Burnside Ave.
SEPTEMBER 13, 2020
My grandparents lived in a tiny one-bedroom apartment on the fourth floor of an old building that is still standing in the Miracle Mile area of Los Angeles.
The elevator held 3 people at most; it always smelled somewhere between old people, death and formaldehyde. I used to try to hold my breath for the long ride up as it was very slow and old-fashioned.
There was a noisy metal accordion gate that my Poppy Harry had to slide open in order to access the actual elevator door. The elevator door was too heavy for my Grandma Sadie to pull open; it was made of thick metal and had a small jail cell window, complete with thick wire glass. It was way too high for me to see out, I was around 7 years old and not quite tall enough. Sometimes my Poppy would pick me up so I could look out. I suppose the window was to see out and avoid opening the door into waiting neighbors.
Crammed into this smelly elevator, I stood between my short round cozy grandmother, her large purse, and my tall and slim grandfather, who was carrying all my sleepover stuff plus whatever else they had to bring up from the car.
Poppy Harry was quite physical for his whole life and sometimes I’d take the stairs up or down with him. But never if my Grandma was with us. I’m sure that’s because she was not very physical, had a heart condition and already stood on her feet cooking and baking for their small business downtown. They owned a luncheonette counter in an office building somewhere in downtown L.A. They loved their customers, most of whom were the building maintenance personnel. And their customers loved them; an older Jewish couple from Newark, NJ who served fresh home-cooked meals for a fair price. All the food for the counter was cooked by my Grandma in their tiny apartment.
And that apartment was very tiny. One bedroom, one bathroom, with a claw bathtub, no shower. One sink with separate faucets for hot and cold water.
They had no air-conditioning, no view, and their two double hung windows overlooked the back alley. It was clean and tidy and when I say clean I mean Jewish Grandma clean. Sanitized. Cloroxed. Cometed. Windexed and Pledged.
I’d say you could eat off the floor except there was NEVER a time anyone ate ANYTHING off the floor in the history of my family. If food hit the ground, it was discarded. And then the floor was cleaned, and your hands were washed.
My grandmother who loved to cook and bake somehow made do in that tiny kitchen. Once I helped her make Rugalach (a favorite Jewish tradition cream cheese dough, rolled and filled cookie). We prepared three different fillings; raisin-walnut, chocolate chip and strawberry jam. She was an extraordinary baker and rarely wrote her recipes down.
Even as a child I could see how labor-intensive it was to bake. Cracking walnuts by hand. Then hammering the nuts in a baggie with her heavy rolling pin, so they would be the right size to mix with the raisins. The ten million steps for the dough. In and out of the refrigerator. Cutting it into triangles and carefully and lovingly filing each triangle with a dollop of something sweet. The magic crystal sugar on top. And the smell of sweet baking while waiting for the different cookie sheets as they went in and out of the oven. I enjoyed that time with my Grandma so much, I can still remember the expression on her face as we baked. It was a tiny haven, her kitchen of love.
I felt very grown up to be allowed to spend a night with Grandma Sadie and Poppy Harry. My grandmother was a night owl, staying up past 3 in the morning. When I slept over, I would sleep in her bed in the bedroom with my Poppy and she would sleep on the couch. He went to bed very early, around 8:00PM, so I’d get to stay up later with my Grandma.
In the morning we would go to Van de Kamp’s coffee shop and bakery and have breakfast there. I loved the big windmill outside, and the pastries inside. Orbach’s was right down the street, so we might stop in for some browsing. Back then, it was a long exciting walk, something I rarely did with my parents. After breakfast and a walk, we’d go back upstairs and I’d play cards with my Poppy.
Poppy Harry taught me how to play cards, Gin Rummy not Go Fish! He was a card shark. He could tell you what card you were holding and what cards were in the deck anytime we played. And he would get so aggravated if I discarded a card that he needed to win! He didn’t understand why I couldn’t remember all the cards in his hand, in my hand and in the deck. I was probably seven years old when this early gambling took place. Eventually he taught me rummy 500. I loved playing cards with him, and despite my young age, I’d sometimes win fair and square. Even though he had the deck memorized, I still had luck!
After cards, he’d sit back in his recliner chair to read the Sunday paper. It was the set up for a coin hunt. As soon as he would get up from the recliner, my grandmother would say, “hurry--go and see what fell out of his pockets” and I would run to the chair and search the crack and there would be pennies and nickels and dimes that had “fallen out” of his pockets. I would gather up all those coins and my grandmother would ask me how much I got. And if she didn’t think it was enough, she’d yell at my grandfather in Yiddish to give me more money.
