Sunday, August 15, 2010

Sunday Memories: a) Inheritance b) Neighborhood c) Heritage d) All Of The Above: Part 3

When the old people die in the old neighborhood, usually it's their kids who clean out the apartment.

But sometimes their kids send their kids who don't know what's what.   Or sometimes there are no kids so it's the niece or the nephew or their kids.  And sometimes it's even the kids of the neighbors next door  - complete strangers - who clean out the life of a person who has no kin and no connection except to the people in the photos they leave behind.

Which is how Laurel found all these old photos tossed in the garbage. She brought them home so that a discarded life and history could always have a home.
This is Delancy Street. The Delancy Street Florence roamed. The Loews Delancy in the background still looked like that when we went there on Saturday afternoons.


Laurel thinks this was taken on Orchard Street. The boy, the mother, and even if she was the sister, the young woman relegated to the back.  We all hoped the picture was taken when he was back for good. 


On the back of this, in beautiful fountain pen cursor, someone wrote "Herman. He played for the Czar." Since the only Russians who came to America in the early 1900 were Jews, all we could think was this was a Jew who played for the Czar. That was a big, big deal.

Did Herman ever make it here or did he die there, probably in a pogram or in the camps?




Me, Laurel and Joyce looked at this guy and we all said "He looks familiar. That place looks is familiar."

This picture, every inch of it, is a picture of one of those rare delicious moments I had as a kid - the evening dark, the clock early, the smells recognizable, the accent my own.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thowing out pictures, I can't believe it. Even if it is not your family, it is your area and has significance.
When you saw that last photo did the hair stand up on your arms? It is iconic.

Alana said...

"so that a discarded life and history could always have a home" beautiful, just beautiful.
I too have many pictures in my home of people who had nothing to do with me, yet over the years they've become apart of my fabric. Ghostly faces that I wish I knew their story. Though when times get tough it's a great comfort to know that someone else loved, raged and dreamed before me.

You made my day! ( as always)

Laura Goggin Photography said...

Haha, yes! That last photo looks an awful lot like my great uncle when he was much, much younger.

Ugh, I've never understood why photos get thrown out. It makes me sick seeing them in junk stores or, worse, on the street.

City Of Strangers said...

CO - I do find it amazing that people would discard photos like this. Wouldn't they at least be curious?

Strange how neighborhoods thin out, what they abandon they they do.

T.