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It Happened in Manhattan
With Myrna Katz Frommer and Harvey Frommer, Authors
Rescheduled Monday, May 13, 2002; 2 p.m. EDT
New York City is full of history. "It Happened in Manhattan: An Oral History of Life in the City During the Mid-Twentieth Century" chronicles the people and the events that shaped the city from the post-war years to the 1970's.
Filled with vintage photographs, the book features stories of people who lived in Manhattan's era when B. Altman's was on Fifth Avenue, songwriters played at Tin Pan Alley, night fights were held at Madison Square Garden and 52nd Street buzzed with jazz joints, Harlem clubs, and the Fillmore East.
Journey back to New York's "golden age" with authors Myrna Katz Frommer and Harvey Frommer to talk about the book "It Happened in Manhattan: An Oral History of Life in the City During the Mid-Twentieth Century."
Submit your questions and comments before or during the discussion.
Harvey Frommer is the celebrated author of more than 30 sports books, including the classics Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball, New York City Baseball, and The New York Yankee Encyclopedia. He wrote for Yankees magazine for 16 years. Together with his wife, Myrna Katz Frommer, he authored the critically acclaimed oral histories It Happened in Manhattan, It Happened in Brooklyn, It Happened in the Catskills, It Happened on Broadway, and Growing Up Jewish in America. Frommer is a professor in the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies program at Dartmouth College, and a longtime Yankee fan. Myrna Katz Frommer is a poet and contributor to such publications as The Forward, Ha'aretz, The New York Times, and The Encyclopedia of Jewish Women.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control
over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
Harvey Frommer and Myrna Katz Frommer: It's great having the Wa. Post as a family affair. A few weeks ago it was father and son. Now it's wife and husband.
But we're still in the realm of interactive oral history, a genre we teach and practice.
Washington, D.C.:
I loved "It Happened in Brooklyn." You seemed to really capture the nostalgia of an earlier era. "Manhattan" was a teriffic read, but you didn't go for nostalgia this time. Why the different approach?
Harvey Frommer and Myrna Katz Frommer: What we discovered as we began interviewing for this book was that its main focus was how Manhattan became, in a sense, the artistic, financial, political center of the world in the wake of the Second World War. That was a significant theme and it's more conceptual than nostalgic.
So that was the direction we took.
Myrna
Chicago, Ill.:
Who was your favorite interviewee?
Harvey Frommer and Myrna Katz Frommer: My favorite interviewee, to make a little joke, were all the people who graciously gave of their time and memories even though some had more to say than others. Myrna & I always are impressed by people who go back through the years into their memory banks and give us wonderful material to use in our oral histories and we salute them.
Harvey
My favorite interviewee was Alvin Reed who told us what it was like to grow up in Harlem. He had so much heart and such
specific recall of a time and place that he helped make
the book especially memorable.
Myrna
St. Louis, Mo.:
What is your next project?
Harvey Frommer and Myrna Katz Frommer: Staying on the subject of New York, my next book is "A Yankee Century" which is scheduled for publication in the fall of 2002. It will celebrate the first hundred years of
baseball's greatest franchise and will include many pictures and never before told stories. I hope to be on Washington Post.Com in October to answer all of your question. Myrna & I have quite a few irons in the fire about our next jointly authored oral history but we never tell ahead of time although we expect it to continue with our focus on New York City. Harvey
Sterling, Va.:
I am very disgusted by the over commercialization of Times Square and other NYC haunts. Too many tourists, big corporate stores that are generic as all. Don't you think NYC has gone too far in "cleaning up" that area?
Harvey Frommer and Myrna Katz Frommer: I agree with Sterling, Virginia. I hate to see New York City become another theme park. But you know what? It can't really ever happen because the intensity and diversity of New York City is so great. The people defy any theme park definition. There will always be enough grit, enough variety,enough creativity to prevent that from happening.
Myrna
Newark, N.J.:
How do you decide who to interview for your oral histories?
