Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Interview
Kind of fell off on the posts, long story. Here's a video instead: http://www.journalismcenter.org/resource/medal-winners-first-person/2009-winner-nondaily-long-highland-video
Friday, July 10, 2009
Damned Kids
If there’s one phrase that I think makes you feel old right after you catch yourself saying it, it’s “what’s with these kids today?” I’m often reminded after making such a statement that I am in fact, not old. But the realization that there are younger generations out there that is more unpredictable than your own is a startling one.
And as far as unpredictability goes, nothing tops the charts like the heroin epidemic that blindsided this island last year. I distinctly recall the high school lesson plan describing just how serious an addiction heroin is—on par with crack cocaine. Perhaps the students in the classes that came after mine weren’t paying as close attention on that day. But once you realize how teens and young 20-somethings really did not pay attention to those same lessons, well, that old-person phrase becomes a reflex.
Now that it is out there, most important thing is to not get complacent to just how serious a problem this is. Take a look at the kids who are strung out and it gives a much more fitting meaning to the term that we use for another problem we have with LI's youth: The Brain Drain.
It was a year ago this week that we received confirmation that Natalie Ciappa’s death was a result of a heroin overdose. We knew that once she became the posterchild for this scourge, it would finally get people's attention, but two county laws and a charity later, we didn’t anticipate just how much her story would resonate.
While the details that eventually began to unravel are disturbing, this was not my first crack at trying to sound the alarm that this was an issue. Back when in high school it was only rockstars that were dying and heroin chic was only on TV. Later, while I was a student at Nassau Community College in 2002, a student had died of a heroin overdose in the bathroom at the student lounge. Nobody heard about it for four months, and nobody ever would have if the administration had their way.
Pass around some anti-heroin literature, we at the student newspaper asked. No way—this was just an isolated incident, the school responded. All these years later, the stories keep on coming, as they will continue to. The heroin epidemic of the 60s and 70s didn’t go away overnight either. Not that I was there, but if history can teach us anything, it’s that we obviously didn’t learn anything from it.
And as far as unpredictability goes, nothing tops the charts like the heroin epidemic that blindsided this island last year. I distinctly recall the high school lesson plan describing just how serious an addiction heroin is—on par with crack cocaine. Perhaps the students in the classes that came after mine weren’t paying as close attention on that day. But once you realize how teens and young 20-somethings really did not pay attention to those same lessons, well, that old-person phrase becomes a reflex.
Now that it is out there, most important thing is to not get complacent to just how serious a problem this is. Take a look at the kids who are strung out and it gives a much more fitting meaning to the term that we use for another problem we have with LI's youth: The Brain Drain.
It was a year ago this week that we received confirmation that Natalie Ciappa’s death was a result of a heroin overdose. We knew that once she became the posterchild for this scourge, it would finally get people's attention, but two county laws and a charity later, we didn’t anticipate just how much her story would resonate.
While the details that eventually began to unravel are disturbing, this was not my first crack at trying to sound the alarm that this was an issue. Back when in high school it was only rockstars that were dying and heroin chic was only on TV. Later, while I was a student at Nassau Community College in 2002, a student had died of a heroin overdose in the bathroom at the student lounge. Nobody heard about it for four months, and nobody ever would have if the administration had their way.
Pass around some anti-heroin literature, we at the student newspaper asked. No way—this was just an isolated incident, the school responded. All these years later, the stories keep on coming, as they will continue to. The heroin epidemic of the 60s and 70s didn’t go away overnight either. Not that I was there, but if history can teach us anything, it’s that we obviously didn’t learn anything from it.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Nuclear Family
This is a weird business. Generally speaking, news organizations prefer young blood. We work like dogs and still have the boundless idealism that it takes to come up with fresh ideas. But at the same time, it is years of institutional knowledge gained through hands-on experience that makes for a good reporter. Being somewhere between the two—still young and (somewhat) fresh-faced enough to not care if I break a sweat but with enough experience to cut through the crap—is an interesting place to be.
This brings me to this week’s cover story. We had been planning a retrospective on the Shoreham nuclear power plant for months and the idea went through several incarnations. But what was a constant sticking point for me was the fact that I would be writing about things that happened well before I was capable of comprehending them in some cases, or before I was even born in other cases. There was only so much perspective I could provide, not having been there to witness the social unrest surrounding Shoreham myself.
