Waldorf Astoria Hotel
New York City
March 1905
“Oh, my God, help me! Please help me!” screamed Stephen Morrison, his arms bound and unable to resist as the blade slowly sliced into his neck. Blood spurted out onto the assailant in the black suit as he continued screaming.
The screams awakened his wife, Helen, who looked over and saw that her husband, drenched in sweat, was obviously in the throes of a nightmare. “Stephen!” she shouted as she began shaking his shoulders, “Stephen, wake up, wake up!” After a few violent shakes, Stephen Morrison’s eyes flew open with a terrified look.
“Jesus, Stephen. You scared the daylights out of me.” Helen placed a gentle hand on his forehead.
“Sorry, it was just a nightmare.”
“Some nightmare! You screamed loud enough to wake the neighbors.”
“Yeah, well …” He watched her face in the moonlight. The darkness felt like it was closing in, obscuring her face. He reached over and turned on the light.
Helen squinted against the harsh light. Stephen expected her to complain, but she didn’t. Instead, she asked, “What was it about?”
“Same damn thing as it always is, ever since I was a teenager,” he began. “It started when I was traveling through Russia in 1888.” He told Helen about the gruesome death of his uncle that he learned about when they visited Perm. “I don’t get them nearly as often as I used to get them, but they are terrifying. It’s always a variation of the same thing. I’m sitting in a room somewhere, tied up. I haven’t a clue where. Then some bastard walks up to me and tells me to make a choice. I don’t know what the hell he is talking about; I never know what choice he wants me to make. Then he proceeds to slit my throat. Pretty delightful stuff, eh?”
“It’s horrible. It’s grotesque!” Helen whispered as she laid her head on his shoulder and began rubbing his back. “Whatever can it mean?”
He kissed her forehead. “I’m afraid it may mean that I have a screw loose,” he teased. “I really don’t think it means anything,” he added seriously. “After all, I’ve been having variations of this stupid dream for seventeen years now.” He faced her and smiled. “Well, now you know my deepest, darkest secret, Mrs. Morrison. Sorry you married me?”
“Hey, sailor, it’s going to take a heck of a lot more that an occasional nightmare to get rid of me, you know! Look around us, Lieutenant Morrison. We’re in the bridal suite at the Waldorf Astoria, and we have one full day left on our honeymoon before we leave tomorrow. The sun has just come up, and a beautiful day is beginning in New York. I’m the happiest girl in the world, married to the most wonderful, honorable man in the world. Am I sorry I married you? You must be joking, you silly guy!”
He hugged her and kissed her again. “I think you’re stuck with me, Helen Leavitt Morrison. I can’t believe that God was kind enough to me to bring you into my life. I really love you, Helen. I will thank God every day of my life that you’re mine.”
“I love you right back, Stephen. I just hate to see you so distraught by that nightmare.” She got out of bed and stretched. “Say, what would you like to do today?”
He smiled at her and replied, “Whatever you want to do. Just name it.”
“I’ll tell you what I want to do. I want to see where you grew up, where you lived when you were a young boy. Will you take me there?”
“Are you sure you want to do that? We only have today, and then it’s back to Washington.”
“Stephen, I want to learn everything about you, how you became the man that I love. Yes, I do want to see where you grew up. Please, let’s go.”
After finishing their breakfast at the hotel, Stephen announced to his bride that she was about to experience a surprising thrill. “But you promised me we were going to visit your old neighborhood," she protested.
“Oh, we’re going there,” he reassured her, “but how we get there, that’s the treat. We’re going to get there in the new underground train system that opened last year, the one that they call the subway. Can you believe it? We’re going to travel there under Manhattan!”
