A Trip to the Bronx

Too good not to write it down…

I arrived on Thursday in White Plains, just north of NYC. This airport is one gate, which is great! Once picked up my Auntie Carol, we visited her Aunt Ida, my Great Aunt. Since September 2008 she has resided at an assisted living facility. Ida just turned 94 and is suffering from dementia. She did not recognize me, but that is okay, I know her! She had lost her teeth, and kept asking everyone what they had done with her dentures. It is hard to see her slipping away, as she was so bright and spry. Now she is barely able to walk. My grandmother also lived in this lovely facility for a period of time before she passed. Carol and I had a casual dinner in Danbury before heading out to the Bronx in the morning so I could get started on the “working” part of my working vacation.

My task is to clean out Aunt Ida’s apartment. I thought she lived in the amalgamated co-op since 1941, but Aunt Carol discredited that story. From all the papers I have seen, it seems more like early 1950’s. Either way, that is 50 years in this one-bedroom apartment on the 9th floor of 130 Gale Place. Ida is the last survivor of six siblings; her parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia. Four of the older siblings were born in Russia, Ida here in New York. She graduated college in 1942 and became a school teacher for the NY school system for 40 years. She was married to Frank Leff, an attorney who passed away over 10 years ago. She never had any children of her own, but step kids of Frank’s. These facts, I knew prior to my arrival in the Bronx. It is very humbling to be the one to unravel her life and become embedded in her world. I am learning about my own family history, and the life of Ida.

My Aunt Carol laughed when I told her about my aspirations to do lots of sight-seeing while here in NYC. She warned me that I probably won’t have the time. How long will it take to clean out a one bedroom apartment? It could possibly be that bad….HA! I started on Friday afternoon. By 8pm, I realized what a daunting task this would be. Ida has evidently been suffering from OCD for MANY years. So much to get rid of, and just me and a personal grocery cart-the kind that homeless people use to carry all their worldly possesions. SO-trash goes in the sub garage, 11 floors away (Thank God for elevators, no matter how slow). I learned pretty quickly that NYC is very recycle friendly. EVERYTHING gets recycled, which I totally support. Yeah, until I realized that Aunt Ida has been hording food…I would have to empty all the jars of gefilte fish (over 30 jars of this stuff), borsht, grape juice, vanilla, and liquor before I could dispose of the items. Did I mention there is no food disposal in this 1950’s kitchen? I had to bag all the dumped food and take it to the trash shoot down the hall. The stench was horrific. I don’t mean to disrespect the eaters of gefelte fish, but it is the equivalent of cat food patties floating in juice/gel inside of jars. It was nasty. I stayed up late to get rid of all the food in the kitchen so I could begin to “air out” the apartment. The home is Kosher, so she has two sets of everything, one for meat, and another for dairy. And another set for Passover. This little 90lb lady has always had a bad rap for saving EVERYTHING. You know the type, takes the sugar packets, even though she can well afford to purchase her own. I could go on, but here is a bulleted list of interesting things I’ve uncovered SO FAR:

• Birth Control pills (SHE IS 94!)
• Suitcases (3) of used washcloths—all very neatly stacked and labeled
• Personal letters from the dentist who extracted a tooth of FDR in Dec 1944 at Warm Springs
• Lids from every sherbet container she ever purchased-a whole cabinet full.
• 50 cans of sardines
• A set of 20 keys…not just any keys, but the ones you use to open sardine cans (doesn’t each can come with its own key?)
• 5 Electric can openers (still in the boxes)
• Bottles of liquor from the 1950’s (down the drain except for a bottle of unopened Crown Royal with a tax stamp from 1962)
• Her teeth (I can’t wait to bring them to her next week!)
• Maps from around the world, all folded correctly and in order by location

I have found the folks in the Bronx so far have been helpful. Wouldn’t say friendly, but standoffish. You know me, I’m not shy. If I need help, I’ll ask. I just wish they would stop honking their horns. Seems like every where I go here, people are always honking at the person in front of them when the light changes. Chill out people! We will all get where we are going! I’m on foot, so I don’t have to worry about the road rage issues too much. Just have to be on alert when crossing the streets. There is a little grocery store about three blocks away. Been there to get a 12 pack and some ice to get me through this time on my own. It is pretty hot, and I’m sweating my butt off up and down the elevator to drop off this junk.

