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217;lf--4
Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview
FORM i‘
Circumstances of Interview
STATE New York
NAME OF Mom. Arncld Manoff
mmEss 27 Hamilton Terrace
DATE Sept. 27, 1938
SUBJECT
tTAX-STUFF: WOMEN AND CARDS
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
1. Date and time of interview Sept. 24th 1938 in the early afternoon
2. Place of interview Neighborhood of 170th St and the Grand Concourse,
Bronx. (Informant wishes to remain anonomous. See Interview
sheet for explanation.
3. Name and address of informant Mr. and Mrs. R. Address as above.
4. Name and address of person, if an, who put you in
touch with informant.
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc. Three room apartment on
street floor, modestly but well furnished. Neighborhood on and
adjoining Concourse. All Yiddish population. Middle class psybhOlogy
with slightly low6Ii than middle class incomes. Highest rents on
Concourse, 3 rooms 45 to 60 dollars. Rents off Concourse, 3 rooms,
35 to 42 dollars. Shopping district is 170 St. Many little businesses
set up in ground floor apartments, spot this section. These are usually
millinary shoppes, corset shoppes, beauty parlors, dress shoppes, one
or two fur dealers, etc. Two cafeterias and a few resturants. Baby
carriages everywhere, particularly in front of the Automat around
noontime. Automat has row of highchairs for infant patrons. Two movie
houses, well attended. This neighborhood centering around 170th St.
comprises an area of about 25 square blocks. To the South is a
similar neighborhood centering around 167 St. To the North likewise,
centering around 173 St or Mt. Eden Ave. Architecture is confined
(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.)
(Form k continued)
to five and six story red and tan brick apttment houses 5 to 20 years
old. The Concourse sports self service elevators in most of the houses.
The side streets are generally walk ups. Political life is majority
New Deal democrat. A good second American Labor Party. Communist
Party runs third, Republican fourth and Socialist fifth. Political
corner is at 170th St and Walton Ave. Here are held all the street
meetings and here congregate the sidewalk philosophers and tacticians.
Other points of unorganized get-to-gethers are the candy stores, where
the unemployed pass the time playing pin ball games and gabbing. The
two pool rooms are high class joints offering ping pong, ladies invited.
A few bars down on Jerome Ave. This is not a heavy drinking section.
The depression is not evident as a coloring factor to the casual observer
1 The clothes worn is uniformly good stuff, latest style. There are quite
\a number of relief cases in this area but relief recipients keep it
'quiet. It is not considered good taste to be on relief. The housewives
play the numbers and many play poker of which more later. You can
sit at any table in the Automat and hear an animated discussion concerninf
the numbers ——last night's game. The small time gangsters, number runn-
ers, race track followers and the seven or eight Aai prostitutes, gathe3
nightly in the Belmore cafeteria which stays open all night. The -eigh-
borhood as it is now is an outgrowth of the post war exodus of the
Jewish population from the East side to the Bronx. Before the depression
it was Xia0i740 populated by upper middle class Jews incomes ranging
from 5 to 15 thousand. Those who survived the crash gradually moved
down to 'iiest End Ave and Riverside Drive when the rents began to go
down and people of a lower income level began to move in. Any pre war
reminisences of this section are very difficult to find and mainly
deal with discriptions of how everything' was all lots. There are
still a few private houses wedged in between the aprtment houses. These
are generally occupied by some sort of club political or fraternal.
The Concourse is a sort of Doctor's alley. Every house has its ground
floor occupied by at least one doctor. Some have five or six in one
building. There are more doctors'shingles on and around the Concourse
than any other neighborhood I have seen in New York. The talk is
best described by saving that in accent and inflection it is a shade
or two more American than Arthur Kobert caricatured Jews. As people
however Odets has probably come closer than anyone in getting them
down in his plays "Awake and Sing" and"Paradise Lost" 0 although the
realizations,that Odets' characters come to so quickly, take a hell
of a iot longer and go through an endless escape process before arriving
at fundamentals.
FOI`M
Personal History of Informant
STATE New York
NAME OF tORKER Arnold Manoff
ADDRESS 27 Hamilton Terrace
DATE Sept. 27, 1938
SUBJECT FOtk-STUFF: WOMEN AND CARDS
1. Ancestry Russo -Jewish
2. Place and date of birth
3. Family
4. Places lived in, uith dates
5. Education, with dates
Russia some fifty years ago.
