Living
conditions/lives of immigrant families in Hell's Kitchen...is the blog topic that was suggested to me for an
upcoming blog tour. I immediately thought, that’s exactly what
our book, Forty Years in a Day, is
about. The
story begins in 1900 and follows the incredible journey of a young mother and
her four children as they escape from Italy into the streets of Hell’s Kitchen,
New York. Forty Years
in a Day is layered with the struggles and successes of each family member
and defines the character of an era. I believe the book answers the topic quite
nicely, so how much more could I share? As if it were fate, a friend sends me a
link to a YouTube audio of her Aunt who is being interviewed by her daughter. This
elderly woman, Margaret Carlson, who has long since passed, had grown up in
Hell’s Kitchen. She shares an amazing childhood memory that I think is the quintessential example of what
living in Hell’s Kitchen was like. I would not be able to describe it with any
more craft or poignancy than Mrs. Carlson; therefore, these are her exact words transcribed
from Margaret
Carlson's Memorial Video on YouTube. http://youtu.be/V55rDRi5Dw0
________________________________________________________
I was born 1928. I was born in New York
City—36th street and 11th Avenue. It was called Hell’s
Kitchen. Bad neighborhood. On 11th Avenue there were railroad tracks
and the freight trains use to go along the railroad tracks with the cows, and
the pigs, and the sheep, and you could hear them all mooing. They were going to
the slaughterhouse which was on 28th Street.
I guess I was about 5, and it was early
on a Sunday morning, and I was running the streets on the other side of Eleventh
Avenue, where I wasn’t supposed to be, but of course I was. Two men were laying
on the street. We called them bottle babies. It was depressing days and there
was no work for the men so the men use to hang out on the corner and get drunk.
You know, they couldn’t afford food, but they could get drunk. And they were our
fathers, we knew them. So these two men are sleeping, and one man gets up and he
picked up a big cinderblock and he dropped it on the other man’s head. He
looked at me, and I just raced right home. I raced up four flights of stairs.
You always lived on the top floor cause it was cheaper.
I told my mother, “Mama, Mr. So and So
hit Mr. So and So over the head with a brick.”
My mother said, “What’d did you say, Margie?”
“Mr. So and So hit Mr. So and So over
the head with a brick.”
What a whack my mother gave me. She
never hit us. My father’s hobby was hitting us. My
mother never hit us.
“What’d you see, Margie.”
I was crying. “Mr. So and So hit Mr. So
and So over the head with a brick.”
She gave me another whack. I landed on
the floor, and I’m laying there, and she said to me, “What’d you see, Margie?”
I looked, and I’m thinking to myself
she’s going to hit me again. I sat up, and I said, “I
didn’t see nothin, Mama.”
She said, “That’s right, now go
downstairs and play.”
That’s how I learned you don’t see nothin,
you don’t know nothing.
So I get downstairs and there were lots,
torn down buildings. Rubble. Empty lots we call them. And the lot was full of
people. I was only little so I climb the rocks and I’m standin there and I’m
lookin. The police have a man, blood all down his face, saying, “Did anybody
see this? Does anybody know anything?”
The West side was nice, nobody’s there, all of a sudden people are coming out of the woodwork. Of course, nobody saw nothin. So I turn around to climb down the rocks and there is Mr. So and So staring straight at me, right behind me. I just ran home and that was the end of that. But like I said, I knew then—you didn’t see nothin and you don’t know nothin. That’s where I come from.
__________________________________________________________
Thank
you, Margaret Carlson, for your story
and for reminding us to count our blessings.
Mona
