Harpo's House
179 East 93rd Street
New York, NY
1901
Harpo Age 13
(Bar Mitzvah)
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Excerpt From "Harpo Speaks"
"...Home at that time was a flat in a tenement at 179 East 93rd Street, in a small Jewish neighborhood squeezed in between the Irish to the north and the Germans to the south in Yorkville.
The tenement at 179 was the first real home I can remember. Until we moved there we had lived like gypsies, never traveling far -- in fact never out of the neighborhood -- but always moving, haunted and pursued by eviction notices, attachments, and glinty-eyed landlord's agents. The Marxes were poor, very poor. We were always hungry. And we were numerous. But thanks to the amazing spirit of my father and my mother, poverty never made any of us depressed or angry. My memory of my earliest years is vague but pleasant, full of the sound of singing and laughter, and full of people I loved.
The less food we had, it seemed, the more people we had to feed. Nobody grumbled about this. We just worked a little harder and schemed a little harder to hustle up a soup bone or a pail of sauerkraut. There were ten mouths to feed every day at 179: five boys, from Chico down to Zeppo, cousin Polly, who'd been adopted as one of us; my mother and father, and my mother's mother and father. A lot of the time my mother's sister, Aunt Hanna, was around too. And on any given night of the week, any given number of relatives from both sides of the family might turn up, unannounced but never unwelcome...
...I learned to tell time by the only timepiece available to our family, the clock on the tower of Ehret's Brewery at 93rd Street and Second Avenue, which we could see from the front window, if Grandpa hadn't pulled the shade. Grandpa, who was the last stronghold of orthodox religion in the family, often used the front room to say his prayers and study the Torah. When he did, and the shade was drawn, we had to do without the brewery clock, and time ceased to exist.
I've had, ever since then, the feeling that when the shades are pulled, or the sun goes down, or houselights dim, time stops. Perhaps that's why I've never had any trouble sleeping, and why I've always been an early riser. When the sun is out and the shade is up, the brewery clock is back in business. Time is in again, and something might be going on that I'd hate to miss...
Ehret's Brewery
...I soon learned what the main pitfall was in saving money. It wasn't temptation, or the lack of will power. It was Chico Marx. Chico could smell money. Hiding my savings at home, anywhere in the flat, was useless. Chico always found it sooner or later.
Once I thought I had him outsmarted. I sold a wagonload of junk over on the West Side, items I had selected off a moving van hitched in front of a house on 90th Street. The junk dealer gave me ten cents cash, the most I ever made on a single wagonload.
I swore that this dime would not wind up in Chico's pocket. For once I was sure it wouldn't because I had finally found the perfect hiding place. In our bedroom there was a small tear in the wallpaper, near the ceiling. Before Chico came home that night I stood on the dresser and pasted my dime to the wall under the flap of the torn paper. It was a slick job. I went to bed with a feeling of security.
Next morning when I got up there was a bigger rip in the paper than before. My dime was gone and so was Chico. Chico was the only person I ever knew who could smell money through wallpaper. Maybe he didn't have much of an ear for music, but he had a hell of a nose for currency...
...At thirteen I attained manhood, according to the Jewish faith. I was bar mitzvah -- inducted as an adult member of the synagogue. This didn't mean, however, that I would start going to shul every Saturday. The rites were performed out of deference to Grandpa, who would have been bitterly hurt if his grandsons hadn't shown this much respect for their traditional faith. It wad the least we could do.
For the occasion, Frenchie made me a black serge knee-breeches suit (pieced together of unsold "lappas") and bought me a derby hat. After the ceremony there was a reception for me at 179 with a spread of sweets, pastries and wine. This, naturally, attracted all the relatives, and it was quite a party. I received four presents. Uncle Al gave me a pair of gloves. Aunt Hanna gave me a pair of gloves. Cousin Sam gave me a pair of gloves. (In my bar mitzvah photograph I'm wearing two pairs, one over the other, and holding the third.) Minnie, bless her, gave me a genuine, one-dollar Ingersoll watch.
The inevitable happened. Three days after my bar mitzvah, my new watch was missing.
I was pretty damn sore. A present was not the same as something you hustled. I tracked down Chico to a crap game and asked him what about it. He handed me the pawn ticket. I gave the ticket to Minnie and she reclaimed the watch for me. Then a brilliant idea occurred to me. I would show Chico. I would make my watch Chico-proof, so he couldn't possibly hock it again. I removed the hands.
Now the watch was mine forever. I wound it faithfully each morning and carried it with me at all times. When I wanted to know what time it was I looked at the Ehret Brewery clock and held my watch to my ear. It ran like a charm, and it's ticking was a constant reminder that I had, for once, outsmarted Chico..."
You can purchase a copy of "Harpo Speaks" by Harpo Marx at amazon.com
Click Here For Pictures Of Harpo's House As It Is Today
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