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FOLKLORE
Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview
NEW YORK
FORM A_
Circumstances of Interview
STATE New York
NAME OF WORKER Saul Levitt
mnmEss 27 Hamilton Terrace, New York City
MVIT Sept 28, 1938
SUBJECT LOCAL LIFE AND INDUSTRY
RIVER AND CREEK SHORES OF NEW YORK CITY —Mr. Schaeffer
1. Date and time of interview
September 27 and 28p 1938
2. Place of interview EASTCHRSTER BAY, (On Long Island Sound, vicinity
Pelham Bay Park.
3. Name and address of informant Schaefer, Eastchester Bay, and Nelson
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
touch with informant.
X
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
X
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
Eastchester Bay, at that point where it touches the gravel bank of tho
roadbed of the New York New Haven Hartford Railroad is a shallcw
inlet of Long Island Sound. With its several score of small boats, and
several boathouses it is a boating and fishing center on a small scale,
a kind of third cousin to the neighboring City Island boating center
and other more thiriving shore spots along the Sound. Its small
flotilla of boats anchored now for the winter near the City Island Bridge
are small crafts some oabin cruisers up to 30 feet, *kickers,* small
open boats of different kinds. Hanging onto the shores on both sides
Of the gravel roadbed which is apparently a causeway are mum, pierways,
boathouses which are no more than shacks; and a few hundred feet in
from the boathouses, on the north side of the railroad are perhaps half
a do -en small frame houses. The loaning shack.boathenses poised on
stilts in the bay, the narrow pierways, the bridge are in need of coloring;
they are gray and water4Tu0S.
(Use as many Additional sneets as necessary, for any of the forms, each
bearing the proper heading and the number to which the material refers.)
FORM A CONTINUED
The brightest thing in sight is the white and green painted
little bandbox of a house with the shield on the door marked Baychester
Marine Club and the knocker below the shield which isa gold.gilted
anchor. Withe the summer crowd gone, only a few of the boathouses
remain open occupied with boat+repair jobs and occasional boat...rentals
for the autumn fishing enthusiast. A small colony remains, a few
people who live on a barge, a house on stilts, a lookout attic on
top of a boat -house, remaining behind after the wash of the summer
season like shell -fish and clams on a sandbar with the tide out.
The place 'holes in' for the winter, figuratively sits around the
stove waiting for Spring. It is essentially a summer community and
what is left after the summer is over is a small community vaguely
engaged "around boats" beachcombers, odd.job men; boat -mechanics.
This little community is reached by striking off the main highway
to City Island along a path through fields of tall grass or through
other paths which run through a patch of woodland off the shore road
to New Rochelle. Approaching it along these paths, the 'colony'
seems to lie very low, almost camouflaged under an expansive of flat
country and the widespreading Sound; and people finally are seen
by the naked eye in much the same way that the eye finds live things
when it looks for a long time down among the tall grasses men who
are weatherbeaten and quiet, a woman in gingham, a long.legged girl.
All motions are subdued and expressions in faces are the opposite
of dramatic. At high tide the waving tall grass in caught up to its
waist by the water, which rises about twelve inches above the footpath
along the railroad; at low tide, on the flats and sandbars which emerge
are skeletons of boats decomposed, dying, on a watery plain, like the
ox and buffalo skulls we used to read about lying on the Great Plains.
As a matter of fact it might be said of the whole place that the
ribs show.
The barge on which informant, (Schaefer), lives looks down
at the heels from the outside; it was apparently a coal barge but
that was a very long time ago. From the few details informant was
willing to furnish the barge was towd to the shore along the railroad
and scuttled there. It provides a roomy but not well...kept house,
with a kitchen, a living room and bedroom. These quarters take up
one end of the boat. In the center a very large dark interior,
are kept many gadgets, tools, boat parts, all of them looking old.
The kitchen and living room are neatly but poorly furnished. There
is no electricity and no radio. A ladder runs from the ground to
the deck. On the deck are clotheslines. At high tide the approach
to the barge is a foot under water.
STATE
NAuE
71..i701 YORK
OF VOIXF.11 SAUL
Personal history 01: Informant
27 hamilton Terrace, New York City
ADDESS
Sept. 27, 2C, 1030
DAIE
LOCAL LIE Ni):. INDUSTRY:
SU6JECT
TdE RIVER 114D CREEK SHORES OF NEW -YORK CITY
1. Ancestry
2. Place and dote of birth
East :broux, 1897
3. Family
Wife, one son s7ed 11
4. Places lived in, %tith dates
at Eastchester Bay.
