Day 47 of Nat'l Emergency: Help Save American History, The Tenement Museum

Donald Trump’s grandparents were immigrants. Melania Trump is an immigrant. So is Trump’s first wife, Ivana. Marla Maples, his second wife, is a descendant of immigrants. Stephen Miller, consigliere behind much of Trump’s anti-immigration policies, is from immigration stock, as is Steve Bannon, another of Trump’s Katie-bar-the-door claque. 

Trace the lineage of any anti-immigration exponent and you’ll find an ancestor who came to America—legally or not— from foreign soil. Regardless of what xenophobic nationalists would like America to be, we are a nation of immigrants. 

It has not succumbed to the caprice of the coronavirus, but the Tenement Museum at the corner of Orchard and Delancey Streets on Manhattan’s Lower East Side is close to being on life support (https://nyti.ms/2yvNVO9). It needs everyone’s help to survive. Please join me in contributing to this worthwhile institution dedicated to our shared history. Here’s a link to donate: 

https://secure.givelively.org/donate/lower-east-side-tenement-museum/help-the-tenement-museum-survive.

It is during times like these, when we are barred from visiting museums, that we fully appreciate how they impart the culture, history and experiences of our forbearers. Unlike almost all other museums, The Tenement Museum commemorates the lives not of the famous and gifted but rather those of the huddled masses welcomed by the Statue of Liberty. 

The Lower East Side was a haven for freshly landed immigrants. Irish, Italian, Jewish, German, Eastern European, Puerto Rican, Chinese and more—in separate, sometimes contiguous, waves they and other ethnicities crammed into stifling apartments. They shared bathrooms down the hallways of five story tenement buildings. Orchard Street and the surrounding streets were not paved in gold, as many had been led to believe. For the industrious, upwardly mobile immigrant, however, they were springboards toward assimilation into the American experience.

No one in my family, to my knowledge, lived in a tenement on the Lower East Side. But my family is forever linked to Orchard Street, next to the very location where the Tenement Museum stands. My father, who came to America in January 1939 from Poland, rented second floor space for his wholesale lingerie business at 99 Orchard Street, next door to what became the museum’s 97 Orchard Street address. (Since the museum’s expansion and renovation over a decade ago the front of 97 and 99 Orchard Street has been replaced with a modern, mostly glass facade.) 

It must have been after Kopel Fuersetzer had been discharged for medical reasons from the U.S. Army in August 1943. He was in his early 30s. As I wasn’t born until 1949, and my brother and sister were too young to know about his Orchard Street store, I enlisted two of our older cousins for details of his business three-quarters of a century ago.  

“I can recall the store, up a flight of metal stairs and on the left side. There was a back room with a table, a few chairs and a toilet,” said Norman Latner. “The store itself was lined with shelves, stacked with cardboard boxes which contained ladies panties and bloomers, with the sizes clearly marked on the outside. Your father was a wholesaler who sold to retail establishments.  

“I remember sweeping the floors, dusting the shelves and making deliveries. Your mother was never in the store, at least when I was there.”

His older brother, Herb, filled in more about one of his first jobs. 

“I think I was about 10 years old, on summer vacation from school and looking for a job, which was almost impossible to find, as precious as gold.  My mom’s “rich” cousin Kopel hired me (in my family, anyone with a car and phone was rich). 

“He had a store at 99 Orchard Street, a few doors down from Delancey Street, and even within walking distance from home so I did not have to pay carfare. 

“It was a busy, crowded area, with many clothing stores, both retail and wholesale. Kopel’s store, like the three other stores, was wholesale. His store dealt with ladies’ undergarments. We did not refer to them as lingerie, but simply bloomers and panties. At first, I was a bit embarrassed in handling the merchandise, but I got used to it.

“There were two stores on the street floor of this tenement building and two others right above them, one flight up a long narrow metal stoop. We were upstairs, on the left side. Nearly all the storekeepers were Jewish at that time. It was a wholesale store, and we sold items only in dozen lots or more.

“It surprised me that all the storekeepers were so friendly to each other, in spite of the fact that they were in competition. It may have had to do with Kopel’s warm personality; his neighbors often chatted with him, asked his advice, and often deferred to his opinions. Even as a young boy I sensed he was a leader.