This story’s deep roots reminded me that elbow grease only gets you so far. Yet despite my lacking the firsthand experience that some of the reporters who are old enough to recall the Shoreham controversy have, I still think I went into this one with an edge.
I grew up in Shirley in the 80s, a 15-minute drive from Shoreham, and have family in Wading River. We used to go to the Long Island Sound beach on Creek Road and I would inevitably wind up getting a lecture on the issue as a child, although I was too young to understand it fully. I just remember always looking at that plant and knowing that there was a big hullabaloo surrounding it, which also made me wonder why we would sometimes launch our boat in the creek right next to it.
The only thing that ever stuck with me—aside from the image of the structure itself—was being told of how people were worried that the 12-foot concrete wall was not enough to protect those who lived nearby in the event of a meltdown. I just didn’t realize how significant this was for Long Island until later.
I also remember Hurricane Gloria, the storm that some credit with turning public opinion against LILCO and the plant, resulting in the agreement to close it in 1989. We were without power for two weeks. I still remember the joy I felt when someone realized—by accidently turning on a light switch—that the power was back. And I can still picture the NY National Guard set up on William Floyd Parkway to provide clean drinking water to the community.
My point being, I may not have the same sense of history that some more senior reporters than myself have (which is not to say I have no sense of history, it was my favorite subject in school), but I was not learning about this topic for the first time on the week the story was assigned. And having roots on this island does come in handy when writing about an issue like this one that has had such a meteoric impact, even if my connection to this one is just my childhood recollections.
Now to sit back and wait for the inevitable hate mail. As I told every source I spoke to on this story, it is probably easier to write a book on Shoreham than it is to fit all of the relevant details into a page and a half, which is why there are at least a half dozen books on the subject. There are countless parts to this story that were overlooked in my piece. It is simply an occupational hazard, sort of like the risk of radiation exposure while working at a nuclear power plant.
But to be able to say I’m one of the rare few who have had a tour of the plant and been inside its reactor, well, that’s just one of the priceless perks of this job.
This brings me to this week’s cover story. We had been planning a retrospective on the Shoreham nuclear power plant for months and the idea went through several incarnations. But what was a constant sticking point for me was the fact that I would be writing about things that happened well before I was capable of comprehending them in some cases, or before I was even born in other cases. There was only so much perspective I could provide, not having been there to witness the social unrest surrounding Shoreham myself.
This story’s deep roots reminded me that elbow grease only gets you so far. Yet despite my lacking the firsthand experience that some of the reporters who are old enough to recall the Shoreham controversy have, I still think I went into this one with an edge.
I grew up in Shirley in the 80s, a 15-minute drive from Shoreham, and have family in Wading River. We used to go to the Long Island Sound beach on Creek Road and I would inevitably wind up getting a lecture on the issue as a child, although I was too young to understand it fully. I just remember always looking at that plant and knowing that there was a big hullabaloo surrounding it, which also made me wonder why we would sometimes launch our boat in the creek right next to it.
The only thing that ever stuck with me—aside from the image of the structure itself—was being told of how people were worried that the 12-foot concrete wall was not enough to protect those who lived nearby in the event of a meltdown. I just didn’t realize how significant this was for Long Island until later.
I also remember Hurricane Gloria, the storm that some credit with turning public opinion against LILCO and the plant, resulting in the agreement to close it in 1989. We were without power for two weeks. I still remember the joy I felt when someone realized—by accidently turning on a light switch—that the power was back. And I can still picture the NY National Guard set up on William Floyd Parkway to provide clean drinking water to the community.
My point being, I may not have the same sense of history that some more senior reporters than myself have (which is not to say I have no sense of history, it was my favorite subject in school), but I was not learning about this topic for the first time on the week the story was assigned. And having roots on this island does come in handy when writing about an issue like this one that has had such a meteoric impact, even if my connection to this one is just my childhood recollections.
Now to sit back and wait for the inevitable hate mail. As I told every source I spoke to on this story, it is probably easier to write a book on Shoreham than it is to fit all of the relevant details into a page and a half, which is why there are at least a half dozen books on the subject. There are countless parts to this story that were overlooked in my piece. It is simply an occupational hazard, sort of like the risk of radiation exposure while working at a nuclear power plant.
