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STATE N.Y.
NAME OF WORKER
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
Forms to be Filled out for Eacn Interview
FORM A
Circumstances of Interview
Bishop Hathaway
356 West 123d Street, N.Y.C.
December 21, 1938
Folk Lore "GREENIE"
1. Date and time of interview December 20, 1938
2. Place of interview
Union Square
3. Name and address of informant
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
"Greenlet", one Green. Lower East Side
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
touch with informant.
5. Name and address of person, if any, accohlpanying you
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
Same as in Jacob Stein.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms, each
bearing the proper heading and the number to which the material refers.)
FOPIV
Personal History of Informant
STATE N.Y.
NAME OF WORKER B. Hathaway
ADDRESS 356 West 123d Street, N.Y.C.
DATE December 21, 1938
SUJECT Folk Lore "GREENIE"
FOLKLORE
YORK
1. Ancestry Russo -Jewish
2. Place and date of birth New York, nearly forty years ago.
3. Family
4, Places lived in, with dates
5. Education, with dates Not farther than grammar school grade, as a kid.
6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates
7. Special skills and interests
8. Community and religious activities
9. Description of informant In the late Thirties, long -nosed, pot-bellied.
Atheistic, humerous, a "kibitzer" on any subject that may arise, in
a place where sooner or later everything does arise. Called also
"Union Square's Kidder Number One." A home reliefer, or works re
10. Other Points gained in interview liefer, reasonably secure for the
moment anyway apparently satisifed.
'FOLKLORE
FORM C
NEW YORK
Text of Interview (Unedited)
STATE New York
NE OF WORKER.
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
B. Hathaway
356 West 123d Street, N.Y.C.
December 21, 1938
Folk Lore
His foil, a little high church English clergyman, who
has some kind of work among the derelicts on the Bowery small,
thin, with a noticable accent, slow, deliberate, very earnest,
without a sense of humor.
Causally the minister gaunt -faced, perpetual pipe
in mouth, well along in years had mentioned something about the
TransfiguracAon of Christ
It was enough for "Greenie."
His long nose sticking out in front of him, with nasal
twang and a straight face, on an undertone of ridicule, "Greenlet"
drivelled along, to the amused titter of the atheistic, scoffing
audience that draped the park railing---
GREENIE AND THE MINISTER
Christ told a man to put his hand in His
side. Thomas. That WRS the man's name. Doubt -jug Thomas (as if
he had some doubt about it himself)
-2
When Christ said it was really Him and that He had come
back from the grave and was goint to stay a while. Thomas wouldn't
believe Him. He wanted to feel Him. So Christ said; all right
Here, put yer hand in here. And He unbuttoned His tunic, or what-
ever He wore. Feel Me, Christ told him. See if I ain't real.
So Thomas put his hand in ant found He was real.
Yo' got me, said Thomas. 'Y juckers, You win. Yer real
ft1•11
all right. I gotta believe it
After that Christ went all around showint people that
He had come back from the grave. Ant it was only Thomas that over
doubted it.
So Christ stuck around a while before goinl up. He
wAited till everybody had seen Him an, then He went up in the sky.
'Twas in all the afternoon papers:
Four O'clock! Grand Final Ascension! Everybody Out!
All Jerusalem turned out. It was a holiday in all the
Christian shops. Saint Peter was there. With the ear he had cut
off man with his sword three or four days before. He was carryini
it around with him, shawin' everybody
Ant when He went up that time, He never came down
any more. That was the last time anybody ever seen Christ. It
Was the Transfiglration.