Stories on the Bowery

I had initially put together what I thought were all of Joseph Papin’s on-the-scene Bowery drawings and his notes. After the drawings and notes I found were compiled, I found many more. The drawings that surfaced later were illustrated in a manner somewhat similar to the style of some graphic novels, and told the stories of two man that he talked to more extensively – Blackie McBride and Ronald D. Eastman. I’ve transcribed the writing on the drawings and included it directly below each drawing for ease or reading. The original drawings are all at the Butler Library at Columbia University and are a part of their collection of Joseph W. Papin’s drawings and papers.

The following is the story that Ronald D. Eastman told about his life.

“I was born and raised right here on Third Ave. The place wasn’t so hot but it was a home, a real home cause we stuck together, there was 14 of us and when when we was all together it was really something.”

“My three sisters, the three that lived that is, was always real ladies, right from the start. Me ‘n’ my brothers, I had 4 of em, always protected them.”

“But I have to say in all honesty that my younger brothers was all weaklings, they tried of course but I was the toughest and always tried to do their fighting for them. Jim was the one that really caught it, though, he got hit in the back with a big rock during a kind of fight when he was only 7 years old and he’s been in a wheelchair ever since.”

“I sold 100 sheets a night down in and around the subways.” [“Sheets” means newspapers, on a page of notes Ronald mentions that he sold the Daily News.]

“Any time I could I’d help my old man who drove a wagon delivering bananas for Pittman’s here on the lower East side.”

“Whenever I had the chance I’d rob or steal, sometimes roll a drunk.”

“But we never kept any of it, we always divided every cent. We had 14 in our family and we needed all we could get. I never figured it was wrong, our family stuck together, we was helping one another out.

“Why we even had to take turns going to school sometimes because me ‘n’ my brothers only had one good pair of shoes between us. And the same way with food, them that needed it most was the ones that ate. The boys could always panhandle some thing here on the Bowery.”

“Whenever we kids had a nickel to spare, and that wasn’t often, we’d go to the Nickelodeon.”

“The good days of the Bowery for me was during Prohibition and after, that sounds strange but I know. There was guys down here that ran the ‘speaks.’ I guess you might call ‘em racketeers, and I know others called them bad people. But they were good to us believe me, the first drink was always free and maybe a free lunch and some places, best of all, you could stay there after they closed, and it was great in the winter time. They was free with their money too! Some of the boys I knew would always come across with a ‘5’ or ‘10’ and then forget about it too! Yep, you people call them ‘bad,’ ‘gangsters,’ run them into jail, but they were the best we ever knew.

“Kid Dropper, Brother Hymie, Dave Kaplan, all them was real legitimate, kept soup lines for the bums.”

“I’m here cause I got a problem I can’t handle, like a lot of guys I know. It’s my wife… I say it’s Bess, but I know it’s me, least ways that’s what my brother Joe always tells me. I generally wind up talking with him unless I come off one of my binges, he’s the priest up at Saint _____. I want him to understand, for somebody to understand. But every time I try to tell him he always tells me it’s my fault, that I have to change but it’s too much for me now. I can’t seem to help myself, it starts and ends the same way and each time I hate myself, waking up in a flophouse filthy….. But I don’t know how to stop…… Do you know…. Just don’t tell me to simply stop drinking….. to think of my wife or kids cause I’ve heard that damn stuff too much…..”

“You have no idea of the terrible cravings you have when you need a drink. Dope addicts are lucky, they can be cured alcoholics can’t ………… It’s awful.

“I start out and then just keep on drinking for maybe six weeks or more.”

“One day some week or so from now I’ll wake up in some doorway or flophouse and believe me you really hate yourself.”

“I get cleaned up and finally get back home, the family is understanding, they had better be cause I’m short tempered and like ‘m to talk low.”

“I need it, just like my friends, it’s forbidden, I can’t bring my friends home. The ones I really know, the ones I grew up with. The other ones I like, not those stuffy ones who you can’t talk to that my wife drags over, I can take just so much and then I’m off.”

“My friends share everything with me, take care of me, and are always ready always really glad to see me, and they don’t ask questions!”

“My whole family has run to the church, well let them, they had to, when we were broke and starving they took food from the church, and they traded their souls for it. Well I wouldn’t take anything. I wanted only a chance to earn my own! I hope they’re happy, they say they are, but sometimes I wonder!”

“Everyone else has run out on me. I worked, stole and sweated like a dog. Real ladies they were, could have had anything! What did they do? Entered a convent! Gave up everything!! Don’t have a thing they can call their own. They don’t even see me anymore, our wonderful family is gone forever, every thing we ever dreamed of. Jim is still around, he’s a cripple you know, sits before the T.V. all day. Really knows baseball. Sometimes wins money on contests and Al, well Al copped it recently when he was killed in a plane crash. Nothing but tragedy in our house, that’s the way a Bowery family ends up. They all think I’m sick, but I ……maybe I am.”

“The Bowery is just a residue today, in fact it’s not the Bowery I knew, mostly drifters and they’ll steal you blind.”

“No use kidding myself, I’ll be around here on and off until I die. A man’s entitled to some pleasure! At least once a year. I guess I’m having mine, ‘cept it’s a hell of a price.”