Ruth Brafman and Kim Allen

00:13 My name is Kim Allen. I'm 44 years old today is November 22 2006 or at the World Trade Center storycorps booth in New York City and I'm here interviewing Ruth brafman. She is my neighbor and now my dear friend.

00:33 My name is Ruth. Brafman. I'm 80 years old will be 81 December 2nd. And today's date is October 8th, November 22nd 2006. We were at the storycorps at the PATH train station near the World Trade Center and the neighbor new friend of Kim Allen.

01:01 All right, great. So Ruth, we've known each other officially for about 14 months and I'm first of all, we just had would cost help tell me what you just did for the first time a few minutes ago.

01:14 Where you ate? Oh, we ate at the the Lucchese restaurants on Greenwich and Warren is an Indian restaurant. And I've never eaten Indian food in was quite a way for you to have we had lamb and okra and rice and naan.

01:34 And there was very good crate. Also I met you when you knocked on my door and September 2005 telling me that our building was about to be sold and you well, you started something. Could you tell me what it was that you started? Well, I realized I had done some research on my own and found out that the new landlord that bought our building was going to eliminate our fordable housing contract and I felt I had to warn people and someone I another tenant and I met referred me to take him because she's a good organizer and she took over the group and has done a fantastic job of leading us was still in the process of fighting back, but we're hopeful that we will win.

02:31 Apparently your son and your daughter both have remarked that there's something in you that's very much like your mother that they're not surprised that you were raising a Ruckus and rebelling against the system. I'm could you tell me a little bit about your mother and how she came here and why it is that your son and daughter think you're so much like her well, my mother

02:55 Was born in Russia and then she was around 16. She became part of a revolutionary group.

03:06 2

03:08 Purple desire, which was not a very easy thing to do and quite dangerous and she was at a demonstration holding the red flag at the front of the line and my grandmother heard of it and got very upset because she thought that the Cossacks would come and murder them in their beds. So she made arrangements to get my mother into the next town to live with an aunt and her father. My grandfather was already in New York and they got in touch with him and he arranged passage for her to come to this country when she came to this country. She has been trained as a dressmaker and the ilgwu Garment Workers Union was being formed and she was active in organizing

04:02 To the union and she was always political and I guess I just picked up on it from her. What was her name? Tilly Tilly Tilly suchalitsky.

04:16 And in fact, I just

04:19 Looked up through the year.

04:22 What is a year with these immigrants came? I can't think of it and I got the name of the boat that you was on when she Roy and it's just I always looked up to her and it's annoyed her for her work.

04:43 So tell tell us a little bit more about her life in America.

04:47 Well, she she worked she married late. She was in her thirties. It was his late at the time nosey as if women married young and have my father was also.

05:02 Socialism in a lot in common and they married and unfortunately, he had a very short life. I was two when he died. I'm the youngest my brother was for my sister was six and my mother was left a widow with three small children. So she came they lived in the Bronx and she came to Brooklyn to be near her family and worked at home until I went to school.

05:37 And then she went to work in the factories use a dressmaker and

05:44 She had a very hard life but significant find and I never felt like I wasn't taking care of. It was a hot meal on the table every night. She came home from working in a factory and Shop the window refrigerant. No refrigerator just ice box Santa shop every day for fresh food and sheets shop on the way home from work and make us a dinner and keep a nice clean house and do laundry in the washtub. They would have washing machines and when I look back, I don't know how she did it, but she did we grow up.

06:21 Imagine you're walking into that kitchen as a child the kitchen that you remember, can you describe what it smelled like what kind of foods you were eating? What kind of things you saw on the wall or on the floor or around to what I do? Remember this is lady that we did not have to separate this from what it was. No.

06:42 Then turn there was a

06:46 Wash tub in the kitchen and that's who we took our best.

06:51 I remember that vividly because it was someone usual you know, they was actually the first appointment isn't it was a bathroom in the horn and was just Thief must have been the kitchen later on. We went into another apartment. That was a long history. We had a full bathroom with a tub.

07:12 And

07:14 It's kind of what I remember you.

07:19 What is it was it was at a Railroad Flat the window windows in the in the bedrooms, which is the window in the front the kitchen and living room front and back. They went over the windows in the bed and the later on we got an apartment and housing project and I woke up one morning. My mother was staring at me and I said what's wrong and she said I was just looking at you because the Sun was shining on your face. It was so nice to see cuz the first time we had a bedroom with a window

07:50 Adidas kind of things. I remember how hard life was New Years back. So your mother managed to raise your she never remarried. She remarried after we were married and out of the house. She went down to Florida, which is her first vacation and let this man and married him and he was together with her seven years and then she got sick and she had cancer and she died.

