A REMINISCENCE

To a friend

    , When we spoke on the phone yesterday, I mentioned that I studied at NYU in the summers of 1965-66.  My "dorm" had been a hotel a block or 2 north of Washington Square Park.  Apparently, one resident continued to stay in the building even tho it was no longer a hotel, but a dorm.  This was a tall building, probably about 50 stories.  Yesterday, on the phone I had a "senior moment," and could not recall the man's name.  I finally remembered his name - a fellow resident in the NYU dorm when I lived there during the summer of 1965 - Dr. Otto Nathan.  The elderly lady at the reception desk was always mean to him, harassing him, "you don't belong here," etc.  He tried to ignore her as much as possible but had to go through her to ask for his mail, etc.  We had some small chats.  Dr. Nathan was the executor of Albert Einstein's will.

    Other than my 3-day visit to NY - probably in 1962 - this was my first real visit to the city.  Fantastic.  The hotel/dorm was near Greenwich Village, Wash. Square park a block away, the Militant Labor Forum, the Free U. of NY, book stores everywhere, coffee houses on Bleeker, terrific.  And I met a surprising number of folks whom I knew from Tulane U. walking in the area.  I recently read a book and realized that in that 1965 summer I missed an important lecture at the Militant Forum, as its guest speaker was Malcolm X.  His speech from that occasion is discussed in Christopher Caldwell's 2020 book, The Age of Entitlement.  In the next summer, 1966, the same forum would be filled to hear another guest speaker, me.  Malcolm did not come to hear my lecture, either.

     By the mid-70s, the book stores had disappeared, replaced mainly by liquor stores.  The Strand and a few others were the hold outs, but the trend was not good, in so many ways.  By the 1980s, street bums would walk into the 8th St (or St. Marks) Bookstore, steal a few volumes, go outside and place them on their filthy blankets on the sidewalk, and try to sell the looted material.  All part of the decline of NYC.

    By the way, I did not look up Dr. Nathan's name on google, I remembered him (of course, after our phone call).  Now I'm waiting for a spin-off on the tv show Jeopardy, "The Next Day."  Instead of answering questions within a few seconds, contestants would have 24 hours to recall the answers to the required by the game-show host.  For those older than me, another spin-off will be called "The Next Year," giving seniors a year to remember the answer.  Just joking.  By the way, I call the program Jeo-pardy.

    Hey, you may not have to pay rent any more with the new Trump/Pelosi relief law?  

    Hugh Murray