Gangs of New York, c. 1964

We don't need no stinkin' May Pole!  We're the Jets, we're famous!

Actually we were project girls --Amsterdam Houses  in New York City.  This is the section of the housing project closer to West End Ave. The top photo was taken in the playground we called The Boats and Barrels because that's what it featured for us to scamper around on, plus sliding pond and  monkey bars, without that thick padding underneath that kids get today. The bottom two pictures were taken in The Little Park, right in front of the Boats and Barrels.

We were very confused project girls. We loved "West Side Story," and we identified with the Jets. But every girl in this picture has Puerto Rican or Mexican or Cuban heritage! Our mothers all spoke Spanish at home. Huh? What can I say, I think it was the song that did it, you know "When you're a Jet you're a Jet all the way from your first cigarette to your last dyin' day." As I got older,  I saw "West Side Story" with fresh eyes and realized that more than anything else I wanted to be Anita, dancing like crazy on a tenement rooftop. Or at least Rita Moreno playing Anita.

That's me with the poor fitting spring coat and baggy pants-- as the youngest, I got the hand- me-downs from two older sisters.  (I changed to tights and Mary Janes in the last picture, with jump rope slung over my shoulder--don't mess with me, pal). My sister Maria is the tall girl with skinny jeans and ski jacket. My sister Elaine probably took this picture with her Brownie camera. Most of the girls in this picture I'm now in touch with via Facebook.

Click below to see who else is gathering around the May Pole theme...

Automobile costume, 1911

Polly's Paper Playmates: Sister Prue's Automobile Costume, March 5, 1911, The Boston Post. What an adventure that must have been, driving in those early open automobiles on dusty roads. Sister Prue was prepared.

S.H. & M. Skirt Bindings, c. 1900

A lovely advertising paper doll, the gown of which cleverly displays the item on offer: a bias velveteen skirt binding. The doll has been named "Mabel" but the dress has the name "Florence Bishop." A story lost to time.

At the rink, 1911

Polly's Paper Playmates, "Cousin Janet at the rink, " The Boston Post, Jan. 22, 1911. Note the roller skates on left, ice skates on right. One of many finds at Jayne Keller's paper doll luncheon last weekend.

Stanley's garden, 2005

This 2005 postcard was an invitation to celebrate the 100th birthday of the poet Stanley Kunitz, at Poets House, which he helped establish. I'd heard Kunitz read at the Dodge Poetry Festival, and picked up a couple of his books. Kunitz (1905-2006) was also a gardener, according to Wikipedia:

Kunitz divided his time between New York City and Provincetown, Massachusetts, for most of his life. He enjoyed gardening and maintained one of the most impressive seaside gardens in Provincetown. He was a founder of the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where he was a mainstay of the literary community, and of Poets House in Manhattan.

I'm assuming this photo of Kunitz was taken in his Provincetown garden. The photo, by Marnie Crawford Samuelson, is from his last book, "The Wild Braid: A Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden."

Here is a poem from his 1995 collection, "Passing Through." 

Touch Me

Summer is late, my heart.
Words plucked out of the air
some forty years ago
when I was wild with love
and torn almost in two
scatter like leaves this night
of whistling wind and rain.
It is my heart that's late,
it is my song that's flown.
Outdoors all afternoon
under a gunmetal sky
staking my garden down,
I kneeled to the crickets trilling
underfoot as if about
to burst from their crusty shells;
and like a child again
marveled to hear so clear
and brave a music pour
from such a small machine.
What makes the engine go?
Desire, desire, desire.
The longing for the dance
stirs in the buried life.
One season only,
                          and it's done.
So let the battered old willow
thrash against the windowpanes
and the house timbers creak.
Darling, do you remember
the man you married? Touch me,
remind me who I am.

Passing Through:
The Later Poems, New and Selected
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Free with a pair of shoes, 1880s

A.R. Hougendobler was a merchant of boots and shoes, according to the 1880 census. He lived in Columbia, Lancaster, Penn. with his wife Maggie and 9 children -- six daughters and three sons. His daughters no doubt had a full set of these paper dolls.

I won't be far from the old Hougendobler homestead this weekend. Jayne Keller's annual Morgantown luncheon is always a treat. You'll find these paper dolls on Carol Carey's sales table.

Clark's Thread Works, Newark, N.J. 1907

Miss Eva M. Parks of Mt. Tabor, N.J. received this postcard in May, 1907 from B.D.:

Hello there! I suppose you are working hard as ever. When you write, send me your photo.  And I will send you one of myself. Write soon.

Pen pals? The address "95 Washington Ave." is also scrawled on the postcard front.

Mt. Tabor, where Miss Parks lived, was founded as a Methodist summer camp ground in 1869, but soon the more affluent members built Victorian cottages on the small lots where they once pitched tents. I visited the town once, it's in Morris County, near Parsippany-Troy Hills and it is a magical hilly enclave, with dozens of  charming small cottages on winding roads, surrounding a village green.

The factory pictured here survived into the 1990s, on the Passaic River in Newark. I believe Union Army uniforms had been made there at one point. A fire destroyed the building sometime around 1998.

Clark Thread issued many colorful trade cards and paper dolls over the years. ONT stands for "our newest thread."

From the "Minuet" Series.