The hotel concierge directed the excited couple to the nearest subway station at 33rd Street and Lexington Avenue. There they saw the subway sign above a set of concrete stairs leading below street level. At the bottom of the platform, they followed the sign to the tollbooth, where Stephen purchased a few tokens, and they entered the turnstiles. Following the sign that said “Lower Manhattan, ” they walked to a train platform where numerous other people stood waiting for the train to arrive. Clinging to her husband’s arm, Helen whispered, “This is kind of creepy, isn’t it? I mean, we’re actually underground, like moles.” They looked around at the handsomely tiled walls of the station, impressed not only with the engineering concept of an underground train system, but also at the clean and pleasing appearance of the station itself. He smiled back at her as they peered over the platform and down the darkened cavern to see if they could detect a train coming.
After a few minutes, they felt a rush of air on the platform, and looking down the darkened tunnel, Stephen announced, “I see a light! This must be our train.” The tiny pinhole of a light rapidly enlarged as the train arrived, and the noise level rose dramatically as the train pulled into the station, generating a sensation of gusting wind that died down as the train slowed. After the train stopped, the electric doors on the side of the subway cars slid open, and passengers disembarked before the new passengers boarded. The Morrisons entered and sat down near the door they had entered. A subway system map covered part of the opposite wall of the car.
“Do you know where we should be going?” asked Helen.
“We’re going to start at the beginning,” answered Stephen. “We’re going to the last stop in southern Manhattan, Bowling Green Station, according to the map.”
The train continued on southward, stopping at about ten more stations along the way before arriving at Bowling Green Station. The Morrisons departed the train, followed the small crowd to the stairs, and exited the station at the southern tip of Broadway. Across the street was Battery Park, which contained several large buildings. “We’re here,” announced Stephen, as he looked across at the park.
“It looks like a fortress or something like that,” noted Helen.
“Actually, you’re quite right. You’re looking at Castle Garden, and it was built as a fort during the War of 1812. The army eventually sold it to New York City in the mid-1800s, and it became the main immigrant processing center for the state of New York. I read somewhere that over eight million people have entered the United States through Castle Garden.” He turned to Helen, smiled as he bowed formally, and added, “and that includes yours truly!” He held her hand as they crossed the street and entered the compound which had been closed for over ten years. Opened by the federal government in 1892, Ellis Island had taken over immigration processing from the states. However, the deserted buildings remained open to the public without charge.
The main hall struck them both as cold and dreary. Most of the furniture had been removed and despite this emptiness, it still exuded a feeling of crowded conditions and cold, impersonal interactions. Looking around the great hall, Helen asked, “Stephen, do you remember this place at all?”
He nodded his head. “Yes, I was about eleven years old when we came through this place.” Turning to face the doorway at the far corner, he pointed and noted, “This was where we entered the building.” They walked over to a spot near the doorway and he said, “This was where there were aisles where we waited on line. We had to get processed in and then get a cursory medical exam. They were especially vigilant for trachoma and tuberculosis, which they called the ‘Jewish disease.’ We slept on the floor for three days while we went through more screenings. When everything was completed, we were instructed to go out the door where you and I entered the building. At that point, we became residents of America.
“Come on,” he said, taking her hand. “Let’s go to the back, to the piers.” They hurriedly walked to the rear doorway and out into the light.
The bright New York sunshine provided a vivid contrast to the cold, dank building they had just left. The couple walked over to the edge of the compound to the waterfront. They stared out at New York Harbor. As they looked at the Statue of Liberty, Stephen said, “Do you have any idea of how excited I was when we first arrived in the waters of New York’s harbor, when I knew we were actually entering America?”
“It must have been thrilling for you, coming from such a horrid place like Russia,” she agreed.
“When I learned we would be immigrating to the United States, I was ecstatic.” They had walked over several yards along the waterfront when he stopped. He looked at her and said, “It was here, right here. The boat was tied up here, and this was where I took my first step in the United States. Funny, but I remember it like it was yesterday, not twenty-four years ago.” A few feet away stood a rotting bench where they sat as they continued looking out on the harbor. For several minutes neither of them spoke.
