12,673. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,005

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,005

(eighth, never 8th)

The stretch of Eighth Street I was

at, I learned, had a pretty storied

history, though you'd never know it

from seeing it, then. It had become

known mainly as a street of shoes,

meaning stores for shoes and boots.

Imported leathers, Italian and French

brands. Bleecker Street, just a little

ways off, had the actual cobblers 

and sandalmakers and shoe guys

who made things; this was just a

street of stores. Lots of windows,

with shoe displays. It had once

a some famed watering holes, 

the Jumble Shop, Madame 

Rienzi's, or some such name, 
tea shops, odd little cafes,
all big time stuff in the 

1920's and 1930's, but it was 

gone by my time. There was

a pretty famed fleabag hotel

right across the street from the

Studio School. Hendrix and those

guys used to live there some.

Before the big time, which was

still a year or two off for them. 

By 1968, the street was a ghost.

Just a wreck of its own self,

except for the really nice 

bookstore, Wilentz's, which

moved across the street once

too, changing its location. All

the usual, Ginsberg and Dylan

early stuff you read about 

happened there. The rest of it,

by '67, was tourist crud. Orange

Julius, hot dogs, cheap jewelers,

etc. All the rest, as I said, was

shoes. The Wilentz kid, Sean, who
grew up there, in those years, is
now a big-wig Princeton University
History professor and a writer of 
numerous nice books, even one with
Dylan and those guys, touching on
Eighth Street too. There's a bunch of 
Wilentz  people in NJ as well -  now

in Woodbridge, but the firm itself

was in downtown Perth Amboy

back then. I never knew if they

were related or if there was a

connection. It all goes back to the 
Lindberg kidnapping trial days, in 
Flemington. The father of the
Perth Amboy crowd was the lead
attorney for the Lindbergh side, 
against  Hauptmann.When I was

with, later, NJ Appellate Printing,

on Main Street, Woodbridge, I

often when to the Amboy 

location with finished legal 

printing, briefs and transcripts 

on appeal, etc. A 'Brief' is just

what it says  -  on an appeal of

a verdict and a request for a new

trial, or a review, an attorney

writes a 'brief' summation, say

24 pages, in a very structured

format, which outlines the claims

and objections and reasoning for

the appeal, and the disclosure of

what cited precedents and old

cases, and the approach to be 

taken, that the appealing attorneys

have planned. A judge, or judges,

review all this and grant the

appeal, or deny it. We usually

made, in booklet form, 6x9

inches maybe, a printed and

bound booklet. Some went to

attorneys offices, and also I'd

have to deliver, and have docketed,

time-dated and stamped, 8 copies

to the Appeals Court offices, for

the judges' review. Some were

to Trenton; other cases were

Newark, or Philadelphia (lots),

and NYC. That's how I first got

exposed to the charms of Philly

too. I'd race down there, get the

job done, and then hang around

forever, looking at bookshops

or just walking around. I'd always

blame 'heavy traffic and delays,'

for my taking so long. I always

got away with it. If I got tickets,

and I did, I just turned them in

when I returned, and the owner

had connections for getting them

all cancelled or done away with.

I never got points or fines.

-

There were plenty of cool streets

in Philadelphia too. Some on the

same 'slummy' par with Eighth

St. in NYC. Others were way

classy. The Rittenhouse area 

was about my favorite. City Hall

was great too  -  they had William 

Penn way up high atop it, a big

statue, and nothing in the city

was ever supposed to go higher

than that. That idea is all over

now, and tall buildings are all

around it. Philly too had its

(has its) own Washington Square;

It was very charming, and old;

with headquarters for a few 

farming magazines there, and

some big publisher too. I forget 

the name. Parking was easy,

free mostly, the streets were

old, small, quaint; everything

was really historic, in Old Town,

or down by the old Delaware River

waterfront. It's all different now.

Fancied and built up. South Street's

a riot  -  of noise, color, booze,

horses and wagons and people.

I always just wanted to stay

in Philadelphia and never leave.

Just to live there  -  there were

any number of art schools too,

and grand old places. Everything

radiated, in four directions, out

from City Hall, which was the

dead center of town. Market, 

Broad, Locust, all those 

big streets.

-

The really cool thing, back then,

but it too is all gone now, was that,

at City Hall, there was a large grassy

plaza and on it were arrayed wooden,

green, shed-type lean-to type things,

all filled with books, when open. It

was an open-air, stroll-through

book market. Outside of the old

4th Ave., NYC Book Row, it was 

the grandest array of old and dusty

estate books and old libraries, from

rich, dead people whose houses

were being broken up and whose

possessions were being sold off.

Greatest stuff ever, for book people;

it wasn't in any way the kind of

eye-catching, colorful, loud and

fluff-sort of books one sees now

everywhere. These were weird 

and obscure things, dark bindings, 

pressed gold titles maybe, from 

the era of maybe 1880  -  1930 

or so. Really old classics, and

letterpress, most often   -  Robert

Louis Stevenson, Tennyson poetry,

Pre-Raphaelite writings, Moby

Dick, and all the rest. The entire

old world range of what once made

up a gentleman's home library.

It's all long gone now; paved.

Benches. Parking. I really searched,

one day about 10 years ago, for

any remnant of this, feeling maybe

I'd dreamed all this up. I even went

into the Antheneum Society Library,

and asked to eldest worker there

if he remembered anything of what

I described. No dice. So, I went 

back to what I remembered, and

did finally find !!!!  one little

plaque and image attesting to

'the site of the famed old 

Philadelphia Book Market.'

I was pleased. I do have photos

here too, but it'll ll have to wait

until I find them.  
-
I was always juggling NYC and
Philadelphia, for a while trying
to figure which one I'd rather
stay at. move to. New York was
all the charcoal and smoke stuff -
in your face attitude, yet with a
knowledge of the old, elusive past
that still hung around like a bad
odor. Philadelphia, just as old,
and older, had an entirely different
approach to a lot of the same stuff.
But there a form of 'gentility' took
center stage. Wealth and propriety 
still a presence. people weren't as
rude, though maybe not as sharp
either. it was a slower, wetter,
more 'Pennsylvania' feel. in
any case and whatever it was, I 
could distinguish it immediately;
like the same old America, but
two different stories. Or the
same story, told two different
ways. One or the other went.
-

So, Eighth Street was my home.

No one ever wrote 8th Street, 

for some reason. It was

always Eighth.