The Fabric of Society

How haggling holds us all together

I was running late for class last week, so I hopped in the car and drove to the closest parking lot I could find to the CUNY Journalism School, which turned out to be up on the roof of the Port Authority bus terminal. As soon as I arrived up there and saw the sky and the parked cars, I realized I’d been there before.

All of a sudden, a rush of memories washed over me. This was the same place where my grandfather parked his Cadillac that day back in 1972 when he brought me along to watch him do his rounds ordering fabric in the old garment district.

My mother’s father had one of those typical, grand, rags to riches immigrant stories. Literally. He was the oldest son of a successful fishmonger in Romania, but when the Jews were for bidden from fishing in Galatz, his father sent him to America to start a business and raise enough money to bring the rest of the family across.

So, a 14-year-old Morris Weintraub boarded a ship, got ill on the voyage across, but was allowed to recover at Ellis island until he was well enough to take care of himself. He sold rags on the Lower East Side until he had enough money for a cart, then a whole shop, bringing over relatives with the profits until all five brothers and two sisters, and their parents were in America, and “Weintraubs” had grown into a chain of nine…