Where I Lived (I)

From my birth in 1939 until I left for college in 1956, I lived at 539 East 9 Street in the Flatbush (now gentrified to "Kensington") section of Brooklyn. 539 was a three-story, three-family wood-frame Victorian, which my parents had acquired in 1937 for $4500 -- a depression-era fire-sale price financed by my generous "maiden aunt" Mollie. The house was larger and more splendid, I believe, than my father's modest income would otherwise have justified. At first we lived on the first floor and rented floors two and three. Much later, substantially more prosperous, we rented the first floor apartment and lived on the second and third floors in nine spacious rooms, only a couple of which mattered to me.

Most mysterious was my parents'  bedroom, which was entirely off limits to me and to my brothers Eugene and Jonathan. A forbidden zone. Absolutely taboo. I remember that one time I played some sort of racing or hiding game with one of my brothers and ventured into the room and -- horror of horrors  -- rumpled my parents' neat bedspread (the bed was always carefully made). It was as if I had robbed a bank or bitten Miss Bildersee, our formidable PS 217 principal. I was severely rebuked and made to swear that I would never commit such an outrageous transgression again. An overreaction by my parents, I knew even then.  

Nevertheless, I used to sneak into the room when the parents were absent. In one corner hung a picture of my deceased infant sister Susan. Placed on the floor under the picture, was a child-size chair of wood and rush which was venerated even more than the connubial bed. A shrine. I'm sure that the taboo against entering the room was linked to the shrine. Yet to me, the parents' bedroom was not so much holy as it was weird and strange.  

After my mother died in 1978 my father moved downstairs, abandoning shrine, bed and bedroom. When I visited as an adult, my wife and I would sometimes sleep in what had formerly been the parents' bed. That was mighty creepy and inhibiting.    

Equally important to me but much more pleasant was my father's small but intensely cultivated backyard garden. He grew roses -- hybrid teas, mostly but also a floriferous "Blaze" climber. An apple tree, not very prolific, a Bartlett pear, and a peach tree that was damaged by the hurricane of 1946 and finished off by borers. There was also a patch of perennial sweet peas, a weigela with picotee  leaves, and a fragrant mock orange. But the garden was dominated by Dad's  perfectly tended roses. 

In 1948 I was allotted a square foot of space in which I planted a single pumpkin seed. The plant transgressed its assigned borders --  which amused me no end -- and the single pumpkin that it produced was prizeworthy huge. In subsequent years, I was allowed room to plant and study the habits of old-fashioned annuals: snapdragons, marigolds, zinnias. I saved their seeds over the winter. I now grow those same plants in their modern, much-improved versions. But I don't dare to try roses; that will always be Dad's domain.    

I think my life would have been very different without the garden. 

On the whole, 539 was very good to us. After my father died, it was torn down and replaced with an undistinguished apartment house rented by families of Hasids. My very secular father would have been appalled.

Here's a picture of 539 as it appeared in 1940.  The kid's toy in front of the house probably belonged to my older brother.

Comments

[Sarah Finch]

What an interesting looking house. But why is the lawn at the front so bare? Was there some regulation that prevented your father from growing roses there too?