Publicity Clerkin' At New American Library Revisited: (2)

Being economically impoverished, low-income and a generally low-hourly-waged worker by this time in the mid-1970s during the periods when I wasn't jobless, spending money on purchasing furniture--like a dresser, a desk, a chair or a bed--to use in this slum apartment in Red Hook in the 1970s was not something I could easily afford.

And because, by this time, I had gotten used to living in slum apartments while just using my duffel bag and suitcase to store my few pieces of clothing, that I couldn't dump into or hang up in a closet, I also wasn't particularly interested in buying a dresser to put in this apartment.

And I had also gotten used to just sitting on my mattress on the floor when I did any writing or reading or practiced my guitar and wrote any new folk songs. In addition, whenever I used my cheap portable typewriter or, by now infrequently recorded a tape of my folk songs on my cheap casette tape recorder to mail to someone, I also had gotten used to just typing or recording while sitting on the floor or a mattress on the floor.

So I didn't feel I really needed to spend any extra money getting furniture to fill the rooms in the apartment, which I mainly used to provide me with a place to sleep and spend my evenings--after work during the week or after being outside for most of the weekend days, when the weather wasn't super-bad, just writing folk songs, reading or practicing my guitar.

By this time in the 1970s I also no longer had a television set or watched any TV shows in apartments in which I lived. And, also by this time in the 1970s, I rarely stayed at home that much listening to vinyl albums on some old-fashioned, cheap portable vinyl-record player when I was at home. Because by this time I found it more fun and interesting to spend my time at home creating my own new folk songs and practicing guitar--rather than listening to either old 1960s commercially-motivated rock or commercially-motivated folk vinyl records albums or the vinyl record albums of the 1970s commercially-oriented  "schlock rock" or "schlock singer-songwriter/folk", generally middle-class or upper-middle-class pop songwriters, etc.

When I lived in this slum apartment in Brooklyn, though, I did have a portable AM-FM radio, which I usually just listened to in the morning to hear what the weather was going to be like on a weekday or on Saturday and Sunday; and to hear, on the weekend, what that day's headlines happened to be.

In addition, I also had a small alarm clock on the floor next to my mattress, to make sure that when I had to go to work at a 9-to-5 wage enslavement job during the week (like the publicity clerk job at New American Library), I wouldn't oversleep.

Because AT&T's New York Telephone Company in the mid-1970s still required a big cash deposit to get a telephone installed--and because, by this time in the mid-1970s I was out of touch with most of the people I used to telephone or who used to telephone me in the 1960s and early 1970s--I also felt I couldn't afford or especially needed to pay a big money deposit and a monthly phone bill to have my own telephone in this apartment.

And because, in the 1970s, cellphones, mobiles, smartphones or Iphones were still not yet used by lots of people who lived in New York City, there were still plenty of coin-operated telephone phone booths around on street corners or in stores in most neighborhoods that tenants who didn't have phones in their apartments could use, whenever they wished to make a telephone call.

To get to the New American Library corporate office in Midtown Manhattan from the Red Hook neighborhood apartment in Brooklyn in which I lived, I usually had to leave the apartment by around 8 o'clock and then walk across an overpass that was over the BQE highway, towards the IND subway station that was about a 15-minute walk away.

During the weekday morning rush hours there were usually 30 or 40 commuting workers on the station subway platform also waiting to get on to the next already crowded rush-hour F train, that was heading towards Midtown Manhattan, when I was going to work at the New American Library office.

I can recall feeling that some of the women in their 20s--around the same age I was then--were still physically attractive, despite usually using lipstick and make-up and being dressed up in a culturally-straight, non-hip, plastic sort of way  And my recollection is that most of the women in their 20s on this subway platform each weekday morning looked like they were either clerical office workers, secretaries or receptionists.

But I can't recall ever exchanging any pleasantries or words or conversation on the station platform or on the subway train with any of these young neighborhood women who were around my age, during the whole time I went to work at the New American Library, at around the same time as they traveled to work for whatever corporate offices they each likely worked for.

Clean-shaven, with short-hair and dressed-up in the same cheap suit and tie I had worn when I had been first interviewed for the New American Library publicity clerk job a few weeks before, prior to the Christmas holiday office partying season in the Manhattan book publishing industry, I arrived on time on my first day working at New American Library.

And, as I had been told to do on the phone by the person who had finally agreed to hire me, the then-New American Library Publicity Director Marge Ternes, on arriving at the New American Library office I reported for work at its personnel office.

In the mid-1970s most U.S. book publishing subsidiaries of U.S. corporate media conglomerates like New American Library--or the book publishing firms that had still not yet been purchased by some U.S. or European corporate media conglomerate--still didn't seem to hire many African-Americans for either editorial, executive, book cover illustrator, secretarial, receptionist or clerical positions.

But what the institutionally racist book publishing firms like New American Library in Manhattan apparently were doing in the 1970s, to avoid being accused of discriminating against African-American applicants in their employment practices, was to hire African-American women in their 20s or 30s to either be their personnel directors or be the personnel department employee who initially interviewed and screened all book publishing firm job applicants.

So when I arrived on my first day at work at the New American Library office, the personnel office person who, in a bored way, had me fill out the forms new workers were required to fill out before they were brought to the desk they would be working at, was a well-dressed African-American woman in her mid-20s, whom most men of all racial backgrounds would likely have considered pretty.

