Fond memories of the Brooklyn Jewish Center

By Ira Spector

SAN DIEGO — The two-storied, sandstone faced, Brooklyn Jewish Center on Eastern Parkway was aptly named. There were lots of other shuls in Brooklyn, Conservative, Orthodox, and the esoteric, modern Reform. But none had the facilities or location that it had.

On the main floor was the Synagogue where the esteemed Rabbi Israel Levinthal and sometimes Cantor Richard Tucker presided over the conservative service. Tucker later gained fame as the renown Metropolitan tenor opera star. He would come back occasionally to sing as a special treat, and regularly used the pool facilities. My lingering fame long after I moved out of the area is that I taught his boys how to swim.

The vast ballroom also on this landing was where weddings, Bar Mitzvah receptions, and Boy Scout troop 125 meetings were held. I was a very active member and am still good friends to this day 68 years later with a fellow Scout from that troop.

On the second floor were the class rooms for Hebrew school and junior social functions.

The basement was where the gymnasium and pool were located and where I primarily spent my adolescence.

From the age of 11 until I was 19 I could be found religiously (pun intended) at the gym after school in fall, winter, and spring, rain, snow, or sunshine on Monday, Wednesday, Friday afternoons and Sunday mornings when it was exclusively used by boys and men. The facility was reserved for women on Tuesday and Thursday.

First there were a couple of hours of 3-on-3 half court basketball, Then I might spend some time rapidly tapping the inflated punching bag. On a few occasions in the winter off-season months, I would toss the heavy gym bag back and forth with Sid Gordon, the Jewish star third baseman for the N.Y. Giants baseball team. At times there were spirited ping pong battles in a room just beyond the gym.Then a sojourn to the hot room and/or the steam room for a ten minutes “schvitz.” Often the routine was followed by swimming a few laps nude in the chilly 64 degree, gonad-withering, 25-yard white-and-black tiled swimming pool- and then return to the hot room to regenerate the privates.

There were two guiding supervisors who shared the responsibilities of the gym activities. Each of them were high school teachers, coaches, as well as college and NBA professional basketball referees. One was the legendary basketball star Sammy Schoenfeld who had the most incredible full head of salt-and-pepper, wavy hair, piled high on his head and combed straight back. He taught Physical Education at Thomas Jefferson High, my alma mater. The other was the very engaging Jammy Moskowitz(who got his name for infamous, endless, jelly sandwiches that he ate for energy before playing a game). He too was a former basketball star and team mate of Sammy’s. He taught and coached at James Madison high school.
One of Jammy’s students was Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the U.S. Supreme Court justice. Sammy also co-owned Camp Deerhead in Hancock, N.Y. with Paul Sullivan a teacher and football coach at Erasmus Hall High. Jammy was head counselor at the camp for years. In 1951 I spent a summer there as assistant water saving instructor to “Rip Goldman,” my former football coach, and predecessor as swimming instructor at the Jewish Center (Lots of nepotism). Sammy also was a one-third partner in a Howard Johnson restaurant a block away from Brooklyn College. It was a gold mine when he opened, but I remember Sammy telling me there were severe problems with the unions which were controlled by the Mafia, and he lost his entire $18,000.(1951 dollars) investment.

After basketball, we retreated to the locker room, lorded over by “Joe,” the dour, diminutive, crippled, caretaker whose post was behind a wire cage. He was also doorkeeper to check memberships.
One of the most interesting experiences for me was the locker room ritual of a very nice older guy(in his 20’s) and fine basketball player we called, “Rabbi.” He had that moniker because he was extremely Orthodox. He wore a yarmulke pinned to his hair when he played. On late Friday afternoon when he dressed to go home or to shul, and the Sabbath was imminent at sundown, he took the belt off his pants, tied several handkerchiefs together, passed them through the belt loops, and tied a knot to hold his pants up.
As I understood it, Talmudic law declared it illegal to wear a belt on the sabbath because you were binding yourself. Don’t ask me why, but handkerchiefs are o.k. Another part of his ritual was to, “Daven Tfillin” in front of his locker. This is the Orthodox ritual begun by placing a leather box containing a portion of the Torah on the forehead, then wrapping the accompanying thin leather straps around the forehead and arms, and reciting prayers. (The most recent time I saw this ritual being performed was in a shopping center in Israel, where the Haridim were exhorting shoppers passing by to don the leathers).

