The Horse Parlor

On pages 64 to 67 of Honest Sid I wrote about one horse parlor in NYC that my father took me to when I was five years old.  Such a betting parlor was "illegal" but there were dozens spotted throughout the City all with the sufferance of the police who were paid off to turn their heads the other way. Although their were differences in the locations and physical characteristics of the horse parlors all of them had features common to  Charlie Goodheim's parlor described in the book. On p. 65 I write about my experience:

My father took my hand and together we walked through the back door [of the cigar shop] into Charlie Goodheim's horse parlor.  With its cement floor and bare stone walls, it looked like it had once been part of a garage.  Men in suits with fedoras pushed back off their foreheads stood around alone or in groups, or sat on folding wooden chairs lined up in rows facing a long chalkboard running nearly the length of one wall. All eyes were on that chalkboard. A man in shirtsleeves, wearing earphones connected to a long wire stood on a platform in front of the board, erasing numbers and writing down new ones.... Along another wall two men wearing green eyeshades sat behind the silver bars of the cashier's cages, counting out money with a snap and a flourish while a staccato voice coming, through a speaker box described a horse race in progress.  A heavy pall of cigarette and cigar smoke hung over the room.  The customers seemed subdued, speaking quietly if at all, but the atmosphere was electric.

On p. 66 I describe one of the race descriptions that came through continuously: 

In the sixth at Hialeah—the flag is up! They're off and running... Into the final turn and Ladybug is ahead by a length... Blue Devil is coming up fast on the outside... They're into the stretch! Neck and neck—and it's Blue Devil by a nose at the wire."  The announcer stopped talking for a few minutes after the race, and my father pointed to the chalkboard.  The Board Marker was listing the payoffs... numbers next to the horses' names changed as the Board Marker continually erased and entered new figures.  My father said, "He's changing them numbers to show how the odds shift before a race.  It depends how much dough people bet on a horse.  The more they bet that he's gonna win, the more the odds go down." 

World War I

America entered World War I in April 1917 and at the end of the racing season in October my father Honest Sid decided the season had been so poor because of men going to war and the absence of horses from Europe that he might as well enlist in the Army. After receiving a modicum of training in Long Island he went to New York City on his first leave, which he decided to extend by a few days and immediately on returning to camp was court-martialed, sentenced to hard labor for one month, and clapped in the guardhouse for being AWOL. He was released a few days early because his unit, the Rainbow Division, was one of the first American divisions to be sent to France to fight.

When I asked him about the fighting (pp. 31, 32)..,

He would always side-step my entreaties. He described his first exposure to combat at Baccarat by saying, "It was pretty quiet when we got to the front. We spent more time sittin' in the dugouts playin' cards or 'readin' our shirts, which was pickin' the cooties out of our clothes, than we did fightin'". He never mentioned in this little "quiet war" the occasional massive gas attacks, when mortar shells filled with phosgene, arsenic or mustard gas rained down on the men, killing, blinding, or burning hundreds in minutes, nor did he discuss the artillery barrages which blew men and munitions into the stench-filled air.  And he never talked about the infantry raids that left pieces of bodies hanging from the miles of barbed wire stretched across the trenches on both sides.

He was in the largest trench battle of the War at Champagne but all I could get him to tell me about were the artillery barrages (p. 33): 

When we started firing it was like the Fourth of July.  What a sight. I thought I was watching a show, until all of a sudden the Krauts let loose with a shower that made our act look like the opener.  I slid into the nearest hole like it was second base and didn't see much after that because I kept my head down. It wasn't so great, kid, since I crapped in my pants." At Champagne, my father sustained a minor wound in his rear end —which, as he told me with the wryest of smiles, "Happened when I got confused on the direction of the German trenches and ran the other way."

The Mob

In the 1920s to 1940s most violent organized crime gangs were centered in New York, a large number of which were run and populated by Jews.  Among them were the cohorts and killers Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, and Champ Segal. One of the operations of Myer and Bugsy was running a group of contract killers under the sobriquet Murder, Inc.  I have written principally about Champ because my father Honest Sid was a long-time friend of his having grown up with him in New York's Jewish Harlem.

I saw something of Champ's nature one day when as a young boy my father took me to his apartment to hand over money from a betting operation. On pages 91 and 92 I wrote of the visit:

Near a window two very pretty, slender women stood silent and motionless, holding glasses in their hands.  Nearby, three smartly dressed men in pinstriped double-breasted suits were also holding glasses, but they stared at each other intently and gestured vigorously as they talked.

My father took out an envelope and handed it to Champ.  Moments after he slid the envelope into his pocket, two of the men stared to scuffle.  Almost before I realized what was happening, Champ pulled a gun out of his pocket.  He held it in the air and yelled.

