Culture Shock Re-Visiting Apartment 3A - Part 1 of 2

The plan this past Saturday was to meet up with my childhood friend, Rhonda, on the L.E.S. (lower east side of Manhattan), where we both grew up, and she still lives, to take some pictures, catch up on what's going on in our lives, and grab some soup dumplings at our favorite Chinese Restaurant, Joe's Shanghai, on Pell Street.

Pell Street, Chinatown, N.Y.C.

I suggested we meet in front of 93 Madison Street - the building I grew up in.  (If you haven't already read "Tenement Life", Parts 1 and 2, now would be a good time, for some background info.)

http://www.positivelygina.blogspot.com/2012/06/tenement-life-part-1.html

http://www.positivelygina.blogspot.com/2012/06/tenement-life-part-2.html

Rhonda, of course, was right in front of the building when I arrived.  One good habit we both share is always being on time...lol.  It was great to be back in the old neighborhood for a carefree day of walking, chatting, and anticipated eating.

I wanted to go into my old building just to take a look, and Rhonda backed me up and said we should go in.  The outside door was locked, but within a minute or two, a family went into the building with their keys, and we followed close behind and got in.

93 Madison Street

We headed down the small hallway to the mailboxes on the left wall.  I couldn't believe my eyes, and Rhonda was also mystified, because my grandmother's NAME was still on the mailbox of my old apartment - 3A.  I left that apartment when I was 18 or 19, and my grandmother passed away in 1990!

"DELORENZO" still there, after 22 years!

Even the black marker writings of "3A", and "DeLorenzo" were in my grandmother's handwriting.  At first I was upset, but then I realized that my grandmother, Anna, is really leaving her legacy in this building, in a way...lol.  
Even stranger was the fact that all 17 of the boxes were unlocked and seemingly unused. 

The small and narrow ground -floor hall of the building was in shambles.  It was dirty and grimy, and the small area underneath the stair-well was loaded with discarded papers, boxes, brooms, mops and rags.  Memories floated around inside my head of all the times I hung out down in that lobby with my boyfriend, for "5 more minutes" of freedom before I had to go upstairs and back to "prison".  
It was much cleaner and better-kept back then, though.  Why is it that things always seem to be worse when you check back many years later, and never better? 

I thought it would be a good idea to make the climb up to the third floor where my apartment was, and Rhonda agreed that we should.  The stairs were covered with ugly, bumpy metal treads that click clacked with every step.  More memories of flying down those steps, two or three at a time, jumping, even, just to get outside or get an "absent note" out of the mailbox before my grandmother got to it.  

One apartment door we noticed on the second floor had an extra gate/door installed on TOP of the regular apartment door, which seemed like a definite fire-hazard to me.  There were hand-written signs posted in Chinese, and the landings looked like they hadn't been mopped in ages.

Hallway of 93 Madison Street, leading outside

We got up to the third floor, both of us huffing and puffing for air, and approached the door of Apartment 3A.  Directly above the door were several colorful red and yellow Chinese wall hangings, which I assumed stood for "Good Luck" or something similar.  I came this far, so I figured I'd at least try to see if the present tenants would let us in for a look around.

Rhonda gave a good rap on the door and a woman inside shouted something in Chinese...(who is it?)  Unfortunately, we couldn't reply in Chinese, so we just knocked again a couple of more times.  A teenage boy opened the door, with an older woman behind him, and a small boy of about two or three years old holding on to his leg.  "Do you speak English?" , we asked.  He smiled and half-heartedly nodded his head.

"She used to live here when she was little", Rhonda proclaimed, pointing to me.  "I used to live here when I was little!", I chimed in...as if MY English would be more comprehensible to them than Rhonda's!  [[laughing right now]]

PLEASE STAY TUNED FOR PART 2 OF CULTURE SHOCK!  YOU'LL FIND OUT WHAT RHONDA AND I DISCOVERED AFTER WE WERE GIVEN THE TOUR OF APT. 3A...

Tenement Life - Part 2

I'd just like to back-track a bit about what I thought about our "stay" at the President Hotel after the fire at 31 Oliver Street...

The lobby of the President Hotel, in my 8-year old mind, was the fanciest, most beautiful place I had ever seen.  The sprawling, red floral carpet was vast and I loved the squishy way it felt when I walked on it.  They sold New York City souvenirs there in the lobby and I fell in love with the snow globes featuring the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty.  I asked my grandmother to buy me one and she did.  My troubles seemed to fade with every shake of the globe, as I watched the snow gently float around.  I wished I could shrink and fit inside of it and hide away.  If only.

I have no recollection of my grandmother's personality while my dad was alive.  I was too young.  But I do know that she never got over her son's death.  He was her only child..."a saint", she would refer to him as.  In her effort to protect me at all costs, she suffocated me and ruled with an iron fist.  She walked me to school, even in High School!  I never went on a class-trip, after-school activities, or the beach.  I was 18 the first time I actually felt sand between my toes.