08:17 Since you really had very early first husband was just maybe 7 years or so and then the second one of us has the most of her life. She was alone. She's a very independent woman.

08:31 But she had a lot of relations with other people and she had a lot of friends and family that was six children and the family would get together quite often. Do they all come over from Russia?

08:47 Yes. Yes. She was the oldest she came first and then she worked with her father and the other than the Lower East Side and then they won by one they brought the other children over and then list came my grandmother with the two youngest children the two youngest went to there was little and I went to school here and they spoke English pretty well the others, you know, we're still had their accents, you know, if they never really developed the language is well, but said they came to see a one-by-one what Memories do you have if your grandparents on your mother's side?

09:24 Waiting what Memories do you have of your grandparents on your mother's side?

09:29 I hate my grandfather.

09:31 Was much more modern because he was a carpenter and even when they lived in Europe, he would go to London to do work that he spoke English pretty well. My grandmother never really spoke much English. She spoke Yiddish to us and that's why I remember I can understand you this but I cuz I don't speak it because when we came to the house, she only spoke it is she was she was very religious and she was always sort of reading the Bible doing her work in the house and and doing what you had to do with the rest of the time. She was reading the book things that she would say to you and your dish did anything's anything still still in your brain that you remember?

10:14 Where are Swiss people hungry?

10:19 And she would give us when I came from school. So you would give us some bread and she didn't smoke North she was always busy and I really didn't even know her that well, I was closing with my my grandfather and my mother was very close to Father cuz they listed together alone for many years and I related to him which was she was just a housewife and did her job. She can get friendly with us, really.

10:44 She really was probably the one who is the most unassimilated Tuzla probably most foreign. Yes. Yes. She made foreign. She never felt like my grandfather was much more organized. He spoke English and he comes after my grandmother died. He comes very often to visit us. So I saw a lot of him. What were your grandparents names? My grandmother was either and my grandfather was Abraham. In fact, my son.

11:16 Is Matt his middle name Allen? He's named after my grandfather and uncles and cousins. Do you have any memories of them? Did you spend time with him? And yes my year. I was closest to my mother sister cuz she lived in my grandfather's house. He he he owned the building and my aunt one of the apartments remember where that was on Marcy Avenue in Brooklyn in Williamsburg. And we in fact sometimes when my mother is a couple of times she was hospitalized we stayed with us and and she has four daughters. And if you ever think we will I was the closest with them because she was never born

12:03 And then there was a year or two younger sisters.

12:08 Esther and Leah

12:13 And Dora was the one that we stayed with a lot and me it was Morris.

12:21 And Sam with a brothers and my mother was the oldest.

12:28 So do you remember when you were a child what you what you did during the day you went to school obviously, and if so, my mother was working. So what I would love over to my grandma's grandmother's house and we stay there until my mother came home from work and they had my back yard and a fun little

12:53 Variegated area when we played and I don't know.

13:00 We just played games because there was no radio or television weekly playing the street where the children play.

13:10 We played ball game and bring alivio.

13:19 And they be playable on the street the one that many, so you can play in the streets and I was a fast runner. So I used to always be the runner when they paid sick. Will they play Pitbull messin with Facebook with stick bull and I would run bases because I was a fast run. I think even at eighty years till a fast runner really can't believe on that foot. I can walk you walk pretty well. Pretty. Well, did you did you have any brothers and sisters then I have a brother and a sister and my brother's name is Sydney. My sister's name is Anna.

14:02 My sister is the oldest and the youngest in my brother is in the middle.

14:09 So do you remember where you lived in? Where was there a particular place that you remember is being the the childhood home or did you live in you left it live in several places or do we live to Nashville from my grandpa's house? We lived on in Williamsburg. And then we move from Williamsburg to the housing project was also in Williamsburg KY kynect walk. It was the first housing project that was built by the city.

14:43 It was very nice. We had.

14:47 Brand new stove and refrigerator and nice linoleum floors and big windows and was very grassy area outside with your congregated with all your friends. And I was I lived there until he went to work.

15:04 Tell my teenage years almost friends with you know from that area.

15:09 And it went to Eastern District High School.

15:13 Turn mowers for me is a child was it when I went to school at that time, if you did well in school, they skipped you so I was young so might I had two different sets of friends my friends from the neighborhood Who am I your age? But in school, I was always like two years ahead of them. So had my school friends. So I had to be with two different sets friend. That's what you get for being. So smart Ruth, I guess so I used to feel bad about it because my friends and I that lives near me that I serve all this time. I didn't have that much in common with it's always swore that you commented to me on the way over here as we were looking at all the construction by Ground Zero, then you remember what it was like to come down here when you move back here after living in Arizona and that you really liked New York. Would you say that you are a New Yorker born-and-bred? Yes. Definitely. I move to Arizona because my husband had gotten sick.

