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STATE
NAME OF WORKER
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview
FORM A
Circumstances of Interview
NEW YORK
SAL LEVITT
27 Hamilton Terrace, New York City
October 25, 1938
STORIES OUT OF LOCAL LIFE Albert Williams
(River and Creek Shore Life of New York City)
1. Date and time of interview
October 21 and October 24, 1938.
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
2. Place of interview
Vest Farms Creek (one block off 177th St. Station IRT along West Farms
Road)
3. Name and address of informant
Albert Williams
4. Name and address of person, if any, wno put you in
touch with informant.
Walters (another informant along West Farms Creek, at Whitlock and Westchester Ave)
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
X
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
A small shanty on the shore partitioned off into two rooms. One room conains
a pot-bellied stove. Other room a bed. Very poorly furnished, just a few house-
hold utensils showing. The shanty stands on a lot which is used by an auto
wrecking establishment. Nearby is a framehouse and a wire -lined chicken -coop.
The shanty is directly opposite the abandoned Starlight Park Resort (see Librere
story).
(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.)
STATE
NAME OF WORKER
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
FORIV
Personal History of Informant
NEW YORK
SAUL LEVITT
27 Hamilton Terrace, New York City
October 21, 24, 1938.
STORIES OUT OF LOCAL LIFE Albert Unisons
1. Ancestry
Scotch -Irish -American
2. Place and date of birth
New, York City, 1893.
3. Family
None
4. Places lived in, with dates
Refused to discuss
5. Education, with dates
Grammer School
6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates
Carpenter, mechanic, does nothing now.
7. Special skills and interests
one
S. Community and religious activities
None
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
9. Description of informant Informant is above medium height, gray -black
hair; most interesting physical characteristic is mouth which is slightly
out of control; a dead giveaway of fear, embarrassment and :cineral anti -social
character. He Was not unfriendly, but more or less noncommittal, except where
VD. Other Points gained in interview conversation touched on hurricane. He is a
war -veteran (there was an army overcoat hanging on a line outside shack). He
would not discuss the war. Looked shell-shocked or perhaps a socially -created
attitude 'Functionally unemployable' all this a guess. After a while showed
an increased interest in discussion. Vilien interviewer suggested possibility of
picking up a battery radio set for him, he sizzled a little and then subsided.
FORM C
Text of Ltterview (Unedited)
STATE NEW YORK
NAVE OF WORKER SAUL LEVITT
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
27 Hamilton Terrace, Nw York City
October 21 and 24, 1938
STORIES OUT OF LOCAL LIFE ALBERT WILLIAMS
(River and Creek Shore Life of New York City)
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
Haw far did the water come up? It came right up through everything. Right
out to the lot. To the street. It even got some of those chickens down in the
lower part there. How I felt like something was playing around with me.
The water started to Lcp up a little just like the tide always does coming in.
It was raining all day that time and the day before. This place leaks. It
MRS raining all the time. We (indicating companions about whom he said nothing,
two old men sipping at coffee) had to pull the bed to the middle of the room.
That was just the rain, that's all. Nhat did we do we played cards. Did
I ever live in the City. Yes, I lived in the City, I knew a crowd. I don't
like noise. Well, it bothers me, that's all. That's all there is to it. No,
I don't go downtown I know this is just a creek but the Atlantic didn't bother
me any, we were all together it was a big boat it was crowded. I never thought
of being scared of the ocean. Because I was young? Yeah, maybe. I wasn't
scared of the ocean. I wasn't on the ocean I was on a boat and it was dry all
the way over but this place is damp almost all the time. Maybe I will go to a
hospital. This German lady (pointing to nearby barge) she came over and tol' me
about a hurricane. Sure I heard of a hurricane. Then Mr. Santo (from the
Street -Cleaning Dept. depot down the block) he tol' me about hurricane too. I didn't
do molg nothin' because I didn't know -what to do. It seemed just like an extra high
tide. It just kept going up it got up to the window and it came in. It ran right
-2
out on the lot. I should've done something about those chickens maybe. It kept going
up and up. That's the way the world's going to end. How do I know? Water that'll be
the end. It'll just keep going up and up. They can't stop water going up all the
time. It just keeps coming. I don't know if I believe in God, no. Those chickens
kept screeching their heads off it gave me the willies. I had stuff hanging out for
three days. About the world going to end? You don' want to know about that you're a
young feller. They can do anything see but they can't do anythingabout the water coming
up. Now that's all I know. Would I care? I don' know. Do I get lone*. here? No.
That water makes a noise all night long I'm right up to the water it raps around. At
first I couldn't sleep so well sometimes I don't sleep so well now. I smoke a lot too. If
I could get a radio it would
cure
be nice. I'd listen to everything sure all day long but
I'd keep it low. After a while I'd fall asleep. Then I'd put it on again, see? Yeah,
that an army coat. Yeah, I did hear about the vets down in Florida that was a hurricane
too. It played around here on the creek but it never got rough. It just kept getting
higher and higher. It ran up on the lot. Right out to the street. Everybody talked about it
but that's all I saw. It lid what? It ripped up houses? r.:Elrried them through the air?
I bet it could do more than that I'll bet it could carry off the Empire State Building.
That would be some wind. But it wouldn't be the wind it'd be the water that would do it.
STATE Nal' YORE
NAME OF WCRKER SAUL LEVITT
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
FOR 0
Eytha Ccvim,..nt
27 HAM:LTON TERRACE
Oct. 21, 24.
STORIES OUT OF LOCAL LIFE ALBERT WILLIAMS
FOLKLORE
NEW IORK
At Eastchester Bay and West Farms Creek, on basis of interviews with half a dozen
residents, some casual, three interviews of some length, there are some tentative
conclusions to be made. One group of residents consists of people who have a
definite and wholesome pattern of living around the shore. They own boathouses,
work winters in the city, like to fish, and otherwise can draw up for interviewer
a kind of social pattern. Another group consists of those who have been driven
out of the City in the last seven years they find it economical to live on
abandoned barges along the shores and they seek odd jobs and are interested in
getting back to the City, to apartment living. Another group would be those
who have been driven into an anti -social form of exfstence, without means or hope
of employment. These groups tend to overlap i.e., people who have been driven
toward the shore for economic reasons sometimes tend to make a complete living
scheme out of it and on the other hand, Some Of them also exhibit an increasing
inertia, a slowing -down. Perhaps these
living; they are offered at this point.
boathouses, frame houses near the shore,
groupings do not tell the story of shore
Baychester (Eastchester Bay) with its
is an example of the first group, (see
Walters and Nelson stories). The harbor Police headquarters at the Battery have
told interviewer that there is a large colony of residents along the creek which
runs out of Jameiba Bay. It is called the haunt. Interviewer has seen the
-2- Form D continued
Raunt several times which jves a very complete picture houses on stilts,
and rowboats being worked lazily through the Creek waters women talkinL:
to
each other from house window to house window across a dozen feet of water
boys in home-made bathing suits diving off home-made piers. For examples of
Group 2, see Schaefer and Librere stories. Group 3 is an obvious kind of
social group the trap, the hobo, the lumpen in a river setting. In
.present interview, informant comes near fitting into Group 3.