Mrs. Parker’s Greeting

I once read that when Dorothy Parker picked up the telephone or opened the front door her greeting was “What fresh hell is this?”  That goes through my mind each morning when I open up the door and pick up the New York Times (I am still old school and like to turn pages as I drink my coffee).  I skim the first page and turn to the 6 x 6 crossword on page three.  If I can’t finish it in a minute I get nervous and think my brain is shot. Then I continue reading the paper.  And it is fresh hell.

The pandemic, economic collapse and hideous racial inequality are a dubious trifecta. Many of us may look back to those early days in March, 2020 when the world was different – or so we thought. March 12th I had dinner with high school friends.  About a dozen of us get together twice a year, but the March dinner was special as friends now living in London and Los Angeles were in town so we arranged to meet at Tony’s – a standard red sauce place on the East Side (what the food lacks in flavor is made up by the large portions and well made martinis). The dinner turned out to be the last social event prior to what could aptly be called the deluge.

Some Fled To the Hills

Thinking the office would be closed for a few weeks, that following Monday we made contingency plans for working from home but didn’t cancel any events further than two weeks out. It wasn’t until I went shopping later that day (picking up toilet paper, the last remaining cans of Lysol and of course, brown rice crackers) that I began to notice the makings of pandemonium around me.  Many residents of our midtown neighborhood fled for the Hamptons or the Hudson Valley where they summered. Diane and I summer, winter, fall and spring right here in town. We sometimes wonder if we would have left if we had the option. Maybe – though we’re both die-hard New Yorkers – and when I learned there were food fights at the IGA in Amagansett over frozen chicken breasts and that Citarella  ran out of $40 a pound lobster salad I knew we made the right decision. The irony is that due to the flight from our neighborhood the density dropped and it probably made it a safer place to ‘shelter at home.’

In those early weeks it was clear that the situation in New York City was getting dire. Though when one is living through something it is different than reading about it.  Diane and I knew we were very fortunate.  We were healthy (though each headache or cough set off an alarm),  Madeline and Kerry were healthy, and we were all able to work remotely. 

Family lore has it that my grandfather Nathan survived the 1918 Pandemic by sleeping outside in the cold air.  So, with that knowledge and in some ways to honor him, I would get up early, Lysol every knob, handle and remote control and open our windows no matter how cold it was.  I wanted to believe the fresh, cold air would dispel any germs that made it past the lobby.  Diane worked in the den.  I used the counter by the kitchen window (which was an occupational hazard as I was six feet from the overstocked refrigerator – and the gym and beach were off limits – hence no workouts or swimming for the duration).

Sitting at my makeshift desk I got to see the many ambulances racing down East 57th Street to the hospitals on York Avenue.  The sirens became the soundtrack to our lives.  From mid March  we listened, we read, we watched, and we scrolled as the situation went from bad to worse to unimaginable. We learned of people getting sick.  I read the obituaries each day and noted the deaths of people I knew from my college days and early career who had died. 

Friends and family from out of town contacted us.  It reminded me of 9/11.  There was good will and concern but every conversation seemed to lead to “how did we get here?”  It was more than disheartening to see the response out of Washington. During this time I was reading a  biography of Winston Churchill, The Splendid and the Vile, about his leadership during Great Britain’s entry into World War II.  Yes, Winne had his warts but he took charge with knowledge, conviction and empathy – qualities the miscreant in the White House does not have. Though I am not a royalist by any means I found Queen Elizabeth’s speech to her nation inspiring.  Diane was doing double time working on communications issues for the United Nations.  She noted early on that countries headed by women were faring much better than those headed by men.  The FT noted that the team of Bolsonaro, Johnson and Trump combined couldn’t be trusted to contain an outbreak of acne, let alone a virus.

As an amateur student of New York City history I wanted in my gut to believe we would get through this.  For my monthly QEDC newsletter I reminded all that this city had survived disease, riots, and attacks and always came out stronger.  I want to think that will still be the case.  When we realized our office would be closed indefinitely we pivoted to online counseling and webinar events.  There was no playbook and we made decisions quite rapidly. Some funding streams dried up while others became available.  The most important thing for me was keeping the team focused and positive – even when I wasn’t.  We have helped many clients, though small businesses, especially those owned by our many low income, immigrant and minority clients are suffering.  I want to think we are providing needed help and guidance; though in my darker moments I think we may just be shoveling sand against the tide.

Routines

At about six o’clock each day we did what millions of others did – the nightly drink.  Wine, martinis, V&T’s – and adding Aperol Spritzes as the weather warmed up.  We did not order out, preferring to devise a meal each night.  We discovered that frozen vegetables and seafood had changed a lot since our childhood.  Diane has a way with seared scallops over riced cauliflower, and my gougeres as posted on Instagram, were a hit (as we are not getting to Paris this year, Paris had to come to us).