16:13 In his mid-fifties and he really a place in New York was too fast for him and he felt like an invalid. So we moved to Arizona. That was what it was better for him and it was a different pace and he felt that is there. He became a cowboy out that he really likes it and then we live there for the best.

16:38 Can he is and he died and I wanted to come back to be with me and my children. So once I came back to New York, I was happy and I really did not like.

16:52 The way of life in Arizona, I like it better here. What is it that you like but it's exciting. It's noisy.

17:04 Dirty, I don't really like it, but but it did something about it. That's it. That's that's much more exciting. It's more interesting to people with different and pepper bra tomorrow in somehow living among different kinds of faithful and out there every time and Community was just all the table, so I was happy here when I came back to fill up my life. I went to school with I've never gone to college, so I went to school.

17:39 And I really love going to school. I love to learn I went to.

17:46 Queens College in Arizona, and it went to Community College there when I moved here went to Queens College and I never finished a cumulated will that 70 credits?

18:02 And I really didn't know what to major in because I knew I wasn't going to have a career anymore was in my 60s.

18:11 And then this appointment came up in Battery Park City. I had my name on the list and it came up and I thought I would like living in Manhattan.

18:23 And I was never to my daughter who lives in Tribeca. So I I took the appointment in Saturday fog City and I never went back to school and that's where I am now. That's right will let's go back. So you you were living in your parents home and you went to work. Why is it since you clearly such a bright and talented person? Why is it you didn't go to college back then at that time when I graduated high school was young. I was 16 and my mother really wanted me to go to college.

18:58 But I somehow I just feel my mother worked very hard and my brother.

19:04 Was in college and I felt that it would be more important for me to go out and work and contribute to the house and the fact that my brother was a male he figured he had to make a living. He should go to college and it wasn't that important to me and I was really young. I didn't know what I wanted to do. So I just at that time the War II World War I had just started and Jose were very easily available.

19:37 So I said no trouble getting a job and I just want to work. Well I said that sort of started the orphan the labor movement because I got a job and Wayne Street in the neighborhood in Tribeca and the shoe market and I worked in a shoe store.

19:58 And that it was unionized and I had to join the union if I took the job and when I joined the union, I was became very much aware of the problems in political problem this and when did the war start 1941

20:27 That's what it was was Windows years and I became very

20:34 Tune to political activities and Pickett I'm going picket lines and organized people to go out and vote and I just really liked it. And if you want me of my mother and I can show you what I was doing. So that's sort of how I got into this groove.

20:54 Did you did you continue working in the shoe store all of your career or well, it was Exodus a retail store. It was a jogger shoe. Jobbers. They used to put the the job bought the merchandise from the factory and sold it to a retail store. They were the in-between cuz the retail stores couldn't volume. They couldn't go direct to the factory today go down to the job is and Duane Street with old shoe jobbers. And there was he is now it became you know, residential and high tune restaurants, but that time was ocean job is the whole block was hold the shoe market and that's where I work. So my working is

21:43 And that's when I came to live in Battery Park City. It was needs Wayne Street and I felt very comfortable cuz I had spent all my work and he is in that neighborhood and I just enjoyed being here. So like your mother did you marry later or did you know I got married at twenty-one?

22:02 And I worked for many years.

22:05 And then I had my first child. I was 26.

22:13 And we lived in Brooklyn.

22:16 When will studio apartment and lay them over to a one-bedroom apartment and then by that time I had two children and then I moved from for the house on Bedford and Fenimore Street, and we renovated with a big old one family house and made a three family house out of his my husband was in construction and he can

22:39 I married to Pressman who was very fun-loving happy man. I was very quiet and he kind of you know food me out of it was I was special and quiet and kind of pulled me out that and we will opposite between alike and we have a lot in common and that he was also very political.

23:11 We going to the MayDay Parade's together. He was active in the painters and decorators when he was asking all the first and he became a decorated when they did the mural skin before they have more paper. He was there he would paint murals and needing homes and churches and synagogues.

23:34 And that he was part of the changes and decorators Union and he was quite an active there too. And politically we thought the same way and we just

23:47 Telephone berywam, were you a socialist? Like your mother was Socialist Party. It says it was it's a good idea. Well, it became the Communist party and then think the American labor party was kind of in the middle of that time and and that's what I was involved with the labor party and then during the war they had the is civil rights Congress that did a lot of political activity.