Helen suddenly asked him, “Stephen, how did it feel to be a new American? I was born in the United States and have always been a child of privilege. What was it like for you? This seems like such a cold, impersonal way to first see one’s new home.”
He continued to gaze out at the Statue of Liberty as he answered. “Helen, your father emigrated in a different era. The Jewish immigrants from Germany that preceded us were self-sufficient and had trades and professions. They were largely welcomed in this country. I later learned that, even though we were fellow Jews, the previous Jewish immigrants, mainly from Western Europe, weren’t exactly thrilled to have us join them in the United States. We represented an embarrassing burden to them.”
He paused a few seconds, deep in thought, as he remembered. “When I first learned we would be immigrating to the United States, I was absolutely thrilled. I hated Odessa, I hated Russia, and I was delighted that I was going to become an American. As I told you, my father was a prominent rabbi in Odessa. He had actually been recruited by several of the immigrant Jewish groups in New York to serve as a de-facto ‘Chief Rabbi’, hopefully to organize the Russian Jewish community. He was an honored, important man in our community circle.
“You see, my father and I were two totally different people. His vision of being an American was to continue the old ways in America and live a life isolated from the outside, non-Jewish world. I couldn’t have disagreed with him more. Hell, we could have stayed in Russia for that kind of life. I’ve always wanted more — I wanted to become an American, to blend in with my Russian background, not to isolate myself because of it. I always wanted to belong, not to be an outsider. My father could never understand that. We frequently quarreled over my future. Did I tell you that he wanted me to become a rabbi?”
Helen looked at him incredulously. “I’m sorry, but I can’t picture you as a rabbi, darling.”
“That makes two of us!” He laughed at the thought. “I knew from the time I was a little boy that I wanted to travel and see the world. I used to watch them build the Brooklyn Bridge, dreaming that one day I would be sailing in one of the many ships I saw sail by me. God, how that infuriated my father! He always said that I needed to stay with my own people and that even though this was America, people would always hate the Jews. I think it would be a slight understatement to say that my father was opposed to my dream of a career in the navy.”
“Did you hate him for it?”
“No, not really. I resented him for the way he looked at being an American. He felt that people would hate him because he was Jewish, and he chose to isolate himself from the anti-Semitism by hiding in his community. I refused to live that way. I wanted to become an American, and if people chose to hate me because I was a Jew, fine. I wouldn’t be hiding in a Jewish ghetto. I'd compete and beat them at their own game, so to speak.”
He sighed before continuing. “You know Helen, my father was not exactly wrong in what he was trying to tell me. I think in his way he was trying to protect me. He was right in many ways. The streets here aren’t really paved with gold. Even though this is America, a nation of immigrants, and Lady Liberty welcomes us with open arms, there is still much anti-Semitism here, even if it’s not sanctioned by the government as it is in Russia.
“I remember as we walked out the door of Castle Garden and into Battery Park, there were many carts with people talking in all languages, yelling at us. We were new immigrants and we didn’t speak a word of English at that point. One of the carts had a sign in Russian that said ‘Rubles converted to dollars’. Father had been given rubles by the community in Odessa to help us get started with our life in America, so we went up to the cart, and they gladly exchanged all our rubles for dollars. They laughed as they gave us our money. We, of course, didn’t understand the English that they spoke, and shortly thereafter, we learned that they had given us counterfeit money. I learned English pretty rapidly after that. I remembered the words that those money changers said to us as we walked away from their cart. They called out, “Welcome to America, you stupid fucking kikes!”
“That’s just so terrible! That was your welcome to America? It’s absolutely disgusting that people would take advantage of others that way!” The more Helen learned about her husband’s past, the more she began to understand why he had such serious eyes, as she called them. He had a dark, angry part of him that he kept repressed, deep inside of him. She laid her head on his shoulder, and nestled in the crook of his arm. “Does it hurt you to talk of these things, to relive them like this?” she asked.
“No, not really. These are the bits and pieces of my life that made me who I am today. Darling, you wanted to see these places, and I’m willing to show them to you. Maybe in the end you’ll have a better understanding of the man you married.”
