1952
i remember growing up in the 1950s. in levittown, long island. the first suburb built in america after world war 2. then in westbury, long island, about a 40 minute train ride via the long island railroad, to the old penn station in new york city. my manhattan-working, textile-brokering father took the infamous commuter train five days a week “to the city”, carpooling with like-minded workaday neighbors to the train station every morning for the 7:10 a.m. express. being picked up by my mother the same five days a week at 6:05 p.m. in our plain 1956 white ford police sedan, then in our ’58 cool-finned chevy impalla, then in our 1960 pontiac station wagon that we got for the ice skates and the dog. sometimes, when i had finished my homework, i would ride shotgun to the train station for the 6:05 with my mom to greet my father. he liked that. me too. i remember him in his brown business suit and tie, hopping off the train, immediately looking for our car, smiling broadly and waving to us, the second his eyes found his target.
but this memory is not about my father, but about my mother. and not exactly about my memory, but about hers. it’s about coney island. the place that still burned in her imagination from her own childhood. it’s about the cyclone, the new-fangled, wild west of a roller coaster that opened in 1927 on the coney island boardwalk that hurtled and thrilled her in ways she would never forget.
born in 1921 to first generation russian-jewish immigrants from kiev in the ukraine, my mother, roz, grew up in the working class neighborhood of middle village, queens, one of the 5 densely populated and bustling boroughs of new york city. she was the first born, as i am, and i guess i inherited her high standards, her obsessive personality, her love of life and her curiosity, along with all the high-strung rest of her type A personality. her parents, murray and sally, worked hard as blue collar laborers, like most of their immigrant neighbors, running the local grocery store on jamaica avenue. a lot of their customers spoke old country, eastern european yiddish, and i remember, even when i was a kid a generation later, seeing the stacks of soup cans, toilet paper, and tightly-packed condiments piling up from the wooden floor to the high ceiling. so high that my grandfather had to use a long wooden pole with a moveable metal pincer at the end to reach many of the higher lying items. it was all foreign and magical to me, growing up as i was, on the new, button-downed middle class conveyor belt of suburban america.
coney island. the westernmost part of the barrier islands of southern long island, the long fish-shaped island, swimming east from the new york harbor 118 miles into the atlantic ocean. its 2 western most counties, brooklyn and queens, comprise 2 of new york city’s 5 boroughs, its 2 easternmost counties, nassau and suffolk, comprise the mid 20th century birthplace of suburban america. the head of the long island fish is brooklyn and at its southwest mouth sits coney island, about 4 miles long and half a mile wide. between about 1880 and world war II, coney island was the largest amusement area in the united states, attracting many millions of visitors every year. at its height, it contained three competing major amusement parks: luna park, dreamland, and steeplechase park, along with many independent beachfront rides, games, eateries, and the like. “world famous nathan’s hot dogs” was born right on the board walk in coney island in 1916.
1933
but it was steeplechase that won my mother’s heart. with its death-defying rides, the cyclone, the thunderbolt, the wonder wheel, and the towering tornado, coney island’s steeplechase remained into her adulthood the dream-filled territory of her childhood’s imagination and memory, where these ground-breaking, gravity-defying techno-extravaganzas thrilled, delighted, and scared the be-jesus out of her.
i always could, and still can, imagine little 11 year old rozzy rosenberg, circa 1933, in the heart of america’s “great depression”, taking the 5 cent new yawk city subway all the way to the end of the line, past brighton beach, brooklyn, to stillwell avenue and ocean parkway, to the coney island boardwalk, maybe with her little brothers, knee-socked philly and harvey, paying a few more cherished cents for the towering thunderbolt , the terrible tornado, the wondrous wonder wheel (pictured above, one of america’s 1st ferris wheels), and of course, her favorite, the infamous and terrifying cyclone.
