THE FOLLOWING IS A personal letter to the author, dated 3 January, 1969, from Mr. Jeremy Marrin, 43-580 Buena Vista Drive, Arlington, Virginia.
DEAR SIR:
In reply to your letter of recent date, requesting my personal recollections and reactions to what happened in New York City last year on Labor Day weekend, please be advised that both myself and John Burlingame have made very complete statements to the New York City police anent these events, and I’m sure our statements are a matter of public record and you may consult them. However, as a matter of common courtesy (called common, no doubt, because it is so uncommon) I will pen this very short note to you as you say it is of importance to you.
John Burlingame, a chum of mine, and I planned to spend the Labor Day weekend in New York, seeing a few shows and visiting companions. We wrote to Eric Sabine, a very dear friend of ours, who occupies Apartment 2A at 535 East Seventy-third Street, hoping to spend some time with him and his very groovy circle of acquaintances. Eric wrote back that he would be out of the city for the weekend. Fire Island, I believe he said. But he put his gorgeous apartment completely at our disposal, mailed us the key, and said he would leave instructions with the doormen that we would be staying for the weekend. Naturally, we were delighted and very grateful to kind-hearted Eric.
We started out very early Saturday morning, driving up, but with one thing and another, we did not arrive until 10:30 or so, quite worn out with the trip. The traffic was simply murder. So we bought the Sunday papers and just locked ourselves in for the night. Dear Eric had left a full refrigerator (fresh salmon in aspic, no less!) and, of course, he’s got the best bar in New York—or anywhere else, for that matter. Some of his liqueurs are simply incredible. So John and I had a few drinks, soaked a while in a warm tub, and then went to bed—oh, I’d say it was 12:15, 12:30, around then. We were awake, you understand, just lying in bed and drinking and reading the papers. It was a very groovy experience.
It was about—oh, I’d say fifteen minutes after one o’clock or so, when we heard this terrible banging on the front door, and a man’s voice shouted, “Fire! Fire! Everybody out! The whole house is on fire!”
So naturally, we just leaped out of bed. We had brought pj’s, but neither of us had thought to bring robes. Fortunately, dear Eric has this groovy collection of dressing gowns, so we borrowed two of his gowns (I had this lovely thing in crimson jacquard silk), put them on, rushed into the living room, unlocked the door … and here were these two horrid men with masks over their heads. One was quite short and one quite tall. The tall one, whom I am absolutely certain was a jigaboo, said, “Let’s go. You come with us and no one get hurt.”
Well, we almost fainted, as you can well imagine. John shouted. “Don’t hurt my face, don’t hurt my face!” John is in the theater, you know—a very handsome boy. But they didn’t hurt us or even touch us. They had their hands in their pockets and I suspect they had weapons. They took us up the service stairway at the back of the building. We went into Apartment 4B where there were several other people assembled. I gathered that everyone in the building, including the doorman, had been brought there. One man was wounded and bleeding very badly from his eye. His wife, the poor thing, was weeping. But as far as I could see, no one else had been physically harmed.
We were told to make ourselves comfortable, which was a laugh as this was the most old-fashioned, campy apartment I have ever seen in my life. John said it would have made a perfect set for Arsenic and Old Lace. They told us not to scream or make any noise or attempt to resist in any way, as they merely wished to rob the apartments and not to hurt anyone. They were polite, in a way, but still you felt that if the desire came over them, they would simply slit your throat wide open.
After a while they all left except for the man who was, I’m sure, a spade. He stood by the door with his hand in his pocket, and I believe he was armed.
I’m sure you know the rest better than I can tell it. It was a very shattering experience, and in spite of the many groovy times I have had in New York, I can assure you it will be a long time before I visit Fun City again.
I do hope this may be of help to you in assembling your account of what happened, and if you’re ever down this way, do look me up.
Very cordially,
[signed] JEREMY MARRIN