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G R O W I N G U P I N N E W Y O R K C I T Y
Jane and I loved school. Perhaps it was because it got us away from our stepmother. Events outside the home were a source of great happiness for me. On school days we had to do our homework and some chores. We had little time for play or fun. On Sundays it was different. We went to church in the morning and at night after dinner Jane, Esther, and I would go to visit many of the museums in New York. We would walk to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. That was our favorite. We also liked the Museum of Natural History or the New York Museum on 105th St. and 5th Avenue. After the museums we would stop to have a cup of coffee or chocolate milk and a piece of pie. We got all this for just 15 cents. Our favorite place to go for coffee was Horn and Hardart. This type of restaurant was called an automat (a self-serve). If we didn’t go to a museum, we went to Central Park for a picnic or concert.
As we got older we were able to travel further from home. We were allowed to go to the theaters, such as the Paramount and Rockefeller Center. When we could afford it, we even went to the opera! At that time New York City was the best place a teenager could be, and we made the most of it. I remember standing in line for hours waiting to see Frank Sinatra, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, the Andrew Sisters, and so many others. To see a great show at Rockefeller Center we only had to pay a dollar. These are the things we did for entertainment.
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| At the beach! |
In the summer we would go to the beach. The beaches were at least an hour away, so we would pack a lunch and stay all day. We usually went to Jones Beach out on Long Island. Before I went off to nursing school, one of the last big events I remember was the 1939 New York World's Fair on Long Island. Jane, Esther, and I would go every weekend. There was so much to see and do. I remember one night my friend asked me to dance with him in front of the hemisphere. We danced around as “Waltz of the Flowers” played on the PA system. It was the perfect ending to a perfect day!
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| 1939 New York World's Fair, night view |
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Shortly after I started nursing school, Jane went to work at Union Carbide, and Esther went to work in the Corn Exchange Bank in McKinley Square. We were just coming out of the Great Depression and jobs were hard to come by, so we were all lucky to be employed.
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| Esther, 1948, at the McKinley Square branch of the Corn Exchange Bank & Trust Co. |
We all remained close to Mama and Papa. We enjoyed their company and visited with them often until they returned to Italy in 1957. Papa died on May 6th, 1958, not long after their return. Unkie lived with our family in New York until his death in January 1955. We stayed in touch with Mama even after Papa died. Esther and I both made trips to Italy to see her before her death in 1985. She lived to be 95 years old.
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| Esther with Louisa in Italy, June 1968 |
Letter from Innocenzo to Esther written
during Innocenzo and Louisa’s trip back to Italy in 1957, on the letterhead of
the Cristoforo Colombo (transcribed text below):
My Dear Daughter:
As you see I write from Gibraltar,
to appease you and to inform you that this far and with the help of God, we
have had a very good and peaceful crossing, and everything has been very
pleasant. And I also wish to tell you
that up to this moment, we both are enjoying a very good health. Tenderly kisses to you and little Daniel,
best regards to Jack. Your affectionate
father, Innocenzo.
P.S. We have received everything that you left in the cabin for us, and mother and I cannot find words to thank you and your husband for everything that you have done for us. We are constantly thinking of you three, and you will never be able to know how sorry we are that we missed you on our departing day. But of one thing I can assure you, and that is that I have never seen your mother cry so long and so bitterly as she did that day. I will tell you more in the letter that I hope to write to you from Naples. Goodby and may God bless you all.
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During the war I left New York to marry my sweetheart, Anthony (Tony) Guzzetta. We were married on April 25, 1943 in Blithe, Arkansas, where Tony was stationed at the time. We were married on Easter Sunday, but our anniversary never fell on Easter again (at least in our lifetimes). Papa was not happy about me leaving to get married and didn’t speak to me for a few months. He didn’t let Jane or Esther come to the wedding either. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful day!
Esther was the next to marry. She married Jacob (Jack) Freilicher in 1954. My husband Tony and Jack were both musicians and played in a band together often. Tony introduced Esther to Jack. We spent many evenings at the clubs together while Tony and Jack played.
