East Side Stories Book

There was a time gone by yet not known to many of us, which is dredged up and recovered in East Side Stories; this was the time of the Great Depression. In this fictional account, twenty stories in all , we delve into the lives of immigrants and their families who lived in the tenements of the Lower East Side of New York City. There is the aged actor who sings and speaks in many voices; there is Orchard Street with its pushcarts; there is the story of a young woman faced with the dilemma of whether or not to agree to a marriage with a much older man, one who has a good steady job. We meet a woman, deserted by her husband, who lives with a gambler who promises to marry her. There is a story of two boys, one Jewish, the other Italian, whose algebra teacher's moods fluctuate up and down. And there is a woman ostracized by her neighbors. There is the story of the girl who hates herself and what she is. We meet an entrepreneur who plays every angle to keep his business afloat . Then there is the cross-eyed boy who feels cursed; and the gangsters from Murder Inc. who shoot dice on the street. There is the boy who pines for a girl who lives nearby. There are stories of events at a junior high school; another of a college student and his black friend, Earl, and their adventure in a Spanish class. There is more. And all in all they are a mosaic of those times and that place.

Author Biography: Sidney Weissman was born in the Harlem area of New York City. During the Depression he grew up in the Lower East Side of New York living with his parents in flats on various streets near Delancey Street, the main thoroughfare. He has drawn the basis for these stories from what he has seen and heard in the tenements and on those streets. He attended Seward Park High School and later the College of the City of New York, CCNY. Later he became involved in the food brokerage business in the metropolitan New York area. He is married, has two children and four grandchildren. He has had a novel, Backlash, published and he is currently writing another novel, tentatively titled Journey. The author can be reached via email at [email protected].