1952
me? i was never one for amusement park rides. i had neither the stomach nor the courage for them. still, with my mother’s boundless enthusiasm, i didn’t want to disappoint her. so when i was 5 years old, i literally gave it a whirl. it was on westbury’s answer to the wonder wheel, a pathetic portable ferris wheel driven down blue spruce road, by what i’m sure, would now not even be called a small truck. it was a tiny, sad, yet terrifying 6-wheeled thing, and it parked itself across from sarah and ed slater’s house on blue spruce road, that at five, i called “bloos bloos road”. but… there it was… the portable ferris wheel and… there i was… with my mom egging me on, to give the man my nickel, climb into a moveable, rocking chair, and take the ride of my life.
i did not want to go. but what could i do? i was roped in by age five – by the pressure of my over-enthusiastic, demanding mom, who wanted me to relive her childhood coney island fantasies for her, right there on blue spruce road. what did i do? did i pee my pants? did i just put my 5 year old foot down and refuse to go? no, i folded. just like i did 7 years later when my mom forced me to go into the accelerated junior high program for smart kids. even after i begged her not to put me in classes with nicky blumberg with the coke bottle glasses and take me out of classes with the popular kids where i was class president and captain of the softball team. “no, this is an opportunity you don’t want to miss, eric.” “no, mom, this is an opportunity YOU don’t want me to miss.” but of course, i didn’t say that, even though a precocious, intuitive part of myself knew in my guts that this was the beginning of the end for me.
just like this moment…. when i got on the sad, pathetic, blue spruce road, mini ferris wheel, and as soon as it started moving, i started screaming my terrified 5 year old head off.
“stop! ma! let me off! whahhhhhhh!”
the wheel went around again. i screamed some more.
“whaaaahhhh!”
the ferris wheel operator suddenly stopped the ferris wheel motor – with me exactly at the top of the wheel. i screamed some more.
“whaaaahhhh!”
it couldn’t have been more than 10 feet high, this little ferris wheel pulled around by some immigrant mini-truck driver, but it was the scariest thing i had ever experienced. i was at the top of the world and completely out of control. “let me out! let me out!” and… let me out… they did. my mother coached the ferris wheel operator to rotate the mini-wheel down to street level, and i shot out of that cable car like a scared jack rabbit right back into my cowboy & bucking bronco, yellow-mural painted bedroom.
i’m certain that i disappointed my cyclone-riding mom from big bad coney island, who must have apologized profusely to the portable circus man for her pitiful son’s obvious lack of moxie, but… the die was cast… no coney island rides for me, just a life of trying to please my mom… and failing.
until……
1980
when i’m back in new yawk city… after finally cutting the umbilical cord in 1969, 4 years after miserable pre-med college (again for the parents), when… i got in my 1964 pontiac tempest (in 1969) and traveled up and down america like it was one big map, ending up in chicago, becoming a modern dancer and a clown… until i returned to new yawk in 1977… and created new york city’s “resident clown troupe”, the cumeezi bozo ensemble.
it’s july 4th, independence day, 1980. america is 204 years old. the “cumeezis” are bringing their improvised “free public laughs” to the coney island beach. good idea, right? we’ve gotten the grants, we’re obliged, and we’re booked to entertain the boardwalk beach combers and the amusement park revelers under the beautiful, hazy-blue brooklyn sky. the only problem is — getting there — and back…. in full costume, makeup and mufti (clown regalia). on the Q train. end of the line! and 95 degrees in the shade!
it’s 11 a.m. and the 10 of us are gathered at 303 park avenue south, my loft-home, on 23rd street. (yeah, sounds kinda ritzy, but don’t worry, the building is still a rat-infested former factory inhabited by artists and wannabe artists paying $400/month). we’re all putting on our costumes and makeup. there’s pint-sized ernesto from ecuador, and orthodox david from brooklyn, and peter and mark and laralu and peg… who within half an hour will transform themselves into “ponty and pish, mr. eggs and dr. chedwick, miss camille, and crazy ethel” (with a red funnel on top of her head). and i, i mean, gino, will lead them down into the bowels of the IRT #6 subway, south and east over the williamsburg bridge along delancey street, slowly into the far reaches of brooklyn, until about 2 hours later, when we will arrive at ocean parkway or stillwell avenue, and schlep ourselves down from the elevated train to the coney island boardwalk to have us some “fun in the sun”.
