Jake the Legend<\/p>\n
Jennings Street Market, The Bronx 1942<\/p>\n
His establishment was adjacent to The Family Shoe Store. As far as I was concerned Jake had no address, no building number, just a \u00a0street name. This cherry-cheeked gnome\u2019s venue with his wife beside him was an 8\u2019 space on the sidewalk in Jennings Street Market. From early in the morning until darkness his white apron could be seen behind five dark, oaken barrels full of pickles, sauerkraut, or pickled tomatoes.<\/p>\n
Flurries of shoppers flooded Jennings Street Market. During the Great Depression, everyone in the neighborhood attempted to fill their iceboxes with nutritious food while salvaging their meager family income.<\/p>\n
As far as nutritious food, Jake\u2019s pickles were the exception. At this time salt was considered a necessity to enhance the flavor of food. It wasn\u2019t thought of as an evil contributing to high blood pressure. Salt, with its neighbor, pepper were the condiments that held center stage on the dinner table.<\/p>\n
He was very generous to children. Often, he lost count of the number of pickles he stuffed into a jar and asked very little in return.<\/p>\n
If a customer wanted pickles she had better be prepared to respond to his nod. One day, my mother looked across the street, unaware that she was next.<\/p>\n
\u201cNu,\u201d he asked. \u201cDid you come to your big decision,\u201d<\/p>\n
We were a quiet family. Disagreements were settled by talk. No one ever spoke like this to my mother. With this insult, I was drafted to become the messenger for our Sabbath pickles.<\/p>\n
While the entrepreneurs\u00a0were yelling from their fruit and vegetable stands\u00a0to draw attention to their merchandise, Jake quietly carried out his business, except when he was slicing the air with a biting comment.<\/p>\n
Was his merchandise tasty? The answer is the queue of customers from all parts of the Bronx waiting their turn to fill their jars. Even the shochet <\/i>(ritual slaughterer), in his bloody apron, trying to promote business by carrying his recently butchered chicken along the street had to step into the gutter to avoid the crowd.<\/p>\n
Was he through with his transaction when darkness fell? Yes, he covered the barrels, but a small light could be seen in the narrow yard behind them. Jake was their testing to see whether his fresh pickles needed more salt or vinegar.<\/p>\n
The gossips, seeing a large, sparkling diamond on his wife\u2019s hand, set rumors in motion. It was said that Jake had loads of money and diamonds which he kept in his apartment because he did not trust the banks.<\/p>\n
Eventually, Jake\u2019s wife was no longer beside him. She passed away. Jake returned to his barrels.<\/p>\n
Where did Jake go after his day was done? I had no idea, but my student to whom I had given a recipe for making pickles, showed me a story in the Daily News.<\/p>\n
On June 10, 1962 two beasts broke into Jake\u2019s apartment on Jennings Street, stuffed a towel down his throat and rummaged through for money and diamonds. There was neither money nor diamonds and Jake the Legend was found dead.<\/p>\n
For his stories of the Bronx read:\u00a0Seabury Place: A Bronx Memoir \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/i>by Daniel Wolfe \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0danielwolfebooks@aol.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jake the Legend Jennings Street Market, The Bronx 1942 His establishment was adjacent to The Family Shoe Store. As far as I was concerned Jake had no address, no building number, just a \u00a0street name. This cherry-cheeked gnome\u2019s venue with his wife beside him was an 8\u2019 space on the sidewalk in Jennings Street Market.… Continue reading Jake the Legend<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[65,405,404],"class_list":["post-2632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-east-bronx","tag-generous-to-children","tag-jennings-street-market","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2632"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3319,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2632\/revisions\/3319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielwolfebooks.com\/danielsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}