Comments on: Andy Zahn Remembers the War Years (Part 2)

By: Andy Zahn

Andy Zahn — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 14:46:47 +0000

Yes, it is so sad about what was a wonderful town and now it is extremely dangerous. Every time I returned to Irvington in the 50’s & 60’s it seemed seedier but still was a good place. Olympic Park was magnificant with the food stands, the picnic tables, the games of chance, the great free band (as a kid I thought it was Sousa’s band), the free circus, all the rides & fun house & the huge swimming pool with rafts and diving boards. Springfield & Clinton, the heart of Irvington Center. Lots of great German things before and after the war. The Bund was involved in such as the Swabishier Alb and I went to a Swabisher Singer Bund in the 50’s with fantastic music. Heller’s for the BEST cold cuts like bockwurst and Freidrich’s was very good. I was a butcher boy for Paul Grimm at age 12 and he sold Freidrich’s cold cuts. At noon I could have whatever I wanted for lunch but always chose Freidrich’s liverwurst. When it came to sauerbratten and kartoffelglace my Irish mother could do better than any German restaurant. Dad made the sauerbratten.
My wife is a French Canadian and she joined the RCAF to see the world. They stationed her two blocks from her home in Montreal! She did serve in Ontario but when her enlistment was up she joined the USAF and wound up at McCord AFB where we met and married.

By: Tony Sacco

Tony Sacco — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 13:18:27 +0000

A few months later that world of paradise came to an end:

I joined the Navy
To see the sea,
And what did I see
I saw the sea.

By: Kearn Schemm

Kearn Schemm — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 13:02:39 +0000

Andy, thanks for the Irvington memories. Here are a few of mine.
Montgomery Hall in Irvington was a great German-American center, before and after the war. The Bayrische Volksbuehne had their plays there and most of the soccer clubs met there too. Great open sandwiches.
I had my first law office at the corner of Springfield Ave and Clinton Ave. One of my clients was Max Schmeling’s aunt, Irma Fuchs. I still have a clothes tree she gave me when she went into the Fritz Reuter Altenheim in Union City. Max hung his coat and hat on it while visiting his aunt in Irvington the night after he won the Heavyweight Championship.
The Turnverein had a big hall in Irvington too.
Irvington is now in sad shape, my son (who still lives in Jersey) tells me that it is more dangerous than Newark now.

By: Andy Zahn

Andy Zahn — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 12:42:07 +0000

Thanks Mr. Sacco for another great story and by the way thank you for your service! I well remember the Hindenberg and from time to time see the disaster on TV. We lived in the area of Lakehurst Naval Air Station and as recently as in the early 1960’s saw BLIMPS flying over our house, but rarely. My family has ties to the air station with one grand daughter attending the NJ School for the Performing Arts in the huge air ship hanger and one son plowing snow on the base in winter. During the war the BLIMPS were constantly on patrol up and down the coast looking for submerged subs. Navy fighters also flew along the coast and the pilots were enjoying all the beautiful girls on the beach. Many sport fishing boats were now painted battleship grey and were while fishing also looking for U-Boats and spies in rubber boats. My father was in the North Atlantic Theater during the war and while he was in the navy the Theater Commander was a Coast Guard admiral. Dad was in the admiral’s office and the admiral had his intercom turned on when dad remarked that he was going to see the Holligan Navy admiral. The admiral had dad repeat it and then had a good natured laugh.

By: Tony Sacco

Tony Sacco — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 04:44:01 +0000

Another great bit of gone-by history Mr. Zahn, thanks.

In 1937 I was playing punch ball in Floyd Street Brooklyn N.Y.
Something blocked the sun I looked up and there was this gigantic
zeppelin passing overhead. It took forever to pass from beginning to end before the sun shined again.
That evening a news barker outside on Tompkins Ave shouted “the Hindenburg German Zeppelin explodes in New Jersey. My father said”here’s two cents go down and buy the paper.”

The war was on and stepmother told me to get a job. There was a factory near Nostrand Ave. All the windows were covered with steel and the one door had no handle. I knocked, bruising my knuckles but no one answered, so I left. A few weeks later on top of that same building were twin 40 caliber anti aircraft guns being trained by the Army. I later found out it was the factory making the “northern Bomb Sights” for our bombers.

We were given ration stamps, stepmother came home and said “we’re having meat tonight.” She opened the neatly wrapped meat from the butcher, and said in her native Porto Rican language “that SOB sold me Horse meat.” The next day she came home with the real stuff.

I was lucky I was not yet seventeen and had most of the girls to myself, spin the bottle with three girls. On Coney Island I had a different girl every time riding through the ‘Tunnel Of Love’ — I was now the Casanova of the neighborhood.

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