“I think I was paid the minimum wage of the time—65 cents an hour. I thought it was great and thrilled to be working. My job was to do whatever was needed. Watching the store when Kopel went out, sweeping up, packing and unpacking goods, getting coffee or lunch, or whatever I was asked to do. I remember doing it cheerfully.

“It was summer and hot and humid and none of those little stores then had air conditioning yet, so we smelled and sweated. I remember Kopel would often get us a refreshing cup of lemon ices or cold drink; he was very generous. I learned a lot about working and what was required, and had a good teacher.   

“Kopel worked hard and was ambitious. He’d boast about having as a customer Blumstein’s, a big department store at the time located in Harlem, then still a bit of a Jewish neighborhood. 

“Some days when he’d visit customers in his car he would take me with him, and I was thrilled to be riding in a car with him. Wow!

“Orchard Street was still solidly Jewish and most of the businesses were also Jewish. Sundays the area was mobbed with shoppers, with thousands of folks coming to shop for bargains from all over town. It was long before discount stores and computers. But we were closed since we were not retail but wholesale. 

“As I got older, Kopel hired cousin Ted Schreier and my brother Norm, who he’d jokingly call “Mr. Natan, what are you waitin,” after the name of a popular song of the day.”

The aftereffects of the COVID-19 pandemic threaten to erase many treasured locations within New York, be they bars and restaurants, theaters, local service establishments such as shoemakers or cleaners—all part of the tapestry that makes the city vibrant as a whole but personal in a neighborly way. 

It would be tragic if the Tenement Museum became a casualty of COVID-19. Please do your part to see that doesn’t happen. 

Bangladesh and Corporate Social Responsibility

In the three weeks since an eight-story garment factory building in Bangladesh collapsed and entombed more than 1,100 workers, there have been lots of media reports about the responsibility of American and European retailers and brand name companies to be more proactive in monitoring and demanding greater safety in the factories that inexpensively produce goods to be sold throughout the world at prices that would be far beyond the reach of the women and men who make them for an average monthly wage of just $37.  

The scramble is on. The scramble to avoid the appearance of insensitivity. Retailers and their brand name suppliers are scrambling to distance themselves from multiple tragedies in Bangladesh and Pakistan, even as worker-advocates press them to force their foreign manufacturers to be more conscious of safety and living wage measures (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/11/business/global/clothing-retailers-pressed-on-bangladesh-factory-safety.html?ref=business&_r=0). 

They don’t want their good names sullied by horrific misfortunes half a world away. Yet, like our politicians who often kick the can down the road rather than tackle controversial issues such as social security or tax reform, the retail community rarely takes decisive action. My 30-plus years covering the industry, reinforced by my reporter’s sensibilities, make me a cynic. Sadly, my feelings can be summed up by the last paragraph in The NY Times story linked above: 

“Kellie A. McElhaney, an expert on corporate social responsibility at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, predicted that these pressures would hardly sway the companies. ‘They are feeling a lot of pressure, but it’s not coming from consumers. It’s coming from N.G.O.’s,’ she said, referring to nongovernment organizations. ‘They’re not feeling it in the marketplace. I believe they’re going to do the bare minimum. The N.G.O.’s need to make more consumers aware of this.’”  

Here’s why I’m a cynic: Perhaps 10 to 15 years ago my magazine co-produced a conference called Making It Right. We worked with several corporate social responsibility NGOs to raise awareness about the sordid conditions many foreign workers were forced to toil under as they prepared apparel, sporting goods and other products Americans eagerly consumed because they were less expensive than they would be if U.S. workers produced them, or if higher wages were provided to the populations in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, China or any of the other Third World countries exploited for their cheap labor. Meeting at the Tenement Museum on Manhattan’s Lower East Side to plan the event, our conference advisory board had representatives from Gap, J.C. Penney and other retailers. Held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City, the conference attracted several hundred industry attendees. It was a thematic success, but little of any progress was made.