But to be able to say I’m one of the rare few who have had a tour of the plant and been inside its reactor, well, that’s just one of the priceless perks of this job.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Notes on Kiddiction
Journalism is a never ending race against the clock, and sometimes we only get a partial victory. Had there been more time and space in the paper, here is some additional reporting that was done at the 11th hour but never made it in this week’s cover, “Kiddiction.” My apologies to the sources who made the time for me but didn't make it into the story.
“It’s not just the amount of time, but the consequences of the video game use, such as deteriorating social or school performance that really would indicate that there’s a problem,” said Jennifer Gonder, Phd., professor of applied psychology at Farmingdale State College.
On the merits of the study: “It’s kind of hard to tell which is the cause and which is the consequence, whereas more controlled experimental studies will allow us to draw more conclusions,” she said.
And from Adelphi University, there is Geoffrey L. Ream, assistant professor of social work, who told me: “So much about addiction and drugs is political and ideological. Psychology tries to rise above that, but it also has to respond to the fact that these things affect people’s lives.”
He added: “People are able to get treatment in South Korea, why can’t they get treatment here. Are we afraid of annoying the industry? Why are we denying people the treatment that they want?” (He was referring to South Korean video game addiction rehab centers. There have been several deaths in that part of the world because there have been some fanatical gamers play for days straight and then die of starvation.)
And in noting the irony of some players: “Video gamers talk about being addicted to video games. Some of them seem to regard addictiveness as a desirable quality in a video game.”
Then, while describing the “hedonistic response” in the human brain, he said: “There’s a shared reward pathway for both certain drugs and video games. Like, cocaine works by stimulating the reward mechanism in the brain and so do video games. Obviously, it’s more complicated than that, but dopamine is involved in both.”
Lastly, here is a sidebar of interesting stats that I compiled but we didn’t have room for:
20 percent—How many 13 to 16-year-olds could buy video games labeled M for mature in a 2008 Federal Trade Commission secret shopper audit of major retailers, down from 42 percent in 2006.
5.18 million—How many copies of Grand Theft Auto IV sold for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 in 2008, second only to Wii Play with 5.28 million.
$42.67 billion—How much the video game industry earned in 2008, up 18 percent from 2007.
13.2 hours—The average weekly video game play time for those interviewed in the NIMF study: 16.4 hours for boys and 9.2 hours for girls.
26 percent—How many kids in the NIMF poll said have received games rated M for mature as a gift.
“It’s not just the amount of time, but the consequences of the video game use, such as deteriorating social or school performance that really would indicate that there’s a problem,” said Jennifer Gonder, Phd., professor of applied psychology at Farmingdale State College.
On the merits of the study: “It’s kind of hard to tell which is the cause and which is the consequence, whereas more controlled experimental studies will allow us to draw more conclusions,” she said.
And from Adelphi University, there is Geoffrey L. Ream, assistant professor of social work, who told me: “So much about addiction and drugs is political and ideological. Psychology tries to rise above that, but it also has to respond to the fact that these things affect people’s lives.”
He added: “People are able to get treatment in South Korea, why can’t they get treatment here. Are we afraid of annoying the industry? Why are we denying people the treatment that they want?” (He was referring to South Korean video game addiction rehab centers. There have been several deaths in that part of the world because there have been some fanatical gamers play for days straight and then die of starvation.)
And in noting the irony of some players: “Video gamers talk about being addicted to video games. Some of them seem to regard addictiveness as a desirable quality in a video game.”
Then, while describing the “hedonistic response” in the human brain, he said: “There’s a shared reward pathway for both certain drugs and video games. Like, cocaine works by stimulating the reward mechanism in the brain and so do video games. Obviously, it’s more complicated than that, but dopamine is involved in both.”
Lastly, here is a sidebar of interesting stats that I compiled but we didn’t have room for:
20 percent—How many 13 to 16-year-olds could buy video games labeled M for mature in a 2008 Federal Trade Commission secret shopper audit of major retailers, down from 42 percent in 2006.
5.18 million—How many copies of Grand Theft Auto IV sold for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 in 2008, second only to Wii Play with 5.28 million.
$42.67 billion—How much the video game industry earned in 2008, up 18 percent from 2007.
13.2 hours—The average weekly video game play time for those interviewed in the NIMF study: 16.4 hours for boys and 9.2 hours for girls.
26 percent—How many kids in the NIMF poll said have received games rated M for mature as a gift.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Spare Us the Eulogy
What a weekend.