24:20 And the night I was active in that.

24:25 And I remember doing the war that had Russian war relief and it's my union they were raising money and it was selling Linens from Russia and I still have the most beautiful tablecloths for located table for us that I bought then.

24:44 So I know that you're obviously a tenant activist now, but I think I remember you telling me once that you had an early start on being kind of a little bit of a rebel when it came to housing some early apartment you and your your husband or yes. Yes. Yes. Oh, yes. Well the first appointment the first appointment that we got

25:06 An astute in a studio apartment my husband had gotten in there and we rented a sign the lease and he's gotten in there's a painted and then we wanted to move in. There was a big tits from the storm snow storm the snow storm 1948 around Christmas 1948, and we couldn't move because the streets will call you couldn't drive and when we finally were able to get in there it was in January and with try to help you do with the K and if it didn't fit into the lot and we found it in new landlord had taken over the building and he didn't want to recognize my lease. I will lease.

25:54 So my husband called Veterans attorney. He was going to Veterans group and he said you have to get into that apartment. If you go to court the landlord will already rented to someone else and you'll have to evict a tenant. He says you have to get in there. So my husband remembered he had left the window open when he painted.

26:17 We went and knocked on the neighbor's door and she recognized him. She knew he had work there and he told told her the story and she says or will help you and he went through the fire escape got into the window and I sat there. We had a Murphy bed. I sat on the bed with the least and the lawyers that just sit there and don't leave you you will have a key for that appointment. Then I'll have to evict you and he has superintendent came up called over the policeman and he said how did you get in? What are you doing here? And I showed him the least and he said to her when these people belong here. They have at least and you can touch them and that was my first experience in housing and we got that a phone we live there and then we the same landlord gave us a one-bedroom apartment in the building and we lived there until we bought a house for us the street and that's where I raise my children. Maybe you feel confident that you could

27:16 It was just a feeling of knowing. What's right and what's wrong.

27:21 And at 10 and still have rights.

27:24 So you in a way you also fought for your right to stay in the apartment in Battery Park City because you are a witness in a Survivor to what happened on September 11th in Wood extended or lease are affordable housing until 2019 because of 9/11. It was supposed to end in 2005 and we need to send it to 2019.

27:52 I was only be for snow in 11 and now that real estate is worth more and the neighbor has recovered from 9/11. He wants to make money on the building. We don't count anymore in 10 and still do count. We live there so that that day in September you were at home. Yes. Yes. So, what do you remember? When do you remember first and how do you force member hearing a while? I just remember hearing this pick fresh and I thought maybe was a call Chris cuz we live right over at my window faces South End Avenue and looked out the window and I saw a people running running people with suits and an attache cases just running crowds and I said something's going to test be wrong. I put on the TV and then talk about what happened.

28:45 And I didn't feel threatened. I figured I just had to stay where I am. And then this second Crush came and they has pitch black like the lights went out, but it was Daylight and I realized it wasn't the lights. I looked out the window. This is a black cloud.

29:05 And Glass and Metal flying in the air and I just didn't I said no I better get out of here cuz I didn't know what it was. So I just grabbed my keys figured I'd go down to the desk in the lobby to find it was having but they didn't think you can go out and see this Glass and Metal I said you would get hurt. So I went down at that point it had passed or when it was like white dust.

29:34 India one of the maintenance man was standing there and he said get to the river just go to the river. They just had my keys. I had no money and nothing and I went to the Esplanade and then fairies came to pick us up to take us to New Jersey. So I had nothing on me, but my keys.

29:55 Questionable

29:56 To get I told it's it's about a block-and-a-half walk at the corner of kind of waiting as he make sure I could cross the street and then assume a man came up to me and and said are you all right? And I said I'd have to get to the river. I could not see him because of the white dust it was he couldn't see ahead of you. He should take my hand and I'll get you to the river and I walked with him and then when we got there he let go of my hand. So I never got to see his face. But my feeling at the time was that he was an angel to Kenzie came to save me and I just said it was my husband sends an angel Sent From Heaven to say it was just a reaction. I don't think it's real but that's how I felt. It made me feel better.

30:52 But I just remembered that very vividly as out of the blue. This person came held my hand and took me over to the river and then then we say got over to the other side and I luckily on the boat. I met some neighbors who lived in Gateway Plaza old part of my book club, and we stayed together and we got to a hotel.

31:19 And one person had a credit card so she paid got a swollen since we got about seven people. We got two rooms and we stayed there until the next day when it's finally be able to call people. We have phones access to a phone in the hotel and I called my children. They didn't have no idea where I was they were friends and my son came the next morning took me to my daughter's house and I stayed there with her for a few days and then FEMA arrange to pay for hotel cuz I couldn't get into my appointment for about a month-and-a-half with so they stay in the hotel.