My takeaway from that conference was that price was the overwhelming driving force behind corporate decisions where sourcing would originate. For a few scant pennies per item, manufacturing contracts would shift from one country to another. Bangladesh became the second largest apparel producer in the world, behind China. If tragedies persist, and they surely will, the result most likely will not be safer standards or higher wages in that impoverished country. Rather, the people of Bangladesh, who rely on the garment industry for much of their economy, will be hurt by the desertion of apparel contracts as retailers and brand name companies migrate production to countries with low wages and labor conditions not (yet) under the media spotlight.

Though there have been some reports consumers are becoming more conscious of where and how their purchases are produced, I’m not optimistic there will be a tidal wave of change. I don’t profess to be any better than the next person. I’d rather spend less on everything I buy, assuming the quality is comparable. But I do believe retailers, especially large companies like H&M, Wal-Mart, Target, Nike, Gap, and their important suppliers, such as Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein, can demand more accountability from their overseas factories, even to the point where they underwrite safety improvements. The few pennies more each of us in America and Europe would pay to prevent catastrophes would hardly impact our way of life. But it would go a long way into assuring a better life, maybe even continued life, for those faceless workers who make our lives easier and more fashionable.

   

Orchard Street Connection

Was down on Orchard Street in Manhattan last evening observing Ellie getting fitted at Adriennes for her wedding gown for next month’s nuptials.

To those not familiar with Orchard Street, a little history. Located in the heart of the Lower East Side populated by waves of immigrants, especially Eastern European Jews in the decades before and after the turn of the 20th century, the narrow-laned Orchard Street has always been a mecca for savvy shoppers and sharp retailers. Above the shops, immigrants lived in squalid, cramped quarters of walk-up apartments. Today hip, young people share the confines with newer immigrants. The neighborhood is gentrifying with trendy stores and restaurants.

As a child I would tag along with my father and my mother as they plied the small, merchandise-stuffed storefronts looking for bargains in apparel, textiles and electronics, all the way kibitzing with the merchants along the busy street.

Orchard Street has a long history with our family. After my father came to New York from Danzig, Poland, in 1939, he worked for his cousin Morris in a shirt store on Orchard Street. It was there one day, when he was several steps up on a ladder, that he met my mother for the first time. It was sort of a prearranged meeting, but my mother’s hair was not very cooperative that day. As family lore tells it, her hair was downright scary, so much so that when dad gazed upon her for the first time, he fell off the ladder. Nevertheless, they agreed to go out on a date that Friday night, to see an operetta, Johann Strauss II’s Die Fledermaus. 

When he arrived at her parents’ door Friday evening he was met by an attractive young woman whom he assumed was one of her three sisters. He was only slightly embarrassed but quite relieved and happy to discover his date stood before him. They married six weeks later.

Ever the businessman my father opened his own shirt shop on Orchard Street after returning from military service in World War II. His store was at 99 Orchard Street, in the shadow of what today is the Tenement Museum at 97 Orchard Street. Indeed, a year or so ago the museum contacted me for information on his store as part of its research on an exhibit of businesses of the Lower East Side. I never knew of that store as I wasn't yet born when he ran it, but an older cousin who worked there provided details. As Herb explained to me, it was common back in the 1940s for my father to give a helping hand to relatives and friends who needed a first job. 

As a child, I was aware of and intrigued by my father’s familiarity with the merchants along Orchard Street. I now understand from where his knowledge derived. It seemed only fitting then that his granddaughter came full circle back to Orchard Street to choose her dress for her wedding which will take place 11 days shy of what would have been my parents’ 70th wedding anniversary.

A Little Education

Here’s how you know your decision to get out of the publishing business when you did was fortuitous if not prescient: an article in Monday’s NY Times on People StyleWatch’s success contained these two paragraphs:

“Still, readers spend an average of 93 minutes with the magazine, something of a feat, since it has few long sentences in it.

“The few times we’ve done longer pieces, something on trying a trend that went on for two pages, it just didn’t resonate,” Ms. (Susan) Kaufman, (editor,) said.” (For the full article, here’s the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/business/media/19stylewatch.html?scp=1&sq=stylewatch&st=cse.