After a half hour of cuddling in his arms as they stared out onto the harbor, Helen asked, “Can we go now, Stephen? Take me to your old neighborhood. I want to learn more about you. You see, it gives me more reasons to love you. Even more than I already do!”
The couple entered the subway station and rode it to the City Hall Station. As they exited the station and headed east, Helen could see the Brooklyn Bridge looming several blocks ahead.
“Did you live this close to the bridge?” she asked.
“No, but I spent a lot of time here as a child. I was fascinated by the bridge, and I spent the first two years of my life in this country watching them finish it. There’s something I want to show you.” As they walked along the underside of the Manhattan tower of the bridge, they crossed over, and several blocks north of the bridge, Morrison led his wife onto the waterside park area where he had spent so many days as a youth. They sat down on the grass right next to the waterfront.
“Here it is, Helen, the very spot I used to visit. I’d watch the workers on the bridge and, more importantly, I’d watch the ships sail by me. Oh, how I used to dream and pray that one day I would be on one of the ships. That’s how I first got the idea to become an officer in the navy. I believe I’ve already told you how that made my father feel!
“This is also where I learned how to fight. It wasn’t unusual for the goyim to attack me when they saw me here. In retrospect, I suppose it was pretty stupid, an orthodox Jewish boy all by himself and somewhat out of his neighborhood. But I always felt it was my right to be here, and the river always had a magical effect on me. I was willing to fight for that right. Unfortunately, fighting occurred fairly frequently.”
“That is so horrible, Stephen!”
“It’s not that horrible. It taught me some good lessons about the person I wanted to be. I watched our people be treated like dirt in Russia, and even though I was only a boy when we came to this country, I had already decided that I wasn’t going to stand for the mistreatment and humiliation anymore. I was tired of being a Jewish punching bag. So many in our neighborhood acted as if they were back in the shtetl; America was just a continuation of their second-class life in Russia. I was one Jew who wasn’t going to sit back and turn the other cheek. I was going to become an American and on my terms. My God, Helen, I got so sick of seeing weak, passive Jews. I was determined that I wasn't going to be one of them."
“Besides, in a way, all of the fighting was the best thing that happened to me. It’s how I met my brother, Joseph. Look here,” he said as he stood and took her hand. He pointed over to a weathered plaque on the ground near them on a low granite pedestal. Walking over to it, Helen saw the bronze plaque that had turned green with age. She read the inscription dedicated to the memory of the people who died on the New York and Brooklyn Bridge on May 31, 1883.
“What is this about, darling?” she asked. Stephen explained the terrible story of the people being crushed to death on the bridge a week after it opened. “You see,” he said proudly, “I rescued Joseph that day from being trampled to death. I know this will seem strange to you, but he was one of the tormentors who used to attack me on a regular basis.” Noting the astonished look on his wife’s face, he said, “I’ll explain it to you while we walk back to the subway station. It takes a while to tell this story and to do it justice.”
The Morrisons strolled back to the City Hall Station and rode the subway two stops further north, exiting at the Canal Street Station. Climbing the station stairs to the street level provided a bit of a jolt for Morrison. He felt that he had almost stepped back into time. He had not been in his old neighborhood in over twenty years. Seeing the tenements immediately brought back memories he had long since repressed. Almost to himself he muttered, “This seems like a lifetime ago.” They continued east on Canal Street, heading toward the river.
Pushcarts laden with different foods, clothing, and dry goods lined the street, which seemed alive with people hawking their wares. Morrison could discern Yiddish, Hebrew, and Russian being spoken. To his surprise, he also heard a lot of English being spoken. Trash lined the streets. He saw a striking difference from two decades ago.
