By Bobby González
Remember when New York City once teemed with what were called Mom and Pop stores? They are now almost an extinct species. Like the cop walking the beat, the local movie theater, or the neighborhood numbers runner, Mom and Pop business enterprises are on their way out. No one’s to blame. Life is about change. And we all have to adjust to the turning of the world.
I am proud to say that my family had one of those Mom and Pop stores. For thirty years, my family owned and operated a bodega on the corner of 154th Street and Courtlandt Avenue, across the street from the Melrose Housing Project. They worked in that bodega for thirty years. Seven days a week. At least fourteen hours a day. In the heart of the South Bronx
How did the phenomenon of the bodega begin? Well, until and during the Second World War, there were Jewish, German and Italian delicatessens all over the city. Sometimes they were passed down from one generation to the next. Often, the children went on to college and became professionals, leaving the family business behind.
After World War II, the demographics in New York City, especially in the Bronx, were transformed dramatically. Almost overnight, a huge wave of migrants from Puerto Rico came here. Important point. Puerto Ricans are migrants. Not immigrants. We are migrants because we are born United States citizens.
Like every other previous group of newcomers, Puerto Ricans had challenges to overcome. My father came here with almost no money, absolutely no knowledge of the English language and a second-grade education. My mother was in almost the same situation, but she at least had a sixth-grade education.
Yes, they had a minimum of formal education. Yet, despite the obstacles, they put all three of us, my two brothers and I, through college. Mami and Papi had almost no schooling. But they had a Ph. D. in love.
In 1948 my father got a job in a restaurant in the West Village in lower Manhattan. The place was called the Twin Brothers Restaurant on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Waverly Place. He labored as a short-order cook and a counter man. After twenty-five years on the job he retired with a pension. Thank God for union contracts!
It was now 1973, and he decided to invest a big chunk of his life savings into a bodega. It was run by Mom and Pop and my two brothers. I was a traveling man so I helped out from time to time through the years.
One of my favorite pastimes in the bodega was sitting down with and listening to the old timers who spun wonderful tales about how it was on Courtlandt Avenue in “the good old days.” Courtlandt Avenue, I was told, used to be called Dutch Broadway. Not because any Dutch people lived there. Back in their era, many German immigrants lived on Courtlandt Avenue. The Germans came from “Deutschland,” and the non-Germans, therefore, called them Dutch.
My father would tell his own tall tales about Puerto Rico. He claimed that his grandfather Don Segundo never worked a day in his life and was proud of the fact. He made his living from gambling. He and his wife, my great-grandmother, lived a couple of miles outside of a small town called Juncos. Every day, my great-grandfather would stroll to town and look for a card at the local cantina. On one occasion he was caught cheating. The offended party whipped out his machete and cut my great –grandfather across the belly from one end to the other. No problem. He got up, holding his belly together, and walked all the way back home. Upon his arrival, his wife sewed his stomach back together. My great –great grandfather then laid down in his hammock and rested for the three days. On the fourth day he got up and walked the two miles back to town to look for another card game. They don’t make them like that anymore.
Mom was the heart of the family. And she was the heart of the bodega. Her job was to keep an eye out for any wise guy trying to sneak a pack of Hostess Twinkies into his pocket without paying. Mom used to say , “Don’t look at the smiles on their faces, keep your eyes on their hands.”
Mom was everybody’s Mami at the bodega. People, both children and grown folks, came to her with their personal problems. A woman with an unfaithful husband. A teenage girl wanting to drop out of high school in order to get a job to help out the family’s finances. A man feeling despondent because he had come to this country but had to leave behind his parents, wife, and children. My Mami listened closely to their stories and offered comfort and maternal advice.
I told you that the bodega was located across the street from the Melrose Housing Project. My folks had moved to that project in 1952. So, we got to know at least two or more generations of a number of families in the project.
Fast forward to when we got the bodega. One day I observed a young man, who I knew, standing on the corner near the front of the store. He was up to no good standing there. It was obvious that he was, let’s say, conducting a shady business. I stepped toward and asked him kindly and softly to take his nefarious undertakings down the block.
He laughed at me and said, “What are you gonna do? Call the cops? I’m not afraid of any police. Ha!”
I got tough. I said, “No, I’m not going to call the cops. I’m going to call you mother. No, I’m telling your grandmother. Better yet, I’m a tell your great-grandmother Miss Betty.”
That young man was gone in a cloud of dust. He wasn’t afraid of a big, burly cop, but the threat of Miss Betty, his great-grandmother, rolling up her sleeves, ready to whip his behind, put the fear of God into him.
One evening in July of 1977 New York City was hit by a blackout. We were in trouble. No electricity for the refrigerators. All the milk, ice cream and meats and cheeses would be lost. What one of my brothers did was to turn his car around, train the lights on our storefront and provide illumination so we could conduct business.. We stayed open most of the night selling candles, matches, flashlights, batteries and other emergency items.
Meanwhile, the rest of the city was going crazy and some individuals took unfair advantage. The next morning a big panel truck pulled up outside the store. The driver jumped out and asked us if there was anyone interested in purchasing a grand piano. Hmm.
The bodega was in a poor neighborhood. That meant that by the cash register was one of those black and white composition note books where we recorded the accounts due. Many of our clientele lived day-to-day, from hand-to-mouth. Therefore, very often their purchases were ‘on the cuff.’ We gave credit to those who were struggling, and there were many. I don’t know where that composition book is today. There are still many unpaid accounts in that book. But that’s okay. Mom and Pop taught us we were put on this earth not to take care of ourselves but to look out for each other.
My mother and father were married for fifty-four years. On my right hand I wear my father’s wedding ring. The inevitable happened. My mother suffered a severe heart attack and passed away. Papi lasted one month. He couldn’t live without her and left us, too.
One thing I forgot to mention. Toward the end my brothers and I were ready to give up the bodega. The fact is we kept it open mostly to keep my father alive. He had worked non-stop almost every day since the age of ten. And soon after he died, we sold the bodega, closed down the gates, walked away, and we never looked back.
Nevertheless, the memories live on forever in our hearts.
Copyright © 2012 by Bobby González.
