We came from Miami Florida to be near the Cleveland Clinic. My partners family comes from Cincinnati Ohio. They are here since 1820. His uncle and aunt, Frank and Carol Milgrim, had the famous womens clothing store Milgrims, first in downtown Cleveland in the 40′s and 50′s, then to Severence and closed in 1990 at the Pavilion Shopping Center in Beachwood. In 1933, Andrew’s great aunt Sally Milgrim designed Eleanor Roosevelt’s gown for the inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The gown remains in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution. A friend of Florenz Zeigfeld, she designed dresses for entertainers such as Ethel Merman, Pearl Bailey and Mary Pickford.
We now live in a wonderful old victorian right down the street from the Happy Dog. My partner and I are together for 32 years. Its a great palce for every age.The arts are all around us. Life is everywhere in the city of Cleveland and the Gordon Square Arts District of Detroit Shoreway is just one of the great wonders. It’s one of the truely great cities. Come on and come visit.
The black and white photographs are by the great Margaret Bourke White from her time in Cleveland.
Peace, Bruce Baumwoll
Song “Something’s Got a Hold of Me” sung by Christina Aguilera from the motion picture soundtrack Burlesque
My family history is Far Rockaway. We go back to 1915. Different parts of my family are there throughout the years. My grandmother, Eva Baumwoll, lived there in 1915 with her family, my great grandfather and great grandmother Abram and Ida Smilovitz and all their children. My mother’s father Isadore Schulkin was in the Hebrew orphanage in Far Rockaway with his sisters when my great grandmother was too ill to take care of them. My grandfather, Nathan Baumwoll and his sons lived most of his life there. He had homes on Beach 34 Street and Beach 38th Street. They owned a home on Reads Lane when my dad went to war (WWII). Our history is in this place. When people ask me “Where do you come?” it’s always Far Rockaway.
These films that were taken by my father Jack Baumwoll and my Uncles Leonard Balen and Max Schulkin. We are back in a time that does not exist any longer. Far Rockaway was a place that many families chose to live and raise their children. My Dad would take the subway in to New York City where he worked. He was a printer and he printed books, lots of them. He would always bring them home and often he would bring them for me. As I’ve written about before on my blog, I did not graduate from Far Rockaway for we left due to an event at Junior High School PS 198 where I did graduate from.
My dad Jack Baumwoll and his brother Joseph graduated from Far rockaway before World War 2. There are also cousins, more than I can remember now, that graduated there. But some of them are my dear cousins; Illana Balen, Lynn Balen, Ellis Rackoff, Carl Rackoff, Lois Rackoff and Ellen Rackoff. There are dear friends to the family and to me that graduated there also; Robert Goldberg, Barry Fischer, Alan Budman and Billy Lipton. Each one of these souls has helped me to become the man that I am and this is my tribute to them.
The film clips in this video are of my brother Ira baumwolls’ in 1967 and my cousin Lynn Balens’ graduations from 1968 memories from Far Rockaway High School.
Who would ever have imagined that this world would disappear in our lifetime and yet it has. The times have changed in so many ways. Just look and see how all the kids really look in this world. Many of these people are no longer with us. They have missed much for the world has changed in ways we could have never understand or even imagined. A phone that goes in our pocket, streaming movies thru the tv from the computer. Yet with all that we still are, we are just people living our lives and trying to take care of our families and have a good life and of course to record that we were here in some way. The young today have what they call social media. It’s a new world. I have wished for years like many of you who have contacted me that the life that we have lived, our fathers and mothers and grandparents have lived, would not be completely forgotten. This is my small attempt to leave a record. That we were here and this was our times and our lives. I hope you enjoy these films and photographs of a time and place that so many of us call home.
Peace,
Bruce Baumwoll
email: edgemere.archives@gmail.com
Acknowledgments:
I wish to thank all the people whose photographs are a part of this film and a few great web sites. Marty Nislick’s site “Rockaway Memories” is a true place for amazing stories and history. This is a site that must not be missed. And of course, the founders of all of this, Alan (Skip) Weinstock and Carol Marston were the first too make us all remember what we had with their great site “Far Rockaway Alumni Association”.