We watched videos and shared memes on line.  My favorite line was a comedian noting he was “living the dream…Stephen King’s dream.”  At 7 pm we stood out on the  balcony and applauded with our fellow New Yorkers. A very anonymous East 57th Street became a small town street in the Midwest.  We got to ‘know’ our neighbors on their balconies across the street and would be concerned if they didn’t appear for a few days. We got hooked on a few cable series, especially Poldark which took us to 18th century Cornwall (where they had a pandemic too – ’Putrid Throat’), and an Australian import,  A Place to Call Home, the trials and tribulations of a family in the 1950’s – love, war, politics, family, religion, race and sex – Tsuris Down Under would have been a more apt title.

Things I Needed To Think About More Than I Ever Did

We learned of the death of George Floyd the way millions did – on TV. And we have watched that agonizing moment many times since.  If the pandemic shifted the world off its axis, then that moment it spun out of control and began careening down an abyss.  But I am wrong about that.  For millions of people the world has always been out of control, and now we are all more aware of it than ever before.

I know I am of a certain trope: grandchild of Jewish immigrants who fled persecution in Europe; raised by progressive parents who never uttered a slur in their lives (with the exception of Republicans who were fair game – especially Jewish Republicans); educated to believe we’re all equal, I turned out to be your garden variety New York liberal. And I thought I knew what inequality really was – but I didn’t.

Hollis Days

Diversity in my childhood meant there were Jews from Flatbush, Jews from Midwood and Jews from Brighton Beach.  There were exceptions  like my childhood friend David Grossman whose family hailed from the Bronx. In elementary, high school and college I was surrounded by people who looked like me. It was only when I began working in Queens, specifically in Hollis, did I meet and work closely with people different than me.  One of my first projects was helping to attract a supermarket to the Hollis community.  Hollis wasn’t poor but due to White flight to the suburbs the shopping streets were decimated. I worked with the local neighborhood group headed by Gladys Warren – a matriarch in the community. Early on when I addressed her as “Gladys” she gave me a look that grade school teachers  gave me when I was out of line.  “Please address me as Mrs. Warren,” she said. I was taken aback and a little embarrassed.  It took some time for me to realize that here I was, an entitled 23 year old treating her as a familiar and casual acquaintance.  I had no clue what she had to go through to earn her place in the world.  And it has taken more time for me to understand the struggles of Black Americans.

It’s Not the Same 

For generations we are taught that people in our country are free to fulfill their destinies – and to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. “My grandparents came here from Italy with nothing and built a life; my ancestors escaped the potato famine in Ireland”...and so it goes.  We are taught a false narrative in school – that all men are created equal.  That was only true if you looked like one of those men who wrote those words. Black people and women were excluded.  There were  – and unfortunately still are – two Americas.  One where the American Dream could be realized with skill, education and luck; and the other where skill, education and luck don’t matter as much as the color of one’s skin. While I want to believe the majority of White America has realized this, it has taken the tragic deaths of George Floyd and hundreds of others to fully understand the plain stupidity of racism.  

The one, and possibly only benefit of never going out is the time to pick up some of  those weighty tomes that have accumulated on my night table.  Despite my predilection for history books about New York City, American writers in Paris and World War II, I do read other history books. Last year I received, as a gift from sister-in-law Gaylena, The Warmth of Other Suns, a history of the migration of Black Americans from the south to the north between 1915 and 1970.  In the aftermath of George Floyd’s death and the outcry for racial justice it was the right time to read it. The stories were strikingly similar to my grandparents and their contemporaries who came across the ocean to escape poverty, ignorance  and sometimes death at the hands of oppressors.  The stark difference is that Black Americans had to escape the same horrible conditions in their own country – the same country that falsely promised equality for them at birth.  While I was aware of this history, the stories of basic indignities raised my consciousness. The conditions that have caused the migration are still with us – perhaps subtler but still there. And in our current environment it can get worse.

After  Dinner Strolls

As the virus numbers in New York decrease, Diane and I go for walks in the neighborhood.  We stay local, going to the little riverfront promenade off Sutton Place, or over to Central Park.  It is good to see people out and about and the city slowly coming back to life. It affirms our decision about being here. Despite the Governor being a bully over the years, he was a bully for New York the last four months – and I wish the spineless acolytes across the country will follow the lead of New York, otherwise we will backtrack.  Of course we still wear our masks, we avoid crowds and only a few times have we met with friends outside on socially distanced park benches. 

We know a vaccination will be developed.  The economy will recover but it will take time.  History has shown that New York City has a way of re-purposing itself.  

On one of our recent strolls we walked a few blocks east to Fifth Avenue. It was the day the Black Lives Matter mural was completed.  It wasn’t crowded but there were a fair number of people – properly socially distanced – enjoying the scene.  It was very  New York – a cosmopolitan mix of races, ages and incomes that comprise this great metropolis.  And it made us proud and happy and gave us hope for the future.  Despite our sometimes hard exteriors and in-your-face- qualities I want to think the majority of New Yorkers are decent and caring. 

Let’s End With Mrs. Parker

With that in mind I want to share another Dorothy Parker story.  She died in 1967 in the Volney Hotel a few blocks north of the mural. She had no heirs. She bequeathed her estate and all future royalties to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who she had never met.  There was no explanation why.  I suspect she got it and wanted to do something about it in her own way.  A good New Yorker. A good New York story.  

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