the tv’s on as we’re getting dressed in our clown best. but “breakfast at wimbeldon”, with bud collins doing the color commentary on the men’s final, just won’t end. and although the “cumeezis” are all ready to go, the match is deadlocked in the 4th set between john mcenroe and bjorn borg in the longest, most dramatic tie-breaker in tennis history. i can’t leave. “c’mon, gino. we’ll be late!” it’s ponty or pish or ethel or camille; they all know how rigid i am about time. “yeah, ok, let’s just wait until this tie breaker is over.” they roll their eyes. none of the “cumeezis” apparently appreciate the power and beauty of a great tennis match.
it’s getting late, after noon. we have no idea how long the trains will take today, this being a holiday in mayor koch’s under-funded but still glorious new yawk city. we’re supposed to be there at 2 o’clock. “c’mon, gino!” “yeah, ok. ok.!” finally. mcenroe beats the invincible borg in the 4th set in a 20 minute 18-16 tie breaker, the longest and tensest in history. “let’s move ’em out,” i say, knowing that these are the last words any of us will speak for the next 5 hours. and… not knowing, pre-video or DVD-recording, what the outcome of the 5th and final set will be. oh…. the sacrifice of a clown!
fifteen minutes later, we’ve descended into the bowels of new yawk’s notorious subway system. we schlep and clown our way downtown on the IRT #6, then change to the D or the B train, then switch to the double R, maybe the triple G, and finally the Q train. what do clowns know about subways, right? we know how to shake hands, sit on laps, and spin around subway poles… what else is there? oh yeah, the Q train… to coney island, ocean parkway, down to the boardwalk and the sandy beach itself. it’s got to be at least 100 degrees, 120 in clown mufti. our white pancake is already dripping off our faces down our necks and over our collars. some wise guy-smart ass has probably smeared our red grease paint by grabbing wildly at our colorfully painted faces, and we still have an hour left to create comic chaos on the beach. hooray! it’s july 4th. what a stupid day to put on the schedule, gino.
ok… it’s an hour later… although it seems like five… and the show is over. or at least our day’s improvised clowning on the coney island beach and boardwalk is over. every one of the “cumeezis” is completely clowned out. we’re soaking wet, dish rag worn out. we’ve been pulled at, tugged, bugged, and snugged all over the coney island beach. ethel’s red plastic funnel is hanging from her chin, ponty’s red and white polka dotted shirt has been torn asunder, and gino’s size 34 fur-lined klondike boots are full of sand. simply put, the public can be cruel to clowns. and we still have a 2 hour multi-subway ride home… where john q public will be no kinder or less aggressive to us. excuse me, i mean “enthusiastic”. in retrospect, i think mcenroe and borg, however the 5th set turned out, had a far easier july 4th than the cumeezis.
ok, finally. we’re back in the loft. always a buoyant time, washing off our makeup, telling tales of what actually happened out there. we haven’t spoken to each other in 5 hours and most of us, completely consumed with our own clowning, don’t have the slightest idea what’s gone on with our other comrades in arms. today, although completely exhausting, was a good day, according to most. lots of laughs, a raucous and receptive crowd. what else do cumeezis need?
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but for me, today was the end of my coney island fantasy. it was way too hot, way too long, and i don’t know if i ever even saw my mother’s famous 1927 cyclone. there was no magic for me in coney island. no thrills. only hard work, being soaked with sweat, caked with makeup, and physically and mentally exhausted. not to mention having missed the great borg make a fantastic 5th set comeback to beat and hold off the still young and impudent mcenroe for one more year.
sadly, today, july 4, 1980, was the end of my 33 year old love affair with coney island. my mom was wrong. the boardwalk sucked. it held no thrills for me. no magic. the immigrant beach no longer mixed and matched colors and cultures from all over the globe. the only thing coney island meant for me were 2 boots full of sand, a tortuous 4 hour subway ride, a missed tennis classic, and a vow… never to come back.
until….
