March 20, 2005

Recollections of Hope and Triumph

CHRONICLES, Volume One
By Bob Dylan
Simon & Schuster
($24, hardcover)

Lou Levy, top man of Leeds Music Publishing company, took me up in a taxi to the Pythian Temple on West 70th Street to show me the pocket sized recording studio where Bill Haley and His Comets had recorded "'Rock Around the Clock" - then down to Jack Dempsey's restaurant on 58th and Broadway, where we sat down in a red leather upholstered booth facing the front window.

Lou introduced me to Jack Dempsey, the great boxer. Jack shook his fist at me.

"You look too light for a heavyweight kid, you'll have to put on a few pounds. You're gonna have to dress a little finer, look a little sharper - not that you'll need much in the way of clothes when you're in the ring - don't be afraid of hitting somebody too hard."

"He's not a boxer, Jack, he's a songwriter and we'll be publishing his songs."

"Oh, yeah, well I hope to hear 'em some of these days. Good luck to you, kid."

NO SUCH THING AS OVER-EXPOSURE: Inside the Life and Celebrity Of Donald Trump
By Robert Slater
Pearson Prentice Hall
($24.95, hardcover)

One of Donald Trump's more image-burnishing projects in the mid-1980's had nothing to do with skyscrapers or large tracts of land. It had to do with an ice-skating rink. At first blush, the project seemed counterintuitive for Trump: Where was the big statement? What was grandiose about an ice-skating risk?

But, in retrospect, the ice-skating rink project was highly illustrative of a central part of Trump's business approach: to think out of the box, to go against the grain, and to look like a savior.

By 1986, Trump had watched with growing bemusement as the City of New York had spent seven years trying to rebuild the Wollman ice-skating rink in Central Park. He had rebuilt a major hotel and constructed a 68-floor residential tower, and the politicians could not even rebuild a skating rink. Thus far, the city had spent $20 million on the project, to its great embarrassment. Realizing that he could once again look like a knight in shining armor, Trump plopped down $3 million, and within four months the rink was open - on Nov. 14, 1986, just in time for the winter skating season. He came in $750,000 under budget.

Most important, the project put him in front of the media on a continuing basis, for doing something positive - even heroic. ...

"We ran a news conference every two minutes," said Howard J. Rubenstein, president of Rubenstein Associates Inc., the prestigious New York-based public relations firm that handled Trump's media relations at that time. "Donald was brilliant. He said, 'I can do it faster and cheaper than the government can.' And he did it. When he proved to be successful and got it done, when he cut the time dramatically, everyone applauded him."

ON BECOMING NUYORICANS
By Angela Anselmo & Alma Rubal-Lopez
Peter Lang Publishing
($29.95, paperback)

Our new home was on the top floor of a five-floor tenement near Westchester Avenue in El Bronx. The neighborhood consisted of a mixture of aging buildings and private houses. It was a neighborhood in transition, with the majority of white families fleeing due to the influx of blacks and Hispanics who were moving into the neighborhood. The apartment was a small one-bedroom with very little furniture. These cramped quarters became even more crowded when my paternal grandmother, who was now blind and senile, moved in with us. This forced Angie and me to share our room with her while my parents slept in the living room.

Just when we thought that we could not fit another person in the apartment, my alcoholic cousin Roland from Puerto Rico joined us. He had relocated from Puerto Rico and needed a place to live. He was given a piece of the floor near the entrance to call his own and a period of several months to get a job, save money, and move out. The overcrowded conditions were a concern but not an issue. We were grateful for what we had and now more than ever we knew from experience that things could be worse.

Angie entered the tenth grade at James Monroe High School. I started the eighth grade in a parochial school that was a short bus ride away. Before I entered Blessed Sacrament, the principal told me that I would have to be placed in seventh grade because the education I had received in Puerto Rico was inferior. She was particularly concerned about mathematics, because I would not be able to keep up with the rest of the class. My mother was about to concede to her suggestion when I interjected and explained to the principal that this was not correct.