A Journey Round my Skull doesn’t just publish wonderful things to his blog; he also tweets about wonderful things on other people’s blogs. Today he posted a link to a blog called Dreamers Rise, whose author wrote about an extraordinary used book he owns.
It’s a slim volume about a mission in lower Manhattan near the turn of the century, and its previous owner, part of a fire-fighting company based near the mission, filled the volume’s endpapers with his recollections of the neighborhood at the time.
For example, this portion:
I vividly recall the little 13 year old Cassie Burns first noticed her one bitter winter night rationing strong tea to the grateful firemen, who soaked and chilled, drank with grateful hearts, Cassie was apple cheeked [?], rosy as the dawn, her lovely Irish dark blue eyes looked straight into yours. We called her the madonna of Cherry Hill. […] Every time a fire [illegible] in the vicinity Cassie [illegible — “mother”?] brewed a large water pail of tea and Cassie did the rest at all hours, in the snow and cold she could be seen comforting the men with her drinks that “cheers but not inebriates.”
And of the mission itself, which the author says housed his grandfather’s grocery half a century earlier:
A 3 story triangle with fire escape hanging from iron straps [in?] the rotted brick mortar of lime. Well we built a large flower box, placed it on the escape, sad to say in violation of law, but who cared. The box filled with colored asters, petunias, and geraniums bloomed all seasons, and concealed in the soil were tulip and hyacinth bulbs taken from my garden.
Which reminds me. You must read this interview with Luc Sante, and then go read Low Life.
Link.