All in all, I might have collected a dollar or two. And sometimes my grandma made a secret with me about keeping the money and don’t tell Poppy how much I found. But everybody was in on the secret. Still it was very exciting to have a pocket full of coins when I left my sleep-over at their house.
Another classic story was the time Poppy Harry accidentally cooked some money. My grandmother hid money all over their apartment. Including a couple hundred dollars in a paper bag, in their oven. I’m not sure why she hid money all over the apartment, on rare occasion the super needed access to fix something, they were required to let her know. But I think she worried that they would come in when she was gone. Anyhow, being the only cook in the family, I guess she felt safe with her money hiding in her oven. Of course, until that one day my grandfather came up first and turned on the oven.
Suddenly she smells smoke and realized her money was burning, she began screaming! “Harry what did you do?” They quickly turned off the oven and pulled out the charred bag of bills. Of course, my grandfather was aggravated - neither of them had money to burn. For Christ-sakes he would mutter and for cryin’ out loud! He didn’t know there was money in the oven! Oy, my grandmother yelled at him, taking her anger out on him, not muttering but yelling. And usually cursing and most often in Yiddish.
And he grimaced every time she yelled. I hated it when that yelling went on between them. They were both pretty quiet most of the time. But burning money, well, he’s lucky she didn’t kill him. The story had a happy ending.
Since they had a good relationship with their bank, and were honest people, the bank was able to reimburse them for whatever amount my grandmother told them burned along with the bits and pieces of the charred dollar bills. Thankfully that was the last time she hid money in the oven.
My grandparents were extremely hard workers. One day my grandfather collapsed in the apartment and my grandmother called an ambulance. He was rushed to Cedars of Lebanon, back when the hospital was still up on sunset. He had a bleeding ulcer and he had emergency surgery to stop the bleeding. Along with a blood transfusion. After that, he seemed to rebound and I imagine the tremendous stomach pain he quietly endured had resolved. Shortly after that my parents insisted that they retire.
When my grandmother was diagnosed with “stomach cancer” there was very little shared with me at the time. She didn’t last very long and my father decided not to tell her she had cancer. I was already in my early 20s and went to sit with her at the hospital following a surgery. She was very sick. When I arrived she was sitting on a chair by the nurses station, because she was very agitated from the anesthesia after surgery. The nurses found that she was calmer if she could just sit in a chair near their station. She recognized me and was glad for my company. But she made a small continuous sound of pain. My heart broke to see her suffering. We made our way back to her room and I sat with her until my Poppy arrived. That was at the new Cedars-Sinai on Beverly Blvd.
When they sent her home, I was not privy to the discussions with the doctors. My father, their only child, was in charge. I wish I had asked more questions. I remember disagreeing with my dad about not telling her, but he was adamant that she not be told she had terminal cancer. Probably pancreatic, if I had to guess. I would call her every single evening, but she was in so much pain and suffering. She didn’t last long thankfully and after she died, my parents moved my grandfather into a senior living center that was close to their house.
When I went to help my dad close up my grandparent’s apartment, I checked every pocket of every house-dress, every nook, corner, cranny, every purse, and every drawer - THERE WAS MONEY EVERYWHERE! Not millions but a few thousand cash. It was a good amount of mad money!
My grandparents grew up in New Jersey. And during the depression, my grandfather who had a milk and bread delivery route, was also running numbers. He was a “bookie” plus the family was running poker games. They needed to survive and they managed to make money to feed themselves and their family.
My tall thin quiet poppy, was a total badass in his youth. Including getting caught with his book, which was thought to be a set up, so he had to do jail time! These fascinating facts were not readily shared and quite honestly hard to imagine. Poppy Harry was just so quiet. So not only was he arrested and served some jail time. Poppy Harry’s brother in law, Sam Van Poznak, spoke to the judge and managed to get him out of jail.
My Poppy lived a very long time, well into his 90s, his heart was so strong and he was so physically fit. For as long as I could remember, he took super long walks. And he would hold onto both sides of our stair railing and swing back-and-forth. This was a trick he performed for anyone passing by. He taught me how to whistle thorough my fingers; first using two fingers from both hands and then how to use one hand, forming a circle with my thumb and middle finger. I can hail a cab New York style thanks to him. He was quiet but generous. Quiet but funny. He loved the fights and when cable first started I would order the games so he could watch.
He’d sit directly in front of the tv and swing his arms as if he was punching. Yet I never saw him swing at another person. Eventually he needed more than a senior living home, and my parents moved him to a group home run by a lovely Filipino family, out in the valley. He had his own room and he seemed pretty happy. They ran the home as if everyone was part of a family, celebrating birthdays and holidays. My grandfather did well there until his peaceful death well into his late 90’s.