Home Front to Battlefront. Frank Lavin

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      girls,

      Lay aside your fears.

      Just leave the maneuvers to

      the F.A.L.

      And the plans to the engineers.⁶

      . . .

      Nov 19 1943

      Thursday

      Dear Mother,

      Yes, the work is pretty hard here. I’m taking 27 hours (average in a college is about 17) and taking 18 weeks work in each subject in 12 weeks. Only free time is one hour each evening and 24 hours each weekend. Besides we still have a lot of military stuff and gym. They’re trying to make this a second West Point. 30% flunked out last period.

      But the work is very interesting, and the time goes rapidly because you’re always busy.

      Yes, I could use some money. We weren’t paid this month yet and the cost of living is damn high in N.Y.

      Went to the Stage Door Canteen two nights.⁷ Place is just like the movie but smaller and more crowded. They have a lot of talent, but I didn’t see any famous names. Have 20 mins. of dancing and 10 mins. of some kind of entertainment. Very good. About all the hostesses are your girls that belong to the actors union but not too bright lights. They are really something to talk to, and good dancers. So there you have the Stage Door Canteen. Anything else you want to know about N.Y.?

      Saw Radio City, Empire State Bldg. at night, Arsenic and Old Lace, Times Square, and lots of people.⁸

      This letter probably has a slightly scribbled effect to it because I’m writing while running between two classes at opp. ends of the campus.

      Where’s my watch?! Did you get the socks yet? Send my gym shoes also, please, if you can find them.

      Love Carl

      . . .

      During Carl’s stay in New York City, the city and its famous lights would show the strains of war. To protect the city from the threat of enemy raids, the neon signs of Broadway disappeared, top floors of skyscrapers went dark, cab headlights were covered, even the glow from the New York Times’s news ticker faded away.⁹

      Downtown in Manhattan, the United States Courthouse had its “gold-leafed roof” painted black.¹⁰

      And in the harbor, the Statue of Liberty saw her lamp go from the gleam of “13,000-watt lamps” to the dim of two “200-watt bulbs.”¹¹

      But even with less light, and the fear and the sacrifices that come with an international war, New York City life and culture carried on.

      An illustrated “Camel” man blew smoke rings out of an elongated Times Square billboard. Oklahoma! began delighting crowds at the St. James Theater in March 1943. A variety of sports were still played inside the older incarnation of Madison Garden. And day baseball continued at the Polo Grounds, Ebbets Field, and Yankee Stadium.¹²

      With limited free time, Carl and his fellow ASTPers still were able to enjoy New York City and all the activities it had to offer.

      Affordable entertainment was never lacking in Gotham, but it didn’t hurt to be in uniform. Some events were free to servicemen—and many were under a single dollar.¹³

      . . .

      November 22

      Monday

      Dear Mother,

      First of all, you’d better be expecting very few letters from me from now on, because that’s what you’ll be getting. I just don’t have the time. I’ll try to write at least one a week, but I may not be able to. But don’t let that stop you, please; I still have time to read them. Try to send them longer between ends and shorter between times, willya?

      Thanks for the fifteen. It’ll come in pretty handy. The cost of living in a big town and all that, you know. I hope to God that by this time you’ve sent my gym shoes. Have you? By the way, see if you can find some of my leather gloves around there will you? Dress [dress gloves]. Tell me if you can’t and I’ll buy some here.

      I called Helen [Helen Kaven Stein, the daughter of Leo Lavin’s elder sister Elizabeth Kaven, making Helen Carl’s cousin, living in New York] a few days ago, but won’t be able to see her til she gets back. You worry too much, woman.

      You were right about Arsenic and Old Lace not being a particularly good play—but it wasn’t a particularly bad one either. As you said, you have to get tickets to the good plays about a month in advance and the only time I’ll be able to see them will be Saturday night, because most of them don’t have Sunday matinees. We saw Artists and Models yesterday afternoon, which is really good.¹⁴ It’s a yearly review musical, like the follies and I was surprised to see that it was as good as it was. Ethel Merman was there watching it, too. I passed her in the aisle and she seemed happy, so if she likes it why shouldn’t I?

      We ate in Jack Dempsey’s which was noticeable for the number of times Jack Dempsey’s name appears in print around the place and the excellence of the food.¹⁵ It costs no more than the places in Canton and you get better food. Amazing.

      Saturday night four of us Jewish guys went to a sort of meeting and party combined. The head of the Jamaica Jewish Center wants to open it as a U.S.O. for the Queens College soldiers and we are to help him out in what the boys want.

      So I had a busy week-end. What about broadcasts? The socks are perfect. Thanks again.

      Much Love –Carl

      . . .

      Rationing and sacrificing were also part of the New York landscape.¹⁶ Citizens throughout the nation were asked to reduce the use of certain household staples and consumables, or live without them altogether. The war effort and the stability of the American economy would “require the abandonment not only of luxuries but of many other creature comforts,” said President Roosevelt.¹⁷

      Items that Americans couldn’t buy included new cars, tires, and typewriters. Men had to do without trouser cuffs on new pants. New bicycles were out of the question. Appliances, jewelry, silks, toys, nylon, phonograph records, and metals would be more difficult to come by. Noted the Office for Emergency Management: “Enough steel goes into a washing machine to make six 3-inch shells for a 75-mm. field howitzer.” Also becoming scarcer were razors, leather goods, Vitamin A preparations, woolens, sporting goods, and coffee. Sugar, gasoline, and electrical power would all eventually have to be shared or rationed.¹⁸ The shortages went from the material to the personal noted Queens College student Kathie McDermott in October 1943:

      1940–no running board.

      1941–no gears.

      1942–no car.

      1943–no driver.¹⁹

      . . .

      Nov 26 1943

      Thursday

      Dear Mother,

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