The impression I had of her while I worked at New American Library though was, despite being an African-American who worked for a book publishing firm, this personnel office person was not particularly interested in either 1970s Black Liberation Movement politics and Black Liberation Movement history or in literature that much.

And aside from being able to pick up a paycheck from working in New American Library's personnel department that paid more than what she had, at that time at least, been offered for some job in some other Manhattan skyscraper office, she wasn't particularly interested in what paperback books New American Library published; or particularly interested in what she was required to do (which included walking around the office floor every payday and personally handing each New American Library employee their paycheck on payday) to take home her own paycheck on each payday.

Publicity Clerkin' At New American Library Revisited (1)

 Having gotten into reading books again in the early 1970s, I was somewhat excited to have landed the job as a publicity clerk at the New American Library paperback book publishing firm in the mid-1970s.

As a college undergraduate during the 1960s, and even as a high school student in the early 1960s, I had read some of the paperback books that New American Library published under its "Signet" imprint labels. So I initially assumed that the atmosphere within the New American Library publishing firm's skyscraper office headquarters would be  less commercially and money-oriented, more intellectual and literature-oriented and more culturally hip than what I had found when previously working briefly in offices; at places like United Merchants & Manufacturers [UM&M], the alumni relations office of Columbia University, Cardinal Export Company, Playtex, Bulova or the Wall Street area offices that Computerware or the Landmark temp agency had sent me to work briefly at, earlier in the 1970s.

By the time I started going to work at the New American Library office, inside one of the skyscraper office buildings in Midtown Manhattan on Avenue of the Americas, on the west side of 6th Avenue around 52nd and 53rd Street, I was now living in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn--which had still not yet been gentrified in the 1970s.

The first floor apartment in which I now lived was in a two-story, two-unit building that looked like it had been built in the late 19th-century or early 1900s.  The building was located on the last block before the neighborhood's land touched the Brooklyn waterfront by the East River/Buttermilk Channel/Upper Bay water; very close to where the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel entered under the water to start connecting drivers on its underwater road into Lower Manhattan.

So, despite living for nearly a year and a half in this 2 1/2 room slum apartment (in which the cost of heating and electricity for the unit was paid by the owner-occupant landlord) for which I paid a $100 per month rent, I can't recall ever walking the short distance directly eastward to the Brooklyn shoreline from my apartment building; due to the way there being blocked off, somewhat, by the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel's nearby concrete barriers.

The owner-occupant landlord/superintendent of the Red Hook building in which I lived, Luis, was a married guy with a wife and a few children, including a teenage son; and Luis and his whole family lived in the residential unit above me.

Luis appeared to be in his 40s and spoke English with a Spanish language accent that seemed to indicate he had moved to New York City from Puerto Rico during the 1950s or early 1960s. But his teenage son spoke English without any Spanish accent, in a way that seemed to indicate he had either been born in New York City or been living in New York City since he was a young child.

Apparently, the previous owner of the run-down two-unit slum apartment building had decided that it was no longer profitable to rent the first floor unit I was now living in and/or pay real estate taxes on this property in the 1970s--prior to my moving into the building. And, prior to this Brooklyn neighborhood being gentrified in the mid-1980s, the previous owner apparently could not find anyone else who was willing to purchase the building from him.

So, instead of ceasing to pay taxes and just letting the New York City government take over the building he no longer wished to be bothered with, this landlord--who had inherited the building from his parents in the 1950s or early 1960--just decided to give it away to his second floor tenant and superintendent, Luis, when he walked away from owning the building.

Prior to "inheriting" the slum apartment building in which he and his family lived, Luis worked at some kind of day job or night job, in addition to receiving some reduced rent or additional money (perhaps off-the books) from the previous building owner for acting as the superintendent of the building in which he and his family lived.

And after "inheriting" his slum apartment building from the previous owner when the run-down neighborhod had sitll not been gentrified, Luis contined to work at some kind of day job or night job; and he continued to act as the superintendent of the building in which he and his family now lived rent-free and which he now owned.

But after Luis became the landlord of this building, he apparently realized that he could collect a higher rent from the first floor unit that I had moved into, if he installed a more modern electric stove, a new refrigerator, new ceiling lights, modernized the bathroom toilet, sink and shower, plastered and repaired the apartment's walls and ceiling and made sure the plumbing and radiator in the apartment worked well.

So before putting a "for rent" sign in the front window of this first floor apartment, Luis also spent most of his weekend daytime or any extra time he had off from his day job or night job working himself on fixing up the apartment in which I later moved into during the mid-1970s.

It mattered little to me how newly painted the walls of the apartment I rented was or how new the stove, refrigerator, lights or bathroom fixtures were--as long as everything worked and I could afford the rent on the apartment.

So, ironically, even if Luis hadn't spent so much time modernizing somewhat this apartment, he still would have been able to collect his $100 per month rent--in cash and off-the-books---from me on time, for each of the 18 months I ended up spending there as his quiet--and therefore "model"--first tenant in this apartment.

But on the few occasions when I had to ask Luis to fix something in this apartment during the time I lived there, he seemed surprised to notice that in neither the one-half room kitchen nor the living room did I have any furniture. And in the small bedroom in which I slept, the only furniture there was a mattress on the floor (which I had picked up for free from the street)--after someone living in Brooklyn Heights had left the mattress on the sidewalk outside their brownstone, for for the garbage truck to pick up.