Now, I never equated business to business journalism with fashion or teen magazine publishing. Clearly the two audiences share very little in reader demographics, especially the part about education. And for the record, the marching orders at trade magazines, including the ones I led, included advocacy of shorter articles. Tight copy was expected to meet the busy, time-constrained schedules of our readers. Articles longer than two pages were to be resisted.

But People StyleWatch seems to be taking taciturnity to the extreme, even beyond the standard enunciated by Jeff Goldblum in The Big Chill, who famously said that as a People reporter his articles were to be written short enough to be read in one sitting, if you get my cleaned up drift.

People StyleWatch’s readers are tomorrow’s leaders, and that includes their being mothers. How can we expect to forge the next intelligent generation when the raw material is so lacking?


Who Needs a Degree? On the other hand, if there was ever a reason to question the value of an education, here it is—37% of those who support the Tea Party movement hold a college or postgraduate degree, according to a NY Times/CBS News poll released last week (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/politics/15poll.html?scp=1&sq=tea%20party%20survey&st=cse). Unless those 37% majored in cafeteria, it does not reflect well on our halls of learning.

Wait. I majored in cafeteria. You can get a good education sitting around, schmoozing for eight hours a day. Those 37% probably ate too much while they were in the cafeteria. From the looks and sounds of too many of them, their brains must have morphed into the food they ate.

Please excuse my obvious distaste for people who just want to take without any desire to give back. They want their social security and Medicare, but demand less government. In other words, cut out programs that don’t line their pockets. They cry about wanting to preserve the Constitution, but were silent when Bush acted to deny basic rights not just to enemy combatants but also to U.S. citizens.

My father used to say he welcomed the idea of paying $100,000 in taxes. That would imply that he was making a helluva lot of money and he’d be ever so thankful for the opportunity this country provided him. The same NY Times/CBS News survey revealed that Tea Party supporters are better off than a majority of their fellow Americans, with 56% earning more than $50,000 a year. Only 6% are unemployed. Half are middle class.

It bares repeating—the measure of a country and nation is how it cares for the less fortunate. A society of Tea Partiers would be a sad, self-centered congregation.


Where It Began: Have you been to the Tenement Museum on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, at 97 Orchard Street?

About six years ago I attended a planning meeting there as part of my magazine’s co-sponsorship of a conference on the retail industry’s global labor responsibility. The Tenement Museum presents a fascinating perspective on the life of immigrants at the turn of the 20th century. Until recently, my interest in the museum was purely academic, as my parents arrived here in 1921 and 1939 and never lived in the squalid, cramped quarters of the walk-up apartments of the Lower East Side.

But twice in the last two weeks I was informed that my father’s first independent business transpired in the shadows of what is now the Tenement Museum. At 99 Orchard Street he ran a street level store, selling shirts and other clothing. I always wondered why he was so intimately familiar with all the shopkeepers on Orchard Street, one of the first discount meccas in the city. Now I know.


Speaking of Discounts: How would you like to travel back in time? It wouldn’t be too long a trip, just 30-40 years, back to a time when retail stores could not easily and extensively provide discounted brand name merchandise without the manufacturer’s explicit approval.

That in essence is the tip of the iceberg for what is at stake in a battle between Costco and Omega, the Swiss watchmaker. I’m not a lawyer, so I won’t burden you with an interpretation of copyright law which is at the heart of the legal wrangling (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2011649088_costco20.html).

But I can tell you, based on three decades of retail reporting, that retailers and manufacturers have been battling for more than half a century over the availability of brand name merchandise at discounted prices. E.J. Korvettes (no, the name does not stand for eight Korean War veterans) was among the first companies to circumvent restricted manufacturer distribution policies permitted under Fair Trade Laws. The rise of the discount store industry, from Kmart, Target and Wal-Mart, all of which began in 1962, to specialty stores like Toys “R” Us and Best Buy, depended on access to product and the ability to price it according to a retailer’s, not a supplier’s, needs. Most Fair Trade Laws were repealed by 1975.

We live today in a consumer society. Two-thirds of our economy is supported by the goods and services we buy. If Omega is successful, and other manufacturers seek similar restrictions on the distribution and pricing of their products, we may well undermine the foundation of a key part of our nation’s financial stability.