Mr. Greenberg

Ours was a house of women.

But that was the norm during the Second World War.

We lived in North Philadelphia, on a street of row houses that had porches, homes that were built for the men and women that worked in the area’s factories, the mélange of clothing mills, sheet metal plants, welding shops and foundries that were America’s foundation.

The brick house with white wooden trim was my Grandmother’s and because of the housing shortage all her daughters lived at home, my Mother and her four sisters, my aunts.

The blue banner in the window with four white stars was the reason for the conditions. Each white star stood for one for each of my uncles that was in the service.

My Grandfather and I were the only males in the household. To support the war effort, he gave up retirement. His day followed a strict ritual. After his second cup of coffee, he took the 75 Trolley to the Broad Street Subway to get downtown – where he performed office work for his old employer.

When he came home at night, he became the most important person on our block, the Air Raid Warden. Just before dusk, he put on his while helmet, checked his flashlight, secured his armband and made sure that everyone saw him give my Grandmother a big kiss before leaving on his evening rounds. He was responsible for the 4500 and 4600 blocks of Tampa Street, a job for which he proudly refused any compensation. 

Some evenings he took me with him as he walked the neighborhood making certain that no light showed through blackout curtains.. With no streetlights and few vehicles, the neighborhood was quite dark. Once the windows were properly draped my Grandfather used his flashlight to guide people to their homes from the trolley stop and in the process got a chance to chat with his friends and neighbors. Everyone loved him.

My mother worked the early shift at Budd Company – where she was a classic Rosie the riveter, welding fins onto bombs for six long days each week. She went to work long before dawn, but as a result got to come home early, about a half-hour after my Aunt Rose returned from Olney High School. Because my Grandmother usually needed a break, my Aunt Rose walked me to the trolley to await my mother’s return.

It was a fun ritual. First, a number of green trolleys would grind their way down the tracks, their poles sparking against the wires that hung in the middle of the street. After a wait that seemed endless, around ten minutes or so, Mom arrived among the hiss of pneumatic doors, literally bouncing down the stairs when she saw me. After the excitement and hugs abated, we carefully made our way across a forbidden land that was filled with dangerous cars, trucks and trolleys, Wyoming Avenue. Across lay the line of shops between Beth Israel Synagogue and St. Ambrose’s, places that contained wonderful sights and aromas.

I can remember many of their names even today, Mr. Kaplan, the butcher, Bogoslavsky’s Bakery, one of the larger places, Handler’s Pharmacy where my Mother bought me a chocolate sundae on Saturday nights and my favorite spot of all, Mr. Greenberg’s Grocery. My mother and my Aunt Rose made their way to different stores, sometimes getting fish, dairy products, usually getting a fresh loaf of bread. But we always stopped at Mr. Greenberg’s.

A curtain of salami, kielbasa, garlic and cheeses greeted you! In cases lay incredible delicacies; liverwurst, chopped liver, lox and other smoked fish. There was also stuff in those cases I’d never think of eating, like head cheese and blood sausage. UGH!!!

In the rear of the store stood clerks who used the long wooden poles with tongs to pull boxes and cans from shelves that reached all the way to the ceiling.

The wooden counter was always busy. There were at least two or more women in kerchiefs talking to Mrs. Greenberg. With husbands or sons fighting, it was a time of stress. Some days the sorrow was oppressive. My Uncles were all safe. When really bad news filled the air, even I could feel her relief air as Mom handed Mrs. Greenberg the money and ration stamps and quickly left.

As I later learned, these women were quite fortunate to have Mr. Greenberg in the community. He led the merchants, so when a husband or son came home on leave, Mr. Greenberg made certain that the family had their special piece of meat for the celebration. If a family suffered a loss, despite the rationing, nothing was denied.

A few months after the War in the Pacific ended, my Uncles returned to their old jobs or went back to school. Due to the GI Bill, they were able to buy houses for no money down. With that, they lived at home only as long as it took to save enough money for a car, a honeymoon and a down payment on furniture. As the same was true for my Aunt’s boyfriends within a year of VJ Day our household experienced a marriage per quarter.

