The Past

(Photo by Charles J. Ziga)
10/07/2004

It is 6:40AM and I am sitting on the Hudson Train waiting to go up to Tarrytown for a meeting. We are supposed to depart at 6:51. I thought about cabbing it here to Grand Central, but I decided to walk as I have been walking at least two miles every workday. According to the scale in the workout room of the apartment complex I am 228 pounds. Very exciting.

Last Saturday the wife and I went to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. What an interesting tour. It is difficult to imagine the living conditions of our fore-bearers; the cramped conditions, the filth and darkness seem so unbearable. The utter lack of security or privacy is overwhelming to me… ( the train in departing).

The building we toured housed 7000 people from 1863 to the 1940’s. Mind you, the building had 8 apartments.

The neighborhood began as Little Germany, and everything; signs, papers, shops and the people were German, now it is all Chinese. Prior to the Chinese it was Italian and before the Italians, it was Jewish. Back in those days, the Lower East Side was the address of note as the Upper East Side is now.

Looking at the way most of us live today, it is unfathomable that anyone survived back then. I am sure that very few of us could survive back then. Granted, I understand that all they knew was that lifestyle… but the question is: Have our advancements made us weaker?

The point is this: We must embrace our past and take strength from it. History is not just a class in college.