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Adding to the discussion on neighborhood furriers:
Don Green (61)
On the Newark furriers subject, specifically on Bergen Street, there were 2 shops I knew about. The first at 953 Bergen Street was where my family (four of us) lived in a 4 room, 1 bathroom, 2-bedroom flat (my brother and I in one and my parents in the other) above the furrier. Our landlord Ben Price was the proprietor below. He was an endless cigar smoker whose shop was OK in front but a veritable mess in the back. His brother, a dentist, had an office at the end of our narrow hallway sealed off by a door. In those days smoking was in fashion and the dental suite reeked from gagging tobacco smell.
About a block down towards Hawthorne Avenue was a chinchilla breeder displaying the creatures in his front window.
We lived between Renner and Custer. My dad's luncheonette was across the street known as Walt's by his customers. The sign only said "Luncheonette.” Don
Rita Bleckner Weisstuch (6/59)
I enjoy reading about all the Bergen Street memories. When the furriers were mentioned, no one remembered Price Furrier on Bergen near Renner. They made my first fur coat, a sheered rabbit which many years later our local department store called” beaver” when they stored it. The coat, which I bought in the fall of 1965, cost $200. It was made for me with fittings and a muslin in the same manner as a mink coat was made more than 20 years later. I live in Maryland now and no one ever wears a fur coat here. Do they wear them in NJ? Rita
Elaine Hersh Krusch (50)
The Schmerel Fur Store has or had been on Millburn Avenue for a long time. There was another furrier and they merged. Closed? Elaine
Bette Krupenin Kolodney (6/60)
To Jacqueline Kaufer Klein and Carole Ades Kaye (64), there was another furrier, Braunstein's, mid-way on Bergen Street between Lehigh and Lyons Avenues across the street from Harding Terrace. I know this because my attic apartment above the butcher shop (my residence from age 2 1/2 to 12 1/2) shared the driveway with Braunstein's Furrier. My other Bergen Street friends and I played Russia on the Braunstein brick wall and we rode our tricycles and hid in cardboard boxes on the driveway. Sadly, my Bergen Street friends passed away quite a while ago.
All my Bergen street-urchin adventures were formative for me. Those of us who lived above the Bergen Street stores had a unique Weequahic section neighborhood from the one and two-family houses on both sides of Lyons above Bergen Street. Great memories. Bette
Dan Mont (6/46)
As far as fur shops on Bergen Street go, my step-dad owned a fur shop directly across the street from the Park Theater called Cooper's Fur Shop at 1026 Bergen.
Yes, I fondly remember Hawthorne Avenue Theater as one of my first jobs was being an usher there. My salary was .40 cents an hour and I thought that that was just great. Dan
Teacher Thoughts Time:
Susan Lazar Katz (68)
I had a wacky elementary school history, like a tour of many Newark schools. After this Jewish child came home from Kindergarten at Roseville Avenue School in north Newark singing “Jesus loves me,” my parents opted to move to Renner Avenue and I went to Peshine through fifth grade. Teachers I remember are Mrs. Kitchen, the Kindergarten teacher who was especially kind to a frightened transferee. Mrs. Katz in second grade and Mrs. Fonda in third grade made school interesting, while Mrs. Moore, fourth grade, was tired of teaching and unkind. In fifth grade, to punish the class, Mr. Miller made us march up and down the stairs until we were ready to cry! I cannot imagine anything like that happening today.
Newark reworked the school districts and for sixth grade I transferred to Hawthorne Avenue School, which was no longer the Weequahic HS Annex. Does anyone remember Meyer Korbin, the sixth grade teacher? I think he was one of the finest teachers I ever had. For seventh grade, I went to Clinton Pl. Jr. High. When my parents moved across the street into yet another school district, I finished elementary school at Maple Avenue School. Each school seemed to have their own curriculum; I never did learn how to diagram a sentence.
The good part of all this movement is that I met so many wonderful classmates I wouldn’t have known otherwise! Susan
Jacqueline Kaufer Klein (66)
To Herman Rosenfeld (67), I remember Mrs. Schwartz, the music teacher at Maple Avenue School. I think she was also named Mrs. Klayman for a while. She was such a great music teacher, very delicate and diminutive. I still remember she would ceremoniously blow on her pitchpipe before every song. Mrs. Schwartz taught us so much music terminology and history. It was like a college level introductory class to music history. I learned so much about music appreciation from her.
The songs she taught are remembered so much so that I still sing them to my grandchildren! One funny marching song was "Stolla Stolla Pumpa." Another, but silly song went, "Miss Seraphina Martha Newell was thought by some to be quite cruel; she beat the eggs and whipped the cream!”
I played piano in the orchestra. One of my proudest moments was playing "Pomp and Circumstance” for the graduation processional along with the orchestra. I was so nervous, shaking like a leaf, but I put my whole heart into it. Once, Mrs. Schwartz put me on the big drum for "Alla Turca" and I was terrified I would get the rhythm wrong.
It seems like just yesterday, sitting in her class on the first floor; so wonderful!!! Thank you to dear Mrs. Schwartz and to Herman, for the memory.
I just loved reading all of the beautiful memories, every week. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if someone could make a film like "A Bronx Tale" (I think that was the nostalgic film) about the world we all remember. It would be such a poignant testament to the disappearing world we remember. Jacqueline
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