Document text
FORM C
Text of Interview (Unedited)
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
wucrE New Vbrk
NAME OF WORKER Saul Levitt
ADDRESS27 Hamilton Terrace* New York City
DATE 'Sept 27.28* 1938
SUBJECT LOCAL LIFE AND INDUSTRY* THE RIVER AND ORM SHORES OP
NEW YORK CM
I can't live in an apartment no more. I get cramped when
I visit anybody in the City the steam heat gets me. Look at the
way you're dressed and me I go around in pants and undershirt until
late October. I don' wanna tell you anything I've gotta story* I've
got a lot of stories but I warm get something for 'am. You know
what mean* it's your job to get stories but i 'Lana get something
for tem. You don't think they'd pay something for a story I got one
about a trip yeah. That's a story but I wouldn't give it away for
nothing. (At this point informant began rummagling through books
on shelves in kitchen and living room. Titles were if technical
books on engineering* heating etc. Found manuscripts of trip to
Long Branch which describes a difficult trip through the treacherous
currents and sometimes against the tides tb Long Branch* New Jersey).
Yeah* I learned all about navigation that time. You got a lot of
traffic on the river. Maybe I'll let you take a little bit out of
that story so maybe It'll get advertised. Isn't that possible?
It's funny bit it's human nature you'd never think a man could get
used to it. There's good and bad features in a depression if there
was no depression I'd never be out here. I know this Sound no,
ain't anything I ever heard that's interesting around here. The
people heft don't like me and I keep my mouth shut. don't mix
with them. I'm an antio.Naei even if I'm German by background but
I 'Panne tell you about Nelson, (referring to boathouse owner farther
down the shore), no, I don't mean the old man but his son he's a
fascist. Am I sure? Well, I don' meanie's a fascist but he thinks
that way but he ain't areal one. Yeah, he lust got theose,ideas in
his mind that's what I mean. What do we do here in the winter? I get
a job ono* in a while. In the winter you last goet snow but you'd
be surprised what you can get used to I'd never thought eight years
ago I could live out here. I can't fish, isn't that funny, I'm not
superstitious. I guess the fish don't like my line. I once had
two butterfish going around my book I clocked them thirteen minutes
by the clock. Now you and Jack and Jill can set your lines in the
water on the other band and I can take those lines and the fith'll
bite, No, I'm not superstitious but that's the way it works, they
don't bite at my lines. All my good.tims charley friends don't
see me anymore but I can get along without the. You got people
who say they ain't afraid of the Sound but they don't got out at
night. Now I know this Sound. I can find my way around in the
dark without lights but I'd like to see some of them try it. Does
it get rough on the Sound? I've seen nine foot whitecaps on the
Sound. Yeah, it's getting high now, sometimes it covers up that
grass. We get freak tides. Yeah, once only since I've been here.
It came right up to the deck. Now did I get to this barge? It was
.3.
moved here, then it was scuttled. I can't tell you Ivir because
that's in my story. My wife never had nothing to do with water
either but it's accumulatinl. She couldn't live in an apartment
no more. My boy? He was sickly in the City but he's all -right here.
(Referring to neighbor on the other side of railroad trestle, living
in a house on stilts on sandbar): he's a Southerner, he aint modern
that feller Coward, that's a Tobacco Road family. Did I ever see
Tobacco Road? No, but I know what it is. If I had the money I'd see
the show.
(At this point interview terminated with promise of other
interviews; interviewer discovered that high tide had risen so that
it was necessary to take off shoes and stockings and wade across to
railroad embankment). Informant called over:
If you know anybody that want's to go sailing some after-
noon bring 'em out here I got a sailboat right near the bridge
sixteen feet. I named her Rover 11 after my lifeboat.