"Cut de f***in' rough house! Can'tcha see, dere's a kid here"

The men backed away from one another immediately, glaring.  I had pressed myself tightly against my father's leg and stood speechless. My father put his arm round my shoulder and said, "Listen Champ, I gotta get the kid back."

After Champ's wife died he left New York and went to California.  On page 95:

He tied in with Bugsy Siegel.  In the next several years among other things he was arrested for mutiny on the high seas when he held the skipper of a treasure-seeking ship at bay with a shotgun.  And he was indicted in a Hollywood gang killing, along with Bugsy.  As he had done in New York, he managed to evade any convictions.

Vaudeville

My father, Honest Sid, was a booker in smalltime vaudeville for a short while during its heyday before the First World War. As a boy I had gotten the idea that vaudeville was off-color but when I asked him about it on pages 22-23 of Honest Sid, he replied:

"Dirty? Don't be nuts. It was cleaner than a baby's behind." His descriptions of vaudeville generally left me speechless. In the big-time there might be Gillette's Monkeys, an act that included Adam and Eve, the twin bowling monkeys. Adam would make a strike or a spare and Eve acted as the pin boy, setting up the pins and returning the ball. After each play Adam ordered a drink and got progressively more drunk as the game went on until finally he tore up the alley. "Kid, you wouldn't believe the acts I saw. Those animal ones were the craziest. Dogs that did tricks, pigs that played games, and monkeys I swear could have beat me at gin."

Booking acts for a show required skill, although the smalltime format was patterned after the bills at the Palace. As the booker, my father set the number and kinds of acts, their balance and sequence following the Palace blueprint.  It was like a fence operation, since the performers had stolen most of the acts and gags from the big time. Generally there were nine acts with one intermission. "Closing intermission" was a big act with a name star perhaps featuring the Jewish comedienne, Fanny Brice. The Marx Brothers or Will Rogers might star in the top bill following the second act after intermission. 

The finale was called the "chaser", also known as "playing to the haircuts," reflecting the last performer's view as patrons headed up the aisle. Such line-ups would have been big-time dream shows, my father dealt with pale copies."

The Horn & Hardart Automat

In my book Honest Sid I discuss the Horn & Hardart Automat - a "mechanized cafeteria" in New York City that was popular in the 1930s.  For all who went to them, especially a six-year old like myself, it was an experience to be remembered. As I wrote starting on page 80:

When we [my father, my mother, and myself] reached the street, my father said, "Listen, why don't we get a cup of coffee?  There's a Horn & Hardart's right up Broadway near 55th where we can sit down and talk."

I loved going to the Horn & Hardart's Automats.  What a joy to examine all the small compartments, especially in the section labeled "CAKES." When I finally made a choice, my father dropped a nickel into the slot and the little door would pop open.  I stood on my toes and reached in for my favorite, a chocolate glace cupcake.

Sometimes there would be a loud knock and all the open doors would suddenly snap shut.  Then the compartments spun around and a moment later spun back again, filled with cakes.  It seemed like a miracle to me.  For another nickel, coffee and milk came out of spigots in the shape of a gargoyle's head.  To me, the restaurant was almost like an arcade: you put a nickel in and got a prize.

My father and mother filled their coffee cups and we sat down at a table.  By then, after living in cramped hotel rooms, I was used to the fact almost all discussions, when they were not fights, took place in an Automat or some other cafeteria.  Even though we'd moved to roomier quarters, the habit persisted.

Thanks to a terrific capsule review of Honest Sid in the Downtown Express, I recently learned about a terrific book: Automats, Taxi Dancers and Vaudeville: Excavating Manhattan's Lost Places of Leisure by David Freeland. Anyone interested in learning more about the Automat could certainly start there.

Dream Big, Have Faith

I was raised in the Times Square area of New York City, and spent my childhood days among the likes of gangster Champ Segal and heavyweight champ Joe Louis. My new book Honest Sid follows my father through New York's growth from a gas-lit 19th century city of push-carts and family neighborhoods to the growing megalopolis of the 20th century. During his days as a professional baseball player to his adventures with some of the city's most notorious gangsters, Sid always managed to dream big and have faith in the bond of family.

The book showcases such themes as:

• The quintessential American dream of the 1930s
• An unconventional bond between father and son
• The trials and tribulations of a Depression-era New York City
• The Times Square & 8th Avenue scene during the 1930s
• An insider's look at the NYC gambling and speakeasy scene
• How a childhood of horse parlors and transient hotels can turn into a lifetime of academic achievement and scientific excellence

In forthcoming posts I will take you through my favorite scenes - and my favorite memories.  You can also follow me on twitter: @honestsid

Thanks for reading!