Red Burtts Storys

The picture above is the Cottage Farm Bridge now known as The BU Bridge.
The trestle on the left is where we all jumped into the Charles River from, (naked). The high girder on the right is the subject a little further down of this "little story". This picture was taken on the Cambridge side of the river looking towards Boston.


A true story, yes sir.
There are a hundred stories in my head about a “neighborhood”, an old time city neighborhood; it had a “Nickname”, this area that I speak of, the place I grew up in was called “Greasy Village”.

If I tried to put everything I remember about The Village into one story it would be a “thousand page book”. This short little tale has three parts; the first, how I remember my life starting in “The Village” the second, “Fort Washington” (fort washington park cambridge ma is now a very popular Historic Tourist Attraction) and the third Little Story is a one-day incident on the Boston University Bridge, (Then Called The Cottage Farm Bridge) this incident took place a long, long time ago.

There are sad story’s, funny story’s and just plain “Life as it was” story’s that all occurred in the area of “Cambridge-port” that was then known as “Greasy Village”. Most of the people of my day are now gone but my head is full of them and of the days when we were all like “Family”.

The Village is no more, it has faded into history only to be remembered or spoken of by the children or grandchildren of the “Old Village People” that are left, like me. The new world of Condomiums and Diversity has moved into The Village. The old time working families that sat on their front stairs with a cold drink after supper and watched their children play in the streets have long since vanished, a way of life has come and gone. “Our Corner” was at the intersection of Brookline St and Putnam Avenue.

From time to time I will write some “Little Stories” about this great old place. Now, as I grow old, things that happen in my daily life will stir some hidden memory and these “little stories” start bouncing around in my head, I have flashbacks to days of the people and things that have long since past. A picture I recently saw on television of the Charles River and the Boston University Bridge brought one of the following “Little Stories” to mind.

I will begin my series of “Little Stories” with the circumstances that led my parents to finally settle in Cambridge Mass and Greasy Village.
Maybe my little story’s will help keep the Old Village alive a while longer.

Fate brings my parents and myself into “Greasy Village”.
The Stock Market crashed in Oct of 1929; it was the beginning of the great depression. At the time I was three years of age, my parents were the owners of a “Candy and Ice Cream Store” located on Bennington St in East Boston Massachusetts. Things were going very well for them and plans were in the making for the opening of two more stores, one in Chelsea and one in Revere, but the results of the Market Crash ended all that.

By March of 1930 my parents were wiped out, people didn’t have any money to buy candy. My father was a “Licensed Confectioner” and an excellent candy maker. He saved some of his candy making equipment, sold everything else, closed the doors to the Ice Cream Parlor and Candy Store and was now out of work, like most everybody else was. Our lives changed over night.

In the next year we moved twice. Then in 1931, we moved to Cambridge Mass, I was five years old. My Grandmother had been living in Cambridge for the past few years and she found an apartment in a two family house for us located in “Putnam Court” just off Putnam Avenue between Brookline St and Sidney St. This turned out to be the area of America that I would grow up in. I met many life long friends in “The Village” and it was there that I met the mother of my children, my wife Barbara.
At the time of this writing, we have been married for Fifty-Eight years.

In order to pay the rent and feed us my Father set up his candy making equipment in the cellar of the little two family home located in the rear of “Putnam Court”. He would make fifteen or twenty boxes of chocolates; My Mother would dip them and make little swirls on the top. This had to be done with special attention as all chocolates have their own identity by the swirl on the top of each piece. When everything was completed, my father would then walk the streets of Cambridge and Somerville selling his candy. He did not do very well at first, as I said before, people did not have extra money to buy candy. During these walks, he met a Big Irish Cambridge “Beat Cop”, his name was “Tom Burke” they soon became very good friends and were friends right up to Tom Burke’s death years later. This police officer (Tom Burke) was the one that came up with the idea that would finally put my father on the way to making a few dollars peddling his candy.
He took my father over to the Cambridge Police Station on Western Avenue and made arrangements for him to leave a few boxes of candy at the front desk. On his first visit, he left an open box of chocolates on the front desk for the officers to sample. After sampling the candy the officers would leave a few cents beside the box and each week my Father would collect the money and leave the candy. The Police, the Firefighters and People that worked in the Court House all had jobs, they did not make much money, but they were working.
This seemed to work for him, he didn’t bother trying to sell on the street he just made the rounds of the Fire Stations, the Police Dept. and the Court House. He became very well known at these places. Every Cop and Fireman in Cambridge knew him during the “mid thirties”. He made many friends and at one point worked at the courthouse when he was on the WPA just before the depression ended.
At age six, in 1932, I entered the “Morse Grammar School” located at the corner of Allston and Brookline streets. I would spend eight years in the Morse School, graduating in 1940.

