SIX

Thirteenth Avenue was the life-line of our neighborhood, the retail artery running approximately from the wholesale chicken market on 39^th Street to the border of the Bay Ridge Italian neighborhood on 55^th. It didn’t end there, but it turned residential after that. There were several places to buy 45’s, first and foremost Jaynel’s, between 47^th & 48^th streets as I remember. I don’t remember the names of the others anymore, but there was one near 43^rd, and in the early 60’s one opened around 55^th Street that carried every song that hit the Top 100. Jaynel’s would basically skip the records by black artists with the exception of Johnny Mathis or Louis Armstrong, etc. But they stocked nothing that WNJR or WOV were playing. I had to special order those 45’s deemed 'race music' until the new shop opened. Once I was in my early teens, my friends and I would hop the train into Manhattan and buy our records there, where you could find just about anything.

When most of my peers reminisce about growing up around 13^th Avenue, they single out the bakeries as their best memories, or the restaurants, not the record stores. There were the luncheonettes or 'candy stores' we’d hang out in front of. There was the corset store owned by David Geffen’s mom. I occasionally stopped to look in its elaborate window out of amazement; what was all that stuff?, on my way to the aforementioned Unk’s to buy comic books. Geffen was a couple of years ahead of me in school so I never knew him. We had thousands of kids in our schools; one would rarely meet someone from a different grade. I mention him with pride, someone from my neighborhood that became one of the richest men in America, and in my chosen field: the music industry. Tied with Jaynel’s for my favorite store was the toy store, Linick’s. Or maybe it was called Lionel’s? No, I’m probably remembering my train set. Now that was a dangerous toy.

I also loved that clothing store, at first. They had the trendiest stuff, including three-quarter length pants, 'pedal-pushers' for boys. After I bought a pair of those, Teddy wanted a pair as well, and I remember us both walking down the street proudly wearing our hip attire and almost getting beat up by kids who called us 'fags'. You did a lot of running growing up in New York. I don’t think we ever wore them again; that’s how it is with trendy stuff. There was a particular salesman at that store who would come running towards me when my mom took me shopping there. He’d come in the dressing room to help 'fit' me and would grab my crotch really hard. He said it was part of the fitting process, and when I complained to my mother about it she didn’t believe me. I began to fear clothes shopping, until I was mature enough to do it on my own without mom.

Once I mastered my now eight-year-old yet brand new bicycle, I was my own man. It became the turning point in my untying of the apron strings, that little red bike with my Fuji radio fastened to it. Sony was the leader in transistor radios then, but we could only afford a Fuji Denki, a new company at the time, at least in the United States, I guess. I went everywhere with that radio; it died a few years later when it fell into the bathtub. Funny, it still looked the same. I’ll bet it’s worth hundreds now as a collectible. Years later I was hanging out with my friend Philly Grossman on 13^th Avenue in front of a bank. As it happened it was Halloween eve, and he pointed out to me a group of very attractive, tall women leaving the boy’s clothing store at closing time. They’re men dressed as women, he said, they do that every Halloween. In Boro Park; who would’ve thunk.

Teddy and I were walking home from the park late one Friday afternoon, when a man started to shout at us “boys, boys!”, and began to run towards us with a look of great immediacy. We stopped and waited as he didn’t look particularly dangerous; breathlessly he asked us if we were Jewish. I suppose we didn’t look Jewish to him, dressed as we were in the typical teenage early 1960’s style, and Teddy with his dirty blonde hair. I suppose I looked more Italian than Jewish with my konked-out hair-do. With pride we replied, yes, we were fellow Jews, as we could now see up close that he wore the Jewish trappings of tzit-tzit (prayer sash) and yarmulke (head covering). Never mind, he says, and begins dashing in another direction. Wait; why did you ask, we wondered aloud. It was already almost sunset; Shabbat had officially begun and the lights at his storefront synagogue had not been turned on yet. He needed a Shabbes goy, a non-Jew to flip the light switch. We don’t care; we’ll do it, we yelled to his back, but he was gone. The older Jewish men in our apartment building were not as particular.  On Friday evenings and Saturday, they’d wait by the elevator until a non-observant Jew entered the lift (the building was all Jewish, anyone that pushed the button was non-observant). Teddy and I lived on the sixth floor, and our elevator buddies would get off with us, and if they lived on a lower floor, they’d walk down from there, sin-free.

The commandment to keep the Sabbath is paramount to religious Jews. By Friday afternoon all preparations must be completed, shopping, cleaning, and so forth, so that no work of any kind is done from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. This includes turning on any lights, stove burners, or any other modern contraptions. I had a friend, an immigrant from Israel also named Lenny whose family would turn their TV on before Shabbes began, so that they wouldn’t miss their favorite Friday night programs. At bedtime they’d turn down the volume, but not turn the set all the way off, and in this way would avoid sinning. I had no idea back then that Jesus had been perturbed in His day about Jews that followed the traditions of man while presuming to keep the letter of the Law. Nor had I any idea that because the Temple had been destroyed, it was therefore impossible to keep the whole Law and that breaking any of the Law was equal to breaking all of it. What my friends and I did know and believe was that there was a Hell, and sinners did go there. We just hoped that we had more good deeds than bad and would make the cut.

We were fascinated by the 'idea' of religion. So much so, that thinking I could do a good job myself, I invented my own religion. I noticed a large old tree in the courtyard of our building, and dubbed the new faith 'Treenarianism' or something like that. My friends and I decided to make the tree sacred and worship at it, but we never did. The idea was forgotten within a few days.

I pray, dear reader, that these stories of my growing up in the Jewish world of fifty years ago hold your attention and interest. I realize that I’m not some famous or infamous figure whose life would fascinate the average person. I feel I’m guilty of writing as a film or music star might, with their worshipers hanging on every word. On the contrary, I’m merely an unknown Jewish sinner that G-d saved and only He knows why. I’m not one of those famous Lenny Goldberg’s that you might have heard of, like the movie producer, the rabbi, or the political activist of the same name. So I beg your indulgence when I go off on a tangent about music I liked, or food I ate, as if this was important somehow. The theme of my book, a Jew, a chosen one who left his Father’s house to experience the world, and his journey back to the Father is not a unique story. It’s one you already know. I am trying to keep to the 'meat' of my tale and will try to keep it lively and hope I won’t put you to sleep.

                                       My closest cousins: Al, Larry, Eleanor, Arlene

                                        Teddy & I clowning around in a photo booth

                                                 Neighbor girls at Shore Haven