LDera_20171110



Amy Starecheski: But um I'm really-- I've got my my fingers crossed that things are gonna--

Gordie L'Dera: Well, how can we live in this neighborhood? You know, all of us? I can give you some of those, yeah.  

Amy Starecheski: Yes, I want to hear all about it.

Amy Starecheski: OK so I'm going to just do a little introduction. This is Amy Starecheski and I'm interviewing Gordie and Ray L'Dera. Today is November 10th 2017 and we're in their apartment in the ground floor of our building. And so you're gonna see me just watching this at first so I can set the levels right. And so like I said we like to start off at the beginning.

And I think you know I don't normally interview people together, so we'll see. You know, we'll see how you guys want to be together but I think it makes sense maybe for you each to kind of take turns starting at the beginning and telling me just a little bit about where and when you were born, your family, your background. So, I don't know which of you wants to go first. Ray, maybe you 00:01:00want to go first? Just cause you're not feeling well so you see how you feel and then go if you need to. Or Gordie you can go first if you're--

Gordie L'Dera: Go ahead.

Ray L'Dera: So the idea is that I get mine in before I drop dead! OK.

Ray L'Dera: [coughs] I knew that was gonna happen.

Amy Starecheski: And don't worry about it.

Ray L'Dera: Good timing, too, for that one.

Amy Starecheski: Right, get it out.

Ray L'Dera: OK. So what do you want? Just basically, where I'm from, how I got here.

Amy Starecheski: Yes tell me, you know, where and when you were born and just a little bit about your background.

Ray L'Dera: OK. I was born in Bristol, Virginia. I lived all over the Appalachian region as a kid. My dad was an expatriate Alsatian. Served in the German army and the French army. And apparently for a period in the Polish unit 00:02:00of the Russian army as a spy during the first war. When he came to this country he obviously changed his name. He didn't particularly want people from the old country to know anything about him and this is why we moved about so often. So in terms of the childhood background, the things that form a person, uh I was a little bit unusual. There was no stability in the usual sense other than a pretty stable family. So I never really got nailed to the sense of neighborhood quite frankly until the Gordie and I were married.

We initially lived, when we first got married, we lived in an apartment on Joralemon Street in Brooklyn Heights. From there we moved to Park Slope, again 00:03:00an old law tenement, very similar to this one. And then I bought a little house on State Street in Boerum Hill which at that time was called downtown Brooklyn or Gowanus. It was the early part of the brownstone revival movement. I was on the brownstone revival committee that largely started this-- the whole concept of, not gentrifiying, that was never our goal, but rather re-establishing the old city neighborhoods. The gentrification came later. As a part of that I got my real estate license.

After a few years we sold the house on State Street. We moved to South Portland in Fort Greene where we had two rooming houses. We ran one of them and lived in the other with the family. That particular period of course very few people realized how valuable real estate was in New York. All those people were still thinking, "Get married, save your money, and move to West Chester or Long Island.  The movement was largely artists who had no money to buy any place else. For example my two houses on South Portland Avenue cost me twenty seven thousand dollars for both of them. When I sold the first one I sold it for 00:05:00$28,000.00. The second one essentially the same amount and this was over a period of I guess about five years before we sold that and moved to the country. Now a house on South Portland probably is worth a million. And very likely a little bit more. And again this is a period of 50 years - 40 years.

We moved to a small town in Pennsylvania, stayed there for 10 years. Hurricane Agnes hit and destroyed the economy there. And we came back to New York. Lived for a little while in Flatbush, got an apartment in East Harlem. Quite frankly by this time I felt a whole lot better, more comfortable, more at home, in the 00:06:00impoverished neighborhoods than I did in the more established neighborhoods. Didn't speak a word of Spanish.

But I felt like, I think the Spanish word would be boriqueno, a neighbor. I'd spent so much of my life in these neighborhoods that this was my origin in a sense. We stayed in East Harlem for a while. We were very active in the Committee to Save East Harlem, a very militant housing group. Unfortunately 00:07:00the guy who owned our house sold it. The new owners were looking to gentrify and first thing they did was put in a candy store in one of the vacant units downstairs that played loud music 24 hours a day and sold drugs, we think. And he took the locks off the front doors. As it happened one night one of my daughters came home and she had an apartment in the back of the building and lo and behold she had to step over a corpse to get to her apartment. The police were very kind but it's not a very good experience. So we decided that maybe it was time to leave East Harlem. We found this house and we considered briefly 00:08:00one of the little brownstones on Alexander. This house won out partially because it provided us with enough space for my two daughters and Gordie and me to each have our separate apartments, which was really handy. It also gave us the space in which to house our Off Off Broadway theater. And for a very small price, realistically, about the same price as the little house on Alexander would have cost and it would have done none of those things. We've been here now since 91. That's 20 odd years. You came I think about 18 years ago 00:09:00if I remember correctly.

Amy Starecheski: Yeah I came January 1st 2001.

Ray L'Dera: Anyway a long time ago before everything was terribly settled. Your sister, Laura, came shortly after. And then when Laura left I guess or maybe Anna came while Laura was still here. So in effect it's been a 4 family 2 family house for most of this period. And that, given 15, 20 years of interaction has really become something approaching a commune, with Christmas 00:10:00dinners, we had for a while. We just started our little tradition of family dinners down here, sharing the backyard and making the house livable in ways that we never, would never have been possible without people who think outside the box, having tenants who do that, who can say, "Well this is good, this is a great idea. Why don't we try something else that might be a better idea?" And we found that it made a tremendous difference. We could never develop that in a normal four family house where everybody lives separately.

Why do it? Well, I think the results themselves are the why do it.  We've 00:11:00really generated a separate and rather unique way of dealing with real estate. We don't give anything away but we don't overcharge for anything either, which means the house will be very hard for our tenants to leave. It would be a financial hardship for them to leave because they simply won't find these rents any place else. It's highly unlikely anyway. It gives us security in our old age and believe me that number 80, when that number comes knocking at your door you'll start thinking differently. At eighty years old, it's wonderful to have the feeling that first of all you've got three floors of people that have got 00:12:00your back. Both financially and in terms of if we have problems we have family. The same sense that you have in the settlements in Israel, I guess, in the kibbutz. It's an acquired family and acquired comfort that I can't imagine having any place else. That feeling spreads throughout the neighborhood because those of us who've been here a while and gone through the bad old days develop a sense of solidarity and trust among ourselves. For example, you're a part of 00:13:00Brook Park. Prior to Brook Park there was an attempt which is where I met Harry to -- what's the word I'm looking for when you seize a property and occupy it?

Amy Starecheski: Squat?

Ray L'Dera: I'm sorry?

Amy Starecheski: Squat?

Ray L'Dera: Squat, yes. There was an attempt to squat a building a few blocks away. That didn't work. Harry got involved in starting the -- in starting Brook Park. These things become part of the family tradition of- of that expanded family. It's not quite a friendship in the usual suburban sense. It's 00:14:00not quite a real family, a blood family. It's not even a political outlook. God knows when you put all of us together you get more squabbling than I imagine you would find anyplace else. It's an exciting, rewarding way of life, simply reclaiming a neighborhood and feeling that it's taking it back to the way it was designed, to be a home. And that's about it.

Amy Starecheski: That's fantastic. I have so many follow up questions. Maybe let's pause there and Gordie do you want to kind of tell your version of it and then we'll bring them together with some follow up questions?

00:14:53

Gordie L'Dera: OK, yep. Alrighty I was born in Pennsylvania. A very tiny little 00:15:00village and we moved to a bigger little village and we were a straight white community with one black man. And so it was, we were all the same, period. And I guess that changed when I graduated from high school and went directly to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Woo hoo! And then-- I forget what I was going to say. Anyway I had a little apartment over on the West Side. And I'm sitting out on the porch one day or on the stoop and I wasn't sure yet where I wanted to go or where I wanted to spend my life. So here come these two women chasing, one chasing the other one -- they're running so hard that their skirts are up against about their panties. And one's got a hammer and she's - she's 00:16:00wielding this at the other one, saying, "You leave my man alone or I'm gonna kill you!" And I thought, "God. I love this place. I absolutely love this place. I'm never gonna live anywhere else." So that was, that was New York for me. And it still is. It's why I can't live in New Orleans. You know, I can do short spurts but this is where I guess I grew up. And so we went, you know, we went through the acting stuff and him too. And we met, we got married in three months. And you know who thought it would last? Here it is. Fifty seven years later. And so we went to Boerum Hill and he started selling real estate. I sold one house, ever. I took them out to look at the apartment and the 00:17:00building was for sale and they said, "We'll take it." I said, "Oh well let's go back and you know, here's the, here's what it will cost" and so on and they said, "No. The building!" I was so shocked I didn't know what to do. So anyway that was not my forte selling real estate but I have a pretty good idea what's going on here because we did that there.

And the people going in, particularly Fort Greene, we moved over there: artists, people who thought, we were naive enough in those days to think that all people could live together. And those are the people who came in initially and then it got to the point where the one end of the park got the rich people coming in and boy was that a difference. He was selling, you know. And they'd call him up in the middle of the night you know four o'clock in the morning. "Did we make a mistake? Can we get our money back?" I mean it 00:18:00just, it was totally different types of people and we were all you know I guess we were the gentrifying start and never in a million years did we think we were doing something bad, rather than good. We just thought everybody could live together. You know we had, we had--  He was tough as nails, which you really needed to be in these neighborhoods then. We had the fire, the fire-- when they turned on the water for the kids to play. And the firehouse would give you things to put on to spray rather than lose half the water in the city. And we got one and this guy across the street took it off and we put it back on and he came over and he threatened. We're taking the kids-- OK we had the babysitter 00:19:00living with us at that point and we're all going out to dinner. That was a real problem with us and the babysitter, she always went everywhere we went, so anyway.

