Ravage & Son by Jerome Charyn

Author:Jerome Charyn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press

EIGHT The Thirteenth Store

I.

THE SMOKING ROOM AT THE HARDWARE CLUB reminded Cahan of a military barracks; the walls had begun to peel, and the windows faced an air shaft on Murray Street. But Frank Woolworth seemed comfortable in this room; it’s where he spent his time when he first landed in Manhattan, a retailer who hadn’t made his fortune yet and was still welcomed by these hardware men, most of whom worked for him now.

The room had one large table, and on it Cahan recognized the crayoned sketch of a new five-and-ten with its signature white awning and signboard of fire engine red. He also recognized the location—311½ Grand Street, where Ridley’s department store once stood.

The president of the Jewish bank sat around the table with members of the Kehilla, toy manufacturers, several landlords, and Lionel Ravage, who must have met Woolworth years ago at the Hardware Club, and supplied the pipes, toilets, and sinks for Woolworth’s Manhattan stores.

“Gentlemen,” Woolworth said as his lieutenants hovered around him, “I can’t sit still. That’s my weakness. My competitors call it ‘Mr. Frank’s disease.’ ”

“Sir, you have no competitors,” shouted his chief lieutenant, with a crayon in his fist. “Most of ’em have climbed aboard our wagon. And the others are dead.”

“Don’t flatter me, Paul. Not in front of these men. They’ll think I’ve hired you as a carnival shill.”

There was a moment of raucous laughter around the table, but Cahan didn’t laugh. He sat like a mummy while Woolworth’s chief lieutenant shuffled about with his crayon and drew stick figures to populate a phantom five-and-ten. Cahan understood the real casualty of that equation: the Lower East Side. Woolworth was dreaming of another Ladies’ Mile.

“Now I know there’s been trouble in that neighborhood,” Woolworth said. “Every kind of vermin seems to operate around Grand—whores and pickpockets and stickup artists. But Captain Kittleberger, who is lord and master of the Lower East Side, has assured me that the problem can be solved. He’ll declare a dead line on Grand, and that street will soon be stripped of all vermin. They’ll have to run elsewhere.”

Gottesman, president of the Jewish bank, wagged his head. He must have become Woolworth’s silent partner, and it bothered Cahan. The pennies saved by the poorest Jews in the Ghetto would help finance this project, and then these Jews would find themselves without a home. Cahan listened as Marcus Mendelssohn told how the Kehilla had met with Captain Kit and promised to enforce the dead line.

“With our own bodies,” he said. And still Cahan was silent. He shouldn’t have been the last to learn about the proposed rebirth of Grand Street. He could have prepared better for this onslaught from the other side—bankers, detectives, merchants, landlords, and Captain Kittleberger.

“And I will hire salesgirls, hundreds of them, all from the Grand Street area, I promise you that,” Woolworth said, looking right at Cahan with his bullet eyes. But Cahan knew all about Woolworth’s hiring practices. The emperor was a martinet. His girls had to wear black shirtwaists during the winter months, and white all summer long.

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