East First Street Revisited

East First Street: My first solo apartment back when the neighborhood was the Lower East Side – that is, before it was the “East Village” - the difference being around $1500 a month; Flower Power was in bloom and my block boasted 3 bodegas, a real candy store owned by an elderly Italian couple named Mama and Papa and a Chinese Hand Laundry run by a smiling lady whose single word of English, as far as anyone could remember, was “Starch?” We also had our very own outdoor drug supermarket at the corner of First Avenue in the ruins of a boccie court that was also occasionally used for a film location. At the other corner was a real gas station that was opened all night. Along with the “Summer Of Love,” two of my neighbors were murdered and one committed suicide. But all in all it was a pretty good block. And a cheap place to live.

There used to be a vacant lot in the middle of the block right across from my old apartment. It is still sort of vacant, but it now has cobble stones instead of garbage to walk on and someone has painted the walls of the buildings that face it. My old building is still there along with several new ones. None of the bodegas are there. Mama and Papa are long gone and their candy story is pretending to be an art gallery. There is a huge new building going up at the corner where the gas station used to be.  I wonder if the 'art' will be there when the new folks move into that building.


And: After I posted this, I got a note from Ed Pacht. Ed and I were roommates a long, long time ago, actually pre-First Street longtime ago. It was a place on 9^th Street between Avenue B and Avenue C. It was my first experience living (sort of) on my own. I was 19 and life was lots simpler and easier and I had no idea. Anyway as it usually happens, Ed and I went on to lead our separate lives separately. As it also happened to those f us who are lucky, we reconnected a few years back and now manage to get together once or twice a year. Ed writes poetry. I am flattered that he remembers me in this piece and I wanted to add it here:

2536. May 25, 2017.  Several things worked together to bring me here.  In yesterday’s poetry class I mentioned that it was Bob Dylan’s birthday.  I drank beer with him once before he was famous.  I am reading “Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan”, which brings back many New York memories.  I had an email from my old roommate about a slightly later place he’d lived.  All of that keyed in this bit of reminiscence…

East Ninth Still

In days gone by
when rent was cheap
and hopes were running high,
in a world gone mad,
or so it seemed
(but not as mad as now),
when streets were full of freaks,
and immigrants of every kind,
and every faith (or none) was held,
and many tongues were spoken,
a motley, grungy culture thrived,
and youth descended on the place,
and I,
young, naïve, and learning much,
was one of those who came,
one of those young and restless souls,
unsatisfied with the homes they had
and with the lives desired for them
who sought a different way,
and came,
and lived in a place like this:
five floors high, on each floor four
apartments much the same,
a motley group contained within,
a theater person, Jewish Bahai,
a Polish couple of factory work,
an artist whose comics were very strange,
a poet who dealt in many drugs,
and me,
with a roommate who sang folk songs,
and a stream of strange folk ever coming,
and conversations ever changing.
It was a time of endless learning,
and a time of foolish failing;
a time of splendid moral growth,
and a time of moral failure,
a short time many years ago,
a fraction of a man’s long life,
and yet a time to be remembered,
a time to be cherished,
even though it be regretted
in part, for some of what it was.
It was a time,
for an aged poet-sometime-preacher
that built on what already was
and helped to make him what he is,
and still East Ninth is in his heart,
and in some undetermined way,
still guides him,
still feeds him,
and feels like home.
-Ed Pacht