But these couples, along with most of the others from our neighborhood did not buy homes in the city. The expression in Natalie Wood’s eyes as she saw the suburban house in “Miracle on 34^th Street” exemplified the prevailing thoughts. Everybody wanted a detached house with a two-car garage in peaceful community -- the American Dream.

Not so for my mother. Instead, she stayed at home to watch over my aging Grandmother and Grandfather. When I asked my Mother why, she never answered, but I was able to read her emotions. Being Catholic, she was reluctant to divorce. When she finally remarried, her sense of obligation had grown so deep that she and my new stepfather bought a house a just a few streets from my Grandparents.

Through the late 40’s into the early 50’s the stores on Wyoming Avenue held their own against the onslaught of the Supermarkets, but frays began to show in the fabric of the community. First the fish market closed, then the produce store. By the time Eisenhauer became president, the meat and dairy market were gone. Bogoslavsky’s Bakery and Mr. Greenberg’s Market continued to have good business, but it took some time me to understand why.

The young families in the new suburbs had supermarkets, homogenized, uniform, clean and pretty, but not food with character or distinctive flavor. So when they visited their parents on weekends, old neighbors did more than fulfill a family obligation. The remaining stores allowed them to experience a taste of their youth, and to share that taste with their children.

Staying in the neighbor wasn’t for me. I was a product of the transition from radio to TV, from imagination to back and white images that flickered on the screen. First I adored the Lone Ranger, the Cisco Kid, Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers.

Before long before I began to see a world in which people lived in unattached suburban houses with modern kitchens, real people – Like Ozzie & Harriet and the Cleavers.

Going to Olney High School would be more of the same, just life in the neighborhood. That’s why I took advantage of the opportunity to attend Central High School, one of the top academic institutions in the United States. By that time the green streetcars were gone, so I had to take a long trackless trolley and subway ride to get to the campus. But the experience was worth every moment of travel.

Not only did I sit alongside some absolutely brilliant people, but most of our teachers were full professors. In addition to intense math and science focus, the school exposed me to the Humanities, Classic Literature, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. To balance the stuffiness, there was Bandstand. About once a week I’d take the Frankford EL, get off at the 42^nd Street Station and spend an afternoon dancing with beautiful girls. With partial scholarships to the University of Pennsylvania or Drexel Institute in the offing, my world was filled with unlimited possibilities.    

Then disaster struck. First my Grandfather had a protracted illness. Within months the medical bills depleted the family’s savings. Two months after he died, my Grandmother had to sell her house and move in with us. My stepfather could not take the pressure and left. As bills mounted, I increased my after school work hours. My Aunts and Uncles helped, but they had growing families.

Mr. Greenberg also knew of our family’s situation and following his pattern of the war years, when we needed it, he helped us.            

With the possibility of a 57 Chevy Convertible gone forever, there was a path open, the Army Chemical Corps, an opportunity to use my scientific skills while fulfilling a military obligation.

Four days after graduation from Central High School, I entered a world where people had strange accents and liked the tasteless food that the Army served in the chow hall; hominy grits, chicken fried steak and biscuits with gravy. I was in the deep South, Fort Jackson , South Carolina. To say that this place shocked an East Coast City kid is an understatement of classic proportions.

When off the base, I was in even more foreign territory. Try as you may, it was impossible to find a hoagie or steak sandwich. Most houses were surrounded by lots of land and the grass was green, even in winter. There was no such thing as a trolley or subway.

After four months of basic training, the Army transferred me to Ft. Mc McClellan, a spot in the hills just outside Anniston, Alabama, even deeper in the South.

My first exposure to racial prejudice and segregation occurred when I went off-post with black friends and a restaurant wouldn’t serve them. A few months later the KKK burned crosses at base’s entrance. I never went into Anniston again. I wasn’t afraid of men in white robes. I simply refused to have anything to do with people like them.

