Greenpoint Tales

I came to New York in 1981 on the Batory ship, and there I found out that there was a neighborhood like Greenpoint. I've never heard of it before. My father gave me a hundred dollars for the trip, so I thought that at the beginning, we would rent a room in a nice Polish hotel.

After college, I went to work in the U.K. When I returned to New York, huge skyscrapers were already on the eastern river, and old residents had moved out of Greenpoint. Huge trucks raced through the quiet streets. Franklin Street, where I grew up and played in front of my house, turned into a thoroughfare.

Greenpoint it’s one of those places where the lady in the bakery recognizes you. When I walk through the park, the mothers of my daughter's friends, who are sitting on the benches beckon you for a cigarette. I can't imagine living in Manhattan, where you leave the apartment and enter the street, where crowds of tourists roam.

I was born in 1947 in Sarzyna near Leżajsk, Poland. There were eight siblings in my family. Others cut the corn with sickles when my father had horse-drawn machines. The director of the cooperative was coming to admire them.

When I was little, I had to read aloud from a Polish newspaper after dinner. It was a pain for me, little one. When I tried to speak English with my dad, my dad said he didn't understand me. He lied as I heard him talking in the store. But my dad wanted me always to remember the Polish language.

America overwhelmed me because I couldn’t get into the subway. I had to learn how to buy a ticket, how to get through the gate, where to get on, and where to get off. It’s not easy in Brooklyn or Queens. Especially if you don’t speak English.

We ran a deli at 725 Manhattan Avenue for twenty-five years. Someone has said there are two great moments for a shop owner – when he buys and sells it. The latter was better for me.