Shedding our wet sweat-soaked clothing, we grabbed a towel from Joe and wrapped it around our bare bodies. Everything from here on was in the nude. A required first stop was the hot showers. After the cleansing, we went two different ways. The younger kids went to the dry heat and steam rooms or straight into the pool. The older men in need of pampering went to the massage room adjacent to the pool to get a rub down from one of three masseurs. Square jawed, brash Irishman Frank Smith, who looked like Popeye, was positioned at the first and most prominent table in the rub down room and was the group’s leader. He had forearms shaped like balcony railing balustrades. At the next table was porky, Germanic, Fritz, who looked and sounded like a cross between Erich Von Stromheim and Peter Lorre. At the last table was sweet Louie the quiet, gentle, Viennese refugee who always was humming a tune to himself.

There were two other men who kept the facility functioning. one was “Joe,” the short gray-haired, taciturn, Italian custodian who was always mopping the floor, keeping it spotless, and making sure all the rambunctious kids toed the line. Then there was a nice guy named “Charlie,” who was an assistant to Joe. He was also the pool-area operative and lifeguard. We all liked Charley, who often took steam baths with us, until after several years he lost control and we sadly watched him being carted off to jail for attempting to bugger one of the kids.

Frequenting the pool several days per week after 5 pm. were two regular adult working men who stood out for the type of exercise they performed. One was “Red,” a short fellow in his late thirties, with a great shock of strawberry blond hair, who had been an outstanding football player in his yesteryear school days. The outlines of his apparent formerly great physique still showed, but was distended by a massive belly due to his current lifestyle. However even with this handicap, he was still able to perform magnificent dives off the low board with athletic grace. Sadly I was told he died of a massive heart attack at the age of forty.

The other fellow was a professional drummer in a minor orchestra. He also was quite short, barrel chested, and had enough black hair all over his body to appear as a transitional hominoid. His other prominent feature was that he had puffy cheeks which seemed to be blown up by a bicycle pump. It gave his head the appearance of a cue ball that needed a shave. He was a very quiet guy, who seemed to have a defensive nature based on insecurity, He was an incredible lap swimmer. He would swim without stop from one end of the 25 yard long rectangular pool to the other for an hour and a half or more. Tragically I heard that he also died quite young from cancer at the age of 33.

Teenagers like myself played basketball from 3-5. When the working men arrived we gave up the courts for them to play intense, vigorous games of handball. I tried this sport a couple of times, but even with gloves, the hard rubber ball ached my hands. There’s a technique where you cup your hands to cushion the sting, but I never could master it. I had the same problem with a baseball glove.

The less athletic working adults went directly from the locker room to the showers for a“schvitz,” and for a very few brave ones a quick dip in the pool. Surprisingly the oldest, retired men, some in their 70’s-80’s frequented the pool more than the younger ones. They would heat their bodies to lobster red, and then plunge into the ice cold water. When I became the paid life guard, I always kept my eye out for one of these fate-tempters, but in all the years I was associated with the Center, amazingly there was never anyone who had a heart attack or seizure from the experience.

On Sunday evenings, stands were erected in the gym for a semi-pro basketball game. The league was run by Sammy and Jammy. Because of their connections, the games were officiated by the top college and NBA referees.The teams were made up of former college stars. Prior to my frequenting the gym Sammy played and starred for the team for years. I loved to go to the games because it was great basketball. However the gym had a design problem. The basket at one end of the court was mounted on a backboard about two feet from a tile wall. If you slammed into that wall on a driving layup, serious damage to your life and future could result. The players were all mindful and adjusted their games accordingly.

A lot of young single women, adorned in cocktail dresses, attended the game. Normally they would be considered seriously overdressed for sitting in the stands at a basketball game. However, Sammy in a smart move to improve attendance combined the ticket price with entry to a single’s dance and social gathering held upstairs after the game.

The Center still exists` but has become ultra-Orthodox Hassidic and renamed. The neighborhood, formerly upper middle class, changed, became run down, and the facility deteriorated. Lately there has been restoration on the facade. The gym and pool still exist, but there is an entirely different program and usage limited to children attending the school in the building.

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Ira Spector is a retired businessman living in San Diego.