“The Village” was a working class neighborhood back then made up of large and small families and we were all in the same situation, living from day to day, trying to survive. The rich people were all jumping out of windows and killing themselves because they were now suddenly poor people. The Village people just got up every day and hoped they could make it until the next day. Our parents never thought about jumping out of windows, we were to hungry to jump out of a window (we were always poor).

Officially, this area is the “Cambridge-port” section of Cambridge. But to the hundreds of families that lived and grew up in that area from the “Nineteen Twenties” all through the “Sixties” and into the “Nineteen Seventies” this small section of Cambridge-port was known as, “Greasy Village” or as we all called it, simply, “The Village”.

Behind every fictitious name, (or nick name) there is a reason. This section of Cambridge Mass consisting of four city blocks probably started to become known as “Greasy Village” back in the very early “Twenties”.

Located right beside Fort Washington on Waverly St, was a large brick building called “Reardon’s”, this was a Meat and Bone Rendering Plant.
Trucks would go throughout the city of Boston and the surrounding cities during the day and collect all the waste fat and bones from the beef, pork and lamb at restaurants and meat stores, at night this would all be boiled down and shipped out to make soap and whatever else of value that could be done with it. Over the years grease accumulated on everything in and around this building. The driveways were greasy, the barrels were greasy, their trucks were greasy and the people that worked there were greasy. They all showered before going home and I have heard it said, “that even the showers were greasy”. In the Post WWI years this small neighborhood in Cambridge Mass started to become known as, “Greasy Village”.

People from away that didn't come from our area would sometimes complain of the odor that came from the factory as they were boiling the bones, but, if you were a poor kid during the depression and you lived in Greasy Village, that odor would make you so hungry you could cry.
I could go to the meat department of a big Supermarket today and get a bag full of old bones, bring them home and boil them, then sit in my living room, close my eyes and smell the aroma of those “boiling bones” and it would take me right back to “Fort Washington”.

Fort Washington:
We all spent many summer days lying in the grass and just, “hanging out” in “Fort Washington”, this was a small piece of history that George Washington left for us Village People.

We all considered Fort Washington “ours” it was part of the Village, (I wonder what “Old George” thought if he happened to look down from above and saw some of the things we did there). Who knows, he may have smiled and winked. I don’t think he would have been mad, after all, it is said in some of the history books that George was somewhat of a “Rascal” himself in his younger years.

Fort Washington is located on Waverly St. at the lower easterly end of Allston St, right beside the railroad tracks and the site of the old bone factory. Today it is a Tourist Attraction, and people from all over the world visit it. There is a flagpole right in the middle and several cannons are pointed towards the Charles River. It was always said that one of George Washington's horses was buried beneath that flag pole, so one night several of us decided to dig it up and see if we could find some old “horse bones” or maybe one of George’s old swords, but, we found nothing. That doesn’t mean one of his horses isn't buried there though, “or maybe a sword”?

Fort Washington is where I had my first real, goose bump, knee slapping kiss with a pretty girl and it is also where we all gathered on hot summer nights during the early months of WWII to talk of this war that was raging in the world. Some of these very teenagers that were asking, “where the hell is Pearl Harbor” would in a few short months go off to this war never to return to our little neighborhood or Fort Washington.
During the war years if a service man lost his life overseas his family would hang a small flag with a Gold Star on it in the front window of their home to let “passers by” know that a member of their family had given his life for our country. I found it to be a very strange and sad feeling to walk by these houses and look at that Gold Star knowing it was for a friend or one of the older guys that had grown up on these streets and had also “hung around” The Fort.

