THREE DINERS

 The Skyway Diner in Kearny, NJ

Wythe Avenue Diner Brooklyn, NY

Hector's Diner Manhattan, NY

Let's Celebrate!

 

WE ARE GETTING READY

THE PHONE BOOTHS OF WEST END AVENUE

Vandalia, IL

Oh gosh! 

Another place to make me sad

Because all I can see within 

All these roads is what was, 

What used to be.

There is no now here, no present

Since these streets seem to dwell

In only a “yesterday.”

© Marjorie J. Levine 2025

A Memory of One Night Only at The Concord Hotel

There is one specific hurtful night at The Concord Hotel that sticks with me. It happened on New Year's Eve of 1963 going into 1964 at the Concord Hotel. I had planned my outfit well in advance. I wore a blue velvet and white satin dress with a green silk sash and had my shoes dyed green to match the dress. My mother told me I would be sitting that night at a table with other teens, all of whom were total strangers to me. My sister sat at a pre teen table and my parents sat at a table with other adults. So there I was, at a round table with 3 other girls and 4 boys. The girls were pretty, very blond and giving off a real Sandra Dee vibe. The boys looked like Frankie Avalon or maybe Fabian. And I looked sort of like a fat ugly version of Annette Funicello with acne. I opened my eyes real wide for our family photo that night because the previous night in the first family photo my eyes were closed. 

For some reason, all of those teens at my table decided to abandon our table number 10 and join table 11, which had some empty seats. So all 7 of them filled those empty sets and left me sitting all alone. I thought I should at last try to sit with them so I got up and boldly asked if they could fit me and my chair in. One of those boys brazenly said: "There is no room" and the girls laughed. 

I sat back alone at my table and and I cried... I was so overwhelmed with sadness. I was so hurt. I was not going to sit there and eat alone. My face must have been soaking wet because when I left that table and I went to the other side of that dining room to tell my mother I was going back up to the room, she did ask: "What happened?" But I quickly fled out of that ballroom and went upstairs. 

When I was back in the room, I put on the TV and watched "Not As A Stranger" with Frank Sinatra and Robert Mitchum. Every time I see that movie on TCM... I remember that night.

And oh, those teens from that night? Who knows where they are now. They are probably almost 80 and not looking any more like Fabian. Good riddance. 

After that night, I aged into this... so I now look back on that night and wish I had handled it differently. I should have flipped that table so fast and hard that Teresa Giudice, in later years, would be jealous. 

It's Halloween Again!

Hitchcock Woods: Aiken, SC

 

Real and Not

 INTRO: My real name is Marjorie and I broadcast on the internet as Yetta Telebenda. 

Three Books

I was a 6th grade teacher for 35 years in NYC and after retirement I worked on my poetry and my poems eventually were published in three volumes of books. MOVING IMAGES haikus was just released last week. 

NOT LOST IN TIME

 from 1939? 

A FORMER STUDENT MESSAGES ME

 

ON THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS DURING WW II

My father is in the middle row on the right:

 

THE MEMORIES THAT NEVER FRAYED OR DULLED

I was a teacher in NYC for almost 35 years. I have close to 35 class pictures to help reflect on my long career. I had read in the UFT paper, "The New York Teacher," about the long career of Regina Sayres, who is now 100 years old. She was a teacher at PS 41M in 1968 during the time of that long teachers' strike. I was a teacher at PS 41M during that time when Ms. Sayres was there, and at a place when she was perhaps ending her career... mine was just beginning.
I looked through all the class photos in my collection, and I selected many for inclusion in this blog. They represent the four schools in which I taught... and the memories come flooding back. (please click on each photo to enlarge)








The year was 1973, and I was teaching grade 6 in a public school in the theater district of Manhattan. I entered my class in an essay contest sponsored by Bella Abzug and one of my students won. She went to Washington, DC to read her essay. And I found the (now very wrinkled and faded) letter I received informing us that she won. That was over 35 years ago. It seems like so long ago. I guess it was.

This was my fourth grade class at PS 33 in 1986. The next year, when they were in the fifth grade, these students were chosen by Eugene M. Lang for his "I Have a Dream" college scholarship program. Over twenty years later... I am wondering: "Where are they now?"

And most bittersweet:


The year was 1974. I was teaching at a small school on West 45th Street. I had a wonderful 6th grade class. The students were bright, creative, and they had a real sense of humor. The school was on the same block as the Actor's Studio, the Manhattan Plaza had just been completed, and on nice days I could walk home. I loved going to work.
One day, a student named Christopher came to school a little bit late. I asked him the reason for his tardiness, and he told me that the night before he had attended an opening of a movie in which his father had a role. I asked him the name of the film, and he replied, "Godfather 2." "Oh," I said. I asked, "What part did your father have in the movie?" He replied, "Frankie Five Angels." I did know that Christopher's father was the playwright who had written "Hatful of Rain." But, I did not know that he was in the film, "Godfather II." So! Christopher's father was "Frankie Pentangeli;" interesting... Godfather II, was released and it opened at a Loew's theater on Broadway. It received phenomenal reviews and I couldn't wait to see it.
Soon thereafter were parent-teacher conferences. I am lucky Christopher was an excellent student. I do not think I would have had a comfort level sitting across from that father and giving a bad report. Mr. Gazzo had written a note to me during that school year asking permission for his son to be excused early on an October day and I saved the note. It was not just a signed note, it was an autograph.
A few months later, the Gazzo family moved to Los Angeles. Christopher kept in touch with all of us through letters he sent to the school addressed to me. In one letter, Christopher asked me if I was still singing because I was awful. I was a teacher who sang while she taught? He said he was going to a school 20 times better but he would rather be going to our school because he missed all of us.
I think about all of the students I had in so many classes over the years. Eddie, who died of a drug overdose. David, who fell off the roof of his building one hot summer day when he was up there with his brothers playing ball. Debbie, who was crossing 9th Avenue and was hit by a car. Brenda, whose mother we saved.
Larry David was asked why he still works. He clearly does not need to work. He said his mother had told him many years ago that we all need to always wake up in the morning and have a place to go. I had a place to go.