Harvey Frommer and Myrna Katz Frommer: We decide whom to interview based on the subject matter of each book, of course, and generally begin with a nucleus that expands because we get referrals. "Way leads on to way." Usually we set 100 as our figure for the number of interviewees although MANHATTAN had a bit less. We expect our next project to have some more. Just as oral history shapes itself, the number of people we speak to shapes itself. Harvey
Maryland:
What motivated you to focus on this period in New York history?
Harvey Frommer and Myrna Katz Frommer: We focused on this period because it had such a beginning and an end. The start of the book is the end of World War II, a time of new beginnings, a time when New York City is filled with hope and optimism, when the UN building opens, when immigrants from Europe and in-migrants from the south and Puerto Rico come to this city, when there is great theater, an influx of wonderful French restaurants and design, many new museums. The end of the book is the mid 1970's when the city is nearly bankrupt. So there is a real
story within these thirty years that we tell in this book.
Myrna
Harrisburg, Pa.:
As one who was born in Manhattan in the mid-20th century, I look forward to your book. How much did the Yankees dynasty of that period energize the city? To me, there must have been a great sense of pride to be in a city that was on top of the economic, cultural and athletic spectrums. I realize this is subjective, yet how would you compare the "feel" of being a New Yorker then to being a New Yorker today?
Harvey Frommer and Myrna Katz Frommer: To the Harrisburg questioner -- a great question -- New York City today, especially after 9/11 and with the economy not what it was, has taken a hit and is somewhat sad. Mid-century New York with the Yankees winning year after year, with players like Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, and Elston Howard on the scene and Casey Stengel running the team was a time of great glow that also locked into the crestig economic, cultural, social scenes.
But if New Yorkers are anything, they are resilient and tough. The Big Apple will come back; in fact it is coming back as anyone who has been there lately can see. New York City has turned a corner for the better. Harvey
White Plains, N.Y.:
Do you think that your book on "It Happened in Manhattan" has more relevance now since the tragic events of Sept. 11?
Harvey Frommer and Myrna Katz Frommer: I believe it is more relevant because the book covers such a range of topics about New York from haute cuisine and haute couture, to urban renewal, to high culture, to the Tin Pan Alley and an active waterfront that are no longer there, to changing political fortunes and changing neighborhoods. All add up to a city of enormous vitality and spirit which is what is enabling it to come back once again after such a great disaster. This is the New York people are still and ever will be fascinated with and it is
captured in our book.
Myrna
Washington, D.C.:
You capture the essence of being a kid in Manhattan. I fondly remember running out of my grandmother’s walkup in Spanish Harlem, where I often stayed, to catch the Mr. Softee ice cream truck. My grandmother would lean out of her third-story window to keep an eye on me. Nearby, the other kids in the neighborhood would pry open a fire hydrant to stay cool, making their own water park on W. 135th St. For your book, did you interview people from each part of the island and pick out the most poignant details? Or, did you try to use snippets from everyone who offered childhood stories?
Harvey Frommer and Myrna Katz Frommer: The way we work is that we interview everyone, get their stories and observations, and then in forming the book go for the "heart of the artichoke" and use only the best of the best stuff. What that means is we can interview someone for 90 minutes and use a paragraph or another one for 60 minutes and use everything. It depends on the interviewee and us as to what we get. People naturally gravitated back to their growing up times which, I guess, stays with them.
In the five oral histories we've written, we've always managed to get terrific stories about the "wonder years."
Washington, D.C.:
A woman in your book says that she is a New Yorker, born and bred. But her husband, who is from Manhattan, says she isn’t, because she’s from Brooklyn. What’s your take on that? Is there a snobby feeling among Manhattan natives against those from the other boroughs?
Harvey Frommer and Myrna Katz Frommer: Maybe there is. After all, Manhattan - or at least parts of it -- is elegant (Upper East Side), artistic (Greenwich Village), cultual/intellectual (Upper West Side) -- and
today there are so many other interesting and with-it neighborhoods like Tribeca and SoHo and Chelsea. So Manhattanites often do have this sense that they live in the place where everything is happening. But of course Brooklyn has its own claim to fame, and we've had a lot to say about that. Myrna
washingtonpost.com:
Are there any plans for making a documentary film on your book "It Happened in Manhattan" or any of your other books?