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| Esther and Jack's wedding dinner, 1954, Patsy's Restaurant, Manhattan |
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| Esther and Jack's wedding day, Manhattan City Hall. Top row, from left: Louisa, Jane, Mildred (Jack's sister-in-law), Rose, and "Unkie" Sven. Middle row, from left: Nara (Jack's brother-in-law), Brynie (Jack's sister), Jack, Esther, and Innocenzo. Front row, from left: Ricki and Susan (Brynie's children), and Resa and Robert (Rose's children). |
Jane remained single for quite a while. She enjoyed her job at Union Carbide. She married James (Jim) Brocad in 1958. Jim was a New York City firefighter, and he owned a medallion that allowed him to run his own Yellow Cab in the city.
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| Left: Tony and Rose; Right: Jack and Esther in Central Park |
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| Jane and Jim in New York City |
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What follows is a short essay written by Esther in response to questions from her granddaughter for a school project on immigration:
I was born in Manhattan, New York City, in 1928, on the upper East Side. My dad came to this country from Italy in 1911, when he was 19 years old, and my mother came to America in 1905 from Sweden. My father enlisted in the American Army and learned to speak English very fluently. We lived in a five-family brownstone in Manhattan, which was a large, bustling place, and it was a very wonderful city in which to grow up.
My mother died in 1929, when I was a year old, and my father married an Italian woman, who became my stepmother, in 1931.
The people in my community earned their living in a variety of ways. They were shopkeepers, office workers, and laborers; but it was the start of the Great Depression, and many people were unemployed. My father was very lucky -- he was a trolley-car conductor and never lost his job. In the late 1930’s, buses replaced trolley cars and he became a bus driver.
Not many people owned automobiles in those days, so if one had to travel a great distance, you rode on the subway or took a bus. There were no highways or expressways as there are today, and since automobiles were not that common, it was a pleasure to take a ride in the country or travel to another city, because there were no traffic jams.
The climate was much the same as it is on Long Island [where Esther’s granddaughter was living at the time of this writing]. We gathered around a coal stove to keep warm in the winter, but then we finally had central heating installed, which wasn’t that effective. We had to wear lots of sweaters!
Our apartment had six rooms. One of the rooms was occupied by my uncle, who lived with us until he died. My bedroom was a little alcove between my parents’ room and my sisters’ room. It had a bed and a bureau in it, but I didn’t mind. On cold nights I would jump into my sisters’ bed, and it was very cozy with the three of us in one bed! Then, we all complained about not having much privacy, but by that time my sisters had gone off to nursing school and I had the whole room to myself.
There were no supermarkets or large food stores, only corner drug stores and small food stores, butcher shops and fish markets. There were only fresh vegetables and fruits on horse-drawn carts. When the first supermarkets started to be built, everything changed and the small stores started to disappear.
The schools were wonderful. They were not over-crowded and well within walking distance, until I went to high school. Then I had to take the subway for the 20-minute ride to Washington Irving High School in downtown Manhattan. I was allowed to travel on the subway and buses by myself from the age of 10. It was only a nickel, and one could go all around the city and back again for 10 cents.
There were many activities for us as we were growing up. We would go to museums, concerts, parks and playgrounds, and most of it was provided for us by New York City. My father would take us to many places on weekends or on his day off. One of his favorite places was the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, and then the Empire State Building when it opened, or out to La Guardia Airport to watch the planes take off or land.
As for recreation, when I was very young I played outdoors most of the afternoon. We would play ball and street games on the sidewalk, or go to Central Park and play tennis, or go to the zoo. We lived only three blocks from Central Park, and it was a great place to go to on a nice day and sunbathe or just romp around. And then, of course, there was the movies. Admission was only 10 cents, and for 10 cents you would see two movies, a newsreel, and a weekly serial. We always had a radio, and we would sit and listen to it the way people sit around a television set today.
In the late 1940’s, there were many changes. Everything became very expensive, more houses were being built, there were plenty of jobs, and our soldiers were coming home from World War II. Highways and expressways were being built, and jet planes and more airports. I feel very fortunate to have seen all these great changes in my lifetime.