Disciplines

Jewish Studies

Abstract

Transcriber: Sophia Maier

Michelle Bisson lived the first nine years of her life in the Edenwald Projects in the Bronx. Her mother was born in Budapest, Hungary, and fled to the United States in 1941. There, she met Bisson’s father, who had grown up in Inwood in Manhattan, marrying and moving to the brand new Edenwald Projects in 1951. Bisson describes the Projects as very integrated, with both Black and white people, who got along for the most part. The children became friends, playing in the courtyard and parking lot. For kindergarten, Bisson attended the historic PS 15, before attending PS 68. A highlight of this time was getting her first books from a bookmobile library.

At age nine, Bisson’s family moved to an apartment in the upper floor of a private house on Bainbridge Avenue, as they made too much money to remain in the Projects. At that time, Bisson’s father owned a candy store in Harlem and her mother returned to work to support their living in a nicer neighborhood. There it was a white neighborhood, a mix of Jewish, Italian, and Irish. On Bainbridge, Bisson remembers going to the movies and getting pizza, and later taking the bus to shop on Fordham Road. By eleven, she was taking the subway downtown by herself.

Junior high school was a difficult time socially for Bisson, causing her to have negative associations with the neighborhood and the Bronx, although the library served as an “oasis” during those times and attending the Bronx High School of Science improved her situation. During her time at Science, Bisson joined the Marxist Study Club, Women’s Liberation Club, and protested the Vietnam War. Her family, though not previously politically active, passed on a sense of equality. Bisson witnessed racism herself when four Black children were brought up to integrate her class in sixth grade, and businesses would close after school until they had left the neighborhood.

Bisson grew up enjoying rock and folk music, seeing many major stars in concert. Her mother would cook a rotation of the same foods each week, and Bisson, as a teenager, would introduce her to fresh vegetables. They did not keep kosher and were not religious, though her brothers were bar mitvahed. Bisson educated herself by reading Jewish history. Bisson shares that growing up with a foreign-born mother meant her mom was less in touch with American culture, particularly with what she packed for school lunches, but she also took her to more museums and shows than her American-born friends’ parents.

Bisson went on to become a writer, first attending the short lived Kirkland College, before graduating from City College. After almost fifty years away from the Bronx, she and her partner moved to Spuyten Duyvil, as it met their needs at the time better than where they had been living in Tarrytown. At first Bisson was uncertain about bringing back the old horrible memories, but upon seeing her old neighborhood she recognized it for its beauty. Despite her bad associations with her time in junior high school there, Bisson remembers the music, the older people, and the greenery, and feels more like a cheerleader or a defender of the borough than a hater.

Keywords: Hungary, WWII, Holocaust, Inwood, Edenwald Projects, Bainbridge Avenue, race, Vietnam War, PS 15, PS 68, library, books, Fifth Avenue, Bronx High School of Science, segregation, Civil Rights, Marxism, Communism, music, rock-and-roll, vegetarianism, religion, foreign, feminism, equality, Kirkland College, City College, Spuyten Duyvil, Botanical Gardens

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