“In those days, all you saw in the neighborhood were orthodox Jews in frock coats and broad-brimmed hats. Now it looks as if many people are dressed like, well, like Americans. My father never would have approved.” As they strolled down the streets, heads turned, and people gazed at them. The well-dressed Morrisons gave off an air of money and sophistication. Stephen could swear he heard a few people mumble goyim as they walked by.
Occasionally, a beggar stopped them with outstretched hands. Helen would reach into her purse and give the poor soul a quarter. The beggar expressed appreciation in excited Yiddish. Stephen could sense that his wife felt uneasy being around the poverty that she had never experienced. “It’s hard for me to believe that you grew up here,” she said. “Believe me,” he replied, “I’ve known worse. I spent my first decade in Tsarist Russia,” he reminded her. Soon they reached the corner of Ludlow Street. “We turn here, Helen,” he instructed. “We're almost there.”
Walking north on Ludlow Street, Stephen stopped in front of the third building. “Here it is,” he announced, “Six Ludlow Street. We lived in this building in a small apartment on the first floor.” Helen gazed up at the six-story tenement. The dreary, dingy-looking building looked identical to the other buildings that lined Ludlow Street. The Morrisons noted that many people were walking north on Ludlow, and a crowd had begun to form at the far corner of Ludlow and Grand Street.
A young boy sat on the stoop of the building, watching the crowds forming down the street. His clothes were frayed and old, but he wasn’t dressed in clothing from the old country. On his head he wore a cap, not a traditional Jewish yarmulke. Stephen asked him, “What is going on up the street?” as he pointed to all the people walking north.
The boy looked suspiciously at the strange couple and answered in accented English, “He died last night.”
“Who died?” asked Helen.
“De Rabbi! Rabbi Skolnik, he’s de Chief Rabbi. Dey be carrying him to the cemetery to bury him now. All de people come to watch him go to God. He a great man!”
The Morrisons watched the crowds beginning to line the edge of Grand Street. It brought back an eerie feeling for Stephen, recalling how he had missed his own father’s funeral so many years before. Now another Chief Rabbi was being laid to rest. “Come on, Helen,” he said taking her hand, “let’s watch the procession.” They followed the crowd to the end of Ludlow Street and stood among the throngs that had assembled along Grand Street. Gazing westward, they could see the procession coming up the street.
The funeral procession consisted of a mass of people following the coffin of the late Chief Rabbi who was being carried by several pallbearers. The crowd swelled as the procession wound through the streets of the Lower East Side, passing every synagogue along the way. By the time they had reached Grand Street, over twenty thousand marchers followed the coffin, almost all of them orthodox Jews. The Morrisons could hear chanting in Hebrew in honor of the departed leader of the Jewish community. All along the route, people had gathered along the streets. Many watched from the windows of the upper floors of the tenements and factories that lined their route.
Several factories lined Grand Street on both sides as it intersected with Ludlow Street. Just east of the intersection stood a five-story building that housed a furniture manufacturing company named L. Jones and Company. As in the other buildings lining the route, workers in the upper floors watched the curious procession as the crowds began to walk past. Most of the factory workers at L. Jones and Company were Irish and watched with disdain as the crowds marched past.
Suddenly, a wrench, thrown by one of the workers, flew out of a second-floor window and hit one of the marchers in the head. Immediately, several bottles rained down on the marchers in the street. As the Jews stopped, stunned by the violent act of disrespect shown toward them and the late Chief Rabbi, the workers packing the windows of the upper floors of the factory began laughing and jeering at the crowd below them. Barely able to see this activity from their vantage point on the densely crowded street, Morrison began to feel a sense of rage. “Nothing ever changes here,” he said to Helen, “not from the disgusting treatment of the Jews, to their lambs-to-the-slaughter passive acceptance of this kind of treatment! It makes me furious!” In a moment, however, even Stephen Morrison would be amazed by what he witnessed.