Ray L'Dera: Well, she was hungry!

Gordie L'Dera: Kid going to college there. Anyway we all go outside, we're going to dinner and except for his brother who stayed in the house to protect it because we knew we were in a little bit of trouble at that point and this bunch of tough Hispanic guys come across the street. "I'm gonna kill you," he says. And Ray says, "Come on. I'll take you on one or I'll take you on all at the same time. Come on." At which point I'm not gonna lose my husband, I say to her, "Take the kids, go!" and I step up and, "Me too!" And there we are, macho guys. And we look around and the other half of the Spanish neighborhood is 00:20:00standing at our back. Anyway --

Ray L'Dera: And beside and behind the other guys. I mean they were surrounded!

Gordie L'Dera: Exactly and behind them. Right, right. So they backed down - very, you know- backed down, and went back across the street. And I'm sitting on the stoop the next day and the leader of the other group comes over with his baby, he says, "Here, you wanna hold my baby?" Well, that was the end of the end of the battle. And that's the kind of stuff that you dealt with at the beginning in this neighborhood as well. I mean sometimes we were so dumb you know like, "We'll take you on!" Anyway, that was in-- Where was that?

Ray L'Dera: South Portland, Fort Greene.

Gordie L'Dera: South Portland -- yeah, Fort Greene.

I don't wear a bra. I didn't wear a bra then. When I went to work. When I had to. I was one of the original throw them away burn the damn things. Okay, and 00:21:00I've been that way now for 40- 60 years. 60 years, probably. Anyway, I'm walking down the street one day and one of the the real tough guys who ran the neighborhood, he looks and me and he says, "Go home and put a brassiere on, girl! You can't be walking around like--" And I thought it was the funniest thing. I mean I just burst into laughter. I just couldn't help, laughing like crazy. And the other guys around start laughing. Well now he can't do anything because we're all laughing at him. So I was pretty careful going out by myself for a time after that.

So anyway we did our Fort Greene and our downtown Brooklyn time. And then the school I guess sent us out actually because Gordie-Ray was getting to be seven or eight, maybe nine by that point and talking to the principal of the school. 00:22:00He says, "Don't leave her here before 12. Make sure you get - get your kids out of here because she will learn nothing and it's just trouble." Well, again another racial problem was Gordie-Ray was best friends with this black girl in school and one day she came home she was crying like crazy and she said, "They won't let me come in their house anymore." So I take my ass over there and I say, "What's going on?" and she says, "My husband does not want our children playing with your children."

Ray L'Dera: This was the beginning of the ascendency of the Black Panthers.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah. Yeah. Who I accidentally went to a meeting of one day, not realizing-- This was before all of this. I kind of, you know, stuck my finger in Harlem a little and-- I mean I grew up in a town where we were all the same. I 00:23:00did not like all the same anymore so I dipped my toe in everywhere and I go along out to Brooklyn with these guys one night and we walk in and here is this room jammed full of guys in uniform and they couldn't have been any nicer. You know? I did not know until I was away from there that those were the Black Panthers, but they were all in uniform. Anyway they were really-- I guess my friends got me out of there pretty quick. But anyhow that's - that was one of my early festivities. I also have a football team in Harlem that were "mine." They told me they were mine. So anyway, "You get any problems, we're here for you." Anyway that's my early, you know before I met him. So where was I? I forget. 

Amy Starecheski: How did you guys meet?

Gordie L'Dera: He was directing a play and I auditioned for it. He did not cast 00:24:00me but he did ask me to help on the play. So I got the director, not the part. And we worked down the hall from each other and did not realize it.  We were on Wall Street.  I was the receptionist for-- the receptionist for the company and he worked you know way down the hall and I met him auditioning for a play which-- In those days when you got a job on Wall Street-- This guy "Mr. Camp Bell" made me swear I would give up theater and never ever do another. Of course I sat there and said, "Sure, not a problem." And then we hooked up and I 00:25:00had to leave the job or he had to leave the job. They had no married people there at that time. And they've since been swallowed up by another company. I don't know. You know, they don't exist anymore. But Mr. Camp Bell, oh my god, his secretary, [in a fancy accent] "Mr. Camp Bell's office." His name was Campbell! Well, I'm sorry. His name was Campbell. So we had our time on Wall Street when we were-- That's when - that's when Gordie-Ray was born, when we were still, he was still on Wall Street. And I talked him into quitting and going back to acting, which was a really dumb thing to do. But you know, anyway.

Amy Starecheski: What were you doing on Wall Street?

Ray L'Dera: What was I?

Amy Starecheski: What were you doing on Wall Street?

Ray L'Dera: I was in a section of the operations department. Basically the firms 00:26:00are split into sales and back office and I got the job at a time when they were just going through their annual audit and at that point my job was to go through find errors in customer accounts, satisfy the customer's complaints and verify with the auditors that they've been taken care of. I'm not quite sure how but I did get to be a bit of a golden boy there. I think it was because I may have been one of the first people that understood how computers worked.

Gordie L'Dera: And I taught him!

Ray L'Dera: I ended up as head of training for the back office, for the 00:27:00operations division nationally. I had no responsibility internationally, but occasionally you know somebody would come. Basically I set up training programs for the entire back offices. When Gordie talked me into leaving, it created a little bit of a stir because I mean, after -- what was it? -- three or four years there I had jumped well beyond the status of Mr. Camp Bell's training guy, who was trained, college educated and all of those things, to where I was doing whatever I wanted in the company practically. And 00:28:00then I had to explain why I was leaving. Nobody leaves a job like that! The partner in charge of the division, when left, he shook my hand and said, "I've never shaken the hand of damn fool before." But it turned out to be a pretty decent move because the company of course merged after a few years and then the merged company merged and after a few more with years the name [inaudible] Company disappeared completely. And so I'm sure did a lot of people that stayed. So--

Amy Starecheski: And so the first house that you bought, did you buy it together?

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah.

Amy Starecheski: And that was that was the one that was--

Gordie L'Dera: It was $13,000.00.

Amy Starecheski: In what's now Boerum Hill?

Ray L'Dera: That was on State Street, the eastern end of State Street, over by Fulton, Fulton.

Gordie L'Dera: Beautiful little house, it had a spiral staircase-- beautiful little home.

Amy Starecheski: And when you bought it, did you imagine that that would be like your family home for a long time or did you --

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah, yeah.

Amy Starecheski: --expect that you would move again?

Gordie L'Dera: No. We were - we were there. Well, I don't know because he was a roamer, too. And then we started in Downtown Brooklyn - I forget and then moved over to Boerum Hill.

Ray L'Dera: Well, that was Boerum Hill.

Gordie L'Dera: That was Boerum Hill, we moved over to Fort Greene.

Amy Starecheski: Fort Greene, uh huh.

Ray L'Dera: That was so serendipitous, actually, because the company that I 00:30:00worked for, the broker that I worked for, was a lawyer and lived on Dean Street and was again -- I guess a reverse blockbuster would be about as good a definition as we could come up with. Which we all were - I mean most of us were the first white family on the block. And I worked for him for a while. And he didn't want to expand beyond Boerum Hill. He felt that there was too much work to be done there, don't go messing around with any other neighborhoods. Fort Greene had nobody selling over there and they were infinitely much more grand 00:31:00houses. Fort Greene was the beginning of Bedford Stuyvesant. And this was where the money was at the turn of the century, that century. So the houses were very, very grand and they were falling to rack and ruin. They were being burned down all over the place. So we had our little tiff and I went ahead and got my license and set up my own company. And started selling in both neighborhoods. And, of course being a broker, I had the shots at the best deals. The initial purchase on State Street we really intended that to be our permanent home, we intended to die there. To the extent that when you're, what?

Gordie L'Dera: 22? 26?

Ray L'Dera: 23, 25 that you think about dying at all. But uh, we just found things we couldn't resist. Like, for example two houses side-by-side for $27,000.00.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah, those were the days. Ha! Not anymore! It got that way there, too. By the time we had come back from Pennsylvania, where we had gone for the 10 years, nothing in that neighborhood could be touched anymore. It was just, you know, stratosphere.

Ray L'Dera: Yeah. You were already into the million dollar range.

Amy Starecheski: What -- did you-- like when you were first buying houses there, what did you think was going to happen with the neighborhood? You know, it's hard to remember now knowing what did happen but what did you think then?

Gordie L'Dera: We thought we would all be mixed together. You know lots of artists, and there were a lot of artists, and the people who were there, nobody was going to get forced out. And you know, "Go ahead and buy houses now guys!" I mean that- that much we knew, buy them now. But we thought the neighborhoods would just coalesce and - and they didn't. That was a bit, you know. And then later we- we moved to East Harlem after we were out in the boonies. Well, we went back to Brooklyn for a while and then we went to East Harlem. By then Lel [Leslie] was in high school and she came home the first day in Brooklyn and she said, "I'm going to like it here. I don't have to be like everybody else." Sort of me I guess. Anyway then we came up to East Harlem and we were some of the 00:34:00beginners of the Committee to Save East Harlem because gentrification was coming in then already and that's over 20 years ago. And there was a funny one that happened with the city. Lel was in a summer school that was kind of a look forward. And they sent the kids out to check out the neigh -- amongst other things, they painted the Staten Island Ferry and that kind of stuff. And then they put them on: find out who lives in what houses where in East Harlem. And they did the neighborhood, this bunch of teenagers did the neighborhood. So we're big on the Committee to Save East Harlem. And meanwhile we know what's happening in every building in East Harlem, which was a great boon for the group.