32:04 And I couldn't even get back into the apartment to get my things cuz I had no ID.

32:11 I just had my keys you can even get in. So my son got in my bank statement that had both our names on he was able to identify himself and I had to stay in with the letter. I had my name and address. So I was able to give it to the military and they okayed. Am I going through the blockade and I got me some things and do it over to my son and my daughter Tennyson. They stay there till I got into a hotel.

32:40 And that was it, but that was part of the feeling I had of being displaced and dislocated and what's going on in the building. Now, we're we're in danger of losing our appointment to put that 911 experience back to me September 11th. A lot of people who normally wouldn't have gotten counseling. I certainly did and I know you did I did and I know talk to me a little bit about what that experience was like and an about the dream you had that changed everything.

33:15 After we started having problems in the building. I got very depressed and I started having bad dreams and I knew it was connected to 9/11 experience. So I went to counseling and went for over 6 months.

33:31 Once a week and somehow is talking things through with her.

33:38 Asked about I was at the last month that I was going to her. I had this powerful dream. I dream that I was in a place that I I didn't like I I visited public place and I didn't like what was going on there just didn't like the people I wasn't being treated nice. So I left and I started to walk and walk and walk and I found came up on this area. That was a lot of people Milling about and I liked the people I feel comfortable there and then I fell I don't know know before that. I say to a two sisters that I had known from childhood and I went up to them and they said they liked it there they were happy there and then I I feel

34:26 And I had a feeling like it was if it so much as this what it's like to die and a feeling like was in a different place and someone listed me up.

34:36 And when I got up all the people that I had seen before we're in Devil's there was two faces.

34:44 And I said do I have a twin somewhere?

34:49 You know or knows Eagle. Why am I seeing everything double then a voice says to me I did someone that want you to meet.

34:58 And I looked up and I saw this Vision before me of this beautiful woman with dark hair and looks familiar and I said to you I know you and this voice of this is your mother and I said my mother if I remember her was in the older woman and this was a young face and then I remembered I have a picture of her when she was 19 and this was what I was saying and I suddenly was so happy. I kissed her and told her how much I missed her and and

35:32 Such a good a feeling of peace and contentment came over me and then I woke up but that same feeling stayed with me for a long time. And then I realize that in life there is problems and trials and tribulations, but if you keep

35:53 Yourself together and you keep that sense of contentment yet. You have the strength to deal with it and it gave me strength to deal with the problems in the building and it itches its help me help me to deal with things that are going on. It's likely my mother's strength came to me when I needed it.

36:12 That was that was the dream was a very strange dream. I never had a dream like that.

36:18 What's up with you? It's still with you. I look at things differently. I deal with life differently. I don't let him take me over and become so overwhelming that I was very frightened very insecure and I just felt like I was going to lose my home and my whole sense of security. So. But that dreams gave me my strength back to go on Friday.

36:44 Will you speak often with a great deal of gratitude about your son and your daughter and your grandson? Why don't you tell me tell me who they are and in a little bit about them and give them is there something you'd like to say to them since you're recording this for memory?

37:00 Well

37:02 Who are they? Oh, my oldest child is Morrissey. She's my daughter and she has the grandson shown her husband's name is Michael and my son is David and he lives in California now and he's far away, but I see him periodically, and yes, he was in on business and he just left for this Tuesday and yesterday actually and

37:31 I want to text in my life. I mean, it's what keeps me going.

37:36 And because I don't know without them right when I was out there was only after my husband died. I just felt very alone and isolated. I felt I had to come back and I wanted to be me and my children.

37:50 And the serious social strengths to Media my future.

37:56 What hopes and dreams do you have for them? Well as my children is concerned. There's nothing.

38:03 They they will do what they're they're doing and they're happy my daughters in the artist. My son is a teacher story and

38:13 Curator of rare books and are they going to do what they going to do? I have no influence over them anymore. My grandson. I hope to see you grow up and have a good profession and continue the family.

38:31 What else can I do? You know? What do you think the most important thing about being a mother is?

38:38 Well, once I became a mother I realize that my life had changed forever that there is absolutely nothing more important than your children. And that was what my role was to just raise these children and guard them and take care of them and it to me that was the most important challenge of my life.

39:00 What a wonderful thing.

39:03 Another but you also are a wonderful neighbor and a very good friend. Thank you. I feel very honored to know you. I feel the same about you. Thank you for letting me talk to you. Thank you.