drafts at bay. Our parents use the bedroom while Sid and I sleep on folding cots set up in the kitchen at night. There is no central heat and hot water, therefore the appellation cold water flat. My mother builds a fire in the kitchen’s large black coal stove that is used for cooking and is the only source of heat and hot water in the apartment just like in the old country. Buckets of water are heated on the stove for washing laundry and one’s self in the large tub opposite the stove. Privacy is not a consideration when taking a bath, for one day we arrive as my grandfather is in the tub scrubbing himself. The floors are covered with many layers of cheap linoleum and our icebox sits in a corner of the kitchen. There is no bathroom; the toilet is in a very small room, a closet out in the hall for the tenants on the floor. It’s an old fashioned toilet with a wooden water tank high up on the wall with a long pull chain. We bring our own toilet paper and at night we also carry a light bulb which if left is sure to be taken. A coalman delivers his wares in a large canvas bucket that he carries on his shoulder; he is a tall husky goy wearing a black leather cap with a flap in the back to protect his neck, and he is covered with coal dust from head to foot. Another goy appears selling ice, as modern refrigeration is an unknown in this area. The coalman and iceman announce their readiness to deliver their products by calling out the words, coal or ice. My brother and I are entranced by the whole procedure because we had never before seen people purchasing coal to provide their own source of heat.

We are further enthralled by nearby Orchard Street, a fascinating, unbelievable sight with its multitude of shops and the omnipresent wooden pushcarts lining both sides of the street. Signs and store windows are painted in Yiddish and some also in English announcing the owner and the food, merchandise or services offered. There is the loud steady drone of the people who fill the street and sidewalks, some scurrying by, some offering their products for sale, some bargaining in earnest, and those passing by to observe the scene in disdain, dismay, or just in curiosity. How my mother loves to shop and bargain with us in tow as we elbow our way through the crowd. Sid and I ogle the street scene and especially the profusion of goods of every possible description on display; we have never seen the equal to Orchard Street.

There seems to be an earthy smell, a definite familiar aroma when I step into one of the old tenement buildings that gives the illusion of being transported to the little houses, more like the huts that my families lived in, in the shtetls in Russia. It’s the smell of the ancient buildings with the many people crammed into small apartments, the smell of the not too clean, dusty and dimly lit hallways, and always the smell of the cooking of the different foods from the various apartments intermingling into one hamish smell of Jewish cooking that has been going on for years and years, seemingly for an eternity. This feeling never leaves me. When I enter a tenement years later while I’m engaged in renovating these buildings it’s the same sensation that I had in the past. The tenements also bring to mind my older relatives who are always warm and caring and give me a feeling of belonging. I feel safe and happy in their embraces when I’m young. The warmth remains when I’m grown and even later when I think of them long after they are gone.

My mother thanks God when the trial is over and the judge finds my father to be a good citizen who has rightfully earned his citizenship. We leave my grandparents and other relatives who are close by and are relieved to leave the lower east side and return to Brooklyn with central heat, a refrigerator and a private bathroom.

Every Passover we spend the first two nights for the Seders with my grandparents. Sid and I sleep on folding cots in the kitchen and before going to bed we make sure to use the toilet in the hallway. Going to the toilet has its own ritual. Zayde screws the light bulb into the hanging electric socket and hands us pieces of paper if needed; the papers are the wrappings from the fruit Bubbe buys, and when we’re finished, Zayde removes the light bulb. There are only three rooms in the apartment, the bedroom, kitchen and the dining room where the Seder is held on a large round wooden table that is covered with a white tablecloth for the festivities. There are six wooden chairs, two of which are without backs. Earlier in the day Zayde proudly takes us to his synagogue, where I meet my cousins who are also staying with their grandparents.

Zayde presides over the Seder. Copies of the Haggadah printed in Yiddish with an English translation are distributed and as the youngest who can read Yiddish, I ask the traditional four questions regarding the holiday that Zayde responds to by reading the story of Moses and the exodus of the Jews from Egypt. At the appropriate times we drink the small glass of sweet red wine which Zayde ferments every year in an oak keg that is stored on the fire escape. I always finish each glass to show I’m a big boy and by the end of the Seder I’m feeling the effects of the wine; I’m very sleepy and ready for bed.

In the kitchen, one wall that I think of as Zayde’s wall is covered with small photographs of the members of the extended family. They are all there; and we always look for pictures of others and ourselves at the various stages of our lives, and when a new photograph is taken, up it goes on Zayde’s wall.

Zayde’s wall had been transported later to my own home, chocked full of the photos of generations.

3

My mother’s writing to her mother and sisters in Russia is in Yiddish and included in each letter is some money that she hopes will eventually bring them to America and into her arms. When I’m old enough and learn to write the language, I proudly add a sentence or two at the end of her letters. Mom never learned Russian; Jews were not permitted in Russian schools in her village so Uncle Shloime, my mother’s uncle, addresses the letters for her as he has the distinction of being the only one in the family who writes Russian. Perhaps it’s his saving grace, his only one.

