Black Rock

By John G. Jung

Black Rock is a fictionalized account of a young immigrant boy named Lucas and his family who settled in the community called Black Rock in the 1950s and early 1960s. It is a coming-of-age story about him, his family, and his friends living in a tough neighborhood filled with immigrants, generational poverty, and families with marginal incomes. It is also a story that delves into the challenges that their families experienced. However, the concept of living on the wrong side of the tracks was never a concept that these children felt growing up. In fact, according to some, it was the best time in their life. Along the way, they experience the full thrust of Black Rock's social structure including bullies, verbal and physical assaults, mob violence, racism, and threats to life and limb. Despite poverty and degradation by perverse individuals, the overall community and its values eventually shine as they learn to accept and help each other, no matter who they are or where they came from. Author's Note: includes strong, authentic language and stereotypical descriptions from the 1950s. It is not intended to be offensive; nevertheless, it is not intended for children and readers that might be offended.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John G. Jung
• Release date: Jun 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005508388

John G. Jung

John G. Jung is an award winning registered professional urban planner, urban designer, professor and economic developer. He originated the “Intelligent Community” concept in the early 1990's and continues to serve as the Intelligent Community Forum's leading visionary, co-founder and Chairman. He has headed up key portfolios and initiatives in global cities such as Toronto, Calgary, New York, Hong Kong, London and Waterloo. Author and global keynote speaker at such events as Rio’s TedTalks, Mobile World in Barcelona, APEC in Beijing, Ottawa Writer's Festival and Global Forum conferences in Europe, he has led global business missions, workshops, design charrettes and is active teaching, consulting and participating in city-building initiatives. John is co-author of “From Connectivity to Community”; “Brain Gain”; “Seizing Our Destiny’; and “Broadband Economics” available at: https://www.intelligentcommunity.org/books and chapter author of several other books on cities and urbanism; and over 100 published articles and blogs on technical topics related to cities, climate change, artificial intelligence, human centric design, etc. EDEN 2084 is John's first work of fiction.

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Black Rock

John G. Jung

Copywrite 2022 John G. Jung

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All rights reserved.

ISBN 9781005508388

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Other Books by John G. Jung:

Eden 2084

Last Tree Standing

Sound in the Night

All Around the Circle

Brain Gain

Streets for All

Seizing Your Destiny

Broadband Economics

From Connectivity to Community

Performance Metrics for Sustainable Cities

Innovative Solutions for Creating Sustainable Cities

Introduction Author’s Note

Chapter 1 Wrong Side of the Tracks

Chapter 2 Goodbye Heidelberg

Chapter 3 Voyage

Chapter 4 Arrival

Chapter 5 Black and White Television

Chapter 6 Learning English

Chapter 7 Bullies

Chapter 8 Our House

Chapter 9 Kindergarten

Chapter 10 Angie’s

Chapter 11 Water Off a Duck’s Back

Chapter 12 Flips

Chapter 13 Halloween

Chapter 14 Freddie

Chapter 15 Beat the Champ

Chapter 16 Moving Day

Chapter 17 Change

Chapter 18 The Mob

Chapter 19 Hannah and Xavier

Chapter 20 Ski-Dek

Chapter 21 Mr. Kellogg

Chapter 22 Funeral

Chapter 23 Avery Bannister

Chapter 24 X-Factor

Chapter 25 Scout

Chapter 26 Fred, Rufus and Alec

Chapter 27 Fire

Chapter 28 Post-Fire

Chapter 29 Justice

Epilogue

Introduction – Author’s Note

The following story is a fictionalized account of a young immigrant boy named Lucas and his family living in the community called Black Rock in the 1950s and early 1960s. I have tried to write it in the tone and language of life as it took place in that time period. I apologize if some readers might be offended by the language and verbal descriptions that I have included, but I believe they were necessary to make it as authentic as possible for the reader. It is not intended to sound vulgar or racist. Nor does it intend to defame any culture or race. Needless to say, this book is not intended as a story for young readers.

