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Mazie’s Diary, February 14, 1933

Well George Flicker and I had an interesting talk tonight. Who knew George Flicker could be interesting?

He’s working for this developer, and there’s going to be a new building downtown. It’s going to be the finest building in the neighborhood, with a beautiful garden in a private courtyard. He told me that when I sit in that garden l’ll feel like I left New York City behind.

It’ll be difficult to get into the building. Everyone wants in. But he thought he could do it, could secure a small apartment for himself and his uncle. He could barely afford it but he thought he could make it happen. A chance to get out of the tenements, he’d make it happen. And he could secure another one for me and Rosie, we could be neighbors in this new building. And then he said the very interesting part, which was that maybe when we moved in there, Rosie could watch over Al.

He said: She just needs someone to worry about is what it sounds like to me.

I could not argue with him on that matter.

He said: And Al, he just needs someone to look after him. I can’t do it forever, Mazie. I need to have a life of my own. And you do, too.

I said: When can we move?

He said the building wouldn’t be ready till next year. That they had to tear down all these filthy tenements there first, then build the new one. They’re going to build fast though, he told me.

He said: Hold on, Mazie. Just hold on.

Elio Ferrante

Lung Block, yea, Lung Block. I don’t teach it anymore. I taught it a few times, and honestly? It grosses the kids out. Breadlines, they get, they nod their heads. Lung Block, it’s gross, it’s terrifying, and it doesn’t really educate them about anything new. They kind of already know about mold and bad air, and if they really want to learn about the specifics of mold, I’ll trust their health or science instructors to educate them on the particular details. But, just to explain here, these apartments had maybe one or two tiny windows and no ventilation, and they were packed with people. And they got sick.

There were more than a few Lung Blocks in New York City. So many of the tenements were terrible for air quality, germs, mold, but this one particular block, down by the water — north of the South Street Seaport, like southeast of Chinatown — a good percentage of the tenants there got sick with respiratory illnesses. Tuberculosis for one, which is highly contagious, so once it started, they all fell down. There were just germs everywhere. And hundreds of families lived there; everyone crammed into these small spaces. On top of that there were bunch of bars and brothels. It was just a seedy, germy block. Hundreds of people died. This was in the late 1920s. And New York being New York, instead of fixing the buildings, they just decided to tear them down and start over. And that is how Knickerbocker Village came into being.

Lydia Wallach

I should have had two more great-uncles, but they died from tuberculosis. They lived in a bad building. It wasn’t a bad building when they moved in, but it became one. By the time they figured out they should move somewhere else, it was too late. They were no longer in control of their destiny, or the destiny of their children. And so my mother’s father grew up with tragedy, and then my mother grew up in the shadow of tragedy, and then I suppose I grew up in whatever shade was left behind. Rudy with his heart attacks, two dead great-uncles. These stories that people pass on. You feel them. They haunt you.

Pete Sorensen

A thing you and I talked about for a while is how she starts to disappear into these men. Like we felt like we lost her to them. Like she became so obsessed with them that the other parts of her started to disappear. Or maybe those parts were visible to someone else? But the diary totally changes. It’s just about these men; that’s all she cares about. And you were like, “I get it. I get the obsession.” And I was like, “I get it, but I reject it. Because there’s more to life than just that. You have to care about more than one thing.”

Mazie’s Diary, February 26, 1933

One more body in the late-night frost. I tried to rouse him but his skin turned my skin cold.

I thought: We’re both the same color. We’re both blue.

But then I realized he was bluer than I’ll be in a long time.

Mazie’s Diary, March 15, 1933

Called six ambulances this month and they’re sick of my voice and my face and I don’t care.

Mazie’s Diary, June 1, 1933

Lately I’ve been noticing that the bums are waiting for me to get to work. Just a few of them, same fellas, sometimes a bigger group of them. Waiting for their morning handouts so they can get a little of this or that and move on through their day. What’s it hurt? Tee’d tsk tsk me, but what did Tee know about fun?

All of it makes me feel needed. And that I can help them. I can’t help Rosie, but I can help them.

Mazie’s Diary, June 5, 1933

A guy named Wilson died and I didn’t know him but all the fellas were reeling this morning. He’d been good to them. They said he’d looked out for them. Someone stabbed him in his sleep, and he’d been sleeping on an old mattress in an alley and the mattress was all red when they found him. I was shuddering when they told me this and I didn’t even know it till Rudy came out and shooed them all way. Ghost white I was, that’s what Rudy told me.

Mazie’s Diary, June 13, 1933

A boy with blond hair in my line, sixteen, seventeen, everything about him ragged and worn, his clothes, some scars, a sad, dazed squint. Willowy and breakable. Too young to be in line with those other fellas, and I told him so. Too young to be that battered is what I thought. He deepened his voice, swore he’d been working on the trains for a few years already. I asked his name. Rufus. It couldn’t be, I thought. Not the same. I asked if he had a mother named Nance. He told me it was the name of the woman who bore him but that he barely remembered her.

I said: Who raised you?

He said: A hundred kind people and a hundred mean people and no one in particular.

I couldn’t stand to see his face in my line. He told me he’d been working on the rails here and there, but that he dreamed of working on an apple farm in New Jersey. It seemed safer than the rails, where it was nothing but drunks and trouble. He’d heard it was all sunshine and fresh air on the apple farm. I gave him a few big bills. I told him to go to New Jersey now, get a head start on apple-picking season.

I said: I don’t want to see you around here again, you hear?

He promised he’d never come back. Who knows if he was telling the truth or not? It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been conned. Only I needed to know I tried.

Mazie’s Diary, August 9, 1933

Here she goes with the smell again. Chinatown in the summertime, it isn’t pretty I agree. I finally told her about George Flicker’s building.