After driving five hours to Saratoga Springs on Friday to arrive just in time for lunch at the New York Press Association’s (NYPA) Spring Convention, we found our table and got an earful from the keynote speaker, who announced to the room that “news in print is about to disappear.”
Ken Paulson, president of The Newseum in Washington D.C., wasn’t rehashing the same old eulogy for newspapers that we’ve heard time and time again. “They were the iPods of the 1690s—that was the last time newspapers were cutting edge,” he joked. But his message was intended to be one of hope, as he explained cheekily how readers today can avoid the pitfalls of reading news online by rediscovering newspapers (no pop-up ads, Internet viruses or trouble using them on an airplane). Of course, he was preaching to the choir.
Despite the fact that the room was filled with several hundred of what some may describe as an endangered species talking about many of the same issues we in the business read about daily, there were some educational moments. Aside from being a trade show, awards ceremony, networking extravaganza and coworker-bonding opportunity, there were also a slew of classes for professional development.
While brushing up on some of the core functions of reporting, writing and editing is never a bad idea—although there were a few needless journalism 101 class-type lectures—there were a few “a-ha” moments. But the classes were mostly about form, style, time management and how best to approach a story. Nothing you’d care to read about here.
What was amusing was that there were a large number of Long Island newspapers there—enough to make it appear as if it was evenly split between upstate and LI, making for an amusing upstate-downstate rivalry at times with a few anti-LI jokes being thrown around. To be clear, the NYPA is an organization made up of weeklies and small dailies across the state. Not every single paper in the organization came to the conference, but there were 3,000 submissions from 182 newspapers in the 50 different contests that awards were given for.
Most interesting was the tendency for the conversations to gravitate back to the issue of the Web. Paulson proposed at the end of his lunchtime speech a commonly rehashed cheerlead for the iTunes model: charging something like a nickel per story and making readers pay a monthly fee. In one of the last classes of the conference, a group of editors reminisced on how spelling names correctly used to be the biggest concern on the job. Now it’s how do we come up with a new business model to make newspapers viable on the Web since readers expect everything for free (*note: we’ve always been free in print and online, always will be).
There were also discussions on how our competition used to be clear, but now the world is flat and every news outlet is a competitor thanks to aggregators like Google News. Even “some kid named Bobby from Long Island” is a competitor now, someone joked. For me, this just makes it more fun. As everyone bellyached over the fact that the industry is in flux, they seemed to miss this point, which was as clear as day.
It’s healthy competition that makes this industry work. For such a bunch of dorks, all journalists really are just a group of adrenaline junkies pushing ourselves for the next big scoop that we can get over on our rivals. It may sound cynical, but it’s true. And if it didn’t work like that, scandals would go un-exposed, corruption would continue to corrode our government and democracy would suffer as a result.
(This isn’t to say that media consolidations aren’t a threat—even the editor of one local weekly newspaper group, The Brooklyn Paper, was there happily sharing the news that his paper was recently bought by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. But overall, the weekly newspaper business has been described by media analysts as in a better position to weather the storm than the wave of daily newspapers that are going broke or out of business at a pace of about once a week these days.)
Although it may come off as self-serving sometimes for us to tout all the awards we won (the Press took home eight, by the way), journalism awards contests themselves are the embodiment of what makes this business work harder to break better news. If there was anything to be learned from this weekend, it’s that the Fourth Estate is alive and well, albeit bruised and battered of late.
After driving five hours to Saratoga Springs on Friday to arrive just in time for lunch at the New York Press Association’s (NYPA) Spring Convention, we found our table and got an earful from the keynote speaker, who announced to the room that “news in print is about to disappear.”
Ken Paulson, president of The Newseum in Washington D.C., wasn’t rehashing the same old eulogy for newspapers that we’ve heard time and time again. “They were the iPods of the 1690s—that was the last time newspapers were cutting edge,” he joked. But his message was intended to be one of hope, as he explained cheekily how readers today can avoid the pitfalls of reading news online by rediscovering newspapers (no pop-up ads, Internet viruses or trouble using them on an airplane). Of course, he was preaching to the choir.
Despite the fact that the room was filled with several hundred of what some may describe as an endangered species talking about many of the same issues we in the business read about daily, there were some educational moments. Aside from being a trade show, awards ceremony, networking extravaganza and coworker-bonding opportunity, there were also a slew of classes for professional development.
