Norman Davis Oral History Interview

Norman Davis Oral History Interview

Norman Oliver Davis was born in 1925 and grew up in Harlem and Mott Haven. His family migrated to New York City from the South and came to Mott Haven by the early 1930s, working as supers for a building at 351 East 136th Street, where they lived in the basement. His family later lived on 136th Street between Third Avenue and Rider Avenue, where there were several black families in a small cluster of tenement buildings. In 1942 he was sent to Elmira Reformatory for allegedly being involved in the stabbing of a white boy during a mugging. He dropped out of high school but then got his GED at age 30. He began working for the Parks Department as an attendant in 1956, and worked there until he retired in 1988, becoming a leader in his union, DC 37, and helping to found the Parks Department’s Ebony Society. In 1981, he bought and renovated a large rowhouse at 440 East 136th Street, where he lived until his death in 2010.

Norman Davis was born in 1925 and was 82 at the time of this recording. He discusses his family’s roots as landowners in in South Carolina (paternal) and Baltimore (maternal) and his parents’ journeys to Harlem and Brooklyn. He discusses tensions between Northern and Southern Blacks. When he was a child his family lived at 351 East 136th St and on 105th St in East Harlem. His mother did cleaning work for families on the Grand Concourse and then ran Ideal Beauty Shop. He describes Mott Haven in the 1930s, in particular the Black community on 136th Street between Canal and Rider, including work, play, and ethnic conflict, both between Caribbean and American Blacks and between German and Irish residents. Topics include hitching rides on trolleys, playing around the canal, the building of the Major Deegan Expressway and the projects, collecting stray coal. He talks about his encounters with the criminal justice system and his career with the Parks Department and tells the story of buying and renovating his current home on 136th Street in 1981 for $8500 from HUD.

2007-09-02

audio

Amy Starecheski

Norman Davis

Bronx, NY