REAL DIVERSITY

WRITERS’ CHAPTER STORY OF THE MONTH – September, 2018

Real Diversity

By Joan Malewitz

In an earlier time there were definite lines between enclaves that dared not be crossed. Only a little time after it became a place of despair and violence again.

It was a brief window in time in a unique place.

I grew up in the 1950’s on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, on East 5th Street between Ave B and Ave C to be exact, the area now called Alphabet City. It was a tenement neighborhood of immigrants and first and second generation Americans. What kind of neighborhood was it then? It was Jewish, Irish, Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Chinese, Puerto Rican, African-Americans and many others. 

The kids all went to school together, played together, and were pretty much oblivious to their ethnic and religious differences, except for celebrations and holidays. 

During the primary grades most of my friends went to PS 15 on the next block. Because my sister was in a special “sight conservation” class, she and I went to PS 188M, located in the projects, a long walk every day. So I had school friends and block friends. Always variety, like Sharon Brodsky, a Jewish French Canadian, Eddie Visitation, who lived in a Catholic orphanage, and Ross Rubalski, whose father was someone grownups seemed to see as a shady character. On the block there was my across the hall buddy Marlene Vogel and my downstairs best friend of all, Philip Bodner. His family was the only one I knew who had a car! There was Greek Diane Pappas, at whose apartment, for the first time I had non-kosher bologna with, gasp, a glass of milk. Polish Catholic Christine, for whom I went to St. Brigid’s church -way in the back and sure I would be struck down- so I could witness her first communion. Those bride dresses were so-o-o impressive. 

Later I went to PS 64, where my circle of friends expanded. Willie Johnson, a Black boy was my seatmate in 6th grade and knew everything about everything- very impressive. Barbara, also Black, beat me out for school spelling champion 2 years in a row, even though we studied together. Polish Alina was a new immigrant who learned English at a breathtaking clip. And then there was Patrick O’Brien, my first crush and the first boy who kissed me. 

Junior High School 71 was right next-door, on my dead end street, but we had to walk all the way around the block, because the entrance there was permanently closed. More friends there, including Chinese Lili Lee, who spent many hours working in her father’s laundry and squeezing out only a little time for fun.  

The neighborhood was getting dangerous, not so much because of ethnic divides, but because of gang warfare; there were three gangs on my block who fought regularly, and it became a terrible game for them to throw bricks from rooftops. Did you know early working titles for the musical West Side Story were Gang Way and East Side Story? Puerto Rican brothers Peter and Jose protected the younger kids as much as possible, and tried hard to stay out of the gangs. 

More and more of my friends’ families were leaving and moving to Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Long Island. We made the change in 1961, just 2 months after I started Hunter College High School.

There I made a whole new set of diverse and wonderful friends, rich, poor and everything in between, from all over the city, who shared Broadway theatre, ice-skating, Central Park, and of course, celebrations and food: Chinese birthday feast with Eleanor Lee, dolmas and pasticchio with Helen and her sister Aphrodite. And my doorbell would ring at Chanukah—for latkes, as many as they could eat.

My mom called each successive group of my friends “the Little League of Nations.”