THE MANHATTAN PLAZA AND PS 51 AND ME

There is an inherent sadness as I write about those years so long ago. But in some way, those days still live inside me as if they happened only a short time ago. 

What sticks with me is how that neighborhood, called Hell's Kitchen, changed so rapidly during the time I was there. I remember looking out of my classroom on the back of the top floor of the school and watching The Manhattan Plaza being built. You can see it in the distance in the photo above. It is residence for those who are connected to the arts... and it is where Larry David once lived. 

And it is where Timothée Chalamet grew up.

PS 51 still lives inside me. It is where Nell, Bernie, and Sue were my colleagues. They are all gone.

The Market Diner was where we had lunch every day. The old PS 51 has since been changed to a condo called The Ink Well and The Market Diner was demolished for a fancy condo...

 

CENTRAL PARK, A NYC TREASURE

 

A LEVI AND A BENJAMIN

I am a direct descendant of the 12 tribes of Israel: my great grandfather was Abraham Levine and my great grandmother was Goldie Benjamin.

ESSEN

 

DON'T SLIP ON THE BANANA PEEL

 

THE WALL AND OTHER PARTS OF BROOKLYN

 I stood with my mother at this wall as the sirens blared and we had to wait for the "all clear" signal.

And this was why:

It all happened in Brooklyn... and the memories keep flooding back.

This was at one time my father's factory:

This is where I waited with my father for some nefarious men to show up with some dubious intent:

This is where my mother and Toni went for a coffee run:

This was my grandmother's house and the house in which my mother grew up:

That house on the left once belonged to Dr. Feldman. It has been torn down. 

This is where we dropped off my grandmother one day so she could vote and then go to a psychic for a "reading."

THE LONELINESS AND DESPAIR OF FOUR HOT SUMMERS ON MARTHA'S VINEYARD

"Every time I turn around, I am always here." -- Gail C., during the summer of 1960

And so it was for me, during the summers of 1959, 1960, 1961, and 1962. I was sent off to a summer camp on Martha's Vineyard that was owned and managed by the dance instructor of The Chapin School in NYC. Her name was Kathleen Hinni and she was well admired and a force to be reckoned with. She was formidable. 

Margaret Bourke-White spent a few summers with us in her own cabin by the cliff. But KT, as we called her, had a dark side and she managed the camp in strict ways and the result was that many of the girls there longed to go home. Some took drastic measures to find alternate ways to get out. I have never known a time when I was surrounded by so many others and felt such loneliness. 

I can still feel the hot air as I stood by the long staircase that led down to the water. I can still hear that sound of nothing as the breeze passed and made me feel so hopeless. I looked up to the blue sky and saw a plane high above and that sight created in me a desperation and a longing to go home. 

My parents visited one summer and I have a picture of me with my mother at the Martha's Vineyard airport that was taken so long ago. It is displayed above.

I wrote this poem in 2009 and it appears in my book. The photo above does not. 

I BASK, I EAT, I REST, AND I SCHMOOZE