6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates
7. Special skills and interests
S. Community and religious activities
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
9. Description of informant kris. R is a lively stout woman around fifty
years of age. She is a business woman;prefers not to have mentioned
which business as she has given other material where anonimity was
not desired. Mr. R. is a thin man of around fifty. Retired laundry man
10. Other Points gained in interview for reasons of health. Assists wife
in her business doing odd jobs. Has a yen for any kind of machine. House
has every kind of modern gadget for the kitchen. He is always interview-
ing salesman for typewriters, new types of vacumn cleaners, check writers
of which he has two. Is now thinking of buying a piano accordian. His
face has a boyish, stubborn look about it. Lights up when you ask about
any one of his many gadgets. He is learning to use an English typewriter.
Both talk English rather well but with pronounced accents.
FORM C
Text of Interview (Unedited)
STATE New York
NAME OF WORKER Arnold Manoff
ADDRESS 27 Hamilton Terrace
DATE Sept. 27, 1938
SUBJECT Folk Stuff: WOMEN AND CARDS
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
(Interview started with Mrs. R. Mr. R was in the same room
laboriously pounding out addresses from Mrs. R.'s customer mailing list.
They were sending out the customary Jewish New Year greetings.)
Mrs. R The lights went out all over and you should see. The boys
broke all the trees on the Concourse. I was here working. They
bothered all the girls in the street. It was dark. They thought they
had a chance now. R went to a card party. I'll bet he had fun 7:hen
the lights went out. vvhat did you do when the lights went out Mr. R?
Mr. R. (laughing secretively) ',Nhat do you think I did?
Mrs. R. That's what he says. He didn't do nothing.
R (still teasing) That's what you think.
Collector to Mrs R I'm interested in thr, card games etc.etc.
(Lr. R looks up interestedly from his tvping,is about to say som-thing
but krs. beets 1-im to the punch)
Mrs. R That's something for a good article. The wmmen and the
cards. 'iihat do you want to know? About the kitty houses or the
travelling games. But you shouldn't give my name if I tell you. My
customers, some of them run kitty houses. How would it come out if
they saw my name telling all their business? The kitty Youses are
the real ones. Travelling games you know a bunch of women they play
in each others houses. A kitty house is already a regular business.
2.
A kitty house is where the woman where they play,
she gives food and service and charges admission.
in the afternoons., Yen in the evenings. Regular
three tables ten to a table. Yes I go sometimes,
she don't play.
Yes, poker. Women
furniture. Two
sometimes for business
and sometimes frankly I'll tell you for pleasure, but I don't like to
win money. I like better to lose a little bit and enjoy myself. R
is already different. He has got to win. Otherwise it is very bad.
I don't like when people get so excited and angry over a game. R woes
all the time. He has a cousin. She runs a small kitty house. You
got to be recommended. Sure they're afraid. But mostly they shmear
here and there. Sure, you know, a little shmear. I suppose the cop
gets his and he don't bother them. They have a chain on the door with
a hole. They look you over first. Mr. R. he knows lust how it works.
r. R gets up from the typewriter ard stretches himself smiling wisely)
(k
Mr. R Listen you know what it means a kitty. When you play they
put money from ev€;ry deal in the kitt. Sbme houses they run it this
way. They call it a buck game. Look I'll show you. (He takes a piece
of paper and draws a circle) Here you see on every table is ten players
They make a circle in the middle of the table and then they make it like
this. (he
stand, one
you put in a quarter for the house and
the circle a cross. When you got five
are paid up for your admission and you
quarters. That's a big house already.
time a dollar/ for the girl who serves
divides the circle into ten segments) Like this, you under
for each one who is playing. Now. So soon you win a rot,
the lady marks in your part of
crosses that's all for you. You
don't have to give no more
In these houses they take some
and some of them charge for elee-
tric. They give good food yes. Everything. Sandwiches, cooked stuff,
herring, potatoes. Other houses they charge from 50 cents up. They
just collect it without the circle. They start to play on Wednesday
afternoon. They play in the evening too. Thursday some of them don't
play because they got to prepare for Friday
Mrs. B. If they wouldn't have to see their husbands they would play
all the time.
kr. R Sure they got to see their husbands to collect the pay. Some
houses they play all the time anyway. Listen. This is a true story.
One man gave his wife 250 dollars to buy a fur coat. She was after
him for that fur coat for a long time. So I suppose he got tired
from being annoyed and he gave Yer the money. Anyway, she goes out
with women what they play already a big game, a dollar and two, in
a club they used to have here over the Automat. And I suprose these
women they talk it in to her, you know, if she wins more money she'll
be atle to buy a better coat. I suppose that's how it was. So she
goes to the club and her luck she gets wiped out ev ry cent. You know
how it is. Every woman got an enemy. So I suppose one goes to the
hsuband and tells him. You can imagine. he called the police and
they had to close the club up on account of that.