Black Rock is a coming-of-age story about children living in a community filled with immigrants, generational poverty, and families with marginal incomes. It is also a story that delves into the challenges that their families experienced. However, the concept of living on the wrong side of the tracks was never a concept that these children felt growing up. But they experienced the full thrust of its social structure including abuse by bullies, verbal and physical assaults, mob violence, racism, and threats to life and limb. But it was also the best time of their lives. Despite poverty and degradation by perverse individuals, the overall community and its values shine as they learn to accept and help each other, no matter who they are or where they came from.

Chapter 1

Wrong Side of the Tracks

The Poor Side of Town is a 1966 song sung by Johnny Rivers that acknowledges there are different cultures in every town. These can be articulated through physical demarcations. Being from the wrong side of the tracks. Or coming from mean streets – where people live among violence and crime that keeps people poor and socially deprived. It could also be described as living in the slums, in bad neighborhoods, or being from the gutter. Or as Billy Joe Royal’s 1965 ode to the downtrodden went:

Down in the boondocks

Down in the boondocks

People put me down

'Cause that's the side of town

I was born in.

I love her, she loves me

But I don't fit in her society.

Lord have mercy on the boy

From down in the boondocks

People have aspired to rise above poverty and the limitations imposed on them since time immemorial. The struggle to do so is different for everyone. Some seek a new life elsewhere to gain a better life for themselves and their families. Every once in a while people succeed. Yet, without any fault of their own, many try and fail. They are beaten down. Or perhaps they become weary of trying and grow complacent. They may harbor grudges for those that succeed. They may covet the success of others and desire to pull them down before they rise any further. On the other hand, in the words of Hellen Keller: Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much. And above all, love can happen, even on the poor side of town.

I grew up literally on the other side of the track. Some would say it was the wrong side. Black Rock was separated from the City of Buffalo by the tracks that came across the bridge from Canada to Squaw Island and looped around Black Rock and Riverside and swept north through Tonawanda and into Niagara Falls, where it looped back over the Whirlpool bridge back to Canada. The pocket of houses that existed in Black Rock was a haven for the immigrants that came to America before and after World War 2.

Black Rock was not always deemed to be the community on the wrong side of the tracks. Initially settled in 1792, the village was incorporated in 1837, taking its name from a large black limestone rock that rose out of the Niagara River, aiding in evolving a natural harbor and ferry crossing to Canada. Due to this proximity to the Canadian border, Black Rock became a significant part of the underground railroad harboring fugitive slaves on their way across the Niagara River. However, in anticipation of the construction of the Erie Canal, the black rock was removed by dynamite.

The village of Black Rock was a rival to the town of Buffalo as the terminus of the Erie Canal and consequently, potentially the county seat. Despite losing out to Buffalo for the terminus of the Erie Canal, a portion of the northern part of the village, below Scajaquada Creek, was awarded a canal lock at the foot of Austin Street that generated power, attracting industries and a railroad to service them around the village.

Factories, such as the Pratt and Lambert Paint Foundries opened in 1849 as the railways expanded into the area. Flour mills also flourished along the Niagara River in Black Rock, creating wealth and prosperity for the industrialists in the mid-1800s. They settled further south and west in Buffalo among the cultured class that eventually built the museums, art galleries, and universities in the Deleware Park area. But the factories and mills also created jobs for many people who settled near the industries.

As a separate entity, the village of Black Rock developed and maintained its own utilities, market area, and sense of community. They even had their own political structure. Many of these people were descendants of German, Polish, and Eastern European immigrants. While the village of Black Rock was annexed by Buffalo in 1853, its residents retained a strong sense of independence. They also retained their connection back to their families in Europe. Before the turn of the century and during and after the wars in Europe, many immigrants that arrived in Buffalo sought out neighborhoods, such as Black Rock, where they could adjust to life in America among their own culture and language before being assimilated.

