party that some of my classmates were not allowed to attend because I was Jewish.
Weston didn’t have a high school then, so we all attended Staples High School in Westport. Westport was already on the way to being a less provincial, more cosmopolitan town than Weston, and the high school reflected it. I was not the only New York City transplant, and there were a few other Jews.
I missed New York, however, and my mother missed what New York offered the teenager. My best friend and neighbor was the daughter of my mother’s closest friend, also city transplants. Both mothers happily gave us permission—in fact, encouraged us—to leave school early on an occasional Wednesday and take the train to the city for a Broadway matinee. Saturday excursions for a museum and show were also a regular routine.
SUBURBS ARE DIFFERENT
Today Westport is well populated with former New Yorkers and home base for a number of substantial businesses, and its main street is chain-store heaven with few of the local stores left. The contrast is dramatic—a condition familiar across America. But in the 1950s and 1960s, Westport was dominated by local merchants with an increasing number of New York writers, artists, and advertising people moving in.
Back then Westport was already considered a highly cosmopolitan New York suburb. With the Westport Country Playhouse, the Famous Artists School (“Famous Writers” was added later), and a diverse professional community and host of celebrities, Westport had cachet. Local stars included Paul and Joanne Newman (my father’s customers), Martha Raye, Liza Minelli, Rod Serling (another customer), Kirk Douglas, photographer Milton Greene (with Marilyn Monroe his frequent guest), and writer Hamilton Basso. Westport was often in the spotlight.
Westport’s downtown had everything—a library, small park, movie theater, locally owned book and stationery store, YMCA, ice cream parlor, Bill’s Smoke Shop selling many magazines and newspapers, and many other local merchants who knew everyone, not unlike downtown in many towns. There was plenty to interest me, and I spent many Saturdays taking advantage of it all. On Saturday night, there was Miss Comers’s ball-room dancing classes to which we wore formal dresses and white gloves and the boys wore tuxedos. Formal dresses then were long, full-skirted, often strapless, and made out of organza. This was the center of our social life, although the PTA also organized a more egalitarian Teen Canteen where kids could gather and dance around a pre-DJ jukebox.
In high school, I became an editor on the student newspaper, got involved in whatever clubs were available, and spent most afternoons behind the counter at my father’s store. When it came to considering colleges, I had little guidance from my parents, who had not been to college themselves. Mistakenly, I started at what was considered a good upstate girls’ college. I soon discovered it felt like a continuation of my suburban life. I hungered to return to the city. I quit in the middle of my sophomore year, got a job as a legal secretary near home, took some courses at a nearby university, and applied to transfer to New York University, right back where I began.
My mother was all too happy to help me find a city apartment where she, too, could stay when she came in weekly for her decorating work. It was a delightful one-bedroom apartment in an unusual five-story apartment house on Central Park West. I took the subway daily to classes. This building was—and remains—a rarity amid the large prewar apartment houses, mostly from the 1920s and ’30s, that dominate Central Park West north of Fifty-ninth Street. I had a fire escape that served as a terrace overlooking Central Park. My mother charmingly decorated the apartment mostly in mattress-ticking-covered furniture and thrift-shop bargains. I was thrilled.
BACK TO NEW YORK FOR GOOD
Attending a New York City university had many advantages but none
Weston didn’t have a high school then, so we all attended Staples High School in Westport. Westport was already on the way to being a less provincial, more cosmopolitan town than Weston, and the high school reflected it. I was not the only New York City transplant, and there were a few other Jews.
I missed New York, however, and my mother missed what New York offered the teenager. My best friend and neighbor was the daughter of my mother’s closest friend, also city transplants. Both mothers happily gave us permission—in fact, encouraged us—to leave school early on an occasional Wednesday and take the train to the city for a Broadway matinee. Saturday excursions for a museum and show were also a regular routine.
SUBURBS ARE DIFFERENT
Today Westport is well populated with former New Yorkers and home base for a number of substantial businesses, and its main street is chain-store heaven with few of the local stores left. The contrast is dramatic—a condition familiar across America. But in the 1950s and 1960s, Westport was dominated by local merchants with an increasing number of New York writers, artists, and advertising people moving in.
Back then Westport was already considered a highly cosmopolitan New York suburb. With the Westport Country Playhouse, the Famous Artists School (“Famous Writers” was added later), and a diverse professional community and host of celebrities, Westport had cachet. Local stars included Paul and Joanne Newman (my father’s customers), Martha Raye, Liza Minelli, Rod Serling (another customer), Kirk Douglas, photographer Milton Greene (with Marilyn Monroe his frequent guest), and writer Hamilton Basso. Westport was often in the spotlight.
Westport’s downtown had everything—a library, small park, movie theater, locally owned book and stationery store, YMCA, ice cream parlor, Bill’s Smoke Shop selling many magazines and newspapers, and many other local merchants who knew everyone, not unlike downtown in many towns. There was plenty to interest me, and I spent many Saturdays taking advantage of it all. On Saturday night, there was Miss Comers’s ball-room dancing classes to which we wore formal dresses and white gloves and the boys wore tuxedos. Formal dresses then were long, full-skirted, often strapless, and made out of organza. This was the center of our social life, although the PTA also organized a more egalitarian Teen Canteen where kids could gather and dance around a pre-DJ jukebox.
In high school, I became an editor on the student newspaper, got involved in whatever clubs were available, and spent most afternoons behind the counter at my father’s store. When it came to considering colleges, I had little guidance from my parents, who had not been to college themselves. Mistakenly, I started at what was considered a good upstate girls’ college. I soon discovered it felt like a continuation of my suburban life. I hungered to return to the city. I quit in the middle of my sophomore year, got a job as a legal secretary near home, took some courses at a nearby university, and applied to transfer to New York University, right back where I began.
My mother was all too happy to help me find a city apartment where she, too, could stay when she came in weekly for her decorating work. It was a delightful one-bedroom apartment in an unusual five-story apartment house on Central Park West. I took the subway daily to classes. This building was—and remains—a rarity amid the large prewar apartment houses, mostly from the 1920s and ’30s, that dominate Central Park West north of Fifty-ninth Street. I had a fire escape that served as a terrace overlooking Central Park. My mother charmingly decorated the apartment mostly in mattress-ticking-covered furniture and thrift-shop bargains. I was thrilled.
BACK TO NEW YORK FOR GOOD
Attending a New York City university had many advantages but none
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