Many times when we visit my grandparents, Zayde is playing poker with several of his friends on the round wooden table in the front room. As a player comes into the room he pulls up a decrepit wooden chair, with or without a back, but if all the chairs are in use a nearby wooden fruit box is used. The group of old men play for pennies, constantly telling stories and joking in Yiddish, not worrying too much about winning or losing. When I’m very young I sit on Zayde’s lap as he plays, feeling very contented; this is my grandfather.

Uncle Sidney, I can never forget my Uncle Sidney, my father’s objectionable brother-in-law gloating as he’s winning in a two hand game of poker with Zayde. My uncle is a short, thin man with a beaten look as if worn out by the strange, hard world he lives in; America and the Great Depression are too much for him, but still far better than the old country. But there are times his face comes alive with shifty eyes and a cunning look when he sees a rare opportunity and his winning from his father-in-law is just such an occasion. My father becomes angry and joins in the game and quickly wins back the money Zayde lost making Sidney furious; it’s another lost opportunity.

I can’t help but ask, Ma, why is Uncle Sidney so angry?

A real job your Uncle Sidney doesn’t have. So it’s on the WPA he works. The only one in the family. A good poker player your Zayde isn’t. This your uncle knows. So playin poker with Zayde is his way to make some money. Zayde don’t care. It’s his son in law who’s winnin. But your papa cares and so he wins back the money.

Is pop such a good player?

Good? He’s the best! The week’s pay I see him win in the shop. A gambler, a man who takes chances is what I like. When we married he said he won’t gamble no more. A family he has to support.

My father a gambler? That’s a concept I find hard to accept. But later I saw when he played cards with relatives or close friends he almost always won. He remembered the cards played and then he played the percentages. In later years I tried following his method but I became too nervous and so I stayed away from gambling.

My grandparents live in a totally Jewish community. It’s reflected in the stores and in their language, which is almost totally Yiddish. Zayde learns some English while he’s working, but Bubbe knows only a few words. On the lower east side all the Jewish owned stores close for Shabbos. It‘s reputed that one new storekeeper not knowing the neighborhood taboos opened for business on Shabbos; the word spread quickly and from the following day on, no one entered his establishment and he was soon out of business.

All conversations with my parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, and older cousins are in Yiddish with English added where there is no Yiddish equivalent; but as the years go by more and more English is slowly added so that the conversations are carried on with a strange mixture of the two languages. The Yiddish/English idiom is common today and some of it has found its way into the Webster’s Dictionary.

As we’re growing up there are the Bar Mitzvahs and weddings which are usually held in the Little Oriental, a kosher catering hall on the lower east side. It seems all the immigrant families use the Little Oriental. But their grown children who become part of the middle class find the Little Oriental to be too Jewish, and definitely too old fashioned. They require something more in keeping with their position in society, so they hire one of the more elaborate catering halls on Long Island for they are not to be outdone by any of their neighbors or relatives. We have a wonderful time as children at these celebrations; we meet our cousins and always stuff ourselves with as many delicacies as possible, play various games and watch as one of our older cousins attempts a frenzied Russian dance and usually ends up on his rump.

I have a special memory concerning food. I can still taste the bread preparation where Bubbe takes thick slices of pumpernickel or rye, then liberally coats the crust with garlic, salt and pepper. The taste still haunts me. We smell so strongly of garlic, people make way for us on the subway on our way home.

And there is the tea drinking that differs so drastically from the traditional British afternoon tea ritual. Many of our older relatives including my grandparents have a unique way of drinking tea. Eastern Europeans Jews drink their tea out of glasses; and they are so served for many years in kosher restaurants in New York City. The hot beverage is served in a glass with sugar cubes and a slice of lemon which Zayde stirs into the tea and then pours the tea into his saucer, puts the glass aside and lifts the saucer with the fingers of his right hand, blows across the tea, then sips the cooled potion from the saucer. My parents sometimes drink their tea in this manner; and there are also times when my father puts a sugar cube in his mouth and sips the tea through the sugar. When I describe this to my friends they agree that their parents drink their tea the same way, and the glasses used are usually jelly glasses; after the jelly is consumed the glass jar is thoroughly cleansed and becomes a drinking glass. It seemed incomprehensible that drinking glasses or tumblers were sold separately, a clear waste of money.

I suddenly hear that our cousin Jake is in prison. From my bed I can hear my parents whispering about it. Mom’s cousin Sam and his wife Elsie whispering to my parents about this calamity. Jake was always a wild one and this time he was apprehended stealing a car. He was foolish to resist arrest and the police beat him so badly that he’s in a perpetual daze and doesn’t recognize anyone. To cover her shame his mother, Tante Susse tells the family that he has a good job in California.

My mother is sure he would recognize her. Jake would know her as his favorite cousin when she visits him.

He won’t know you, so don’t waste your time, Sam sadly informs her.

"Oh, me he’ll know. Remember when I came to America Uncle Joe took me to live with your family. Jake was always so good to me, like my poor dead brother. Me he’ll