If you lived in Black Rock during this period, you entered the community across busy rail crossings at grade leading to Tonawanda Street. The BeltLine, a freight and commuter line, created one of the busiest railroad grade crossings in Buffalo at Amherst and Tonawanda Streets. Eventually, to ease the burden of these busy rail crossings, viaducts were built at Hertel, Austin, and Amherst Streets, further creating a wedge of housing between the rail lines and the Niagara River. But it also formed a sense of separation of the village of Black Rock from the south and east sides of Buffalo.

As new Polish immigrants arrived, they began to settle on the east side of the tracks where more and newer plots of land were available. As Black Rock became increasingly industrialized and few opportunities for housing expansion existed in the old neighborhood, younger family members moved north to settle in a suburban area they called Riverside, overlooking the Niagara River to Canada.

By the 1950s, Black Rock was further cut off, this time through the construction of the New York State Thruway system along the edge of the Niagara River, limiting the residents’ access to the river where they worked at the mills. But the river was also where many of the residents lived their lives swimming, fishing, and picnicking in the summer. Even their picnic ground on Squaw Island was turned into a sewage disposal site by the city. It seemed as if the rivalry for the county seat and the terminus of the Erie Canal many years earlier festered into the City of Buffalo bullying Black Rock, its smaller cousin. When the City of Buffalo won both of these prizes, it saw Black Rock as a little village that it could deal with on its terms. Black Rock was a wealthy and prosperous little village. It was considered one of the primary industrial areas of Western New York. Feeling their superiority over the little village, the city fathers quickly annexed it to the City of Buffalo and eventually constricted it, turning it into a pocket of poverty and a location to send its immigrants. It is here that my parents came because my father’s family members arrived years earlier and settled in the area known for its many German and other European immigrants. But also because they could find work and afford to live there.

Chapter 2

Goodbye Heidelberg

Why would someone want to leave their home? What forces them to do this? Politics? War? Climate Change? Family ties? Economic Opportunity? Survival? These are questions that millions of migrants are forced to consider at some point. Many have the resources to decide to move. Others don’t. Perhaps they’ll move to the next village or city. Or perhaps they’ll move to the next region or apply to move to another country or even across vast oceans to another continent.

Our family chose to move across the vast Atlantic Ocean. I can still recall my father donning his off-white trenchcoat to head to Bonn for the paperwork necessary to arrange for our family’s emigration process. Julius Bergman was a medium-sized man of average build. He had come through the war without any external scars but suffered medical and emotional scars internally. Over his 42 years, he was always a slight man. He stood there with his dark brown hair slicked back, covering a balding spot at the top of his forehead, holding the papers for all to see.

Wish me luck, said Julius, smiling broadly and speaking in an excited voice. This is it, the last set of papers that we need to submit. We should get our passports and visas by tomorrow and we can leave next Friday as planned.

My father’s emerald blue eyes glistened as he spoke. He had wanted to emigrate to the United States from his hometown in Heidelberg since before the war. His older brother had in his mid-thirties and he should have then, but he just started his construction company and he was finding much success with it. Emigrating in the mid-1930s didn’t seem to be an advantage for him, a single man in Heidelberg at the time.

His brother, Horst, in New York State, worked in a steel factory. And although Horst described America as a country with streets paved in gold, Julius figured he’s have to make significant changes in his life to be able to emigrate to New York. For one, he’d have to learn English. For another, he’d have to leave his friends and the family members that remained behind. He was also seeing a girl, named Marta, who would become his wife in 1936. Marta was shorter than Julius by nearly a foot. She was slender and had beautiful, long golden-colored hair that shimmered in the sunlight. She had a wonderful smile and large brown eyes. She wore sensible clothes The following year, Rolf, my oldest brother was born. My parents lived a wonderful life in Heidelberg with their young son, soon to be followed by the birth of my other brother, Frankie in 1940.

Unfortunately for Vati, as we called our father, he was eventually conscripted into the war in 1941. Despite his feelings about the war, he was sent to the eastern front. He quickly found himself on the outskirts of Leningrad to face Stalin’s Soviet Union Red Army.