After I rebelled against my grandmother's over-protectiveness and achieved some freedom, venturing out on the lower east side was a teen's paradise - for me anyway.  Down the street at P.S. 1 Park, my friends and I would gather to play basketball, ride our bikes, roller-skate, socialize and of course, talk about boys.  We called our friends to "come out", by shouting up to their windows, or by pay phone.

Two blocks over to Henry Street or Chatham Square was Chinatown.  A crowded, heavily-scented part of the lower east side that I came to absolutely love.  Pork buns we ate as we walked, noodle soups, dumplings and warm soy-milk sold on the street on cold winter days were all a part of my young life.  The formation of a foodie?  Even my first real boyfriend was Chinese, and, in my need for a father figure, he happened to be eleven years older than me.

The Lower East Side, NYC

I moved out of the tenement and lower east side when I turned 19 and met my then-future husband - the father of my son Angelo.  We got married in a little church atop a hill, in a village in Ioannina, Greece, which almost seemed like a different planet altogether.  We traveled to various cities and islands in Greece during the marriage.  I had never seen places more beautiful in my life, but still, even now, I have the urge every now and then to take a couple of trains and head down to the lower east side, walk around, and reminisce about my tenement life.

Visit the Tenement Museum

Ioannina, Greece

Tenement Life - Part 1

Me, age 10

93 Madison Street, New York, NY

I was rescued by a fireman when I was 8.  He carried me, my brother, grandmother and Lucy the dog out of our living room window and onto the extended ladder.  It was the fire of February 3, 1971 at 31 Oliver Street, lower Manhattan.  I don't remember fright.  I only remember wrapping my little arms around that fireman and thinking...thank you, hero.  It was a bone-chilling night and the place downstairs, a bookie joint, let us stay a while and kept us warm.  It was the first time I saw shows on a color-t.v. and I was in awe.  This was the original "shock and awe"...lol. 

Eight months before this, my father had passed away at age 37 from heart-related issues.  Three years before the fire, my mother had disappeared.  To this day, I don't know if she is alive or dead, and I honestly would have the same numb feeling either way.

After a short stay at the President Hotel, right smack in the middle of Times Square (thanks to the American Red Cross), we were placed in a two-bedroom apartment at 93 Madison Street - 2 blocks from 31 Oliver Street.  The photo above is the actual building, present-day.  Our apartment faced the back and was on the third floor.  It was a run-down, six -story, walk-up tenement, although I didn't know at the time what a tenement was, and didn't realize it was run-down.

My brother and I were raised by our paternal grandmother, Anna.  She did the best with the knowledge and resources she had, which wasn't very much for sure.  We each got to pick out colors of paint for our bedrooms.  I shared the "big bedroom" with my grandmother, and my brother, Joe had his own tiny bedroom.  I chose a bright orange paint.  I was on an orange kick back then.  The landlord was a slumlord and heat and hot water was scarce.  My grandmother made sure to start up the small electrical heater in my room, about 20 minutes before I had to wake up for school so I wouldn't wake up to the cold.

Fun and adventure was still aplenty, even though we were basically poor.  My grandmother was severely over-protective of me and I felt lucky and happy if I was even allowed to stay a while in the hallway outside the apartment and sit on the steps with a friend of mine who lived upstairs - Maria Migliorini.  She was about 5 years older than me and always had Marlboros on her...lol.  She would light up and puff away, all awhile frantically waving her arms about in an attempt to move the smoke away.  She also suggested I try a puff, and I did.  I was 9, she was 14.  To say I started coughing would be an understatement.

In the summer, my brother and I would play a game where he would throw something down to the fire-escape below and I would have to run down the ladder and get it.  (unbeknownst to our grandmother) Then he would run down and we timed each other.  He taught me how to catch and throw a football right there in the living room.  We ate home-cooked veal cutlets, meatballs with sauce and sweet sausages from the Italian sausage man down the block.  If grandma didn't have the energy to cook, we were fine with t.v. dinners.  They came in aluminum containers back then and had to be heated in the oven for 3o or more minutes.  Of course we ate the tiny dessert first.  

There was a little old Italian man from the "old country" who lived upstairs who spoke no English, but knew how to approach me to try to get a kiss when I was around 13 or 14...hahaha.  I remember we would pass each other on the stairs.  Me going down and him coming up and straight towards me.  I was petite and nimble and would easily duck my head and shoot down the stairs in avoidance.

I had all the toys I wanted, pets, was nicely dressed (according to my grandmother's taste), was a great student, and won two awards at 6th grade graduation.  One for Art and one for Reading.  One material thing my brother and I were never allowed to have was a Christmas tree.  My grandmother thought it insensitive to my dead dad to display a "festive" tree.  My dad was her only son and she never really got over his death.  

To Be Continued...