Feigenbaums

Before I Met Sandy

Beginnings


In the beginning, Dec. 1, 1928, Anna Ethel Berger and Bernard Feigenbaum were married.

	And then there was Stanley. I was born at 1454 W. 8th Street in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn on Nov. 15, 1929, the third anniversary of the founding of the National Broadcasting Co. I was born at home with a midwife in attendance because my grandmother refused to allow my mother to go to a hospital because shortly before I was born, there was a mixup of babies in a hospital in Chicago.	June 1930 and already bigger than a fire engine. The family, all three of us, moved to Port Washington, Long Island, NY., I'm not sure if it was before or after I had double pneumonia, but I survived and we were there. There, at the corner of Murray and Mackey, 4 blocks from the store.	I wasn't consulted about the move, but I suspect that it had something to do with the business that dad was in, the Port Plaza Department Store, the partnership of Bernard Feigenbaum and Irving Glickstein. I was required to be nice to little Sandra Glickstein, but I couldn't stand her, a skinny annoying little kid. The store had a grand title, but it wasn't a department store. It was a 5 & 10. Eventually, there would be 8 of them on Long Island.

July 4, 1930 Coney Island	July 4, 1930 Coney Island	1931	Either we went to the beach a lot, or we took pictures only at a beach. Or, who knows, maybe there were more pictures that haven't survived. Note that everyone on the beach, including the man on the right, is wearing a top. That's because it was illegal in New York State for anybody, including men, to go topless. The law was changed in 1936 after a particularly hot summer when men refused to wear their tops. Women, now, are allowed to go topless, also, but for unknown reasons, they generally don't. Maybe they prefer the heat.

1931 and already I can ride a trike, which I do, very proudly.		Saturday, June 11, 1932, in front of the Port Plaza Department Store. This was almost the depths of the Great Depression, and, judging by the lack of traffic on Main Street, there wasn't much business to be done. Despite the hard economic times, I still had a driver and a big black town car, not a limousine, exactly, to satisfy my transportation needs, at least for the day.

June 26, 1932. Mom and I on the porch of the Mackey Ave. house. A nice quiet Sunday afternoon.	Our next door neighbor had a wolf penned up in his backyard. I don't know why - he certainly wasn't a pet. Nobody could go near him, except his owner, and then not always. When I was about 2, my mother left me on the porch and I wandered next door to play with the big 'doggie'. Someone had left the gate unlocked and I wandered in and started petting him. Mom discovered me there and called me to come home, but I was busy playing. She became very upset, especially when the wolf protected me and wouldn't let anyone near. Eventually, after dad, the police and the next door neighbor were called, I got tired of playing with the doggie and wandered home. People had some odd pets. One of our neighbors in Hicksville had a fox in his backyard.	June 12, 1932 with Bernice Reimer	Esther, Nat and Bernice must have come out for a weekend visit. The black car, probably a Chrysler, was Nat's. It was probably a major expedition to get from Brooklyn to Port Washington, and they did not do it often.