While brushing up on some of the core functions of reporting, writing and editing is never a bad idea—although there were a few needless journalism 101 class-type lectures—there were a few “a-ha” moments. But the classes were mostly about form, style, time management and how best to approach a story. Nothing you’d care to read about here.
What was amusing was that there were a large number of Long Island newspapers there—enough to make it appear as if it was evenly split between upstate and LI, making for an amusing upstate-downstate rivalry at times with a few anti-LI jokes being thrown around. To be clear, the NYPA is an organization made up of weeklies and small dailies across the state. Not every single paper in the organization came to the conference, but there were 3,000 submissions from 182 newspapers in the 50 different contests that awards were given for.
Most interesting was the tendency for the conversations to gravitate back to the issue of the Web. Paulson proposed at the end of his lunchtime speech a commonly rehashed cheerlead for the iTunes model: charging something like a nickel per story and making readers pay a monthly fee. In one of the last classes of the conference, a group of editors reminisced on how spelling names correctly used to be the biggest concern on the job. Now it’s how do we come up with a new business model to make newspapers viable on the Web since readers expect everything for free (*note: we’ve always been free in print and online, always will be).
There were also discussions on how our competition used to be clear, but now the world is flat and every news outlet is a competitor thanks to aggregators like Google News. Even “some kid named Bobby from Long Island” is a competitor now, someone joked. For me, this just makes it more fun. As everyone bellyached over the fact that the industry is in flux, they seemed to miss this point, which was as clear as day.
It’s healthy competition that makes this industry work. For such a bunch of dorks, all journalists really are just a group of adrenaline junkies pushing ourselves for the next big scoop that we can get over on our rivals. It may sound cynical, but it’s true. And if it didn’t work like that, scandals would go un-exposed, corruption would continue to corrode our government and democracy would suffer as a result.
(This isn’t to say that media consolidations aren’t a threat—even the editor of one local weekly newspaper group, The Brooklyn Paper, was there happily sharing the news that his paper was recently bought by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. But overall, the weekly newspaper business has been described by media analysts as in a better position to weather the storm than the wave of daily newspapers that are going broke or out of business at a pace of about once a week these days.)
Although it may come off as self-serving sometimes for us to tout all the awards we won (the Press took home eight, by the way), journalism awards contests themselves are the embodiment of what makes this business work harder to break better news. If there was anything to be learned from this weekend, it’s that the Fourth Estate is alive and well, albeit bruised and battered of late.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
St. Paddy's Day Surprise
A funny thing happened the other day: Long Island Press stoked a mini-controversy among the Irish. But along the way, a few important points were lost. So here are a few clarifications for those who refused to listen to our side of the story, and the story itself for those who missed it.
On March 5 the cover story, “Drinking Problem,” which was the latest in our monthly Our Children’s Health series—this one about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome—featured a picture of a baby being fed a bottle of whiskey. But not just any whiskey, we went with a bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey because, well, that is the whiskey of choice among our graphic artists.
Basically the thought process went like this. Graphic artist A: “Hey, we need a picture of a bottle of liquor for this cover image I’m creating.” Graphic artist B: “OK, let’s take a picture of this empty bottle on my desk and we’ll use that.” And through the magic of graphic design, the rest is history.
Then, once the paper hit stands, the calls came. There was the guy who yelled at our receptionist before he angrily hung up: “Why didn’t we use a bottle of tequila or vodka!?” There was the woman who said “how dare we,” especially when this is “so close to my holiday,” with a brogue. But when my editor took the call, he thought he was just going to have to explain that this was a story about FAS and we were not encouraging babies to drink liquor. He didn’t realize the woman was inconsolable because she felt her heritage was disparaged.
Then there was the bar owner who canceled delivery of the paper. Same problem: We offended some Irish folks with within weeks of St. Patrick’s Day. Eventually, a representative from Jameson’s parent company wrote a letter, which we ran with a response from our editor.
Certainly, from a public relations standpoint, it is not hard to see why Jameson’s would be upset—especially when they donate to a FAS research fund. And the legality of our creating the image has already been addressed by my boss. All I want to clarify is just where we are coming from, since everyone kept hanging up when we attempted to explain.
