J. D. Salinger_ A Life - Kenneth Slawenski [5]
Perhaps upon Sol’s insistence, Sonny was sent away every summer to Camp Wigwam, located far from New York City, deep within the woods of Maine. Yet if Sol hoped that Sonny’s camp experience would teach him conformity, he was mistaken. Founded in 1910, Camp Wigwam was a model of diversity that placed strong and equal emphasis on both athletics and the creative arts. Sonny flourished in this atmosphere. Camp records show that he excelled in sports and other group activities, but he was especially drawn to the camp’s theatrical program. In 1930, at the age of eleven, Jerome (Salinger was called both “Sonny” and “Jerome” at camp) took part in a number of camp plays, starring in two, and was named “Favorite Camp Actor.”13 This distinction resulted in a fascination with the theater that would last for years. Salinger also stood out physically. He was taller than the other children, and the camp’s 1930 group photo shows him looming over the rest, with his shirt playfully torn to resemble Tarzan’s.
Basking in this attention, Salinger enjoyed Camp Wigwam, and the memories of his childhood summers in the woods always remained happy and vivid. Later in life, they would inspire him to seek refuge in similar surroundings and to return there through his stories, sending his characters off to camp one after another.*
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In 1930, the Great Depression gripped America. New York City was no longer a place of opportunity. Gleaming scenes of commerce and optimism were replaced by breadlines and despair. If Sol and Miriam’s march into high society the decade before had been remarkable, it now became astonishing. Defying the tide of poverty that permeated the city, the Salingers continued to increase their wealth and improve their social status. In 1932, they made what would prove to be their final move: across Central Park to the grand Upper East Side. Sol moved his family into a plush apartment in the Carnegie Hill district at 1133 Park Avenue at 91st Street. In a city of contrasting neighborhoods, where location was a defining factor of self-worth, the Salingers’ new home was the epitome of success. Affluent and comfortable, the prestigious building was within sight of Central Park and within easy walking distance of the park zoo and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Salingers were so proud of their new home that for many years they used personalized stationery whose letterhead excluded the family name but included the Park Avenue address.
1133 Park Avenue. Salinger was raised in this apartment building on Manhattan’s affluent Upper East Side from the time he was thirteen and enjoyed its comforts until age twenty-eight. The basis of the Glass family home in Franny and Zooey, it remained the Salinger family home until his parents’ death in 1974. (Ben Steinberg)
Until the Salingers’ move to 1133, Sonny had attended public schools on the West Side. But the sons of successful Park Avenue businessmen did not attend public school. Instead, they were given a private education, usually at a prestigious boarding school far from home. The Salingers wanted something similar for their own son but were unwilling to have him move away, so they opted to send him to school on the familiar West Side, enrolling him at the McBurney School on West 63rd Street.
Enrollment at McBurney was certainly a step up from public education, but it was a far cry from the impressive prep schools attended by the Salingers’ new neighbors. Even more striking, the school was run by the adjacent YMCA, meaning that Sonny, who was thirteen at the time, went directly from his Bar Mitzvah to the Young Men’s Christian Association.
At McBurney, Sonny strengthened his growing interest in drama by performing in two school plays. He was also captain of the school fencing team, whose equipment he later claimed to have lost on the subway.
He began to write too and contributed to