Read Online Just Kids From the Bronx by Arlene Alda - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Arlene Alda
Ads: Link
turning the tires the way they were.
We both lusted to drive so we both decided to buy a car together. I’m checkin’ the New York Times and I find an ad. A Mr. Levitt. I still remember his name. A 1940 Oldsmobile and he said, “It’s a cream puff.” Five hundred dollars. It was 1949 so that was a chunk of change for us, but we bought the car. For two working kids in college earning their own money—we put over two thousand dollars into that car. By comparison, a new Ford was twenty-six hundred dollars. We were just pouring it in. So I have the car on my weekend and it’s one of those snowy days where there’s ice on the road. I’m going down a hill around the corner from my house near Montefiore Hospital, and I hit the brakes to slow down, but there was the ice and I crash into another car that’s parked. We get it repaired—we always split everything—and now I’m warning Georgie, “Don’t do what I did. It’s icy. Tap the brakes lightly.” A whole repeat. He has to see if I’m right. He does the same thing I did and smashes up the car.
GS : We worked in the Catskills on the weekends and on holidays, at Grossinger’s and a place called the Flagler Hotel. There was an agency where you could sign up to work and get tips, and that helped pay my tuition to NYU. So we borrowed our friend Elliott’s car, which was a 1937 Plymouth. The car was fourteen years old. A creaky little car. We were heading down a hill when we hit a bump and all of a sudden we saw that the engine of the car got dislodged and bounced out of the car. So we’re at the top of the hill, rolling down, and we’re watching this engine rolling down the hill in front of us. I was driving. I guess we’ll coast down to the bottom of the hill , and I steered over to the side of the road. There was no way that the engine was gonna work again since it was all battered and beat-up. I think that the car is still there to this day.
We didn’t have suitcases, so we had our stuff in bags, like big laundry bags. We looked like refugees. We hitchhiked to the Flagler Hotel and called Elliott. “Elliott, your engine fell out and the car’s on the side of the road and I don’t think it’s ever gonna work again.” I must say he was pretty gracious about it. Another reason I love the boys from the Bronx. He understood that the car was old.
HW : Waiters, busboys—we worked all over the place and we didn’t have a car for some reason, so we borrowed Elliott Liss’s old beat-up car. That car was called The Poop , it was so bad. It’s huffing and puffing when the engine falls out. We abandon the car and decide to take the license plate off so they can’t trace us.
Did Georgie tell you what happened at the Flagler? Did he tell you where we slept?
The place was full, and they had nowhere for us to sleep except across the road in a barbershop. The only thing available to us were barber chairs. So we slept in the barber chairs. That’s what happened to us when we went to the Catskills. We slept in the barbershop in the chairs.
GS : Howie and I, we went to school together, we bought our first car together, we became lifeguards together, we worked at William Morris Agency together, and when I came to LA I brought him out to work at William Morris in California, and then we formed this partnership together, Shapiro/West Productions.
HW : Georgie and I are like glue.
GS : I always felt lucky, happy, and so nourished in the Bronx. For the time I had my mother and my father, they just showered me with love. I carried that with me and I passed this essence on to my own kids. The other guys from the Bronx had similar experiences. And don’t forget the freedom we had. Those reasons are why you see the joy in The Bronx Boys Still Playing at 80 . A lot of the guys who live on the East Coast ended up in Florida, so I’m going there for New Year’s. We’ll go to a Thai restaurant for dinner, then we’ll go to Lenny Kulick’s house to celebrate with
We both lusted to drive so we both decided to buy a car together. I’m checkin’ the New York Times and I find an ad. A Mr. Levitt. I still remember his name. A 1940 Oldsmobile and he said, “It’s a cream puff.” Five hundred dollars. It was 1949 so that was a chunk of change for us, but we bought the car. For two working kids in college earning their own money—we put over two thousand dollars into that car. By comparison, a new Ford was twenty-six hundred dollars. We were just pouring it in. So I have the car on my weekend and it’s one of those snowy days where there’s ice on the road. I’m going down a hill around the corner from my house near Montefiore Hospital, and I hit the brakes to slow down, but there was the ice and I crash into another car that’s parked. We get it repaired—we always split everything—and now I’m warning Georgie, “Don’t do what I did. It’s icy. Tap the brakes lightly.” A whole repeat. He has to see if I’m right. He does the same thing I did and smashes up the car.
GS : We worked in the Catskills on the weekends and on holidays, at Grossinger’s and a place called the Flagler Hotel. There was an agency where you could sign up to work and get tips, and that helped pay my tuition to NYU. So we borrowed our friend Elliott’s car, which was a 1937 Plymouth. The car was fourteen years old. A creaky little car. We were heading down a hill when we hit a bump and all of a sudden we saw that the engine of the car got dislodged and bounced out of the car. So we’re at the top of the hill, rolling down, and we’re watching this engine rolling down the hill in front of us. I was driving. I guess we’ll coast down to the bottom of the hill , and I steered over to the side of the road. There was no way that the engine was gonna work again since it was all battered and beat-up. I think that the car is still there to this day.
We didn’t have suitcases, so we had our stuff in bags, like big laundry bags. We looked like refugees. We hitchhiked to the Flagler Hotel and called Elliott. “Elliott, your engine fell out and the car’s on the side of the road and I don’t think it’s ever gonna work again.” I must say he was pretty gracious about it. Another reason I love the boys from the Bronx. He understood that the car was old.
HW : Waiters, busboys—we worked all over the place and we didn’t have a car for some reason, so we borrowed Elliott Liss’s old beat-up car. That car was called The Poop , it was so bad. It’s huffing and puffing when the engine falls out. We abandon the car and decide to take the license plate off so they can’t trace us.
Did Georgie tell you what happened at the Flagler? Did he tell you where we slept?
The place was full, and they had nowhere for us to sleep except across the road in a barbershop. The only thing available to us were barber chairs. So we slept in the barber chairs. That’s what happened to us when we went to the Catskills. We slept in the barbershop in the chairs.
GS : Howie and I, we went to school together, we bought our first car together, we became lifeguards together, we worked at William Morris Agency together, and when I came to LA I brought him out to work at William Morris in California, and then we formed this partnership together, Shapiro/West Productions.
HW : Georgie and I are like glue.
GS : I always felt lucky, happy, and so nourished in the Bronx. For the time I had my mother and my father, they just showered me with love. I carried that with me and I passed this essence on to my own kids. The other guys from the Bronx had similar experiences. And don’t forget the freedom we had. Those reasons are why you see the joy in The Bronx Boys Still Playing at 80 . A lot of the guys who live on the East Coast ended up in Florida, so I’m going there for New Year’s. We’ll go to a Thai restaurant for dinner, then we’ll go to Lenny Kulick’s house to celebrate with
Similar Books