Gordie L'Dera: We're sitting there one night, and a cam guy, guy with a camera 00:35:00comes in and starts to load up a movie camera. I said, "What are you doing?" He said, "Well," he said, "we're taping your meeting." And we said, "well who are you?" And he says, "we're Russian--"

Ray L'Dera: "--State television."

Gordie L'Dera: "--State television. We wanted to see how you guys operate." We said, "go outside," and then we had a discussion and we said, "this is America. Everybody's free to do this stuff," and they came back in and they filmed our meeting. Anyway, yeah that was-- And then it - it - I mean they had one building, Christmas Eve, threw everybody out on the street and the cops went in with --

Ray L'Dera: That was over in West Harlem, wasn't it?

Gordie L'Dera: No, that was in East Harlem.

Ray L'Dera: Was that in East Harlem?

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah. And they went in with mallets and broke up the radiators. So if - they couldn't turn the heat back on, you know? That was, you know not, 00:36:00not, you know. That can't happen. And so anyway we wandered around as a group and then it went over to Harlem. And he kind of dropped out at that point and I went on over there and there was that church on the West Side that such a big black people save them, save them. There was a house which had single women who worked and they called our group and they said, "Hey, they're trying to put us out." So we went over and we talked to them and it was not - it was a dirty thirty, when the dirty thirty was going on and it was not a New York City Car - police car, it was a Connecticut police car that came down, doing dirty work for the dirty 30 and they the building, the girls in the building that if they 00:37:00weren't out in 90 days, they would go out in body bags. Uh huh, uh huh.

So that's where they were when we went over. They had put dogs in the basement, turned off the boiler, and so on, in the winter, put dogs in the basement, and one of our guys bought a bunch of steaks and he went trembling on down and fed the dogs and turned on the boiler, you know this kind of stuff. This was a woman from that church who wanted to buy this house. That's when we thought oh my god that's just as dirty as every place else here. We went on the march up to the-- Don't do that.

Ray L'Dera: [mic noise] Oh, boy.

Amy Starecheski: You know, I'm gonna switch our mics because mine's a little bit-- has a better clip on it.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah, okay. I'll stop, feeling--

Amy Starecheski: No, no it's not your fault. Your is like, this one has, the clip is a little broken so it tends to flop over so this will do a better job 00:38:00giving you a little space. There we go.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah.

Amy Starecheski: Okay. So you were saying, you were marching?

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah, against the police. And our guy who went up to speak to them, they threw his ass right out the door. Boom. On the street. Ultimately we won, but there was a long long time there. And then I guess, the gentrification just kept coming on. There was no stopping that. And then our building, is when we moved. Our landlord was a sweet old man and he tried so hard but he didn't have any money and he put in a new boiler and the next year they're bitching about how cold it is, the building, in a meeting. And they had one of the uh- what do you call those guys who - who are supposed to be helping the indigenous 00:39:00folks and they're sitting there and we're talking and they're bitching about not having heat and I said, "wait a minute guys. We have heat. He bought the boiler, so you can't complain this year. Last year you could complain about no heat, this year you can't." And this guy says - Was it to you? No, it was to me. He says, "and what religion are you?"

Ray L'Dera: "--religion are you?"

Gordie L'Dera: "Religion are you?" What - what - Jewish. It was the -- "What- what temple do you go to?" Under his breath. And Ray being the -- "Do you all just hear what this man just said to my wife? This is what he just said to my wife!" Which booted him out, you know, he got killed. He was a - I can't think what you'd call him. Agitator -

Ray L'Dera: He was an agitator, disguising himself as a community activist.

Amy Starecheski: Uh huh, yes.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah. And he ultimately was murdered.

Amy Starecheski: Do you remember--

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah. I don't remember his name, no. And this was in what- 20 years? Well, we've been here 23 years.

Amy Starecheski: And why did he think you were Jewish?

Gordie L'Dera: Oh he was just--

Amy Starecheski: He was just--

Gordie L'Dera: Agitating, Agitating.

Ray L'Dera: There was this assumption that if you were Jewish you would be discredited with the other people in the house.

Amy Starecheski: Got it.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah. Anyway, shortly after that the old man had to sell, it got too much for him and the day he brought in the new person to introduce, we knew we were in deep shit. Yeah. So it wasn't until the corpse and Gordie-Ray having to step over him that we went out and looked and argued a little over whether this house or that house. But I didn't like what they did to the kitchen there and that was a whole new renovation and - and it cost more than this one, too. So we had our first Thanksgiving here. We bought the house early November and we 00:41:00had our first - and it was this crummy little kitchen and Alex was still creeping. And Gordie-Ray did not want him creeping on his floors.

And, so, and you know, early on, I go out and this guy is coming up from our basement steps, and I said, "Excuse me, what are you doing there?" He says, "Oh, I have stuff there." I said, "Get your stuff out of there and do not ever let me see you here again." You know, we have more mouth than brains a lot of times, we did. We still do. And he never came back. And then we took the stairs out. Uh yeah.

Amy Starecheski: What was this neighborhood like when you first -- do you remember the first time you ever came here? You came from East Harlem, I assume. 00:42:00What did it feel - what was it like?

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah. About like East Harlem. We'd seen the buildings up on - on Alexander, and thought, "Okay, this is a very pretty little part of town. Let's see what's here." And that's where we looked first and opted for this house instead.

Ray L'Dera: They also had a magnificent building on the corner over there. I don't know but, probably a bunch of Shriners or something like that, these guys in blue suits keep coming out and going back and then get in their cars and drive around with the lights flashing [police]. Something we didn't see in East Harlem, but they looked like nice guys so we figured they --

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah, and they were close in case anybody from there followed us. But the guns were blazing every night you have - but they have that now. It didn't change all that much and nobody ever bothered us. We had Frances down the 00:43:00street who is pushing 100 if she's not there already she says, "(laughs) We were the first first black people on this block. And now you're the first white people on this block." She is totally tickled by that. So there you go. That's how it works. But anyway it was - you know we - you know we're getting to the end of your stuff, I guess. We brought in the theater. We brought in, you know some gentrification I guess we brought in - not meaning to. Got one of our kids down in the Clock Tower [apartment building] and you know-- I will say we brought - Let's see we did - First place we landed for theater was-- used to be 00:44:00that political theater in the school across from the park - your park.

Amy Starecheski: Across from Brook Park?

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah. Yeah and it had a sign up as a political theater, so we wandered in there. And it was falling apart. The guy who was running that portion was just old and sick and he had a nice underling. But they just, you know, couldn't pull it off. And so we - one of our kids went in and took over one of the supposedly drama classes. You know our guys are just off the street here. He's in there, he's teaching because the kids - were using it as - as our study halls. So they started you know, we started putting some teeth into the study halls.

Ray L'Dera: An interesting side line, the fellow she's talking about was an old teacher there in the school and the theater program was a school program 00:45:00initially. Jose Serrano, Senior. This is where he learned acting. Out of that initial group, I gather was formed Pregones [Theater]. Which of course is a few blocks away and still going, still going strong, But there was theater in the school at that time. So what we were initially going to do was bring in some outside teachers, for lack of a better term, that would establish a school program outside of this structure of the school itself, but in the school space 00:46:00as an outside activity for the kids. That's really how we got established to any degree in the South Bronx. We were already functioning in Manhattan, so this was an expansion. Making the arts more available was the whole goal here.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah. I mean every place we went, we were brought in by the person who ran it. But the people who run these places don't last very long. OK. The old man at the public school died in one of the heat waves. He was in bed and the windows closed and so on and they found him in the morning. That was the 00:47:00end of what was going on there. And then we went to the school beside the firehouse, the little school beside the firehouse. OK. And that guy wanted us in and we were in and we worked there for a year, maybe two.

Ray L'Dera: Well this is United Neighborhood Houses.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah. Yeah.

Ray L'Dera: Basically the goal there was to have a unit in all three of their projects.

Gordie L'Dera: Initially. And the guy who was running it was gung ho for it and we did several shows there. And when we - we started in our own group we'd do a show downtown, do a show uptown and then we'd reverse. And then we found that the people who were downtown and were supposed to come up didn't want to come up 00:48:00to the Bronx to do their performances so we cut that end of it. Everybody came to the Bronx to rehearse or they weren't part of our group, period.

Ray L'Dera: And we did the first performance up here just to make sure that they didn't --

Gordie L'Dera: Uh huh. And yeah I mean they were happy to do it here and then go downtown but they were not happy to come up here. And I mean if they came up here for rehearsal they already put a couple of weeks, you know the six weeks or so, into the Bronx so they had a better idea what they were dealing with here. And then this guy quit or got fired and as soon as that happened, the people who took over booted our butts out.

Amy Starecheski: At United Neighborhood Houses?