Contributing Photographs
Lou Ramas, Bob Natt, Marty Nislick, Barry Halpern, Dave Ableson, Jay Fader, Robert Cooper, Peter Sorman, Billy Lipton, Barry Fischer, Alan Budman, Skip Weinstock, Carol Marston, Robert Goldberg, Ellen and Lois Rackoff, Illana and Lynn Balen, Jack Baumwoll, Lenny Balen, Max Schulkin, Stevie S. Stevens
Songs:
“If I Ever Leave This World Alive” by Floggy Molly
“Rolling in the Deep” by Adele
To never be silent again, we are who we are. Never let your voice be taken away. It has taken me a life time to get free. From all the people who looked away when bad things were happening to me. Speak Up., Don’t be afraid. If they don’t help you, you must do it on your own. This film is for the young people who’s lives are just starting and to all the gay and lesbians souls who gave their lives so we can have better ones. And to my beloved Andrew Reach my soulmate for 32 years now. who has helped a broken soul find his way and his voice.
To never be silent again, we are who we are. Never let your voice be taken away. It has taken me a life time to get free. From all the people who looked away when bad things were happening to me. Speak Up., Don’t be afraid. If they don’t help you, you must do it on your own. This film is for the young people who’s lives are just starting and to all the gay and lesbians souls who gave their lives so we can have better ones. And to my beloved Andrew Reach my soulmate for 32 years now. who has helped a broken soul find his way and his voice.
When Andrew began doing his art out of his hospital bed, one of the ways that I inspired him to work through his severe pain was that I would say, “Someday you’re going to be in the Whitney Museum in New York.” I had put all his art on our walls in our home in Miami Shores, Fl. Little does one know what lies in their future.
This year has been filled, like many of us, with great difficulty. We were told that Andrew now has a complication to his first disease, Scheuermann’s Kyposis, which is called the Viking gene which is affecting Andrew’s left leg motor skills and muscles. With pain beyond his normal pain, which means he was beyond the pain; he was the pain. Two times this year his right leg was affected and he could not walk. With multiple shots and a tremendous amount of physical therapy, he has gotten himself back up. Living with such pain is a horrible place to be.
So Andrew and I continue with the life that we now have which is being happy for what we have and never looking back to what has been lost. The secret to life is to keep going and always to see the wonder. The magic is all around us.
We were thrilled when this article came out. Both of us laughed when we saw it. There was Christiane Paul, curator of New Digital Media from the Whitney Museum of American Art, speaking on a podcast mentioning Andrew Reach, as an example of digital art in the United States, in the same story. Life is filled with so many circles.
Peace
Bruce Baumwoll
Explore more of Andrew Reach’s art at http://www.andrewreach.com
Digital Art and Culture: A 21st-Century Paradigm Shift
Monday 26 September 2011 by: Max Eternity, Truthout | News Analysis At a time when extreme, economic austerity measures are being considered and/or enacted by a number of Western governments – Greece, Spain, Germany, the US, and elsewhere – one has to wonder why, in the UK, a collective of government agencies in England have just allocated $815,000,000 for digital art and culture. Read more…
These are the Films made by my grandfather Nathan (Nat) Baumwoll in the year 1929. The Film begins with my grandfather on the roof of the great Roxy Movie Palace in New York City in build 1927.
Nathan Baumwoll was one of the people who put the sound in the Roxy and many of the movie palaces in New Jersey and New York. He comes to the United States in 1910 met by his father my great grand father Yosef Baumwoll all coming from Warsaw Poland where the family has been since 1760. He is only13 years old and only two years later my great grandfather dies at the age of 56. It was a great loss to the family.
Nathan goes to work at an early age of 15 in 1912 on the other side of the river in New Jersey for Jacob Fabian. My grandfather would begin with Fabian as a boy who turns the film as the people watched in the Nickelodeans. As Fabian’s influence grew power and wealth he opened more theaters and he need product to fill them. He began making his own films for his Nickelodeon theaters. Nat went on to become one of Fabian’s boys, and become one of the earliest projectionists on the east coast. At the same time he would begin doing the sound for some of Fabian’s movies. My grandfather would be written about in the papers of the day comparing him to the Great Belasco.
Fabian is known as one of the great men who created the great movie houses. In the end all that was owned by him and his family but a few of the theaters went on to be bought by the young Warner Brothers boys to help create Warner Brothers Studios. On some of those very early films, my grand dad did the sound. His whole life he was a projectionists. His last 20 years were at the Columbia Movie house up in Harlem.
He made his little films on the side.
