The Bottom of the Harbor Read Online Free PDF

remember she told about a Schermerhorn girl she went to school with who belonged to the eighth generation, I think it was, in direct descent from old Jacob Schermerhorn who came here from Schermerhorn, Holland, in the sixteen-thirties, and this girl died and was buried in the Schermerhorn plot in Trinity Church cemetery up in Washington Heights, and one day many years later driving down from Connecticut Mrs. Frelinghuysen got to thinking about her and stopped off at the cemetery and looked around in there and located her grave and put some jonquils on it.”
    At this moment a fishmonger opened the door of the restaurant and put his head in and interrupted Louie. “Hey, Louie,” he called out, “has Little Joe been in?”
    â€œLittle Joe that’s a lumper on the pier,” asked Louie, “or Little Joe that works for Chesebro, Robbins?”
    â€œThe lumper,” said the fishmonger.
    â€œHe was in and out an hour ago,” said Louie. “He snook in and got a cup of coffee and was out and gone the moment he finished it.”
    â€œIf you see him,” the fishmonger said, “tell him they want him on the pier. A couple of draggers just came in—the
Felicia
from New Bedford and the
Positive
from Gloucester—and the
Ann Elizabeth Kristin
from Stonington is out in the river, on her way in.”
    Louie nodded, and the fishmonger went away. “To continue about Mrs. Frelinghuysen,” Louie said, “she died in 1927. The next year, I got married. The next year was the year the stock market crashed. The next year, I quit Joe’s and came over here and bought this restaurant and rented this building. I rented it from a real-estate company, the Charles F. Noyes Company, and I paid my rent to them, and I took it for granted they owned it. One afternoon four years later, the early part of 1934, around in March, I was standing at the cash register in here and a long black limousine drove up out front and parked, and a uniform chauffeur got out and came in and said Mrs. Schermerhorn wanted to speak to me, and I looked at him and said, ‘What do you mean—Mrs. Schermerhorn?’ And he said, ‘Mrs. Schermerhorn that owns this building.’ So I went out on the sidewalk, and there was a lady sitting in the limousine, her appearance was quite beautiful, and she said she was Mrs. Arthur F. Schermerhorn and her husband had died in September the year before and she was taking a look at some of the buildings the estate owned and the Noyes company was the agent for. So she asked me some questions concerning what shape the building was in, and the like of that. Which I answered to the best of my ability. Then I told her I was certainly surprised for various reasons to hear this was Schermerhorn property. I told her, ‘Frankly,’ I said, ‘I’m amazed to hear it.’ I asked her did she know anything about the history of the building, how old it was, and she said she didn’t, she hadn’t ever even seen it before, it was just one of a number of properties that had come down to her husband from his father. Even her husband, she said, she doubted if he had known much about the building. I had a lot of questions I wanted to ask, and I asked her to get out and come in and have some coffee and take a look around, but I guess she figured the signboard SLOPPY LOUIE’S RESTAURANT meant what it said. She thanked me and said she had to be getting on, and she gave the chauffeur an address, and they drove off and I never saw her again.
    â€œI went back inside and stood there and thought it over, and the effect it had on me, the simple fact my building was an old Schermerhorn building, it may sound foolish, but it pleased me very much. The feeling I had, it connected me with the past. It connected me with Old New York. It connected Sloppy Louie’s Restaurant with Old New York. It made the building look much better to me. Instead of just an old