Gordie L'Dera: Well, at that particular house. I'm not sure -

Ray L'Dera: Well, it was a little bit more complicated than that. We were still technically functioning at United Neighborhood Houses facilities. We were 00:49:00conducting classes and small programs that didn't have a performance space, per se. But we were using the lunchroom at um - oh - I'm not sure what the name of the project is over here, opposite us.

Amy Starecheski: Patterson?

Ray L'Dera: Yeah. Patterson.

Gordie L'Dera: I forgot that. I totally forgot that.

Ray L'Dera: We were there, we were active there for a good while and then we expanded to - and this is just a senior moment I've missed - I've lost the names of all three of these uh projects.

Amy Starecheski: It's okay. It's fine.

Gordie L'Dera: So have I. So have I. The big yellow buildings down close to where that - where you guys were.

Amy Starecheski: Millbrook.

Gordie L'Dera: Yes yes.

Ray L'Dera: We were down there at Millbrook. For a while we had our scene shop 00:50:00and so forth there. We were just starting a photography group - about to start a photography group.

Gordie L'Dera: Not a photography - a film - filmmaking group.

Ray L'Dera: We had very good relationship with the young man that was running that facility for UNH. And apparently there was something political going on between UNH and him. At one point as we talked about setting up a film photography project, the question arose, well when the people - when the people that is us, the actors, go, who's going to own the cameras? His response was, "Well, they're buying the cameras, so they will own them." That didn't sit well. 00:51:00They went through a period of what the newspaper people like to call: 'serious discussions,' and he left UNH, and that was pretty much the end of us over there at Millbrook. We ended up that they needed the room for a teen group that was extremely disruptive.

Gordie L'Dera: I'd been there before and that's why --

Ray L'Dera: I've been there before and I've been thrown out.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah, they put them out, put that woman out. And as soon as this guy was gone they brought him right back. That was about two years probably. We were there.

Ray L'Dera: Yeah, so you know basically we simply couldn't stay there because we 00:52:00had no control over our space.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah. So they gave us the entire basement and that's a big building. So we had costumes there, we had, you know -- getting rid of costumes was -- the basement was full of them and you know we gave them to another group, similar - that worked similar to ours --

Ray L'Dera: Sets --

Gordie L'Dera: Sets - just trying to get it out in a short period of time was a bitch, too.

Ray L'Dera: They just basically - basically they put us almost out of business.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah.

Ray L'Dera: We still clung to our New York productions. We reset ourselves up without equipment with the Children's Theater here in the Library.

Gordie L'Dera: And they asked us to come in, you know we were still down there. At that point, we were overextended like crazy. We had our main theater which 00:53:00was still performing downtown. We had teaching children theater, teaching them to act, and doing - doing shows with them. And the library asked us to come in with something else so we took an improv class for kids from six to college.

Ray L'Dera: Yeah and we were doing occasional tours - we went to New Jersey, we went to Queens --

Gordie L'Dera: We've done that, too. Yeah.

Ray L'Dera: We went to a mental hospital, I mean we were doing all kinds of stuff.

Gordie L'Dera: We were like (sigh). And holding down jobs. Oh my God. Yeah. And that I mean that- that- that was the- And we had a building down there we wanted to buy or to rent - put a theater in it and artists on the upper floors. And, we used to sell real estate, right? The city here - the guys here: "Oh, no, no, 00:54:00you're not a real estate person, you don't know anything." Well I found this for $2 dollars --

Ray L'Dera: $12 a foot.

Gordie L'Dera: $12 a foot across the street from where we're looking. "Nothing here sells for twelve dollars--" whatever - square foot. Well yeah. We just found it. "No that's impossible, you can't do this, you're not a real estate person." That was it for me. That was it for me.

Ray L'Dera: I had one opposite the Clock Tower and one on 149th and the broker insisted, no you can't find anything for less than $17 a foot. Well, you just rented that space for $17 a foot, and I just found a full floor -- third floor, with access to a conference room for $12 a foot. Are you telling me I don't know what I'm looking for?

Gordie L'Dera: That was - for me that was the end. I've just -- I-- you know I've done this for so long and all of these kids around the neighborhood -- I 00:55:00will say that the majority of the kids who did the improv class and stayed in it went to college.

Ray L'Dera: We were still-- years after closing this down we'd be met on the street: "When are you going to bring the theater back? When are you going to bring the theater back?"

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah. It was hard, you know with politics, pure politics all the way through.

Ray L'Dera: New moms were coming: "see my baby? See my baby?" Yeah, just totally involved within the community.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah the one over - over here in the big yellow house we had. I mean we - when we got started - we got all of the space we've got and this guy who was running the place at the time was really a gung ho thinker and he asked us to - to in addition to what we were doing to do on the street interviews and the kids writing their own scripts. And we thought it was a terrific idea. So we ran up to the college up here and took a class in you know, in film because 00:56:00we've known diddlyshit about film, you know, we were in theater. So we took a class and came back and we were just about getting started on this thing when the boom came down. Out, you're out. She's back. You're out.

And they did several things. For one is they raised the price of their summer babysitting - their summer kids program, to the point where everybody in it had to drop out. They had nobody because nobody could afford the new numbers. And that's when our guy got so angry that he left, he went up to the jail up here for the teenagers who are incarcerated and he's working up there - was working up there - I don't know where he's working now. Well you know when he left we were hanging out in the wind. So anyway - that's our sad tale.

Amy Starecheski: What year was it that - like around when was it that you closed down the theater? Do you remember?

Probably about 10, 15 years ago. Yeah.

Amy Starecheski: Yeah. That sounds right. You said that it was hard to get people to come up here for the theater.

Gordie L'Dera: From - from Manhattan, yeah.

Amy Starecheski: Like when you first moved here what was this neighborhood's reputation like?

Gordie L'Dera: Oh it was horrible because this was the worst place in the world. You're going to get mugged, raped and carried on - you know carried away somewhere as soon as you get off the subway. We probably --

Ray L'Dera: And it wasn't very far from that, sometimes. It was rough.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah it was rough.

Ray L'Dera: Pardon me.

Gordie L'Dera: But if you mind your own business nobody ever bothered you. Well yeah. Adam got robbed of his phone --

Ray L'Dera: His cell phone.

Gordie L'Dera: --on the stoop one night. He was just about to open the door and they came running and grabbed his phone. Oh was he pissed off. But on the other hand he said, "I was one. They were four or five. They took my phone." And he was glad they didn't take anything else. But that's the only-- I never had-- I 00:58:00mean I've walked these streets and I was what, 50. I guess when we came up here about that range and never had any problem with anyone. I mean, you did the guy with the dog. That mean dog across the street. He just got-- I think Gramps kicked him off our dog and he just gave him a, you know, knocked him right down. And I guess he realized it was an older guy he had just, you know --

Ray L'Dera: And then he tries to help me up and I said, "Don't bother, I've been sucker punched before."

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah but he didn't chain his dog. You know it's just obnoxious - But and then you've never had any trouble either, have you? It's been a great place to live. The kids went to school. They went to school in East Harlem. 00:59:00Grade school, anyway. We were right across the street from the math and science school down there and they had a special chil- That's where they had that guitar woman. I think it was guitar. Anyway she had the music program there. An excellent little school directly across the street from our house. We left them there and it wasn't too far to take them.

Ray L'Dera: One of the fascinating things of this whole pre-gentrification period - and it has been pre-gentrification all this time, depending on where you are, literally sometimes block, block, block there'd be a difference. But one of the fascinating things about it is the number of people who have, like us, like the woman who set up the class with the guitar in the school, the 01:00:00library, the amount of effort that has gone and continues to go into the education of our kids. It's phenomenal in many ways because -because they're in this petri dish. They see the interactions, the reactions, the re-reactions. How, this whole thing we call civilization sort of bubbles up. It's an education. I almost think we should change our educational system to where everybody has to go to the disadvantaged schools. The strength and resilience -- 01:01:00that the kids can survive it is terrific. Um the only thing I can compare it to would be in medicine, having the courage to take on an experimental cure for cancer. You know, sure your chances of being killed are pretty high, it's higher than anything else, but your chances of recovery are also higher. And that's what we've done with this whole two or three generations of our urban children. We've raised a tremendously strong bunch of young men, Obamas, that have come 01:02:00out of this. We've raised a tremendously strong bunch of - Well being politically correct I'm not going to comment on what came out of the other side - on the wealthy side. But --

Amy Starecheski: Say what you want to say. It's okay.

Ray L'Dera: But the comparison -- the difference.

Gordie L'Dera: We had - when we bought the building, there were two tenants, top floor and second down. The second one we never saw. She just took her stuff and left before - before we had you know even came in and had the house. The guy on the top floor had two sons. One was in and out of jail and the other one was 14 or 15. And the sweetest kid. And he used to sit in the hallway so he could hear 01:03:00us as a family, and talk about feeling bad on that one. So we kind of adopted him and then we found out he was selling weed from the hallway and told him, "No, we don't care if you sell weed, but you cannot sell it in the house." And his father left and left him no rent, no nothing, just walked off and left and he went over to the projects and lived with his girlfriend, after that. But he stayed here for a little while before mom over there let him come. And I tried to get him a job. I was in market research on the phone. You know I figured he'd be good on the phones, but he didn't write well enough, so they wouldn't hire him. So I didn't know what else to do. But he was telling his, you know some 01:04:00buddies out there one day: "No, she tried to get me a job. No, she was not harming me, she was helping me." Got married and moved. You know, and now every time he comes back to the city, he comes by and knocks.

