Growing Up In Bucolic Harlem Before And After World War I

Frederic A. Birmingham’s 1960 memoir of New York, It Was Fun While It Lasted (J.B. Lippincott Company), describes a Harlem which few New Yorkers would recognize today.

The action takes place from approximately 1915 -1925, when Birmingham was between the ages of 4 and 14.

Many of the stories revolve around “papa” John F. Birmingham. John Birmingham was a Masonic president and an operator and eventual proprietor of a Baltimore Dairy Lunch Restaurant at 107 West 125th Street from the early 1900s until retiring just before his death at age 79 in 1950.

The Baltimore Dairy Lunch restaurants, which I had never heard of, were predecessors of fast food service during the first wave of mass consumerism. A customer would get their food at the counter and carry it to an uncomfortable one-arm lunch chair, similar to a modern high school or college seat. The idea was to purchase your inexpensive, but tasty food, eat and leave as quickly as possible. At one time Baltimore Dairy Lunch outnumbered Child’s Restaurants, another national restaurant chain.

However none of the book’s tales are about John Birmingham’s restaurant, but tell of swimming in the Hudson River, family life, religion, neighbors, automobile trips, parks, movies, neighborhood shopping and school days.

It Was Fun While It Lasted captures growing up in a small town, with the larger city eventually engulfing Harlem.

Here is a small excerpt from chapter two of the book:

There is nothing left today of the Harlem we lived in. Now, it is the Negro capital of the world. The changeover was, figuratively speaking, overnight. There was no gradual decline, no wasting away such as you see in other communities when the central impulse moves from one side of the tracks to the other. The new inhabitants just moved in and began a new way of life. But perhaps I was wrong when I said there is nothing left – there is still the vitality, the easy laughter, and an undercurrent of self-sufficiency that has typified Harlem from its beginnings.

…Once it had been a village, but now it was a small town rejoicing in its self-sufficiency. The house where I was born stood on the edge of a spine of rock which had once been the central
feature of a cow pasture, then a race-track, and finally Mount Morris Park, which is what it still is today; a small, mountainous playground bounded by 124th Street on the north, Madison Avenue on the east, a three-block interior street almost touching Lenox Avenue on the west, and 120th Street on the south.

Harlem did not lack for parks. It had larger ones than Mount Morris—St. Nicholas and Morningside, while the wild reaches of Van Cortlandt and Bronx parks were further north for the adventurous. It held the unwritten rights to the north end of Central Park, including the lake. And it was bounded on the east and west by the Harlem and Hudson rivers.

Harlem, in fact, did not lack for anything. We lived smack in the middle of one of the most bustling, well-appointed little towns anywhere in America.

It had the air of a village. It was a community of small, middle-class homes, beautifully kept, each with its yard out back, with a swing for the children, a small garden, and a tool house where the family cat slept through the long, quiet afternoons. These were the famous “brownstones,”’ veritable castles of respectability, each protected by its long flight of front steps,
leading to the doorway a full story above the street. Baltimore. may have its single, highly polished doorsteps in front of its old houses, but Harlem had its own “stoeps,” the design handed down by the Dutch, wise in the ways of keeping the important rooms in the house above the water-level of threatening floods, for was this not new Amsterdam?

The best of these houses were on 138th and 139th streets, west of Seventh Avenue, and were advertised as “distinctive as a suburban colony but with all the advantages of city life.” But the prices! Ten rooms and bath, $900 for only a year! And, for those who had absolutely no sense of shame or economy, fourteen rooms and bath, $1,000 yearly; and for sybarites, a corner house at $1,200.

But there was really no need for a family to splurge so irresponsibly in Harlem. All of its homes were clean and pleasant looking, and there was an undercurrent of feeling that the more expensive ones were somehow ungodly. Nevertheless, this never did quite keep us from tiptoeing up some of the shaded streets and looking with wide eyes on the mansion of some merchant prince or beer baron, its handsome lawns covered with sportive cast-iron animals, its own stables right on the property and possibly a “gazebo” made out of cedar logs and covered with wisteria-and honeysuckle.

There were a few apartment houses rising on Lenox, St. Nicholas and Seventh avenues, and of course on Harlem’s pride and joy—125th Street. That was the street where I was born, in one of the “fabulous” apartment houses, midway between Fifth and Lenox avenues.

