Rory & Me, 1959
I remember the Friday after Thanksgiving when I was in kindergarten in 1959. My mother dropped Rory off at my grandparents’ place on 85th Street right after breakfast and took me with her on the 86th Street crosstown bus. She got a transfer for Fifth Avenue. I didn’t need one. I was still “little enough to ride for free, little enough to ride a knee.” At least age-wise. When I was five, Mom had a better chance at being elected Pope than keeping me on her knee once we were on a bus. We switched to the Fifth Avenue line and headed south. I watched Central Park through the window like it was a Disney movie, and Mom watched the “hoity toities” walk by the mansions on the east side of the avenue.
When we neared 34th Street, Mom pulled the cord to signal a stop, and we got off and walked towards Macy’s. I’d been shopping with Mom a bunch of times, but she usually tried her best to go solo when doing off-reservation (non-86th Street) excursions—unless she waltzed Rory and me down to Bloomingdale’s on 59th Street by carriage. A doable stroll from Yorkville with kids in tow.
But here was Mom and me for the first time alone, in the world’s biggest department store. I got nosey.
“Mom why we here, somebody’s birthday?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Aunt Barbara.”
“OK.”
I was fine with that. Barbara’s birthday was coming up in December. But after Mom bought two blouses, a skirt, a pocketbook, three powder compacts and a fancy umbrella, I started thinking about how generous Mom was being buying Barbara all these gifts, and then I started feeling guilty because I got Rory nothing for his birthday.
“You’re a good sister!”
“What?”
“You’re a good sister, buying Barbara all these great gifts.”
“No, I’m also buying gifts for Joanie and Nan.”
“Huh?
“Joanie and Nan.”
“Aren’t their birthdays are March and July?”
Mom looked at me funny. It was taking her time to figure out I smelled a rat. She recovered.
“Yes, their birthdays are far off, but since we’re here I figured I’d get it out of the way—more time for us.”
At five, that was a good enough explanation to settle me down. I thought no further about this excessive gift buying so near Christmas. To seal the deal, Mom took me to Horn and Hardart’s when we arrived back on 86th Street off the Madison Avenue bus. I ate Mac ‘n Cheese in a crock. Santa Claus was still safe in my mind.
Here are pictures I took of 34th Street yesterday. Most of what you see looked the same in 1959 when Eisenhower was still President.
Thomas Pryor has been featured on A Prairie Home Companion and This American Life, and his work has appeared in the New York Times. He curates City Stories: Stoops to Nuts, a storytelling show at the Cornelia Street Café on the second Tuesday of the month (next show March 13th). Check out his blog Yorkville: Stoops to Nuts.