We arrived in the early morning hours of June 22, 1941, explained Julius to his mates around a table in our kitchen. We were part of Feldmarschall Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb’s Army Group North. We set up camp on a ridge over-looking Leningrad. And there we would sit for the next two years pounding away at the city. I hated every minute of it. But I was lucky. I worked on transport moving around munitions. I never had to use a gun.

I watched him tell this story in the kitchen. I was peering around a corner from the dining room, listening intently. His audience was other former soldiers who had their own stories. Many were funny stories about silly pranks between soldiers in their everyday camps. Others involved crazy sergeants and other officers. Some stories were less humorous and others were downright horrific to listen to. As the schnapps flowed and the cigarettes were passed around, the stories became even more gruesome. My father’s stories seemed sanguine compared to some of the other soldier’s POW stories.

I handled munitions over the two-year siege, said Vati, But in 1943, while transporting munitions to the Finns along the front, I was captured by the Russians and sent to a POW camp near Leningrad where my construction skills were used for the next two years to rebuild parts of the city destroyed by Hitler’s forces. I was lucky. I was released early after the war ended in 1945. He stuttered as he told the story. You know, many of the nearly three million German POWs never returned.

I could tell he had trouble telling his story. Shaking, he took a quick shot of vodka and several puffs of his cigarette.

Sure, it was forced labor. The food, if there was any that day, was shit. And the POW camp was unsanitary. But they liked me and fed me and shared their vodka. Lots of it. Too much, in fact. One of my captures was named Serge and he fed me vodka as I worked. There was little water, but plenty of bottles of vodka. I was barely able to put up the bricks on a chimney. I looked at several that I built afterward and they looked off. I could tell that that day I had far too many vodka shots.

With that comment, Vati laughed heartedly. He pushed back his dark brown hair and took another shot of vodka. He continued with his story. He and the other men shared their war stories over more drinks and smokes. That is when I learned that he was sick. He had POW liver, as one of the men called it. Others referred to it as cirrhosis of the liver. He would eventually die from cirrhosis mortality due to excessive drinking and not from a bullet. But that would be another couple of decades of suffering later.

Vati said that after the war, he returned to Heidelberg. He was cared for in the local hospital where he was diagnosed with his ailments and sent home. He and my mother had Hannah the following year and I was born in 1950. I was 4 years old when I learned we would be moving. I don’t recall my feelings about the concept of moving. I did however hear about it among my older siblings, especially Hannah. She was closest in age to me. As an 8-year-old, she shouted at my mother that she didn’t want to go. She would miss her friends. My mother tried to comfort her. I don’t recall my older brothers’ objections if they had any. They were teenagers. Rolf was old enough to stay and start his own family in Heidelberg, but the image of the streets made of gold in America excited him. He seemed to be all for it and brought his younger brother along with him in the excitement.

It wasn’t that Heidelberg wasn’t a wonderful place. It was. It is. It’s one of the few places in Germany that was left entirely unscathed. The Allied armies presumed that the historic city wasn’t of strategic purpose, but more importantly, the American army eyed it to establish a garrison there after the war ended. It is a beautiful town but work was elsewhere. Consequently, reconstruction work was far from Heidelberg, and it was hard and long work for little money.

With a growing family, it was hard to make ends meet. Mutti, as we called our mother, was also working night and day mending people’s clothes and cleaning other people’s homes to help make ends meet. Vati was away most days working in other cities and when he came home he was covered in white construction dust and was exhausted from the day’s labors. He used to read to me. That stopped as he began to work later and later into the evenings. At the same time, Vati was constantly urged by his brother and his family in America to join them. They had lived already in America for 19 years.