Back home I use www.freecycle.com to get rid of things I no longer want. The co-op has basically the same thing going. I take the stuff down to the trash staging area, and low and behold, the next time I come back the stuff is gone. Aunt Ida’s things aren’t really worth anything, but hey, if you need an iron or can opener, it is going to be your lucky day. Every time I return to the basement, stuff I’ve dropped off has disappeared. There were two sets of corning ware (still in the boxes) that I left. Next trip down they were gone. Third trip the boxes only were back for recycling! Got to love it….God Bless whoever got the 1960’s cookware, I hope they use it in good health.

A Walk in the Park…

So today is Sunday, and I read in the lobby on Friday that the park was offering a guided hike to the Croton Aqueduct, and the Rangers would give an interpretive history of the NYC water system. After figuring out how to get there, I headed out this morning to check it out. The Van Cortland Park is right outside the co-op door, and I’m a little nervous about hiking the trails alone. Yeah, so I start walking to the Nature Center on 246th and Broadway, and tripped on the sidewalk! Fell and scraped up my palm. What a clumsy dope I am. Anyway, I’ll live. So the park is over 1100 acres, the third largest in NYC. Got to see the Van Cortlandt Mansion (George Washington Slept there) and meet the “Urban Rangers.” The park was packed at 10:00am with all sorts of team sports going on: Handball, racquetball, tennis, soccer, softball, baseball, cricket, etc. Families were camped out for Sunday picnics all over the place. The park is a vibrant place, but boy, NY’ers have foul mouths. I have never heard the “F” bomb dropped so many times since I was at Stanford stadium when the Bulldogs lost to Alabama last year. Moms pushing babies, women in casual conversation, coaches getting their soccer team pumped up—it didn’t matter. F-it, I didn’t care. I was people-watching.

There were about 20 people that showed up for the nature hike. Great! Let’s go! So we started out with a little history lesson about how the original aqueduct was built in 1837, two years after the great fires of NY, when basically Manhattan burned because there was no water to put the fires out. Okay, great. Passed the oldest public Golf Course in the country, 1890’s. Cool. Next, we have to CROSS the Henry Hudson parkway, via walking along the Maj. Deegan! For my ATL friends, this is like crossing 285 by walking alongside I-85 at Spaghetti Junction. Wow. Ya just don’t do that. But, hey, I go with the flow. This is an URBAN Nature hike.

So my lesson for the day is about aqueducts. I figured we would be walking along a levy or a river of water. No. Wrong. We walked ON the aqueduct, which is a pipe underground surrounded by bricks to keep it in place. Not so fascinating. But Ranger Mike was really enjoying giving the poison ivy speech, and taught us the medicinal uses of Jewel Weed. The walk brought to mind my childhood growing up in Peekskill, just up the line, with similar fauna. At no point on our 2-½ mi. hike were we away from the sounds of the city whirling by. But…the park offers a green haven in the midst of concrete and brick. It meets the recreational needs of many, active or passive.

My walk back to the apartment included a stop at the drug store to buy band-aids for my hand (I've already tossed the 15 boxes of them in the medicine cabinets, of course). Saw evidence that rednecks can live in the city, too. Christmas lights in August? Really? Why? Met a young man on the corner by the Riverdale Diner who was asking me for directions, boy was he off base. Anyway, I came up the back side of the building and saw him wandering around outside. I asked if he was still lost, and started to learn more about his purpose in the neighborhood. Chris is a Journalism Grad student at Cornell, and his assignment is to “cover” a section of the city for his assignment. This little neighborhood is very nice (in NYC terms); a lot of diversity and mix of people throughout the lifecycle. Every time I’m in the elevator I get to see a good cross section of inhabitants. I’ve still got lots of work to do here, so I better get back to schlepping this stuff to the basement. Will keep you posted with my interesting finds and adventures….