Part 1
Scenes
Nathan Baumwoll on top of the Roxy Movie Palace 1929
Joseph Baumwoll age 9 rowing boat
Joseph Baumwoll with cousin David Smiloviltz at camp
Eva Smilovitz Baumwoll & Joseph Baumwoll , Minnie & David Smilovitz
The boys of the camp with Joseph Baumwoll and David Smilovitz
The Rockaways , 1929 Mannie (Moe) Smilovitz and his sister my grandmother Evelyn (Eva )Smilovitz Baumwoll saying Hi at there family house in rockaway.
Moe Smilovitz his wife Minnie and there daughter June, Eva in the back ground.At my great grandfathers houses Abram Smilovitz in the rockaways. My father Jack Baumwoll comes in he is age 4.
I am looking for old films that were taken by Nathan Baumwoll, . He had four sisters and one brother . he would often go to see his mother Bella and his sisters in Manhattan and the Bronx, taking movies of them as early as he could. Looking for these films.
Peace
Bruce Baumwoll
email: edgemere.archives@gmail.com
“Time to Say Goodbye” sung by Andrea Bocelli & Sarah Brightman
Song ”Time to Say Goodbye” sung by Andrea Bocelli & Sara Brightman
Block’s Luncheonette: vintage postcard from the library of Les Block
Les Block remembrances:
This is a picture of my families business. sometime in the 1950′s. They had boardwalk venders selling the Drink You Eat With A Spoon.
And yes if you have ever been on a boardwalk when there was hustle and bustle the picture makes you smell the ocean and the boardwalk itself. Those were the days, no computers but I think we all had more fun interacting with one another.
What a wonderful photograph. All I know is boy do I want an Egg Cream.
Peace,
Bruce Baumwoll
email: edgemere.archives@gmail.com
These are family home movies from the collection of Max and William Schulkin, my uncles and Nathan Baumwoll my grandfather.
The big brown house is my families house on beach 38th street , Edgemere Long Island. Its still a dream to me that I was given this photo through Barbara Cooper. Her father Murray Cooper took it. Its true we can go home.
These are movies of my family when they lived on 407 Central Ave . My Uncles William Schulkin Max Schulkin And Lenny Balen ,My aunt Irene Schulkin Balen, Illana , Lynn and the baby Sandi Balen my cousins, My dear Grandmother Mollie Schulkin, And my beloved Aunt Martha Schulkin. They are on the side of the building right off central ave Far Rockaway. I also lived in this building went I when in to JH 198. My older brother Ira Baumwoll went to Far Rockaway High School and my younger brother Robert Baumwoll went to pubic school 215. My folks are Jack And Roslyn Baumwoll.
My Dad Jack Baumwoll, my brother Ira Baumwoll, My two cousins Illana And Lynn Balen, Sandi Balen. Ellen and Lois Rackoff all Graduated from Far Rockaway High I did not I went to 198 and graduated from there. The reason I did not graduate from Far Rockaway .While I was going in my 9th year at 198 .We were doing a play called Camelot. I was one of the actors to be in that show. All I can say was. One moment we were rehearsing, the cast and the two stars a young women and Billy Lipton. Billy lived on the fifth floor of our building with his family . On central ave.
When out of know where a young man came up on the stage look at all of us. Ran over and Stabbed Billy in the Chest right near his heart. What I remember is Billy looking over in my direction his eyes focused beyond us, and Began to fall down. The young man that stabbed him, look towards all of us. And then ran. Every thing was crazy the place was cleared out very fast. Billy was taken away and thank god lived after many hours of surgery. With in inchs of his heart.
I remember seeing the knife go in , him falling and the young man looking towards us. I know that I was with the police for a while. My parents came and got me. Being a very quite boy before this. Did not help me open up. I when back about a week later. Don’t remember what happen . But I could not relax. I stayed a short time. Ran out the building and got to the boardwalk and ran home. I did not go out of the house for the last three months of school. I was taken by my parents to my graduation at night and was taken away very fast. They had decided to move to Rockland County. That was when we left Far Rockaway and Edegmere.
Songs in the video:
“Everything Old is New Again” sung by Beth Fowler from the Original Broadway Cast Recording of The Boy From OZ
“Everything’s Coming Up Roses” sung by Ethel Merman from the Original Broadway Cast Recording of Gypsy
Henry Mancini’s “Sweetheart Tree” sung by Johnny Matthis
Special thanks to Carol Marston, Skip Weinstock, Marty Nelisk, They have taken us all home. They are a force, that have expanted our minds and we all can see home . Because of them .
Peace
Bruce Baumwoll
email: edgemere.archives@gmail.com