Yrs. R. And a good thing too. A regular gambling place. You could
lose there everything.
kr. R Here's another one what happtned to a woman. A woman lost all
her husbands wages in a kitty house. So when he came home she had to
tell him something. So she told him that she thought the laundry man
tokk it. I suppose she figured the laundrynmanli comes into the house
for the laundry so he could be a good one to take it. But the Yusband
is no dope. He goes to the laundry man and gives him hell why he stole
the money.
Mrs R. And what about the man that lost his wages in a game and he
didn't come home for three days. He was afraid his wife would throw
him out of the house.
mr. R I suppose he wasn't to blame so much. You know a man gets
his wages. The wife she must want this and that so he wanted to
double his money. So he lost it instead. It was just his hard luck.
And suppose he won? Ah? Then it is all right. But that's cards.
I suppose he didn't know how to play so good either. The one where
I play the woman is sick you know and she's a widow. You got to
give her a break.
Mrs. R Some hostesses, I know one she is my customer. (To Mr. R. wlo
was about to give her name) Sh you don't have to mention her name.
She gave her husband the gate and she got a lover. Most of them yes.
Mr. R Where I play by my cousin, is not like that. A poor woman. She
makes a few dollars. Some places after two o'clock you pay for electric
again. Some play until 4 and 5 in the morning. They pull down the
shades. They have a fight once in a while. In a fight one woman called
another woman a name. You know.
Mrs. R. Not a nice name. Well (laughing) a ?bore, like you
would say. So the other one says, I am an open book. But you, you
are the one. You have a husband and you At least everybody knows
about me.
Mr. R They play all kinds of stakes. In every house is different.
2cents and four. Some five and ten. Most of the women have grown
up children. Husbands? All kinds. Some doctors, some poor workers,
all kinds. Yes, everybody smokes and they talk all the time. About
the game. Some houses have laws on the wall. (At this point a
customer came in and Mr. R invited me into the kitchen to give me
tea and more information) You want to know about the laws. One is
that you must raise a pair or you don't get your money. That is because
there are some players what they are looking for suckers. The main
thing in cards is bluffing. Everybody likes a bluffer. The ones who
have the goods and they lay back till the last to rise they don't like.
5.
Kitty houses they started from the travelling games. A bunch of
iayf used to play and then somebody I suppose took out for the food
and then somebody else did it and like that it got to be a business.
You know (confidentially) there is cheating sometimes too. There was
a couple, a doctor and his wife. They always won. They had signals.
In some places they have marked cards. Once I went into a card party,
a sociable not a kitty house and I met a feller. Then once I met the
same feller in a resturant and I invited him to come to my house and
play cards. So he came over with a friend and we play and they clean
me out. They brought their own deck and they win all the time. So
I don't say anything but I am suspicious on them and so I invite them
to come again on the next day. so they come again and they bring again
their own deck. So I ask them why they are so nice that they bring thet
own deck? We play ,and they clean me out again. Every time I have the
the goods they know it and they drop out. Every time I bluff they know
it and they see me. So I was sure they are cheaters. But I didAt know
how. So after the game I say to them to let me keep the cards. They
don't want me to keep them but I said I wanted the cards and they go
away. Then it took me a long time but I found out how they mark the
cards. You want to see '11 show you. Mr. R. then demonstrated
how the cards were marked by taking a card from a deck and using a
knife to ,rase a line on one of the small units in the Pattern on the
back of the card. By erasing different little lines it was Possible
to tell a card from some distance, yet it yip(/ would have been quiteX
difficult to spot the card as marked without close examination. The
apparently
marking wasoharmless and could be considered a flaw in the patTern.)
Yes, they talk numbers too. Most of th,7,, women play the numbers. Well,
my cousin, she mak -s maybe thirty o forty dollars a week. And you
want to know soTiething, most of the men they need a woman they can get
them in a Kitty house. Xl/Xa They're not professionals in
these houses, amateurs. They need the money to play. I'll tell
you something. The women are even a/i///14// bigger crooks than
the men. (All this in a low confidential tone) Look at this.
(Mr. R showed me a featured article in the Yiddish paper "The
Day". The article was captioned "The women of New York alone gamble
away over six hundred million dollars a year") Read that tf you think
the kitty houses 'something. Read that about the horses.
I