My
first encounter with the Pelham Parkway neighborhood took place in my
mid-teens, around 1970, when my grandparents moved to a building at Lydig and
Wallace. Most of the Jews in the Bronx
were moving to Co-op City or the suburbs, but Pelham Parkway was very
likely the last of the old-fashioned Jewish immigrant neighborhoods in the
borough.
By
that time, most of the residents were seniors, but you still had a good number
of families and a few young single people. Jewish refugees from what was still
the Soviet Union were also moving in.
The
area was characterized by huge 1920s apartment houses with courtyards and a few
private houses here and there. The main shopping streets, White Plains Road and
Lydig Avenue, had many old-fashioned stores that warmed the heart of my parents
and others in the older generation – a bakery where one could buy
black-and-white cookies and hamentaschen, the Zion Kosher Delicatessen; and a
dairy restaurant that served blintzes and noodles-and-cheese. White Plains Road
had a small musical instrument store, a big plus for aspiring young rock
musicians like me, and a tiny mom-and-pop health food store that had nothing in
common with the chains that later dominated the industry.
Pelham
Parkway itself was the area’s main attraction, a green ribbon through the
neighborhood. The parkway was anchored by the subway station, two gigantic
synagogues, and Bronx House, a big community center with a swimming pool. In
the summer, you saw hundreds of seniors on the benches.
Grandpa
died in ’76, Grandma in ’77. I thought of moving into their apartment after she
passed away, but at the time, I was working only part-time and couldn’t afford
the rent. And in my early 20s, I knew nothing about leases, rent increases, or
the fact that you couldn’t just move into a relative’s apartment as if you
owned the place.
After
that, however, I still found myself in the area a few times a year. My visits
increased after 1980, when I met Mike Tannenbaum, a young guy my age who was an
electronic-music freak, a stereo and computer whiz, and a brilliant
science-fiction writer. He lived on Barnes Avenue with a roommate who soon
moved out.
Mike
told me that one of the other tenants, a woman in her 90s, was one of the
building’s original tenants from 1927. “At that time, there wasn’t much but
trees and grass around here,” he said. “She decided to move here because her
other choice, the Concourse, was only for rich people!” We had a good laugh,
since the Concourse had become very rundown by the ’80s.
Because
Mike lived in the North Bronx, he was somewhat isolated from his peers. In his
apartment, however, he was king. He had two computers when most people didn’t
even have one, two VCRs, a huge fish tank, and thousands of dollars worth of
stereo equipment. When a would-be-girlfriend rejected him, he consoled himself
by saying, “She doesn’t know a damn thing about stereo!”
Throughout
the 1980s and early ’90s, I kept visiting the Pelham Parkway area from time to
time. The neighborhood was like an old friend that didn’t change much, even
though it was becoming a little rundown around the edges. I had fights with
friends (including Mike, who became enraged when I bought a stereo without
asking for his advice), problems on the job, and breakups with girlfriends. But
Pelham Parkway was still Pelham Parkway.
After
I got married in ’94, I took fewer walks around the city. A few years later, my
wife suggested we take a trip to the Bronx Zoo. After walking around the zoo
and having a great time, we came out on the White Plains Road side. I eagerly
took her on a walk, but to my shock, Pelham Parkway was no longer Pelham
Parkway.
On
Lydig Avenue, Olinsky’s supermarket and Carvel were gone. Several Albanian
social clubs, food stores, real estate offices and coffee shops had moved in.
While I have nothing against Albanians, it made me sad to realize that people
like myself, the grandson of Russian-Jewish immigrants, were now a small
minority.
Walking
over to White Plains Road, I found it dominated by big 99-cent stores with
displays spilling onto the sidewalk and generic chain stores. The diner on the
north side of the parkway had become a Dunkin’ Donuts, and the Six Brothers
diner where Grandpa used to take the family was gone. The tiny health-food
store had disappeared, and although there was a GNC on the street, it wasn’t
the same.
We
eventually found a small coffee shop with wooden tables and a limited menu.
Most of the customers were shabbily-dressed older people who had been sitting
there for hours, talking to each other and watching the overhead TV set. You
could tell this was the highlight of their day. We vowed that the next time we
went to the zoo, we would leave on the side nearer to Arthur Avenue, which had
many good Italian restaurants.
Today,
I have a more balanced view of Pelham Parkway. The neighborhood as it once
existed failed to hold most of its children and grandchildren – possibly
because it was so far from Manhattan. Mike Tannenbaum had confidently predicted
that the parkway itself would make the neighborhood “hip” in the same way
Prospect Park spurred gentrification in Park Slope. He was wrong.
Today’s
Pelham Parkway, rather than being the province of one ethnic group, as it was
in the old days, is extremely diverse. You see Albanians, Russian Jews,
Pakistanis, Latinos, Arabs and even one or two Hasidim. Many, if not most, are
immigrants, just as most of the people who originally moved into the
neighborhood in the 1920s were immigrants. The people are busy living their
lives, having their dreams. They’re making their own memories, which will be as
important to them as my memories of smoking grass with Mike Tannenbaum, while
listening to The Who, Yes or Kraftwerk, are to me.
It’s
no longer my Pelham Parkway, but it’s still Pelham Parkway. And the next time
we go to the zoo – I’m sorry, but we’ll still opt for those Arthur Avenue
Italian restaurants!
