Eleven-eleven-eleven-eleven-eleven
Today is Veterans Day.
I moved up to Rochester in October of 1966.
I had just graduated college, and was adjudged by my draft-board to be 4F, so I wasn’t going to ‘Nam.
I had to do summer-school to graduate.
At that time -1) Xerox Tower was under construction, and -2) railroads paralleled both sides of the Genesee River into downtown Rochester.
Dinosaur Barbecue was what it was originally, the Lehigh Valley Railroad Rochester passenger station.
And Main St. was lined with shops over the river, making viewing the river impossible from Main St.
MarketPlace Mall wasn’t built yet, nor was Interstate-390. In fact, Ray Hylan operated a small airport for private planes where MarketPlace Mall eventually located.
My coming here was partly escaping a difficult childhood, but mainly it was inability to move back in with my parents.
I had just spent four years in college, pretty much on my own.
My moving was a gamble. No job, no relatives, no prospects, no discernible future.
For a few weeks I lived on savings.
But my savings were running out.
So I looked for employ, and at that time good old National Clothing Company, in downtown Rochester, was hiring Christmas help.
They hired me for their stockroom, minimum wage, which at that time was $1.60 per hour.
The stockroom lasted perhaps a day or two.
I was transferred to the store’s Tailor Shop; one of about 75 employees.
My job was mainly clerical: matching up pants and suitcoats per numbered instruction tabs.
I commanded a small desk to organize those tabs.
People would purchase a suit, and pants had to be cuffed, and/or sleeves shortened.
Often the waist had to be let out, or a suitcoat significantly altered.
For that we had professional tailors — they might get called to the sales floor to mark up alterations.
The manager of the Tailor Shop was a wiry chain-smoker named “Willie Rock.” —He seemed to think I was worth having.
Most of the tailor-shop employees were immigrants.
The place had 89 bazilyun sewing machines, and pieces of cloth everywhere.
Dust abounded.
A nice lady received everything, split it up (suitcoats, vests, and pants), and then parceled out the work.
Me and two other ladies were the exit end, putting everything back together.
We’d hang everything on a pole-rack for delivery to “will-call” on each sales floor.
National had four sales floors.
The class act was the Second Floor, where expensive men’s suits were sold.
Will-Call on that floor was manned by a dapper English expatriate named “Arnold.”
The Basement was our Budget Store, run by two grizzled veterans: Maxx and Blanche.
Occasionally we got stuff from the Basement to alter, but our main source was the Second Floor.
National had three branch stores in the suburbs, at Pittsford Plaza, Southtown Plaza, and the plaza in Greece. —That plaza later became Greece Town Mall.
That stuff was denoted by red, green, and blue tabs, but altered downtown. We moved it around by truck.
I started employ at National early in November, so was on hand November 11th.
Eleven-eleven-eleven-eleven-eleven.
All of a sudden the whole Tailor Shop went silent.
November 11th, 11:11 a.m., and 11 seconds past.
The tailors all bowed their heads.
Some started crying.
Obviously some were remembering relations they had lost, probably in WWII.
A Hungarian lady named Ludmila, who had come to America with her husband Alphonse in 1956, when the Russians overran her country, bewailed the loss of a brother.
Until then I had only a minimal comprehension of what November 11th meant to some people.
• “Xerox Tower” is the tallest skyscraper in Rochester; 30 stories. It used to be Xerox’s corporate headquarters, but that was moved to Stamford, CT.
• The “Genesee River” is a fairly large river that runs south-to-north across Western New York, runs through Rochester, including over falls, and empties into Lake Ontario.
• Dinosaur Barbecue.
• “MarketPlace Mall” is a large shopping-mall south of Rochester. “Interstate-390” is the current main south-to-north interstate into Rochester.
• “Pittsford Plaza” is a plaza near Pittsford, an old suburb of Rochester to the southeast. (It’s on the Erie Canal.) “Southtown Plaza” is a plaza south of Rochester. It was quickly overshadowed by MarketPlace Mall, which is nearby. It still exists, but without its anchor-stores, which moved to MarketPlace. “Greece” is a suburb west of Rochester.