So like I said, the graphic artists here love Jameson. It wasn’t some kind of anti-Irish sentiment that inspired the image. We certainly weren’t intending to perpetuate the stereotype of the Irish as being alcoholics. A few of the designers are Irish themselves. The receptionist who took the call? An Irish lass. This writer and the majority of people I share an office with? You guessed it: Irish.
What we found most odd was how much those who complained seemed to directly associate their heritage with a brand of whiskey. So here’s a short list of a few Irish contributions to society that are a tad more meaningful than the one beverage we’re stereotyped as being addicted to.
Seismology: Those who live in earthquake-prone areas would have even more difficult lives without this Irish invention.
Oscar Wilde: Anyone who has ever read Portrait of Dorian Gray knows this significance. And this is only entry in the volumes of Irish literary contributions that have become classics.
Atom Smashing: The scientist to first accomplish this is still the only Irishman to win the Nobel Prize for science.
Hypodermic Needles: Sure, everyone hates getting shots, but where would modern medicine be without one of its most essential, and Irish-invented, tools?
History: Irish monks who recorded much of Western civilization’s history through the fall of Rome to the Renaissance stored the books in their impenetrable castles through the rampant plundering of the Dark Ages, successfully preserving our culture.
On March 5 the cover story, “Drinking Problem,” which was the latest in our monthly Our Children’s Health series—this one about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome—featured a picture of a baby being fed a bottle of whiskey. But not just any whiskey, we went with a bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey because, well, that is the whiskey of choice among our graphic artists.
Basically the thought process went like this. Graphic artist A: “Hey, we need a picture of a bottle of liquor for this cover image I’m creating.” Graphic artist B: “OK, let’s take a picture of this empty bottle on my desk and we’ll use that.” And through the magic of graphic design, the rest is history.
Then, once the paper hit stands, the calls came. There was the guy who yelled at our receptionist before he angrily hung up: “Why didn’t we use a bottle of tequila or vodka!?” There was the woman who said “how dare we,” especially when this is “so close to my holiday,” with a brogue. But when my editor took the call, he thought he was just going to have to explain that this was a story about FAS and we were not encouraging babies to drink liquor. He didn’t realize the woman was inconsolable because she felt her heritage was disparaged.
Then there was the bar owner who canceled delivery of the paper. Same problem: We offended some Irish folks with within weeks of St. Patrick’s Day. Eventually, a representative from Jameson’s parent company wrote a letter, which we ran with a response from our editor.
Certainly, from a public relations standpoint, it is not hard to see why Jameson’s would be upset—especially when they donate to a FAS research fund. And the legality of our creating the image has already been addressed by my boss. All I want to clarify is just where we are coming from, since everyone kept hanging up when we attempted to explain.
So like I said, the graphic artists here love Jameson. It wasn’t some kind of anti-Irish sentiment that inspired the image. We certainly weren’t intending to perpetuate the stereotype of the Irish as being alcoholics. A few of the designers are Irish themselves. The receptionist who took the call? An Irish lass. This writer and the majority of people I share an office with? You guessed it: Irish.
What we found most odd was how much those who complained seemed to directly associate their heritage with a brand of whiskey. So here’s a short list of a few Irish contributions to society that are a tad more meaningful than the one beverage we’re stereotyped as being addicted to.
Seismology: Those who live in earthquake-prone areas would have even more difficult lives without this Irish invention.
Oscar Wilde: Anyone who has ever read Portrait of Dorian Gray knows this significance. And this is only entry in the volumes of Irish literary contributions that have become classics.
Atom Smashing: The scientist to first accomplish this is still the only Irishman to win the Nobel Prize for science.
Hypodermic Needles: Sure, everyone hates getting shots, but where would modern medicine be without one of its most essential, and Irish-invented, tools?
History: Irish monks who recorded much of Western civilization’s history through the fall of Rome to the Renaissance stored the books in their impenetrable castles through the rampant plundering of the Dark Ages, successfully preserving our culture.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Depressionistas
The week after “Party Like It’s 1929” (Feb. 19) ran, I got a call from Philip Bolger, an 82-year-old from Franklin Square who wanted to let me know that he was sending me a letter with some of his stories from the Great Depression, as he too was a survivor. In the course of my research for that story, I realized that there was enough material for 100 cover stories, if we only had the time and space to run them all. So I’m sharing his stories below, since he was kind enough to type them out for me in his typewriter and it would be a tad unconventional to run on the Letters to the Editor page.
