I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [13]
Up from the meadows, rich with corn,
Clear in the cool September morn,
The clustered spires of Frederick stand,
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland …
Due to the applause of the clique of girls around me, I won first prize, and became a lifelong lover of poetry (and women).
Hooray! Pop nabbed a job as an elevator operator at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. A full-time job within walking distance! Confident we were on an upward track, we moved to a more spacious apartment on 163rd Street and St. Nicholas Avenue. A five-block walk to work for Pop, and one block for me to the nearest elementary school, Saint Rose of Lima, at 164th Street.
We lived at 1061 St. Nicholas Avenue, in a six-story building, and called our fourth-floor apartment “the Railroad,” its six rooms coupling like cars of a train along one side of the building’s central court. The building looked optimistic, receiving a great deal of sunlight on its white-and-pink stone façade.
Washington Heights
It is the narrowest part of Manhattan Island. On the southeastern side, looking down from wild foliage-covered cliffs, is the Harlem River. At the southern end of the cliffs, at around 162nd Street, nestles the Morris-Jumel Mansion, where Madame Jumel and her husband, Aaron Burr, lived after the American Revolution. It served as George Washington’s headquarters during the Battle of Harlem Heights, and it was also battle turf for me and my friends in our imaginary games, Continentals bayoneting Redcoats and Hessians in hand-to-hand.
Washington Heights was once a suburb, a transition between earlier farms and the encroaching city proper. The years 1942–1950 saw a population explosion. During and after World War II, all of Washington Heights became multinational and multicultural. Working-class families seethed and bubbled on my block—Hispanic, Dutch, Polish, German, Jewish, Italian, and Irish American. African Americans were moving north from Harlem and filling in the area east of Amsterdam Avenue. Asians were rare. The first Asian I remember seeing, besides stereotypes in the movies, was at Presbyterian Hospital on 168th Street. My father was running the elevator and a young Asian man got on. Pop delivered him to his floor, and when the door closed, my father winked and whispered, “A Japanese spy …” My breath stopped. It was less than six months after Pearl Harbor, and I believed him.
My block had St. Nicholas Avenue at one end and Broadway at the other, and was centered between two rivers. From the tree-covered cliff edge overlooking the Harlem River to the east, walk west a couple of blocks, cross Amsterdam Avenue, and you’re on St. Nicholas. Continue through the block, cross Broadway, and walk two more streets, and you’re at Riverside Park, with its forested hill leading down to the parkway, railroad tracks, and the Hudson River.
We called the area around Riverside Park “Jewtown.” Children of Jewish immigrants—the second generation having improved their lot—had moved from Lower East Side tenements to the sun-filled, spacious, and airy apartments that overlooked the Hudson River. In turn, their children, the third generation—grown, educated, and involved in a variety of professions—were leaving their apartments and moving to the suburbs.
In urban life, a city block equals a rural village. Through the eyes of a child, streets seem wide, buildings high, cellars deep. I would walk 163rd Street from St. Nicholas to Broadway and think I’d gone half a mile. People were identified by the block they lived on, and familiarity and gossip abounded. Many blocks were marked by the gangs that claimed them—the Famwoods around 164th Street, the Victory Boys further up. On our block, we had two gangs—the Guerillas and the Panthers—that served as feeders for a third gang, bigger and older, the Vampires. Besides church