0. Education, with dates
FoLhLOPE
YoaK
EAS ,J,RoTlx, and now for seven years
Elementary school, one *oar high school,
learned plumbing trade.
O. Occupation,s and accomplishments, with dates Plumber by trade until
he moved to Eastchester Bay; now owns small sailboat which is rented
out during the summer and indicated that he does odd jobs around
neighboring boathouses and an occasional plumbing job.
7. Special skills and'interests Is interested mainly in activity around
snore. Would like to own a small boathouse and build boats. Has
learned, since he came to live here, how to operate sail and motor
botts and has a pilot's as knowledge of Long Island Sound.
8. C °Lamm' ty and religious activities
70 particular activity
Informant Is short, with reddish -brawn
hrDfifiV'4fhWbV;rig-tfliegtha; he was suspicious of interviewer in a
manner which was a mixture of curiosity and an over -wariness as If
to say nobody is going to put anything over on ;ue. Throughbut
10. Other Points gained in interview interview informant gave impression of
naivete and cynicism, lie was anxious to indicate superiority over other
residents of colony. They were provincial, backward, unprogressive,
etc this was general tenor of attitude. Also he was very concerned
over giving interview because he felt that his own story might be
worth money. He is quite poor but his continual naive harping and
picking up of all questions asked for possible personal gatki
was somewaht nauseating. He had written an account of an expedition
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PO B COTIT:'oED
in a llfeboct from the Bronx to Long Branch which he showed inter.
viewer rCter exacting promise that none of it would be reprinted Jr
made use of in anyway as "I expect to sell this to some magazine
or publisher. He was continually attempting to make interview turn
the other way so as to make some connection with publisher for
manuscripts. The story is not well done but it has some amazing
touches. It was a most quixotic exploit, done in 1.32 when informant
was dead broke; he studied maps of the East liver down to the bay
and also of the Jersey shore to Low!. branch --afifty mile trip
lach way. It was done in a lifeboat with a companion, using two
pairs of oars. This is a complete adventure in its own right which
interviewer will attempt to get right to quote at length rom on next
interview. Informant, after initial air of wariness became ver7 glib.
He poured beer for interviewer. He was evidently lonely because of
inability to get along with older pnd more tnativel elements of colony.
ST Al V
FORM
Text of I 11 erview Unedited)
New york
OF wOi•I_RE2. Saul Levitt
Amus5 27 Hamilton Terrace, New York City
DAIT Sept 27-28, 1938
SUEJECT
FOLKLOPF
NE''. YORK
LOCAL LI2E LJID INDUSTRY: 1-1-7, ANL.) CREEK SHORS Of
NEW YORK ci-Ty
I can't live in an apartment no more. I get cramped when
visit anybody in the City the steam heat nets me. Look at the
Wfly
you're dressed and me I 7o around in pants and undershirt until
late October. I don' wanna tell you anything I've gotta story, I've
u a lot of stories but I wanna get soelethin, for tem. You know
what I mean, it's your job to -.et stories but I wan.e.a. get something
for 'em. You don't tn.Ink t'rey'd pry sometnin7 for a story I got one
about a trip yeah. That's a story but I wouldn't ive it away for
nothing. (Lt this point informant be an rumnatling through books
on shelves in kitchen and livin- room. Titles were of technical
books on engineering, heating etc. found manuscripts of trip to
Lon -ranch whi7_;11 dFscrEes a difficult trip through the treacherous
currants and sor:Letinos against the tiles to Long .ranch, Levi ,,ersey).
en, T learned all about navigation th., tl ie. You 0-ot a lot of
traffic on the river. "Maybe I'll let you take a little bit out of
that story so maybe It'll cet advertised. Isn't that possible?
It's funny bit it's human nature you'd never think a man could -et
-2
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 here don't like me and I keep my mouth shut. I don't mix
with them. I'm an anti -Nazi even if I'm German by background but
I wanna 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' mean he's a fascist but he thinks
that way but he ain't a real one. Yeah, he just got tIlOse ideas in
his mind that's what I mean. What do we do here in the winter? I get
a job oncei in a while. In the winter you just got 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 hook I clocked them thirteen minutes
by the clock. Now you and Jack and Jill can set your lines in the
water on the other hand and I can take those lines and the fishIll
bite. No, I'm not superstitious but that's the way it works, they
don't bite at my lines. All my good-time charley friends don't
see me anymore but I can get along without the. You got people
A
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. How did I get to this barge? It was
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moved here, then it was scuttled. I can't tell you how 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 II after my lifeboat.