And as an interesting aside (for me anyway, I don’t know if you’ll care), Bolger—who is not related to me so far as I know—told me that he used to be a copy editor for the original New York Sun. The family founded and published the newspaper in New York City around the turn of the century, which means blood or not, my surname apparently has a long history in journalism. That came as a nice surprise, as all I know is my dad was a mechanic and his dad was a sailor who died at sea after he came over from Ireland.
I’m still trying to confirm that there were publishers named Bolger at one time, because I’m a dork like that. Anyone who has any leads, please email me.
Here’s Phil’s stories:
“So you want depression stories. Here goes:
1. I was attending St. Athanasius school in the Bronx in second grade. I had twin brothers in my class: Frankie and Willie O’Brien. One week I noticed Frankie came in to school on Monday, but not Willie. The following day only Willie came, but not Frankie; so it continued throughout the week. I later found out they only had one pair of sneakers; the father was unemployed for six months. The pastor got someone to get them shoes and the following week both came to school every day.
2. In those days, if a tenant failed to pay monthly rent for a few months, the landlord could call a storage company to have all of their furniture removed from the apartment and put into the street. My mother always asked me if I saw any such situation and when I did, she would put on her shawl and go to the dispossessed. The mother was usually sobbing and the father put out an old fedora so passersby could drop nickels and dimes into it. See, once he had $5, the storage people would come and take the furniture off the street and put them into a storage house. The bereft parents had to arrange for the children that night. My mother always took in one of the boys. This happened several times in my school days (The parochial school had no lunchroom and I had to run home nine blocks for lunch and then back again to make the ring-a-leevio game. Parochial schools got no aid; no buses for transportation of any kind. Just run).
3. It was common to hear homeless men singing in the alley of apartment houses for the pennies and nickels women would toss down to them.
4. Many homeless men built shanty towns near the rivers. One night the shanty town in Hunts Point went on fire and several of the homeless men died. The fire department came and destroyed the remaining huts.
5. Families helped one another while waiting for federal programs to kick in. My uncle Harry in Classon Point lost his job with the Otis Elevator people; he also lost the tenant who rented the upstairs of his house. He could no longer pay the mortgage. To help him, my father moved us up there as tenants and paid rent. Each night my cousins and sisters went down to the kitchen to paste buttons onto cards; this was called homework. For about 1,000 cards, my uncle got a $5 bill.
6. People forgot the positive part that the entertainment industry played to help us through the grim days. Songs of hope like Happy Days Are Here Again, Just Around the Corner There’s A Rainbow in the Skies, Potatoes are Cheaper, Tomatoes are Cheaper and Now’s the Time to Fall in Love gave us hope that it would end soon. The 10-cent weekend movie kept people away from misery and led them into a fantasy world of great momentary pleasure. But now and then Hollywood gave us the grim truth, like The Grapes of Wrath and Cannery Row. Of all the boys in my graduation class, only two finished high school. All the rest went to work to put bread on the table or lied and joined the service, some never to return.
7. A pal of mine, Billy B., could draw naturally. He would produce pictures of Little Orphan Annie and Dick Tracy on old scrap paper. He told me there was a WPA artist who held classes down near the Bronx Creek for about six people. He took me down there with him and we watched the artist and his pupils. Billie asked the artist if we could be in the class and the artist screamed “Get the hell out of here you kids or I’ll call a cop!” That was the end of my introduction to the fine arts. Looking back, I guess the artist was fed up. He got only about $12 per week and was probably on the verge of a breakdown because of the demeaning state he was in.
8. Life went on through it all. Young people got married regardless. It was never a catered affair, naturally, but the people got together and gave them a beer and baloney send off party. Usually they rented (for nothing) a church hall. For about $2 the girl’s friends bought cheap rolls of crepe paper and decorated. Usually there was a leftover Shamrock put up. A three-piece band played all night for $15. there was no formal invitation; everybody in the neighborhood was invited. The groom’s brothers sat at the entrance to keep “the no-goods” out. The girl’s brothers threw out the guy who couldn’t hold his beer. Mothers made baloney sandwiches. Scores of kids ran around the place eating ice cream. The funeral parlor donated chairs. Finally, the couple appeared and were cheered off for their honeymoon at the Half Moon Hotel at Coney Island.
Depression or not, people went on thinking life was great. Until, of course, the following Monday morning. And from there we went off to war to save our country.”