2013
november. fall foliage. i’m back in my native new yawk for my oldest friend, ric reaper’s, wedding. his 3rd and hopefully his last. he’s marrying a lovely and mature filipina woman, after trying 2 fiery latinas, and not only will this marriage hopefully hold it’s promise, but maybe the reapers and the trules can have a southeast asian rendezvous, or two, in bali or mindanao.
the reaper is hosting about 25 of his soon to be filipino in laws, a whole collection of domestic out of towners, and the challenge is finding a place a stay on the cheap. needless to say, i’m not a hotel kinda guy. da wife and i prefer to stay with friends, even like-minded strangers, than to fork over our hard-earned cash to some anonymous hotelier. we travel with “servas” or “airbnb”, and believe in the new “sharing economy”, but what we like best is staying with friends.
this trip has afforded us a unique hybrid accommodation. we can stay with six foot six alexsey from uzbekistan, who stayed with us in LA for almost a month over the summer as an airbnb guest, and who used to swim for the 1996 russian olympic swim team in atlanta, where he met president bill clinton and swam the 100 meter freestyle! impressive. seventeen years later, he’s still built like a swimming gartgantuam, with massively broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and the concomitant 6 pack, which ok, these days may have resorted to a flabbier, but still impressive, 2 or 4 pack.
alexsey has offered us his spare bedroom in brighton beach, now called “little odessa”, about a two building stone’s throw from the… wouldn’t you just know it… coney island boardwalk. that’s right, i’m going back to coney island, the place of my now deceased mother’s childhood dreams, and to the same place, that 23 years ago on a hot, sweaty, and exhaustingly cumeezi independence day, i swore i’d never return to.
brighton beach is the brooklyn “schtetl” that neil simon wrote one of his best-known plays about. an insular ghetto of former depression-era, yiddish-speaking immigrant european jews, that after falling on hard times and a late-20th century inhabitation of african americans, has now earned its new moniker, “little odessa”, by hosting a 95% russian-speaking population of immigrants from the former soviet union. one of the true melting pots of modern day america. just like astoria, queens, another of new yawk’s immigrant boroughs, where we stayed in 2002, the wife’s first foray to the city of my youth. where the 1950s archie bunker cookie cutter houses are now rented by a potpourris of irananians, turks, puerto ricans, east europeans, and an indescribable and unclassifiable collection of colors, ethnicities, languages, foods, and street smarts. and just to throw our own monkey wrench into the mix, we have brought my wife’s best friend, isa, from senegal, with us, and uzbeki alexsey has amiably agreed to host her on the couch. i feel like i’m back in my grandparents’ new yawk city, circa 1932…
…which metaphorically, is the perfect connection to my mom’s coney island.
we’ve just arrived from JFK to brighton beach’s avenue 1, and alexsey has greeted us enthusiastically, implanted us in the bedroom and on the couch, given us a key, and gone firmly back to sleep. we take the elevator down into the cold of little odessa and walk over to brighton avenue…. to sal’s deli, which alexsey has told us will be the only place open within walking distance at 7 a.m.
wow! the place is packed. with school kids and blue collars going to work. with gang bangers and stout, long-coated women… all speaking russian… to the 4-5 russian-speaking order takers behind the counter. it reminds me of berger’s jewish deli from my childhood in westbury, but much more crowded and without the suburban, 2nd generation english-speaking refinement. we stand there awkwardly, looking around wide-eyedly, until a skinny, english-speaking dude with a “sal’s” cap shouts at us, “what’s it gonna be?”
we order 3 teas, some hot bagel, egg and cheese combos, and we sit down in the back of the deli, in front of the cold food and beer glass cooler. my indonesian wife and her senegalese best friend have never seen anything like this before in america. it probably reminds them more of their 3rd world towns and kampongs than of well-scrubbed and sanitized LA. but it’s all familiar to me. and beautiful. i feel like i’m back in my grandparents’ time. when new yawk and america were still rough-tumble, bright-eyed and young. when it was still virile, strong, and innocent. when it was still clearly the “land of the free” and the statue of liberty still represented undaunted opportunity, building a family, and fulfilling your dreams.
