Monthly Archives: February 2011

At Seward Park I also developed the first hint of the addiction that was to change my life forever.  At this point you may be thinking, the poor lad!  He became a junkie, a drug addict who was saved by … Continue reading →

At Seward Park High School I had now been promoted to the so-called “honors” track.  This meant that instead of attending a normal, generic sort of English class, I was now enrolled in journalism and creative writing.  The journalism class … Continue reading →

University Settlement House, the first and oldest Settlement House in the United States, was only half a block from where I lived.  It had been established in 1886 to help the children of the poor immigrants to learn to become … Continue reading →

Seward Park High School was a large, five story building.  In the basement it had two swimming pools, one for boys and one for girls.  The roof was a fenced in play area,  mostly for handball, which could be and … Continue reading →

While I was enjoying life at Seward Park High School, things were not going equally well for my mother.  As a matter of fact, they were going rather badly. Her pregnancy was difficult and the baby was born about two … Continue reading →

Once installed on Eldridge Street, the next decision was where to send me to school.  I think that decision was made on the basis of the size of the building, biggest being best and most likely.  The largest building in … Continue reading →

Eldridge Street at the time was a sort of borderland between an Italian neighborhood, known as Little Italy and a Jewish neighborhood known as the Lower East Side, which stretched from Eldridge Street all the way to the Lillian Wald … Continue reading →

Once settled in the HIAS dormitory, I immediately began investigating my new environment, and that meant walking around the neighborhood.  It wasn’t long before I found myself at the corner of 2nd Avenue and St. Marks Place, right across the … Continue reading →