Ray L'Dera: Went -- he went down South to his Grandma to live after all of this. And first time I saw him he was out there on the street big grin on his face, pretty girl on his other arm, and on his other arm, a baby.

Gordie L'Dera: So he made out OK. But man, I mean how could you walk off and leave him, I mean he was 14, 15, you know, no money no job. Why am I-- what did he expect us to do with him? Throw him on the street. You know, I mean it's what he was doing in effect. I mean it's just --

Amy Starecheski: Did you make friends around here? Tell me about some of the 01:05:00people that you got to know.

Gordie L'Dera: Well really only the neighbors. Well and Mychal [Johnson] and you know some of the political guys. But well - uh - What the devil is his name?

Ray L'Dera: Calvin.

Gordie L'Dera: Calvin. He had a son exactly between our grandsons. And then they became bosom buddies. We went out one day and then Adam and I can't remember the kid's name

Ray L'Dera: Cally [phonetic].

Gordie L'Dera: Cally, were trying to pull the fence down. They wanted to have the yard all to themselves. You know he didn't have to want to come around to come in and they were tight. They were all you know he was over here. They were over there all the time.

Ray L'Dera: We didn't make close friends in the sense of a suburban community.

Gordie L'Dera: No, no. We never did anywhere. We - I mean East Harlem we had a lot of friends from the group.

Ray L'Dera: My experience is, in neighborhoods like this, at least if you come in from outside, is that you will have street friends and house friends.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah, yeah.

Ray L'Dera: House friends are the very few that you meet that you actually develop a friendship with and they're usually, if it's a multiple-dwelling, people who live in the same building, our situation.

Gordie L'Dera: Oh. Carol.

Ray L'Dera: You're basically house friends. You come into our house, we go into your house, kind of thing. Street friends will divide into political, your own block, -- People you fight with have a tendency to become friends.

Gordie L'Dera: Orlando.

Ray L'Dera: Obviously we fought with and he has become very close to a close friend. But it's on the stoop.

Gordie L'Dera: And Orlando. Yeah. Orlando was-- before you guys he was shoveling our snow. We'd go out in the morning and it was done. You know, we're old. Thank you, Calvin. Or, not Calvin.

Amy Starecheski: Orlando.

Gordie L'Dera: Orlando. He was there for us always. And now we miss - miss him like hell. I guess Frances, but she can't come out anymore if she's still alive. I haven't seen her grandson for a couple of weeks now and he's there every day. Of course I think he was there to see her guardianship person, her pretty young woman I think that was more why he was there because they were always out on- sitting on the bench. So I don't know whether --

Ray L'Dera: Well it's not so nice for sitting in the yard [this time of year]. We had the nurse, the army nurse, that owned the corner house when we first came here. She died, the last old white, if you will.

Gordie L'Dera: And Gordie-Ray wanted that house so bad but we just couldn't afford it.

Ray L'Dera: And then across the way, had curvature of the spine.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah I'd forgotten.

Ray L'Dera: His wife was so terrified that she would be burying him and she took care of him and she died first.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah, and he was here a long time after.

Ray L'Dera: And he was here a good five years after she died.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah. That's up for auction, we hear. Nice house.

Amy Starecheski: Which one?

Gordie L'Dera: On the corner up here. Not this side, the other side of the street.

Amy Starecheski: Oh the one with the storefront?

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah.

Amy Starecheski: Mr. James?

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah I believe it was.

Ray L'Dera: We have Don down here. We've known Don since before senility hit him.

Gordie L'Dera: Yes.

Ray L'Dera: Which, I think before senility hit him because he really hasn't changed much.

Gordie L'Dera: No he is -- oh man, you had to avoid him if you were in a hurry because you can't get away from it but-- still but boy he was a talker. Lonely, lonely old man. I don't know but - Frances oh I did say Frances, her daughter in the house next door, they were friends and they're both--No, she's still alive, but the husband died. They moved over to Tom's River. Then, he died and he was the healthiest looking guy around. That was hard. And the only time we were in their house was selling Girl Scout cookies. So it was not a friend in the house thing, but for Girl Scout cookies you got to come in.

Amy Starecheski: That's sweet.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah.

Amy Starecheski: Did you- when you first came here what did you like - did you expect that the neighborhood would change over time? What did you think was going to happen with that?

Gordie L'Dera: Well we know they change. I mean I don't know whether we were expecting any particular thing but they were already building these little houses. We knew it was in process of change at that point. And we didn't really think there was anything wrong with it. You know, too many projects. But by and large it was as good a neighborhood as we had anywhere in the city when we were - you know, similar. We've always lived in similar, I guess since the ladies with the skirts up around their hips. You know, I kind of lean toward that kind of - And so does he.

Ray L'Dera: It had a sense of community that downtown Brooklyn lacked.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah, yeah.

Ray L'Dera: Downtown Brooklyn, uh Fort Greene, it had no existing community. I'd have to give the Panthers credit for that, quite frankly. They -however negatively and however mono-racially they approached things, they did bring a 01:11:00sense of 'us,' kind of thing, at least to the select group that they dealt with. Harlem, you have people like Adam Clayton in Harlem who really gave us a feeling: this is our neighborhood and we can do something with it. El Barrio, was the sense of home, center, to the Latino and more particularly Puerto Rican community - um this was the old Irish 5th Avenue and a lot of that sense of solidarity simply transferred to the Dominicans and Puerto Ricans that came in here. It was chipped away later, I think, with drugs. That created a separation, not only between races, but between generations as well. I know that my attitude toward grass is not nearly as comfortable as Gordie's, and certainly nowhere near as comfortable as Adam.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah.

Ray L'Dera: I have a strong aversion to drugs. I'm very conservative on that particular point. Partially because I'm an alcoholic, I have my own drug. But 01:12:00that created a schism, I think, within the community: if you're a druggie, you're not a part of me. It was between parent and children, it was between neighbor and neighbor's children, as it became- again if you have nothing else -- and you're grasping at anything for comfort. Just by the amount of money in one's pocket -- poverty creates some of the actual addiction. I can be an addict as a white man, and I have all sorts of support. I can be an addict as a Puerto Rican or a Black man, and again I'm going back a few years when the financial separation was greater, and I have nothing but the street. I'm on the street, I'm visible, I'm upsetting people, I'm begging on the train. "Those horrible 01:13:00people." And that's what creates that separation. This neighborhood when we came here still had a lot of that sense of community. As I say, it was gone completely when we first went into downtown Brooklyn. By the time we came here, downtown Brooklyn and all around: Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill, Fort Green, Clinton Hill, was solidly middle to upper-middle class and 01:14:00predominately white, or -- I sold a house in Clinton Hill to the -- what the hell was his title? He wasn't Consul but was consular office to one of the African countries. So when you start saying black-white, he really was -- would have been listed among the white, in that case. So what - what happened in a lot of communities was that division: largely drugs, largely poverty. So you had a cohesive community as well as separate communities, all occupying the same space. We are becoming more of a cohesive community, I think. Some of it is, quite frankly we buy our weed from state-licensed drugstores now. It's just not the same time. It's time just as much as place.

Gordie L'Dera: However who is coming in now are the same people who came in at 01:15:00the second wave or third wave in Fort Greene and in Boerum Hill. They're the people who wouldn't take a chance on the neighborhood before, but now that you're here, they'll take a chance on it, and I don't think there's any way to beat that. I think that's just a way of life.

Ray L'Dera: Well the challenge there I think is -- I'm sorry for interrupting.

Gordie L'Dera: No, no, no. Go.

Ray L'Dera: The challenge is to pull those people in. Right now I think the area on the other side of 138th Street down by Bruckner? In the Clock Tower and the new buildings that are going up there are creating a new, separate community, a different little world.

Gordie L'Dera: Yep, yep.

Ray L'Dera: If we want to be a larger community, it's going to be necessary for the people who are community-conscious here to go out and go to the coffee shops, find your way into the community meetings, create some of those bridges. The alternative is to have what we now have in downtown Brooklyn, where we have Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill, you know, these separate little units that are all infinitely much better than anybody else. It's not racial, it's geographic now.

Gordie L'Dera: And becoming here, yeah. As this stuff goes on, yeah.

Ray L'Dera: And I think that we have a great deal of that happening here. It's things that terrifies me with these market buildings going up on 138th. They are isolated communities besides isolated communities. I'm delighted at seeing our projects move over into-- away from low income into mixed income. That's a huge step in the right direction. I would like to see more buildings come in that'll be more mixed rather than simply market rate because the market rate has a habit of defining itself, and all frequently it defines itself down as people simply don't have the money to live. I can't predict what's going to happen in this community over the next 20 years. I hope it's solid and I hope that we'll build those bridges and I hope that it'll become a larger community, because quite frankly this little piece, say from Brook to 145th to uh 3rd down to 138th, that pretty much defines a community, right here. I think we're a whole lot stronger as a community with a larger geographic base.

Gordie L'Dera: Let me ask you a question: the little houses that they built, you know. Do you have friends in those houses?

Amy Starecheski: The little row houses?

Gordie L'Dera: Uh huh.

Amy Starecheski: No, and I was actually just about to ask you about those little houses because that's part of what I'm interested in, so --

Gordie L'Dera: They should be, the crossover, but --

Amy Starecheski: Yeah when you first moved here it was -- there was still more vacant land, right? And they were just starting to build those little houses?

