Document text
A
I
FORM C
Text of Interview (Unedited)
FOLKLOBE
NEW YORK
STATE New York r27
NAN,E OF WORKER Arnold Manoff
ADDRESS 20 West 125th Street
DATE February 16, 1939
SUBJECT INTER:ATIONAL Bridge Construction Steel and iron Worker's Union.
(continued)
SAM
Ya lookin fer Chris? He's workin. Yeh. He's on the Sixth Ave.
el job. I remember you. You were aroun here talkin to Chris. I was there too. I
ain't got nothin to tell ya. We don like to talk aroun here. We got our own
worries. Ask Mike over there. He'll tell ya lotsa stories. Hey Mikei Here's a
feller wants ya to tell him stories. Ya see he am n interested.
Anything they know they keep to themselves. Does a prisoner talk?
Well it's the same way. The men don't feel like tellin no stories. It's just like
a prisoner, ylunnerstanl?
Listen. nhaddya wanime ta tellya? I worked in 42 states Cuba,
Alaska, Honolulu. I worked in the steel 'mills and the iron foundries, inside and
out, Bethlehem Steel and udders. See this leg? Broken three times. I got three ribs
broken. Ya aint an iron worker if ya aint had bones broken, fingers chopped off.
Ya see whaddya they gonna tell ya? Dey don't feel like talkin. They keep these
things ta themselves. I know the kind of stuff ya want. We aint got any time for
that kinda stuff. The men aint interested.
Listen I been in this racket 24 years. I just got off a job. They
laid us off on the Sixth Ave el. The subway people wuz complainin.i There was a
meetin about it. We're all laid of except fer one gang on 28th St.
.4
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I wuz on that airport job. Yeh for theITEL. I got drunk. Didya
see a sign up on the bulletin board about John Hennessey. He was the guy that got
drunk with me. The whiskey killed him. Ya think I'm lyin. Ask anybody here. I'm
not lyin. He died. They wanted ta know how come I'm not dead. We drAnk a quart
and a half in two hours. Each one a quart an a half. Three quarts all together.
Henessey died from it. I'm alive.
Monday, I'm goin on a job. Over on 86th St. 12 story buildin.
That'll last a mont and a half about that much. Then they'll be beggin us to come
ta work. There's a 12 million dollar prison job startin up in Greenhaven. Take
al- years. Not me: A year is enough for me. Work a year and quit. Nice work all
inside on the cells. Bethlehem Steel is in on it.
Naa the men don feel like talkin. I know what ya mean. Naa we
don' do that kinda stuff. Tell stories, naa. That's bullshit. We don go in fer it.
We don go in fer braggin. No lyin. That's kid stuff. That's show off stuff.
We aim got any time for it. We like to drink but that's all. We don't have those
kind of guys aroun here. Look at em. They never talk. They am n interested in it.
They'll laugh at ya.
What ya wanna get is the people that stan around end watch us work.
They do all the talkin. They bullshit all the time. We don do it. It don concern
us. We do the work up there, rivetin and we am n got time fer talkin.
There am n nothin in it fer us, no money nuthin, so long, o.k.