LOWER EAST SIDE STORY
by Daniel Reigada
Titusville, FL
The wooden blocks of New York City's Brooklyn Bridge clattered as Papa drove our family's 1931 Studebaker over the East River. In the early 1940s when I was a kid, the bridge still had a wooden roadway. Before us, the granite buildings of Manhattan's Lower East Side loomed closer and larger.
Glancing at my sister, I saw the troubled look that came to her face whenever we crossed the bridge.
"Oh, Papa!" Esther gasped. "Do we have to drive over the bridge? It sounds like it's going to fall apart."
"Don't worry," Papa reassured her in his native Spanish. "God will watch over us."
Of course, Papa was right. But each Sunday, my sister needed to confront her fears twice. That's because our family of six attended worship services at the James Slip Mission, across the river from our home in the borough of Queens. We had recently moved there from Harlem.
I was proud of Papa who immigrated from Spain, and Mama who immigrated from Puerto Rico. They worked hard to provide us children a home with a yard. Papa helped dig tunnels for New York City's subway system, while Mama worked at home caring for the family. My parents also worked hard to make sure my brothers, sister and I, learned about God and the Bible at the James Slip Mission. The weathered old building where we met, had once served as a warehouse by the docks.
The mission's founder, a white-haired Swedish immigrant named Simon Holmgren, taught by his preaching and his example. Going out into New York's rough streets, he'd invite derelicts into the mission. A bowl of soup and a cot would be provided, with a church service and sermon, offered. Some of those sermons would be about heaven and its streets of gold. To the homeless men shivering on cold concrete, that offered hope. It did the same for streetwise kids like me.
The lessons we learned at the James Slip Missionhelped us face the hardships and fears of World War II. By memorizing Bible verses, I won small awards.
A well-paid tool and die maker, Mr. Holmgren could have lived in relative luxury had he devoted himself only to his trade. He and his wife could have owned a spacious home in the suburbs. Instead, they chose to live above the mission, investing themselves in poor people and a neighborhood that smelled like the nearby Fulton Fish Market.
Trucks carried the odor as they hauled dripping loads of fish from the docks. On Sundays, I'd often see men hosing down the streets to wash away the smell.
"Fó!" (Phew!) Mama would exclaim, wincing at the stench.
But among the odors, weathered tenements and storefronts, the James Slip Mission was a haven. The boys' Sunday school class was taught by Terry McGeeney.
About twenty-years-of age and recently married, Terry easily kept up with our group of East Side rowdies. However, as the war raged on, Terry was drafted into the Army. After completing basic training he came to the Sunday school class in his uniform, giving each boy a Bible with a personal message written inside the cover. He signed mine "Terry McGeeney, by God's grace, a teacher."
Terry never returned to New York. He traded cold concrete for streets of gold.
During those years of joy and sadness, heartfelt praises were sung at the James Slip Mission. For me, one voice stood out. It belonged to Mr. Steenland, a well-to-do lumberyard owner, who helped support the mission. A British immigrant with a strong accent, Mr. Steenland would roll his "Rs" as our congregation sang, Bringing In The Sheaves.
It's likely this businessman helped Mr. Holmgren buy Christmas gifts for each of the children attending the mission.
"Oh boy! Look what I got!" I'd exclaim, running to my siblings after tearing open my brightly wrapped gift.
The small toys, games and candy we took home were treasures to us all.
Another businessman who helped the mission was the founder of the Dugan Baking Company. He provided land at Stony Brook, Long Island, on which Mr. Holmgren set up a summer camp for inner-city kids like me.
What an adventure it was for my brothers, sister and me to ride the chugging steam locomotive out to Camp Hananeel. Back then, before people traveled much, it seemed like we were on our way to the other side of the world.
At the camp chapel, Mr. Holmgren gave sermons that warmed my heart and fired my faith. However, diving into the icy waters of the Long Island Sound would chill my body and turn my lips blue. Showers after swims were hurried and cold, because hot water was a luxury available only in the dining area.
One day as we kids ate there, it disturbed me to find a worm in my corn-on the cob. With my nose wrinkled in disgust, I showed the corn to Mr. Holmgren.
"Don't worry," he said in his singsong Swedish accent. "He's dead. He can't hurt you."
All these decades later, I still chuckle when I remember that.
Recently, I traveled back to the site of the old camp. Now covered with a housing development, it's hardly recognizable. Neither is the site of the James Slip Mission, where tall apartment buildings now stand. Though the landscape has changed, the lessons I learned, remain. The Bible verses I memorized still provide comfort and inspiration.
As I look to the sky beyond those tall apartments, the voices of our congregation singing those old hymns, rings again in my aging heart. Mr. Steenland's British tones, my parents' Spanish accents and the enthusiastic voices of the children: That song has accompanied me through this life, and I believe it will welcome me into the next.
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