A year later the Army sent me to an outstanding school just outside of Washington, DC. The District was the kind of world I was used to, public transportation, museums, theater – lots of things to do! I loved it!

With John Kennedy’s election my experiences grew. Our school was the Honor Guard at the Armory Inaugural Ball, bringing me within feet of the world’s most beautiful, wealthy and powerful. On my way to and from Fort Belvoir in Virginia, I saw their mansions on huge expanses with the latest cars in the driveways. These experiences drenched my senses.

But the pace of change was indelibly marking the neighborhood. Most of the old time stores on Wyoming Avenue had closed and aside from a Chinese laundry and pizza parlor aged paper and dust coated shop windows.

On Christmas 1961 my old world lost its last link with my childhood. Bogoslavsky moved its main bakery to a suburb and shut down our neighborhood store.

Plus, Mr. Greenberg was retiring.

With the last neighborhood icon disappearing, Rabbi Cohen and Father Doyle threw the biggest party since the end of World War II. All my Aunts and Uncles and their families came, along with neighbors that had moved long ago. It was a happy but poignant affair.

Christmas Eve at Mr. Greenberg’s turned into a fantastic gift-giving event. Mr. Greenberg donated his remaining inventory to needy families. Neighborhood women filled his store all day long, preparing the gift baskets that their husbands and sons delivered to the infirm and unemployed. I carried packages to a number of houses, but it was with a heavy heart. Mr. Greenberg’s was the last of the stores that existed at the start of my life.

During Easter I came back on leave. His store was gone, but Mr. Greenberg and his wife were still there, with his shop converted into a center for the women that attended St. Ambrose & Beth Israel.

A year later I received my discharge from the Army and of course came home. But nothing was the same. Having seen much of the world, the neighborhood was too confining.

Being dissatisfied was foreordained. I was living in an era of limitless possibilities – of Route 66, Cool Jazz, Hollywood Boulevard and 77 Sunset Strip. California was where the action was; fast cars, freeways, palm trees and bright lights.

Best of all, college tuition cost less than a tenth the amounts charged by Drexel or Penn.

Following the pattern of my uncles a few years earlier, I quickly obtained a job, saved enough for a new convertible, put some money in the bank and then drew it all out when I left for LA.

My new life was incredible. Within weeks I had a great job, two moths later went to college, six months later met a beautiful woman and a year later got married.

Two years after that we had our first home, a ranch house on a 120 by 60 foot lot in a planned community. To get to it you drove along broad tree-lined and well-manicured parkways. Then you entered through an ineffectually guarded gate into a subdivision that consisted of five floor plans with four different exteriors, all in earth tones.

Aside from a trip home every three or four years to visit my mother, my life took place in Southern California. It wasn’t until I began to periodically visit San Francisco on business that I again tasted urban life, albeit with the panache of The City. 

San Francisco contained character-laden neighborhoods and distinctive shops. People walked. Taxis were abundant and unique food could be found anywhere in the city, with the garrulous and crowded Chinatown being the most exotic spot of all.

I began to see the suburban pattern’s impact, controlled and characterless development, no front porches, steps or places to chat with neighbors. Back year fences marked the boundaries for dogs and children. Virtually all the stores had huge employee turnover that exposed us to unrelenting and soulless “Have a Nice Day” greeting as we were processed through the checkout stands.

About the time that this lifestyle began to grate on me, in the mid 1980’s my employer promoted me to Chicago.

Despite the shock of brown grass in March, my wife and I picked out a two-acre lot south of Hinsdale where we built our dream home of our.

The closest supermarket was in downtown Hinsdale. Going there was simply a break from the house, an opportunity to stroll through the charming downtown. We even got to know some of the specialty shop owners.

Chicago’s architecture and cultural life surpassed anything we knew out West, exemplified by the Art Institute, the Field Museum, the Chicago Symphony the Lyric Opera.

When my six-year assignment ended, I was thoroughly indoctrinated into the virtues of the suburban lifestyle and was prepared to buy a home in another planned community.