how far had our country come between 1920s european jewish immigration and the little odessa we were sitting in today? i was afraid too far. we were now closing our borders to immigrants, in ways we never had before. sure, we had interned american japanese in world war 2. we had discriminated against the chinese, letting them build our railroads but passing immigration quotas to control their number. immigration had always been, and still was, a contentious political football. but “the great melting pot” was now a country building concrete fences at its borders to keep “the others” out. we were in the middle of a seeming never-ending series of foreign terrorist wars and an ongoing “clash of civilizations” between the muslim world and the west. countries we knew little about, like iran, iraq, afghanistan, somalia, yemen, and others were popping up in the news every day, much to our confusion and dismay. the american dream and its veneer of invincibility had been attacked and tarnished.
yet, here in brighton beach, in little odessa, the american dream was still alive. it was the same dream that had brought my wife and her senegalese friend to america. one where first generation immigrants could work hard, learn a new language if they chose, save and send money back home to their families, and even dream of bringing their loved ones to live with them in america, just like generations of immigrants had done before them. just like my grandparents, murray and sally’s generation, had done.
here, sitting in the back of sal’s russian deli in brighton beach, we were sitting still, amidst the best of america’s promise. amidst the coffee and borscht drinkers, amongst the 1st generation school kids ordering donuts and russian baklava, amidst their russsian-speaking parents buying home-made russian stew and young brine pickles that i loved so much at berger’s and the carnegie deli at 55th street and 7th avenue before they fired their stout, middle-aged jewish waiters and waitresses and replaced them with koreans and cheaper-to-pay latino immigrants. before there were nouveau riche and beverly hills. before there was corporate greed and a 1% of the population “ruling” its 99%. when america still believed in bringing its “poor and huddled masses” past its torch-bearing, shining lady of liberty, to a melting pot like brighton beach, to a russian-speaking deli named “sal’s” on brighton avenue in little odessa, circa november, 2013.
the next morning, after an afternoon walking our feet off in manhattan (isa’s first time), and a good night’s sleep, we can see brighton beach’s famous beer-bellied “polar bears” swimming out in the frigid atlantic, out of alexsey’s east-facing kitchen window.
we seem to have brought the sun with us. we bundle up, go downstairs, and walk 50 feet down to the brighton beach boardwalk. surya has on her running shoes and jogs up ahead as isa and i walk down past the brooklyn aquariam to… the coney island boardwalk!
and there they all are: nathan’s hot dogs, the wonder wheel, luna park, the new and futuristic thunderbolt… all restored to their immaculate 1920s glory. and yes, amidst them all, but clearly for me, all alone… there she is: my mother’s glorious and still awe-inspiring… cyclone. maybe not as terrifying as she once was… compared with all the new cyber-fangled amusement park technology of disneyland and magic mountain, knotts berry farm, and all the rest. but how could you compare? she was the original. she was my mom’s favorite. she was miss terrifying, miss heart-pounding, miss coney island’s one and only… cyclone.
i take a deep breath of the sentient salt air and look up to the sky. and there, amidst the clouds, i’m sure i see… a reflection of gino cumeezi’s great great grandfather, gums cumeezi, smiling back down on me from above. as if to say, “it’s alright gino. let the past go. you’re allowed to enjoy coney island again.”
and then i take another deep breath and think of my gregarious and cyclone-loving mother, who had so clearly formed her first and only son, in so many conscious and unconscious ways. i take another deep breath of the coney island salt air and i exhale. “here’s to you, mom. here’s to fearless, cyclone-loving, rozzy rosenberg. and… i’m sure i hear… “namaste”, as she always liked to say.
then i look up ahead at my indonesian-jogging wife, and behind at her senegalese, slightly lagging-behind best friend, and “i say to myself, it’s a wonderful world…..”
(fade in sam cooke’s sparkling song of the same name…..)
the end
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