132 West 129th Street, Apartment 5E, Harlem, New York. Recent photo of my
boyhood home. The block has been "gentrified," but the process has not changed the building substantially. However,
there was no tree, and there was a lot more garbage. Most of the brownstone buildings, the commodities that drive
gentrification, are on the opposite side of the street.
One hopes the economic engine
has crushed the rats and roaches in building # 132. If not, let those negotiating brownstone prices be advised that
all Harlemites know how to cross the street. I retain a scar on my head from a rat bite at about age eight. And to this day
I don't pour milk over my cornflakes before checking the bowl for intruders.
"Blonde and ditsy Mrs. (?) read Little Black Sambo to us third graders. We
were impressed. With her stupidity."--from Sambo at
Public School 68
 Public School 68, Manhattan, is now the Oberia D. Dempsey Multi-Service Center. It saddens me that P.S.
68 is no more. The agency housed by the building bears the name of Oberia D. Dempsey. That is extremely consoling.
I recall Reverend Dempsey from the sixties. He was a Harlem hero without parallel. His church was a relief center for heroin
addicts. This was at a time when the only government heroin addiction program for Harlem was heroin addiction itself.
The church, because of its location, was also a poignant symbol of the strange juxtaposition of opulence and
degradation in America. The location was 125th Street and Park Avenue. Wall-to-wall junkies and a stop on what was then the
New Haven Railroad. Most riders represented communities with average per capita incomes among the very highest in the country.
The 125th Street station served some of them as a point of hasty transfer to and from the subway or a taxi.
Following is quoted from the MSC website:
The Oberia D. Dempsey Multi-Service Center Located at 127 West
127th Street, New York, New York 10027, is a “one stop", social, health, educational, recreational and neighborhood
service center whose purpose is to bring the local services and activities close to those in need. Dempsey is sponsored by
West Harlem Group Assistance, Inc., in cooperation with the New York Human Resources Administration.  I should have been in this class with Billy Brewington (bottom left), Buddy (top, 3rd from left), and Notebook (missing
from photo) ...
..but instead I was in this class with some very nice people...From there on to DeWitt Clinton HS...
"The gang of flames at DeWitt Clinton High. Athletic but not athletes."--from Harlem Faggots DeWitt Clinton High School
is in the Bronx, not in Harlem. In the fifties, however, Clinton integrated itself by drawing from Frederick Douglass Junior
High School (J.H.S 139) in Harlem. There was the anticipated boost to its athletic program. An unanticipated result was gender
diversity of sorts. Harlem flames.
This is not to say there were no white flames already there. It seems, however,
that these delayed coming out until the arrival of the Harlemites--both flames and boys--and tolerance. Harlem boys did not
care about the flames so long as the flames did not display too much care for them. In fact the flames enjoyed the protection
of Harlem boys from the less tolerant Bronx "greasers."
Some years later diversity was rounded out
with the admission of girls and with them (one assumes)"flamettes." and from there to college and with the Ques
"The fastidious quick witted bartender on 7th Avenue near Strivers Row."--from
Harlem Faggots
 One of the streets of "Strivers Row"
today, 139th Street between Adam Clayton Powell and Frederick Douglass boulevards. The other street is 138th Street, bordered
by the same avenues. Designated "Strivers' Row" during the Harlem Renaissance when it became the exclusive residence
of blacks with means and credentials. Strivers Row "North" actually. There is a similar, but older, district with
the same appellation in Washington DC. Muslim,
notwithstanding, I felt a small twinge of regret when I learned of the demise of the two famous taverns-almost-in-tandem.
But I am extremely consoled by knowing that historic Strivers Row stands intact. It must be the inspiring and esteem-raising
symbol for today's Harlem youngsters that it was for me. I recall my junior high classmate, Eddie Abramowitz, insisting that he visit my home. I had visited his and found
a few things that were missing in my tenement with railroad flats. No chandeliers in the foyer. No foyer. No elevator. No
sunken living room. No parquet floors. But I did have roaches. He didn't. I insisted that he couldn't visit because he would get beat up just because he's white.
I recall his request intensifying my wish that
I lived on Strivers Row, or in the Dunbar Houses, or the Riverton. The bus from Washington Heights would have put us right
in front of my door if I lived in either the Dunbar or on Strivers Row. If I lived in the Riverton, Eddie probably would have
gotten his behind beat somewhere along 135th Street as we made our way from Seventh Avenue to the Riverton. (A beating he
deserved for living the way he did.) |