I moved up to Rochester in October of 1966.
I had just graduated college, and was adjudged by my draft-board to be 4F, so I wasn’t going to ‘Nam.
I had to do summer-school to graduate.
At that time -1) Xerox Tower was under construction, and -2) railroads paralleled both sides of the Genesee River into downtown Rochester.
Dinosaur Barbecue was what it was originally, the Lehigh Valley Railroad Rochester passenger station.
And Main St. was lined with shops over the river, making viewing the river impossible from Main St.
MarketPlace Mall wasn’t built yet, nor was Interstate-390. In fact, Ray Hylan operated a small airport for private planes where MarketPlace Mall eventually located.
My coming here was partly escaping a difficult childhood, but mainly it was inability to move back in with my parents.
I had just spent four years in college, pretty much on my own.
My moving was a gamble. No job, no relatives, no prospects, no discernible future.
For a few weeks I lived on savings.
But my savings were running out.
So I looked for employ, and at that time good old National Clothing Company, in downtown Rochester, was hiring Christmas help.
They hired me for their stockroom, minimum wage, which at that time was $1.60 per hour.
The stockroom lasted perhaps a day or two.
I was transferred to the store’s Tailor Shop; one of about 75 employees.
My job was mainly clerical: matching up pants and suitcoats per numbered instruction tabs.
I commanded a small desk to organize those tabs.
People would purchase a suit, and pants had to be cuffed, and/or sleeves shortened.
Often the waist had to be let out, or a suitcoat significantly altered.
For that we had professional tailors — they might get called to the sales floor to mark up alterations.
The manager of the Tailor Shop was a wiry chain-smoker named “Willie Rock.” —He seemed to think I was worth having.
Most of the tailor-shop employees were immigrants.
The place had 89 bazilyun sewing machines, and pieces of cloth everywhere.
Dust abounded.
A nice lady received everything, split it up (suitcoats, vests, and pants), and then parceled out the work.
Me and two other ladies were the exit end, putting everything back together.
We’d hang everything on a pole-rack for delivery to “will-call” on each sales floor.
National had four sales floors.
The class act was the Second Floor, where expensive men’s suits were sold.
Will-Call on that floor was manned by a dapper English expatriate named “Arnold.”
The Basement was our Budget Store, run by two grizzled veterans: Maxx and Blanche.
Occasionally we got stuff from the Basement to alter, but our main source was the Second Floor.
National had three branch stores in the suburbs, at Pittsford Plaza, Southtown Plaza, and the plaza in Greece. —That plaza later became Greece Town Mall.
That stuff was denoted by red, green, and blue tabs, but altered downtown. We moved it around by truck.
I started employ at National early in November, so was on hand November 11th.
Eleven-eleven-eleven-eleven-eleven.
All of a sudden the whole Tailor Shop went silent.
November 11th, 11:11 a.m., and 11 seconds past.
The tailors all bowed their heads.
Some started crying.
Obviously some were remembering relations they had lost, probably in WWII.
A Hungarian lady named Ludmila, who had come to America with her husband Alphonse in 1956, when the Russians overran her country, bewailed the loss of a brother.
Until then I had only a minimal comprehension of what November 11th meant to some people.
• “Xerox Tower” is the tallest skyscraper in Rochester; 30 stories. It used to be Xerox’s corporate headquarters, but that was moved to Stamford, CT.
• The “Genesee River” is a fairly large river that runs south-to-north across Western New York, runs through Rochester, including over falls, and empties into Lake Ontario.
• Dinosaur Barbecue.
• “MarketPlace Mall” is a large shopping-mall south of Rochester. “Interstate-390” is the current main south-to-north interstate into Rochester.
• “Pittsford Plaza” is a plaza near Pittsford, an old suburb of Rochester to the southeast. (It’s on the Erie Canal.) “Southtown Plaza” is a plaza south of Rochester. It was quickly overshadowed by MarketPlace Mall, which is nearby. It still exists, but without its anchor-stores, which moved to MarketPlace. “Greece” is a suburb west of Rochester.
posted by BobbaLew at 7:08 AM
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