Harvey Frommer and Myrna Katz Frommer: We always have plans to make a documentary for our books.All we need is a phone call to get the ball rolling.
We own the rights and can envision a terrific documentary suitable for the History Channel. If you're someone who can
make it happen, we can do the "It Happened. . ." series.\Harvey
Harrisburg, Pa.:
What are your thoughts on Robert Moses?
Harvey Frommer and Myrna Katz Frommer: Robert Moses was a complex man who accomplished much but every time I see the Cross Bronx Expressway I rue the day he got the power to change New York. We have a story about some women taking him on when he wanted to create a thoroughfare through Washington Square Park. He dismissed the group of women who came to a hearing on the proposal as "nothing but a bunch of mothers." But those mothers' efforts resulted in Washington Square Park being closed to traffic and a cross-town expressway that would have destroyed a lower Manhattan neighborhood being voted down.
The consequence of this last action was the creation of a new place: SoHo. Myrna
Washington, D.C.:
In the book, you include stories of self-made businessmen and families. Manhattan was a place where immigrants could flourish. Now, Starbucks coffee shops, GAP clothing stores, and other corporate giants are creeping deeper into communities traditionally served my mom-and-pop operations. It is even possible today for the common person to build a small empire in Manhattan? Has big business destroyed that unique flavor of the Big Apple?
Harvey Frommer and Myrna Katz Frommer: Another good question. It's true that the traditional mom and pop operations have vanished, but there are new immigrants moving into New York and their new businesses are the new operations: the Korean dry cleaner, the Turkish guys who own a little take-out restaurant, the Israeli moving companies, the small florists from South America, and
the Africans who are driver owners of their taxis. They are the new immigrants and they are finding their way, like their predecessors , into the world of opportunity a great city like New York still presents. M&H
Salt Lake City, Utah:
I loved your book "It Happened in Brooklyn."
In what ways is this similar or different to that?
Harvey Frommer and Myrna Katz Frommer: Brooklyn focused on the growing up years of people from primarily working class families. It was more intimate, more connected to the close family and neighborhood life of that unique urbanity. Manhattan had a broader scope, encompassing the dimensions of a great city with powerful industries, superb restaurants, musuems, universities,
cultural institutions. So it is more serious although there is much to laugh about in the story we tell. Both books are oral histories with many photographs.
Tinseltown:
This may not be worthy of your book, yet Larry David has a good George Steinbrenner story. He was so angry over one of Steinbrenner's trades, he wrote it into a "Seinfeld" script. Then, he lured Steinbrenner into taping an episode of "Seinfeld" which required him to miss opening day and then they never used the footage. FYI
Harvey Frommer and Myrna Katz Frommer: Your're right,Tinsletown. It's not worthy of our book.
St. Louis, Mo.:
What was a favorite story told to you?
Harvey Frommer and Myrna Katz Frommer: One of my favorites is by Joe Darion, our late friend who wrote the lyrics to (among other things) Man of La Mancha.
In our book, he tells the story of Tin Pan Alley which was actually the Brill Building where songwriters congregated every day to sell a melody or a lyric. It no longer exists but had been a wonderful and unique part of New York City. Myrna
One of my favorites was told by Monte Irvin, the great baseball player for the old New York Giants. Monte recalled
going to nightclubs and restaurants in Harlem and other parts of the city and how much he appreciated being a major league baseball player in the Big Apple. The irony of his commentary was underscored by the fact that he had been a great player in the Negro Leagues for a decade and denied
the opportunity to play in the major leagues because of segregation. When he finally got into the Giants, it was especially sweet for him to show his stuff. Appropriately, Monte even on the cover of the book. Harvey
Harvey Frommer and Myrna Katz Frommer: Once again we are happy to have had the opportunity to appear on washingtonpost.com and offer our perceptions and opinions in response to so many intelligent and probing questions. We look forward to doing it again in the near future. Thanks everyone! - Myrna and Harvey
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