Another memory I will always have of Fort Washington is of the cold fall evenings after working all day on the oil wagons we would walk across the “corn field” as we called it, this was a big vacant lot right across the street from the fort, I imagine at some point in time somebody used it as a corn field and the name stayed with it. Following WWII the St Johnsbury Trucking Co built a terminal there; today a large office building sits on that site. We would all go into the fort and set up a fifty five gallon drum, punch holes in it, fill it with scrap wood that we would get from the railroad tracks, we would light a fire, and then we would roast potatoes and sometimes, a whole ham.
We would “borrow” one or two of these hams after we broke the seal and opened the door on one of the freight cars behind the “Wilson Meat Packing Factory”. We would always have a few quarts of beer that we would pay a “wino” to buy for us, as we were all underage. Sometimes we would bring the “wino” with us and feed him some ham then send him on his way. (Sorry, we called them “winos” back then, not very politically correct today).

After some Ham, Beer and Potatoes we would all stand around the barrel and sing, (old songs) “Down By The Old Mill Stream” “That Old Gang Of Mine”. I wonder if young people that live in the cities today gather together on a street corner or somebody’s front stairs and just “sing”? (If not, they should, it was great)

If some of my old friends were still alive, and if the City Of Cambridge would allow it (they keep it locked now), I would like nothing better than to take one of my blood pressure pills, grab my cane go back to this place and sit with all these great people I knew so long ago and boil some bones (to bring back the memory) then, just talk, or maybe sing a song or two, and maybe have a piece of ham, a can of beer, kiss a pretty girl, all in Fort Washington. Or as the good old “Village People” called it “The Fort”.

Summer 1940:
“The Village” is a short distance from the Charles River; the Charles played a big part in our lives as we were growing up. The Boston University Bridge connects Cambridge to Boston at the end of Brookline St. Back in those days the name of this bridge was the “Cottage Farm Bridge” we called it, “The Cottie”. Beside this bridge is a railroad trestle that crosses over the Charles River into Boston, then the tracks continue on to the railroad yards in Brighton. This is another spot where we spent much of our time on hot summer days. We would walk down Putnam Avenue from “our corner” to Waverly St then onto the railroad tracks. It was only about a half mile down the tracks to the Trestle but if a freight train happened to come along we would all “hop it” for the “free ride” down to “our trestle”. The trestle was “Village Turf”.

The Trestle:
Every kid I knew in the Village learned how to swim diving off this trestle, every kid but me. To this day I can't swim more than ten feet without sinking to the bottom like a rock. My old friends Warren (Whitey) White, Howard (Popeye) Jones and Thomas (Smitty) Smith and a few others would tread water under the Trestle and I would jump off, they would be waiting and would start pushing me and telling me what to do, it never worked. During my early teens I must have swallowed fifty gallons of that rotten Charles River, every toilet in Cambridge emptied into it. I trusted those people with my life back then. (And would today)
I was with Smitty and four or five others of our old crowd at a wedding just before he passed away some time in the mid eighties. After the wedding we were sitting in a back yard on Pearl St with our wives having a few drinks, singing hymns and talking about the old days, I caught Smitty looking at me and smiling, I said "What are you laughing at" he said "can you swim yet" and I said "no". He just shook his head and laughed.

Popeye Jones:
Howard (Popeye) Jones was one of the best swimmers I have ever come across in my life. Popeye was a Black kid from Lopez St who started hanging around the Village with us during the late thirties. After we had one of my “swimming lessons” we had a little routine we would perform to scrape up a few dollars for ourselves.