We were in the heart of everything—and Harlem had everything: New York itself, even. Paris or London, could not boast of more.

We had our own Harlem Opera House which Hammerstein had opened so that Harlemites might see all the Broadway stars, who came uptown for a week’s engagement after their downtown runs. And we had our own Hurtag & Seamon burlesque shows for those lusty souls who found Charles Frohman’s offerings over at the Opera House a touch too elegant. We had Browning King for: our clothing. We had luxurious hotels—the Theresa, with its beautiful rooftop dining room, and the Balmoral,  which kept coaches in attendance at the 116th
Street “El” station for the comfort of guests making the long trip to Harlem from the City.

We had our own Harlem Board of Trade. We had Harlem Life, a “popular humorous journal for everybody, containing the best Uptown Society News published; as well as wit, wisdom, drama, literature, and Harlem Club and Amateur Sporting Notes.”

Currier and Ives have immortalized the horsy set of Harlem. You may see Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt himself whipping up his team of fast bays, “Myron Perry,” and “Daisy
Burns” along Harlem Lane (later called the Speedway), and Toppy McGuire’s Clubhouse, at the head of the Lane, was the goal of every trotting rig in the city.

And the sports were still at it when I was a boy. The Excelsior Stables, over on 124th Street and the East River, were considered the best in Manhattan, and there were others in Harlem, each specializing in its own type of steed, fiery racers or matched pairs for a Sunday trot, or peaceful old nags who would pull a sleigh through a winter’s night without any directions from the reins.

Our favorites were, of course, the fire horses. The firehouse on 125th Street near Park had a team of the biggest white Percherons in the world, ready to jump into their harness as soon as they heard the bell clang. Your heart jumped into your throat as the great engine slammed across town, the nickel-plated smokestack spewing flame as it readied the steam to produce the water pressure, the horses’ hooves drawing sparks from the cobbles at every giant stride, the magnificent driver in his high fireman’s hat half-sitting, half-standing, as he pushed the great horses to the outside limit of their speed without quite losing control of them. And under the whole gigantic contraption, holding his place on the front axle, ran the spotted Dalmatian dog, the fireman’s pal and faithful companion on every run.

But when I was a boy the horseless carriage was well on its way. It had started by frightening the horse; now it was replacing him. Not entirely—the sound of the horse, the blick-black of his shoes on the cobbles as he pulled the myriad delivery carts of Harlem, was still the dominant tone of its traffic. But Harlem, as usual ahead of the rest of Manhattan, took to the automobile as its favorite plaything.

After reading this section, I had to look up what a sybarite is – a person who loves expensive things and pleasure. What an appropriate use of a word.

In the remainder of the chapter Birmingham goes on to describe entertainment, diversions and many other facets of life in Harlem.

This is one of those books that you can easily read in one sitting as it contains only 224 pages. Though out of print, It Was Fun While It Lasted is not difficult to find for a reasonable price on abebooks.com and other used book sites.

It really is a charming book that I only have one quibble with. Birmingham relates many family escapades involving his father John, mother Louise, and older siblings John Jr. and Lisa.

Checking census, birth and obituary records there was no sister Lisa. The device of inserting a character into what is essentially a non-fiction book may make for spinning interesting stories, but blurs the entire narrative as to what may be considered reliable and accurate.

Frederic Alexander Birmingham would begin his writing career for Time magazine in the 1930s. Birmingham would have important roles in two major magazines; becoming editor in chief for Esquire magazine from 1952-1956, and later in his career, managing editor of The Saturday Evening Post. Birmingham also worked as a fashion editor for Playboy, editorial director for Cavalier, special project editor for Readers Digest Association and editorial director of Status and Diplomat magazines.

Some of Birmingham’s other books include: The Girls From Esquire (1952); Esquire Drink Book (1956) (which is his most collected book); Esquire Fashion Guide for All Occasions (1957); The Writer’s Craft (1959) ; The Ivy League Today (1961); The Complete Cook Book For Men (1961); How To Succeed At Touch Football (1962); The Wedding Book : A Complete His & Her Guide co-authored with his wife Frances (1964); and The Saturday Evening Post Family Cookbook (1975).

Frederic Birmingham died August 29, 1982 three months shy of his 71st birthday. His wife Frances died December 1, 1994 at the age of 79. They had no children.