The pallbearers respectfully placed the rabbi’s coffin on the ground and suddenly turned toward the factory and charged through the front doors. Immediately, the massive crowd stopped and picked up bricks, cans, and scattered debris from the street and hurled them at the windows of the factory. Hundreds followed the pallbearers through the front door as factory workers struggled unsuccessfully to close the doors. Inside, the Jews charged the workers they encountered, and the surprised factory employees realized that they had provoked a bloody confrontation that they hadn’t counted on. All around them, the Morrisons could hear the shrill sound of police whistles blowing, as policemen who had been monitoring the procession realized that a riot had developed.
Helen grabbed her husband’s arm and held it tightly. She looked up at his face and saw a smile slowly developing on his lips. Under his breath, she heard him mutter, “Well, I’ll be damned!”
She tugged at his arm now, pulling him back from the street toward Ludlow Street. “Please, Stephen, let’s go! Please don’t get involved. The police are here, and they’ll handle it. Please, darling. It’s not your fight now!”
He looked at her and saw the terrified look on her face. He wrapped his arms around her and said, “No, you’re right; it's not. Let’s head back to the subway station and go back to the Waldorf. I think we’ve seen enough today.” The couple walked south on Ludlow, away from the crowds and headed back to the subway station.
They barely spoke on the ride back to the station at 33rd Street and Lexington. Arriving at the Waldorf Astoria, Helen smiled at Stephen and said, “I think we should go to the lounge and relax a little. I certainly could use a glass of wine.”
“Your wish is my command,” he pledged as he offered his arm to her. Arm in arm, they entered the lounge and sat down.
Within a few minutes, their server brought them two glasses of wine. “Oh, this is so good!” she exclaimed as she took her first sip. Sheraised her glass and proposed a toast to her husband, proclaiming him the most interesting and most accomplished person she had ever met. He smiled and thanked her.
“No, it’s I who should be thanking you,” she countered. “Thank you so much for taking me to all these places today, Stephen. I think I understand you a lot better now.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Yes, I do. You know, when I first fell in love with you, I told Father that you were one of the most distinguished, handsomest men I had ever seen. But there was something in your eyes that I saw, something very serious and perhaps also angry. After today, I think I understand some of that anger. A part of you is filled with so much anger that I think it even scares you a bit. You know, Stephen, it’s almost as if you are a man between two worlds. The one you left behind makes you feel uncomfortable and different, yet it’s one that you can’t let go of.”
He looked at her and smiled. “Maybe you do know me a little better than I thought you possibly could. Your description of me is probably pretty accurate, although I never thought of my life that way. You’re right. I look at the orthodox Jews, and it’s almost inconceivable to me that I was one of them. I look at how they cling to their little world and almost invite the world to abuse them, and it makes me sick. Yet today was the first time I ever saw them look the aggressors in the eye and say, ‘Enough!' I was so proud of what they did to those factory workers.” He paused to finish his wine and called their server over to order another round.
“You’re probably right. I can’t let go. My father, my stepfather that is, wanted me to convert to Catholicism, and I refused, telling him I was and would always be a Jew. Although I don’t think he really understood me, not deep down inside, he respected my choices. He did give me some advice that I’ve never forgotten. He said something along the lines that I should not wear my religion as a chip on my shoulder, daring people to knock it off. Something like that. Maybe he was right. But you know what, Helen? I can’t be anything but who I am.”
She placed he hand over his. “You know what? I love you more now than I did this morning.” She leaned over and kissed him. “I’ve got me a Yankee Doodle sailor boy who happens to be Jewish and, like my father, is a man of the world, a leader. Thank you, God, for giving me this naval officer.” They raised glasses again and she chirped in, “I’ve got a great plan for our last night in New York!”
“And what might that be, Mrs. Morrison?”
“We are going back to our room. First, I’m going to bathe. Then we’re going to get dressed to the nines and have a totally elegant dinner at the fine restaurant right here at the Waldorf.”
“Sounds like a great plan to me!”
“But you haven’t heard the best part! After dinner, we’re going back to our room. And then you are going to make love to me all night,” she said to him. “And that’s a direct order!”