We would all walk or “hop a truck” up Brookline St (Brookline St was a two way street back then) to Central Square, there would be about ten of us, we would invade the Woolworth’s “five and dime”, or Grants Dept Store, or the Harvard Bazaar. We would then proceed to disrupt this place of business as much as we could, then while the employees were busy chasing us around the store and shoving us out the door one of us would “borrow” a pair of bright yellow satin “Jantzen” bathing trunks. These were for “Popeye” (No TV security cameras in those days).

As I said earlier, Popeye was a black kid; he was very well built and when he put this bright yellow bathing suit on (it is called a swim suit today), the people took notice of him, they couldn’t help it. There was a reason for this; he was going to perform for the public. We were his business managers.

The “BU Bridge” has large steel girders crossing from the Cambridge side to the Boston side and vice versa. It is quite a distance from the very top of these girders to the water below, I am guessing now but maybe sixty or seventy feet. Popeye would put on his shiny new, yellow bathing suit, and then he would crawl up to the very top of the Girder that would be on your right as you headed into Boston.
This all had to be timed, it had to be exactly between Five and Five Fifteen PM. This was the time that most people would be leaving work in Boston and headed home over the bridge. We formed what we called the “stoppers” and the “collectors”. The “stoppers” would be at the Cambridge side of the bridge; at just the right time they would step out into the middle of the street and “stop” the traffic. That was possible back in the “thirties”; today the cars would run right over you and leave you lying there. Then the “collectors” went to work, they each had a small box or an old tin can.
They would approach the driver and tell them that in five minutes a kid was going to jump off the girder into the river. We also told them this would be quite spectacular, we told them he might even “kill himself”, that got them interested. The “collector” then asked them if they would like to make a small contribution to watch this “historic event”. It always worked, we always got Five or Six dollars, that was good money back then.

We had four or five “collectors” because we wanted this over with quickly before the Cops came and took our money for themselves, (when cops used to catch us shooting crap in a backyard they always stole our money).
When the people were all out of their cars and standing by the bridge railing the “collectors” gave the word, Popeye jumped, the people always applauded and whistled, Popeye was a “Big Star”, for five minutes.

As soon as he hit the water we were on our way, Popeye would swim the twenty feet or so to shore then he would cross the street to the trestle side and we would all run down the grassy hill to the tracks, then under the Memorial Drive Bridge. The cops always came due to the backed up traffic, but we were way ahead of them, we were halfway back to the Village before they got to the bridge, fifteen or twenty kids racing up the Railroad Tracks, with Popeye and his little yellow bathing suit leading the pack.

Many years later I attended a social function with some of the people I was working with, among these people was another “Village Kid” he was about ten or fifteen years behind me. When he was “hanging around the Village” my crowd had all married and were raising children of their own. The party we were at was held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel located on the corner of Vassar St and Memorial Drive, this is directly across the street from “Our Trestle”, as we sat in the Hotel Dinning Room with our drinks we looked down onto the Charles River and “Our Trestle” we laughed and started with our memories. He had done much of the same things we did, one of the favorites was climbing the girders and collecting “Pigeon Eggs” to throw at the Tourists as they passed under the bridge on the Sightseeing Boats that came from Boston Harbor to Cruise the Charles and view Harvard College from the River. This “Village Kid” that I was drinking and reminiscing with, the Kid from the “younger generation” is now a retired “Cape Codder” and a grandfather, his name is “Leafy”.

I wonder what people today would think if some hot summer suppertime they were to drive across the B.U. Bridge and look up onto the girders and see a young Black Kid with a yellow bathing suit on standing at the top. Maybe he is up there at times, we just can’t see him though.

Howard “Popeye” Jones is the only person I know of in all my years of living in the Village that has ever jumped off the BU Bridge girders-- Maybe some other kid did at some other time, but not during my time.

I would run into Popeye many times in the city of Cambridge after we had grown, married and had families of our own, when we spotted each other we would simply smile, then no matter where we were we would take the time to talk and laugh at the memories of some of the things we had done in those years that passed us by so quickly.

Popeye passed away sometime in 1991. -R.I.P. “Pop”.
There are another hundred “little story’s” from “The Village”
I will tell you a few of them, later.

Author: Red Burtt