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah. Just starting, yeah.

Amy Starecheski: So, I'm very interested in that. I want to hear what you noticed about how them being built changed the neighborhood, if you ever met any of the people who lived in them or live in them.

Gordie L'Dera: I don't think so. I don't think I know anybody. I mean we used to go around from door to door with our flyers trying to get people out for the theater but I don't know.

Ray L'Dera: My impression is only an impression, I don't really know any of them personally, anyone that owns any of the houses, but my impression is that they consider themselves locked in a permanent battle with the street people. It's a culture within a culture, because again, we can't get away from race and economics. Those of us that were the brownstoners, the first people that broke these neighborhoods if you want to think about it that way, always had someplace else to go.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah.

Ray L'Dera: We could give it a try and if it didn't work, we could go back to __________, or West Chester or Flatbush, or what have you. I think. But most of the people that go into these small houses - because usually there's an income requirement to get them, are new to the middle class and are at the lower edge of the middle class and they're struggling mightily. They are also in many cases new to racially-integrated neighborhoods. They are Blacks or Latinos who've had very little close, friendly relationships with white people or wealthier people, you know they are aspiring. They're on their way up and they don't want anything to interfere with that. When you either have everything or nothing, your choices, your possibilities are unlimited, but when you've got a little bit that you have to protect, you have very, very, very few chances that you can take. And again this is not based on meeting with any individual person, but it's the feeling I get. Frankly I think the city would have been better off building more of these.

Amy Starecheski: Denser.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah.

Ray L'Dera: And letting them co-op.

Gordie L'Dera: Do any of those come over to Brook Park?

Amy Starecheski: Oh, not much. A little bit. There's a couple of people that come around, but, do you remember what people thought when they first built them? When they first were building them like what you thought when they first were building them, or did people talk about it? Was it like exciting, were people worried for it, against it, were there debates?

Ray L'Dera: I don't remember any, I think it was just handed to it.

Gordie L'Dera: No. I think they were by and large glad to get rid of the vacant lots.

Ray L'Dera: Yep. Anything was better.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah.

Ray L'Dera: And even more the vacant buildings that were being torched.

Gordie L'Dera: But as far as the neighborhood uprising one way or another, I don't remember any - any discussion of it.

Amy Starecheski: Can you - so you came here in '91? Ish?

Gordie L'Dera: Was it '91?

Amy Starecheski: I can look it up.

Ray L'Dera: '91.

Gordie L'Dera: Ish. Yeah.

Amy Starecheski: Yeah. So you've been here for over 25 years.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah.

Amy Starecheski: Are there moments that stand out to you when you noticed things changing in any way?

Gordie L'Dera: Well, we used to have meetings up at the hospital, community meetings, but I haven't seen those for a very long time.

Amy Starecheski: Up at Lincoln Hospital?

Gordie L'Dera: Uh huh. Uh huh. And it used to be pretty well occupied, you know, when you had those and people had opinions.

Amy Starecheski: Who - not community board meetings, but community --

Gordie L'Dera: Community, as well as community -- you know, all kinds of stuff was held up at the hospital. And I don't remember those recently at all. Mychal over here is the voice of the community now as far as I can see. There used to be several voices of the community, none of whose names I can remember, but I guess -

Ray L'Dera: Well some of that is people like us. Me, specifically, I'll take the blame for myself. I simply dropped out of community activity.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah. So have I, actually. And it was worth our while when we had the theater here to go to them, so.

Ray L'Dera: I can't think of anything in particular. It's been a gradual movement to wherever the neighborhood is today, I don't--

Gordie L'Dera: Well there was noise when the artists started to come in here. You know the guys down there - the artists that were over there - what's her name? Across the block?

Amy Starecheski: Linda?

Gordie L'Dera: Linda. Yeah, and they came in during about a 10 - 10 year period where they started showing up here and there where they had not been before. Before - the - since we've been here, the old housing - the old furniture guys.

Amy Starecheski: Yeah, the antiques district. Yes

Gordie L'Dera: They've been down there. They were there when we came and I gather they're still there, although I haven't walked down there for a while.

Amy Starecheski: Less of them, actually.

Gordie L'Dera: Less them, yeah.

Amy Starecheski: Did you see that little antiques district and think like, "oh, maybe this neighborhood's gonna--"

Gordie L'Dera: We did.

Amy Starecheski: Yeah.

Gordie L'Dera: We did. You know, it can't be all bad. And when we had the dog he used to walk down there all the time, now I never go down there, I have no reason to. I need a dog. I need a dog, dear.

Amy Starecheski: You should share Anna's dog, like how we're sharing Anna's cat.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah, yeah, except she still won't come to me. She'll run with me, but she won't come to me.

Amy Starecheski: I think you just have to -- I don't know, there's a moment when she's on a leash and she just doesn't have a choice anymore. But, there was something else I was just gonna ask. Oh, so when you, when you, you know you saw that you had bought houses in Brooklyn for $13,000.00, that then maybe 15 years, 20 years later were worth a million dollars?

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah.

Amy Starecheski: When you bought this house did you, like were you hoping that that would happen again? Were you -- I don't know did you think that this neighborhood was gonna be different than that? Cause you know you said, like, it happens everywhere, but it doesn't happen the same everywhere. Like, you know, I don't know that this neighborhood's gonna be Boerum Hill, or that East Harlem is gonna be Boerum Hill or that this neighborhood's gonna be East Harlem.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah.

Amy Starecheski: You know, there's sort of a trajectory, but it's not always the same, and it's not always in a straight line.

Gordie L'Dera: Well it still is sort of the same because the artists were the first ones to come in here. And those are pretty dependable, they're looking for cheap places where they don't have to hold down permanent jobs. And that's usually your first sign. And I guess we were part of that first sign. And then, 01:29:00but that stopped. I mean, they're not, then they stopped coming in by hordes in droves and it just petered out. And the next step? The brownstones. And most of them are to the point where they're out of reach of regular people. And I don't, I mean that's it for these - that's 25 years I'm talking about. We were early, probably too early. But now because the visual artists were starting to come in, shortly-- We were first and maybe 10 years after us they started, they think about it. They started coming in.

Ray L'Dera: I have an analogy on these neighborhoods. They're kind of like slaughterhouses. The first ones to come through the gates, the artists, are kind of like the goats. They're not necessarily all that friendly. They don't smell good, but they do get to the door safely. And then come the fat, woolly sheep. Not too much happens to them, they come through, they're shorn, and then come the little lambs being led to the slaughter. Those people that spend a million dollars for a $20,000.00 house.

Gordie L'Dera: And then they can't sell it.

Ray L'Dera: They can't sell it. They can't pay for it. There was a time when they burned them.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah, yeah.

Ray L'Dera: We could see that again. It's hard to see that when you walk South Portland Avenue, or Willow Street, or even 116th Street or even 138th, or Alexander. It's hard to see people torching their homes, but if they can't get -- if they've got it insured for more than the market rate, that happens. And I 01:31:00think it's likely to just keep going until it repeats itself.

Amy Starecheski: I feel like there was some of that around 2008 here where people bought houses that they thought were gonna -- they paid more than they were worth, they thought they were gonna go up and then the housing crisis came and the whole thing collapsed for, you know another, 7 or 8 years after that.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah.

Ray L'Dera: The thing to me is to find something that you want. If I were a young man, looking to establish a world and a family, I don't think that I would waste my time with the girls at Brynn Mawr, the movie stars, I'd want somebody like Gordie. It pays off knowing what you want and keeping it. But, it's a pretty decent -- as good of an analogy as the sheep and the goats. And the problem is finding people that know what they can handle, and yes, aspire to more but take it in stages. I've seen in New Orleans in just a couple of years that we've been there and a couple more years that I've been watching it, housing prices going completely crazy right after a Mardi Gras. All these people come down here, or there, it's warm, there's stuff going on, it's exciting and they buy these houses, and then I see them, bankruptcy, foreclosure, in the Fall.

Amy Starecheski: That's amazing.

Ray L'Dera: They just roll over.

Gordie L'Dera: Or wives who are - I have two friends down there, who - they've picked up and moved down and sold their houses there, you know, they closed up where they were, and those women are so unhappy, they don't like New Orleans, the husbands love New Orleans, they don't like them and they have no place to go back to. Yeah.

Amy Starecheski: You said that, you - you know you feel most comfortable, most at home, not just in New York, but in New York in neighborhoods that are--

Gordie L'Dera: Like this.

Amy Starecheski: Like this.

Gordie L'Dera: I've been in them all my life, all my adult life - put it that way.

Amy Starecheski: Yeah. Tell me more about what you like about neighborhoods like this.

Gordie L'Dera: You can walk out there and talk to anybody on the street and they will talk back to you. They're friendly, they're nice people, Subway's right there. What do I like about these neighborhoods? And they're open. Mainly that the people are open. Where if you're in a pure white neighborhood, they're all protecting themselves from everybody else. Here, you don't have to protect yourself, it's free and open. Again, it's to go out and be able to talk to anybody out there. And, I guess it's the most of it. And I have no fear of it. Once in a while coming through that -- late at night -- coming through that thing in town there.

Amy Starecheski: Where the sidewalk's all covered over with the construction scaffolding.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah.

Amy Starecheski: I don't pass through there either.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah, yeah.