And as an interesting aside (for me anyway, I don’t know if you’ll care), Bolger—who is not related to me so far as I know—told me that he used to be a copy editor for the original New York Sun. The family founded and published the newspaper in New York City around the turn of the century, which means blood or not, my surname apparently has a long history in journalism. That came as a nice surprise, as all I know is my dad was a mechanic and his dad was a sailor who died at sea after he came over from Ireland.
I’m still trying to confirm that there were publishers named Bolger at one time, because I’m a dork like that. Anyone who has any leads, please email me.
Here’s Phil’s stories:
“So you want depression stories. Here goes:
1. I was attending St. Athanasius school in the Bronx in second grade. I had twin brothers in my class: Frankie and Willie O’Brien. One week I noticed Frankie came in to school on Monday, but not Willie. The following day only Willie came, but not Frankie; so it continued throughout the week. I later found out they only had one pair of sneakers; the father was unemployed for six months. The pastor got someone to get them shoes and the following week both came to school every day.
2. In those days, if a tenant failed to pay monthly rent for a few months, the landlord could call a storage company to have all of their furniture removed from the apartment and put into the street. My mother always asked me if I saw any such situation and when I did, she would put on her shawl and go to the dispossessed. The mother was usually sobbing and the father put out an old fedora so passersby could drop nickels and dimes into it. See, once he had $5, the storage people would come and take the furniture off the street and put them into a storage house. The bereft parents had to arrange for the children that night. My mother always took in one of the boys. This happened several times in my school days (The parochial school had no lunchroom and I had to run home nine blocks for lunch and then back again to make the ring-a-leevio game. Parochial schools got no aid; no buses for transportation of any kind. Just run).
3. It was common to hear homeless men singing in the alley of apartment houses for the pennies and nickels women would toss down to them.
4. Many homeless men built shanty towns near the rivers. One night the shanty town in Hunts Point went on fire and several of the homeless men died. The fire department came and destroyed the remaining huts.
5. Families helped one another while waiting for federal programs to kick in. My uncle Harry in Classon Point lost his job with the Otis Elevator people; he also lost the tenant who rented the upstairs of his house. He could no longer pay the mortgage. To help him, my father moved us up there as tenants and paid rent. Each night my cousins and sisters went down to the kitchen to paste buttons onto cards; this was called homework. For about 1,000 cards, my uncle got a $5 bill.
6. People forgot the positive part that the entertainment industry played to help us through the grim days. Songs of hope like Happy Days Are Here Again, Just Around the Corner There’s A Rainbow in the Skies, Potatoes are Cheaper, Tomatoes are Cheaper and Now’s the Time to Fall in Love gave us hope that it would end soon. The 10-cent weekend movie kept people away from misery and led them into a fantasy world of great momentary pleasure. But now and then Hollywood gave us the grim truth, like The Grapes of Wrath and Cannery Row. Of all the boys in my graduation class, only two finished high school. All the rest went to work to put bread on the table or lied and joined the service, some never to return.
7. A pal of mine, Billy B., could draw naturally. He would produce pictures of Little Orphan Annie and Dick Tracy on old scrap paper. He told me there was a WPA artist who held classes down near the Bronx Creek for about six people. He took me down there with him and we watched the artist and his pupils. Billie asked the artist if we could be in the class and the artist screamed “Get the hell out of here you kids or I’ll call a cop!” That was the end of my introduction to the fine arts. Looking back, I guess the artist was fed up. He got only about $12 per week and was probably on the verge of a breakdown because of the demeaning state he was in.
8. Life went on through it all. Young people got married regardless. It was never a catered affair, naturally, but the people got together and gave them a beer and baloney send off party. Usually they rented (for nothing) a church hall. For about $2 the girl’s friends bought cheap rolls of crepe paper and decorated. Usually there was a leftover Shamrock put up. A three-piece band played all night for $15. there was no formal invitation; everybody in the neighborhood was invited. The groom’s brothers sat at the entrance to keep “the no-goods” out. The girl’s brothers threw out the guy who couldn’t hold his beer. Mothers made baloney sandwiches. Scores of kids ran around the place eating ice cream. The funeral parlor donated chairs. Finally, the couple appeared and were cheered off for their honeymoon at the Half Moon Hotel at Coney Island.
Depression or not, people went on thinking life was great. Until, of course, the following Monday morning. And from there we went off to war to save our country.”
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