Horst Bergman was the oldest of seven Bergman brothers from Heidelberg. Their grandparents came to Heidelberg from Malmo, Sweden in the late 1800s to work as lab assistants at Heidelberg University. During World War 1, they lost their contracts and after the war started their own retail businesses with their son. Most of the grandchildren worked in the shop, but after their grandparents passed away and their parents retired, they sold the store and started their own occupations. Vati went into construction as did several of his siblings. Two moved to America. Horst to New York State. George to California. Two moved to Australia. Anton to Sydney and Wilhelm to Melbourne. Mickey moved to London, England, and Otto to Toronto, Canada. My father explained that all of my uncles left in the 1930s when the craziness of the rise of Hitler was evident. Only my father and our family stayed in Heidelberg. My uncle Horst was the only brother that kept in touch with my father and the only brother willing to sponsor us.

Julius, pleaded Horst over the telephone, I’m telling you – there are opportunities here for you, Marta, and the boys. Rolf can get a job easily right away to help you. The streets are paved in gold!

The start of our journey to our new home was on a cold December 1st day. The night before, all of our suitcases were packed and readied at the door. The ship was expected to depart the next day on December 2nd. It would be a ten-day voyage across the Atlantic. The week before, Hannah and I went with Mutti to visit her friends to say goodbye. We also visited our friends for the last time. It was tearful. I never felt that way before. I didn’t understand what was going on but to be told that I would never see my friends again made something inside me want to cry.

I gave my tricycle to my friend Hans Burcholtz who lived across the street from us. I also had other toys that we gave away to my other friends, many of whom were siblings of Hannah’s friends. It was a tearful farewell at each visit where we would be first greeted with food and drinks at each stop. After a brief visit and handing over our gifts of toys, books, and household items, there were long hugs and tearful promises to meet again. Now it was early morning and I was woken by Hannah shaking me.

Wake up Lucas. Wake up, whispered Hannah aggressively, We are all to take a quick bath before we go. I already had mine. You are next after Frankie. Breakfast is already made.

Get up you little shithead, laughed Frankie passing by my bedroom with a towel wrapped around his neck. You’re next after me. The train is in a couple of hours and we can’t be late."

Frankie was of slim build but his youthful muscles glistened in the stark light of a single bulb in my room. His dark reddish brown hair was cut short for the trip as was mine and Rolf’s hair. Mutti heard that there might be inspections for lice. To have short hair was a safer way to travel these uncertain distances. Vati didn’t need his hair cut but Hannah and Mutti’s hair was also trimmed back. My mother showed us the length of hair that she had cut off. It was tied into a ponytail. Her friend who made wigs for cancer patients requested it. Hannah didn’t have too much to cut off, but we all looked different for the trip ahead.

Yes, get up sweetie, called Mutti from the kitchen where she was making the last meal in our Heidelberg home. Your father is shipping the trunks ahead this morning. You need to be ready for the train.

I looked around the room and observed the familiar creases in the ceiling and the stains on the walls where the mirror and pictures had been hung for decades. But they were all gone now. They were sold the week before. The room was stripped clean except for the bed which Herr Bischoff, our landlord would remove later that day. All of our furniture was sold. A few essentials such as the beds and kitchen table and chairs were left for us to use before we headed to the train station.

No longer would the rooms be filled with laughter and family celebrations. It was now a hollow, empty apartment. It was so early that it was still dark outside. A bare bulb hung from the ceiling giving off an eerie glow. Gone were the warm corner lights and candles that Mutti often lit when it was dark in the winter, especially as we got closer to Christmas. As we spoke, it seemed to echo. That was the last of my memories of the morning at the beginning of our long journey to our next home. It was exciting but it was also frightening.

As I ate my breakfast, there was a knock on the door. Mutti’s older sister, Helga, and her husband, Brandt arrived to help with the luggage. Brandt arranged a car and as soon as my father arrived back from moving the trunks, they started to take the baggage down. Soon there was a flurry of activity to leave. My bath was the fastest that I could remember. As soon as I was dried, I was put into several layers of clothes for the journey. I remembered that it was difficult to move my arms under my winter jacket. I had two pairs of pants on, a heavy sweater under several shirts, and a small rucksack that was put on my back carrying essentials for me during the trip. In it, there were several pairs of underwear, socks, t-shirts, and another sweater. It wasn’t heavy, but I remember it made sitting difficult in between trains.