Amy Starecheski: What about you, Ray? You said that you like neighborhoods like this, not just because you could afford but because you like it.

Ray L'Dera: Pretty much what Gordie said. All the things that Gordie said and I would add one more, that I don't have to. I don't have to be a nice guy. I can 01:36:00go around, the worst grunge you ever saw, and, "oh, he's a character." That acceptance extends pretty all the way, as long as you're not actually hurting anybody. It's perfectly acceptable, whatever the hell you wanna do.

Gordie L'Dera: The little film we just did - this is from the international group that they're training, and our girl was Dutch and she got confused on where we were supposed to -- there were two Lucy's and both of them sent their e-mails and they crossed in my connecter because they're both Lucy, so my phone took -- So anyway she says, "where are we supposed to meet again?" And I'm thinking it's the other Lucy, so I say the house rather than downtown. So that poor kid schleps up here and she said, later she said, "I love your neighborhood, those people are so nice." She says, "I went in the store and I asked if I could - I said can I borrow your phone for a minute because my phone-- And he says, 'oh here let me plug it in for you.' And he did my phone." And she says, "where would people do stuff like that? It's such a nice neighborhood, the people are so nice." So she doesn't have the American stuff that's already been shoved in our heads. She's just a pretty pretty - she's a 01:37:00pretty girl. Anyway, no problem. You know I said everybody would've tried to help her because she's so cute. But, anyway, yeah.

Amy Starecheski: Have you ever sensed or directly experience hostility as a white person in this neighborhood?

Gordie L'Dera: No. What we have experienced, in the last couple of weeks, we were standing on the stoop and this Black kid comes by and he says, "you guys live here?" We said, "yes." He said, "how long you guys been here?" I said, "25 01:38:00years." He said, "25- You ride the number six train?" "Yeah!" "Oh my God, you're brave." I said, "have you ridden the train? Go over there and take a ride." You know, he's a Black guy. You know, and he's giving us this - and he's straight with it, and I don't think he was busting us. I think he was straight asking, what are these people doing here? And then he wandered off. But well yeah, you know? Look around you. People are friendly here. I got the gas pains in my stomach I go over to the kid over there and I say, "what do you have for me? Do you have any Gas-X or anything like that?" He says, "no I don't but let me look. OK try this. This'll work better," and it did, you know. So you're never going to get that in the drugstore in midtown. Never in a million years. And this 01:39:00wasn't a drugstore. This was just a little, the little guy- the guy around the corner with all the junk store. It's just - it's just so much easier to live here. You don't have to be on guard all the time, you can be yourself. It's like Lel [Leslie] said, you could be yourself.

Ray L'Dera: I've had one that I could by a stretch a racial incident here. I've had a couple in Harlem, I've had a couple in downtown Brooklyn, but here, only the one. I was walking the dog, and he did his business, and I hear a voice up above and -- from the projects, "you better clean that up, white boy!" So I look up, "always do, Black boy."

Gordie L'Dera: Shame on you.

Ray L'Dera: That's about as close to a racial incident as I've had.

Gordie L'Dera: I got the same thing with the dog. Two ladies on the first floor, looking out their window, and the dog, you know is gonna take a dump and he's a big boy, he takes big dumps, so I'm standing there waiting for him and they're up there and the window saying, "Goddamn these people come in here, these white people come in here, and look what they do, their dogs poop and they're gonna walk off and leave it." I pull out my garbage bag and I clean up and they said, "Oh my goodness. Thank you." "You're welcome. I do it all the time." Yep. But, they can switch. They may get an opinion of you initially but it may not stay that way, except for the kid who couldn't believe we lived here, and that was, 01:41:00what just two weeks ago? It's weird.

Amy Starecheski: Time warp or something.

Ray L'Dera: I think we all walk around with a bag full of assumptions subject to further proof and it's the only way to live. We were on the subway train, I usually would -- rather than get off when I'm below 14th Street, I just stay on the damn train and ride it around, I've always got a seat that way. And the train pulled into the Brooklyn Bridge on the downtown side and a couple of guys, tough, toughs or wanna-be toughs, you can never be quite sure, got on, and Gordie said, "Get off." Now they may have been perfectly fine executives at one of the brokerage houses but they just didn't look like it.

Gordie L'Dera: But my radar was on. And you live - in New York you live with your radar tuned.

Ray L'Dera: Yeah. It's what's called reasonable concern, and some of that is by color as well as anything else. For example, my experience with people with red shirts is that they're usually very argumentative and not very nice to be around, and they don't bathe very often, but, I have known people with red shirts that are not that way.

Amy Starecheski: Good. I should say for the tape that I'm wearing a red shirt.

Ray L'Dera: Let's ask how we live in New York, is by our accumulated - it's called experience.

Gordie L'Dera: Anyway, these - these three guys he's talking about came tearing into the train laughing like, you know, crazy, drunk as a skunk and looking for 01:43:00trouble. I grabbed him and I said, "Come," You know, "We go." I said let's watch if there's anything in the news tomorrow about three guys attacking people on the subways. They were looking for trouble. Anyway and I don't want to be the last car on the train nobody else there, going around that stretch. A lot of times you get, "It stopped. It's the last stop, aren't you getting off?" "Nope. Nope. We're OK. We'll ride for a while in the dark." Anyway.

Amy Starecheski: Is there anything that I- that I should have asked you that I didn't?

Gordie L'Dera: I can't think of anything.

Amy Starecheski: Anything that you wanted to talk about that I didn't get to?

Gordie L'Dera: Other than I think it's a terrific neighborhood and I'd like to see it stay that way and I don't want it to be taken over by people who are 01:44:00better than us.

Amy Starecheski: The Camp Bells.

Gordie L'Dera: Uh huh, the Camp Bells.

Amy Starecheski: Is there anything that we've talked about that you'd wanted to say anything about?

Ray L'Dera: I can't think of anything.

Gordie L'Dera: I can't think of anything, either.

Amy Starecheski: I'm sure I'll come back with more follow up questions, but I feel like I covered most of what I was thinking about. Let me just think for a minute - if there's anything else I wanted to make sure to ask. Do you remember 01:45:00the first time you ever came to this building?

Gordie L'Dera: Yes.

Amy Starecheski: Can you tell me about it?

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah. We'd been over looking at that brownstone over there and you know we were getting desperate at this point because you don't want your kids walking corpses, yeah. and not enough money either, so you're looking for something cheap. And then he says, "OK, you're not going to like this but I want you to look at it anyway." And he just assumed that I was not going to go for this building. So we walk in the building -

Ray L'Dera: Because you said you only wanted a brownstone.

Gordie L'Dera: Well, I did want a brownstone. But I walk in this building and we've got two daughters and we have grandchildren and we have four floors and - yeah, yeah, this can work. This can work. That was it.

Ray L'Dera: And also because of the way the hill slopes and the height of the stoop, it's absolutely perfect to build a ramp for a wheelchair. And what I thought, was that number one, we could have our own home. Sort of like dividing up the family farm and letting each of the kids put up a house, the family stays together but it's separated as the kids grow up, and, in large part, it - it worked.

Gordie L'Dera: It worked. Yeah.

Ray L'Dera: We had our separation but we still had the dependability of each one there. We were able to watch the kids and be there when we needed to be. They were able to watch us and take off when they could.

Gordie L'Dera: And the grandchildren were with us all the time.

Ray L'Dera: Yup.

Gordie L'Dera: I mean all the time.

Ray L'Dera: That's the down side you don't think about. And in effect, we've been able to do the same thing since. My comparison to a commune, a kibbutz, it's the closest thing I know of, to what we've got now.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah. The kids up here know they can come down here and use the place. But, you know, they don't. They should, they don't. Gordie-Ray has 01:47:00trouble in the city with her allergies. She's got- I don't know how she's going to survive New Orleans, but she'll be down there. She's terrified to fly. Well, he, first time, I guess we were, well it's a short flight we were probably down to - when they were down South. And the - the the woman who was-- OK, what are they called?

Ray L'Dera: Flight attendant?

Gordie L'Dera: Flight attendant. Thank you, had a heavy perfume on and he was wheezing like crazy. Then she stops and says, "What can I do to help you?" He says, "I have- it's your perfume." She ran back and she washed off what she could, but you can't-- I mean you're stuck with it. And you know Gordie-Ray is allergic to almost everything in the universe. So she's going to have a bitch of a time and she may have to go by herself because John may not get the time off and this is when the babies are --

Amy Starecheski: Yeah.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah. She said, "Should I go down before and be there to help? Should I have-" and I said, "No, you should wait till the babies are born because you don't know how long you're going to be able to stay."

Amy Starecheski: How did the broker- what did the - how did the broker sell you this neighborhood at that - do you remember when you were talking to like a real estate broker in '91, trying to sell a brownstone on Alexander?

Gordie L'Dera: He's a guy- he's a guy who has an old law [tenement] like ours down the street a ways on 138th Street and I saw him the other day, and some guy is saying to him, "I want you to get me something like you've got." And he said, "I don't do that anymore. I haven't done that for years." But I don't know where we got him, do you remember?

Ray L'Dera: I honestly don't know.

Gordie L'Dera: I don't either.

Ray L'Dera: I know he had a house -he may have been when we were looking at 124th Street, actually. Because he had, anyway, a brownstone, on -- right around the corner from 124th, I forget what that street is.

Gordie L'Dera: Is that by the park down there?