Thank god that I have a far-sighted wife. Though I did not understand her reasoning, she insisted that we move into an older beach community named Corona del Mar, where I had to pay twice the price for half the house.

After our first three trips to Europe, I began to see understand her wisdom.

The lifestyle within the older towns entranced me, especially walled places such a Sienna, Perugia and Sarlat.. But the same lifestyle can be found in older sections of Paris, Florence and London.

Supermarkets cannot shove their way into these tight places, so little shops survive. Produce stalls, bakeries, cheese shops, butchers & fish mongers line the narrow streets. Shop owners know their customers and chat with them, just as Mr. Greenberg did. On Saturdays farmers and merchants bring their goods to open-air markets, further adding to the vibrancy. If you have ever gone to Covent Garden or Portobello Road in London, you know what I mean.

These trips helped me to see the beauty and social dynamics of our little community, Corona del Mar. Shops and restaurants line the Pacific Coast Highway, but two supermarkets effectively kill the hopes for any smaller food shops. At least we have an open-air farmer’s market every Saturday.

In 1997 I was again at headquarters, but this time my assignment made it logical to commute between California and Chicago. Knowing that I would periodically be alone on the weekends I could not bring myself to live in the suburbs. Instead, I found a place right in the middle of Wrigleyville.

Though the drive to my office was long and parking was always difficult, living in the area was a delight

The EL enabled me to get downtown in less than thirty minutes, making going to the Newberry or Washington Library to do research and a quick dinner a hassle-free experience.

With the easy commute to the downtown office buildings, the neighborhood is rather pricey. This doesn’t matter much to the new professionals and many don’t have cars. Each June a fresh batch of college graduates flocks to the place, filling it with even more enjoyable vibrancy. The feeling peaks during the months when the restaurants open their sidewalk tables and stay open late into the balmy evenings. 

Life in the area is good, can be interesting, but just isn’t quite up to the European example.

After six years in Chicago, including two that my wife and I lived a few doors from Mayor Daley, I retired early. We planned to spend half of our time in California, with the other half in Europe. I was set to do research on three subjects of personal interest, the Battles Hastings, Verdun and Britain.

911 happened two weeks after I retired.

By the time the initial shock began to wear off, calls from industry friends and associates quickly changed our plans. Four firms in the New York City area asked me to develop Management and Security Systems.

This has been my first chance to spend time in Manhattan since Audrey Hepburn made ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’. Instead of looking at the streets and neighborhoods through the eyes of a testerone filled young man, I’ve looked at their charms.

Manhattan is noisy, is gritty and is certainly not a clean as downtown Chicago.

The people can be, well, New Yorkers.

But despite their gruffness, their small apartments make them seek more social interaction than the people in any other American City.

New Yorkers walk. With limited space for supermarkets and chain stores, so smaller places have a chance.

There is a pattern to all this.

Manhattan, San Francisco, Chicago, Paris, London, Rome, cities that have great walking downtowns. Yet young people flock to these cities.

Why?

It’s the monotony of the American suburb.

No matter where you go, the only significant difference is the terrain, the trees and the vegetation.

Here’s the crazy thing!

In LA they’ve built ersatz downtowns, theme parks where no one lives; Universal Studio’s City Walk and Downtown Disney.

Despite having to pay for admission and parking, people flock to them.

A few builders sense that the formulas of the last fifty years are in need of change, so they have recreated walk-around communities. These are high-risk ventures that do not yet represent mainstream thinking

Most people still pay high taxes and pricey homeowners dues to live in gate-guarded communities.

I’m pleased to live in a place that contains a blend of the California Beach life and the urban community. We walk our dog and know our neighbors.

Based on the incredible prices for which property in the area sells, quite a few other people also like our lifestyle.

The trend that makes Manhattan, Chicago, and San Francisco looks like it’s long-term. As other American cities mature, most likely they will adopt the better aspects of their European counterparts.

It is my hope that my children and their children wind up living in places where they get to know their neighbors and local merchants.

Perhaps they too will get to meet their Mr. Greenberg.