Do I need to wear all of these clothes? I asked Mutti.

It was winter, but I was told that where we were going had lots of snow. It was called Buffalo. And it would be much colder than Heidelberg. The more I learned about Buffalo, the more I was afraid of it. I saw a picture of a Buffalo and every time I said that word or thought about it, the image of a Buffalo rushing across a field chased by Indians with spears and shot at with arrows came to my mind. It must be a terrible beast, I thought if the Indians had to chase it with guns and bows and arrows.

I was told that Buffalo was in America where there were a lot of cold, snowy days much of the year and I would need all of the pants and sweaters that I could wear. Hannah said that if I lost my rucksack that I would freeze to death. I also figured that I would need it for protection against the Buffalo if I should ever come across one of those beasts. Consequently, I made sure that I kept it close throughout the trip. It was several weeks later that I finally figured out we were going to a city named Buffalo and not to a place where the Buffalo was.

We took several cars for all the people and bags to arrive at the same time at the train station, Bahnhof Heidelberg. All around me were people moving in all directions with their baggage. I stayed close between Mutti and Hannah, holding onto the straps of my rucksack with both of my hands in case someone came by to steal it. I could see Frankie and Rolf helping my father with the bags. Tante Helga stood with Mutti and hugged each other constantly. Soon the train came and we said our last goodbyes.

The morning was still dark and very cold. I could see everyone’s breaths as they hugged and kissed and spoke their final words of goodbye. The sounds were different at that time of the morning. It was hollow and the echo of the train station was another memory that I would always retain. Tante Helga leaned down to say goodbye to me. She gave me a huge hug and when she kissed me on the cheek, her tears passed onto my cheeks leaving my face quite wet. Mutti pulled out her handkerchief to rub Tante Helga’s tears from my cheeks, but her handkerchief was already wet from crying. I struggled to rub my face with my coat sleeve. It was difficult for me to raise my arms to my face with all the clothes that I had on. It was cold and I couldn’t wait for another search for someone else’s handkerchief. Hannah also suffered from a wet cheek after Tante Helga said goodbye to her, but she was much smarter, she quickly wiped it with her coat sleeve in the midst of crying herself at the moment of saying goodbye. That is when I saw everyone crying. I wasn’t crying. But everyone else around me was.

We waved from the windows on the train to Tante Helga and Onkel Brandt on the platform. As the train moved forward Mutti sent a kiss in the air to Tante Helga and she returned it to Mutti. Then Heidelberg was gone.

We traveled to Frankfurt and changed trains to Bremerhaven. Rolf and Vati led the way. Frankie seemed to be somewhere in between Mutti and Vati in moving us along. Hannah stayed with me the entire time. I held her hand tightly between trains and along the passageways. My other hand was attached to Mutti. She held on with a tight grip when she could. But sometimes she had to help with the bags or she was getting something for us. She yelled back at Hannah to hold on to me. Tightly.

The longer the journey, the farther we moved from home. The trip was no longer exciting for me. I was scared and worried. It was no longer the morning when we left. It was late in the evening and we were sleeping in bunk beds at a transfer facility near the train station. The day’s journey to this bunkbed was exhausting. I never traveled that far and that long before. I fell asleep in my father’s arms before we arrived at the room. I woke up the next day not remembering how I got off the train and wound up in the bunk bed. I also gained something new. A large identification tag had been pinned to my outer jacket. I now had an ID number with my name on it.

The next day after breakfast we moved with a group of people in a line from the train station to a large covered area with hundreds of suitcases and trunks being transferred onto a ship. I wondered if our trunks were among those that were moved about. My father and mother held a lot of papers in their hands and spoke with stern-looking men in uniforms before we were permitted to join another line that slowly made its way up a gangplank to the ship. My father saw that I had