Ray L'Dera: Yeah, yeah. Three or four doors --

Gordie L'Dera: Where we wanted to go was the park.

Amy Starecheski: Like Marcus Garvey Park?

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah, yeah.

Ray L'Dera: I- oh I - for years I wanted that house. I love that park.

Gordie L'Dera: Drooling, drooling.

Amy Starecheski: It's a beautiful neighborhood.

Ray L'Dera: But we may have picked him there.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah, I don't know where we got him.

Ray L'Dera: He had this one and one on Alexander.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah. Nice guy. He was not - not Mychal. He was sharp, and we knew he was, you know, kibbutizing, us, I don't know, I can't think of the word I want.

Amy Starecheski: Kibbutzing?

Gordie L'Dera: No, not the right one, but we knew he was selling, hard. But eh so what? That's what they do. That's what we did. That's how you sell houses.

Amy Starecheski: Right.

Gordie L'Dera: But, I don't think he was much longer. I think he was pretty- and he used to go to the meetings and so on when we had, but then I didn't see him for a long time. He was a little, scrawny guy.

Amy Starecheski: White? Was he a white guy?

Gordie L'Dera: White guy. Yeah, yeah.

Ray L'Dera: Another one of those guys could never survive in this neighborhood [sarcastic].

Gordie L'Dera: Lives here. Yeah, yeah.

Amy Starecheski: When there community meetings up at the hospital, do you remember who organized them?

Gordie L'Dera: No I don't. I don't know any of their names anymore.

Amy Starecheski: Just curious.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah, me too. But I don't remember. I mean, I don't even know what they were yelling about. I mean they had something they were unhappy with or there wouldn't have been meetings, but I can't remember what in those days what was going on.

Ray L'Dera: It doesn't matter.

Gordie L'Dera: See? I don't help.

Amy Starecheski: You're super helpful.

Gordie L'Dera: If we don't have a baseball game, we'll yell anyway.

Gordie L'Dera: That's true. That's true. Yeah. They're putting the new stadium up there. Oh my God I was so mad at that one. They had that terrific playground for the kids which now has the ballpark on it. Were you here yet when that was here? Yeah, yeah. And the only place in the city that I know of where they could do their roller skating.

Amy Starecheski: Alright, well you guys have been amazing this has been really, 01:52:00really fantastic.

Gordie L'Dera: Well, good.

Amy Starecheski: It's so neat to get to hear the sort of trajectory from Brooklyn to East Harlem to here. I'll loan it to you if you want, I was just looking at this book actually about that early brownstoning movement in Brooklyn and I bet you'll know the people in it and stuff, it's a history book.

Gordie L'Dera: We were the people in it.

Amy Starecheski: Yes! I'll - so you should take a look at it, you might find it interesting.

Gordie L'Dera: He did another one of the racial things that he should have been - should have been shot for. What was that one, with the guy?

Ray L'Dera: Oh, yes. This was in Fort Green - the Panthers?

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah. Well the guy who - well, go ahead. We'll see if it's the same story.

Ray L'Dera: No, this is- I don't think I've told this one today. I worked very 01:53:00closely for a time with a lay preacher named Laroy Cole [phonetic] in Fort Green. What we were trying to do was to get our indigenous people, the Blacks and Latinos, to put the pennies together while the houses were cheap to go ahead and buy the damn things. And we had a great deal of resistance largely from organizations like - like the Panthers, who were working from the premise of if a bunch of white people are asking us to do it, that's the best reason not to do it. Anyway, Laroy called up a meeting, this was a storefront church. Called up a meeting, house was packed, and I made my little presentation, Laroy made his little presentation, you heard from the program, we'll help you, we'll work with you, if you're at all interested, and so forth. And from the back of the room, this guy in a fatigue shirt and a fatigue hat, I remember him as a little guy, and, "You come around here, and I'll burn your goddamn house down, I got a perfect right!" And I looked at him and I said, "You may have, but then I got a perfect right to fill your Black ass full of buckshot." And then silent! Silent! Laroy turned white. The panther turned white. And over here a chuckle, and then another little chuckle over there and then pretty soon, roar! We never saw the guy in the neighborhood again. I always did have too big a mouth for my brain.

Gordie L'Dera: Yes, yes. I have it, too. Surprising we lived this long.

Ray L'Dera: But it was effective. Didn't get anybody to buy a house but it eased the tension in the room.

Gordie L'Dera: I'm walking - okay, again, in Harlem, when we were working with Harlem housing problems, I learned never to take a pocketbook. I don't carry a purse, period, because you're a mark. So, if it doesn't fit in my pockets, it doesn't go. Anyway, this has nothing to do with this story, it just, you know. I'm walking along, and this Black woman comes out and says, "What are you doing here, are you cutting into my neighborhood, sleazy girl?" I said, "excuse me, this is my sidewalk, too." "Oh, okay." You just have to stand up, you can't, you know, and if you stand down, you're going to be a mark in that neighborhood forever. Don't be a mark in your own neighborhood, that's the thing to take home.

Amy Starecheski: Do you wish you'd kept any of those houses in Brooklyn?

Gordie L'Dera: I took Lel out to see the first one we bought. It was a beautiful, little house, spiral stair, big -- opening --

Ray L'Dera: Oval.

Gordie L'Dera: Oval. Yeah and little niches which had statuettes in them and so on. The whole place was gorgeous. Anyway, the woman - people who bought the house, the wife died and so I take Lel out there and we're walking over to and we're standing- standing in front of the house, looking at it and out comes this woman who died, the same woman, it looked like. And she says, "Are you the L'Dera's?" I said, "Yes." She says, "Oh, my husband told me so much about you. You want to see what we did with it?" I said, "Absolutely, I want to see what you did with it!" And in we went, and they- they put it back to where it should have been. But he married a woman who looked just like the one that he was married to before. I mean pretty much like 20 years later I couldn't recognize this woman. She was about the same age as she was before. But we were just, you know and Lel said, "You sold it? you sold it? you sold it?" "Yes. Yes we did. Yes we did." That was the prettiest house we've ever had. That was, you know.

Ray L'Dera: South Portland was grand. Very Victorian.

Gordie L'Dera: It was grand. Yeah lots of everything was - what's the word I'm looking for? It had - get so much paint off the --

Amy Starecheski: The woodwork.

Gordie L'Dera: The woodwork, yeah. Beautiful, beautiful woodwork. But, yeah, anyway.

Amy Starecheski: The person who sold it to you, why were they selling it, do you know?

Gordie L'Dera: Why were they- Oh yes we do. And that too is a story. Initially, there was a Hispanic family here. And the guy was so proud of this house -the house, the boiler guy, he used to tell us he used to wax the boiler, he'd scrub it down and he'd wax it. And his son got caught in a drug shooting up in the 01:58:00Bronx and was killed. And he just closed down and sold the house. And he sold it to two gay guys. And the closing was hysterical. I mean they had a big swimming pool that almost covered the whole backyard. And they were a little, you know, a little beyond the pale. And the one who was the swishiest had just - his wife had just had a baby and they argued. I mean he was trying very hard to get through this without the other guy and the other guy was being so mean to him that we're all sitting there, we don't know what to say. And the one who remained gay is going on and on and on about, "My boyfriend has a baby" and this poor guy's the color of your shirt, he's sitting there bright, fiery red, he doesn't know what to do. And this went on all the way through the closing, everything this guy had to say was, "He doesn't know who he is. Well he'll be sorry." And it's just, Oh my God, this is awful. I mean that poor guy. But there we were. And that's how the house closed. One people - one person was very happy to get out of it and the other one was very annoyed to get out of it. So.

Amy Starecheski: Were they white?

Gordie L'Dera: White. Both. Yes. Yes.

Ray L'Dera: Remind me when we come back, I don't know where I stuck it, but we have two pictures that were still in the house when we came here, that I kept because they're part of the house. One of them was a magic marker type of drawing of Spanish (indiscernible) like this. And the other is a teenage Spanish girl, big skirt, like this.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah a cartoon, a cartoon.

Ray L'Dera: At the bottom is, "Kiss me!"

Gordie L'Dera: Okay, but wasn't the- the photograph of the boys?

Ray L'Dera: That's - the photograph of the boys, we also saved that. I don't know where I stuck it to keep it, to keep them.

Amy Starecheski: Oh, okay. Yeah, let me see it.

Ray L'Dera: The boys apparently - the son of the Spanish guy, who had the house before the gay guys, apparently the boys had a club- clubhouse in the basement, okay? And we have one picture, photograph, of them all hanging around, looking tough and teenager tough.

Gordie L'Dera: Cute, too. We don't know which one was the son.

Ray L'Dera: Again, up on the corner, drive by, and he was killed, one of them was killed, I don't know which of the boys. But we kept that picture as well and we need to find it.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah. We need to pull those out and put them up. We need to pull those out and put them up. We had them. They were in -

Ray L'Dera: I just don't remember where I stuck them.

Amy Starecheski: On the second floor.

Gordie L'Dera: Yeah. In -in the little girl's room.

Amy Starecheski: Yeah. All right well, I know you guys are like leaving in a day.

Gordie L'Dera: A day, and, you've spent most of your day, too, you know? It's 12:30 already. We like to--

Amy Starecheski: Alright, I'm going to turn it off, is there anything -- else?

Gordie L'Dera: We like to talk. No.

Amy Starecheski: Okay.