Author: Edgmere - Far Rockaway Archives

When I was around 10, I spent the summer at the beach 38^th street house.

My grandfather often talked about his movie years being a motion picture operator in the early days of film. As new movie projector models replaced the old ones, he saved them in the basement. He would often take us down there and weave his stories and show us all the wonderful things he collected. Collecting I learned was a part of his personality. He told me that collecting is about passion.

It was one of the greatest summers of my life. In the early evening, that twilight time between day and night, in the part of the house that was my grandparents’ quarters off the right side of the main porch, my grandfather would often show me some of the things he saved. My love for books comes from this moment. He showed me these wonderful old books that were Movie Tie-in Books. It set me on a course of collecting that has not stopped to this day.

While I was going to junior high school at PS 198 my father worked in the city. He was a book binder. He would bring me home all the books he thought we would like. I would save my money and go into the city as often as I could and searched the bookstores all over Manhattan and buy myself paperback books. I would come home with shopping bags of them and I could see the look on my parents face. They were very concerned. But I was in my glory. I would fall in love hundreds of times with the graphics on the covers. I learned that they began making movie tie-in books as early as they have been making films.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I still do.

These are my great grandparents Yosef Baumwoll and Beile (Bella) Baumwoll. I am named after my great grandmother and their oldest son Samuel Baumwoll. They had four daughters and two sons. My grandfather Nathan was the second youngest of the siblings. Their youngest daughter was named Sadie. Next is Fela, then Adele and Anna is the oldest. Up until a few months ago I was never told what had happened to my grandparents or their daughters.  I didn’t even know if they had made it to America. I’m still looking for where they are. I don’t know when they died or where they are buried.  I’m looking for this side of the family.

One can never forget that the boardwalk played a major role in everybody’s life there. Skee-Ball was a staple. How many of us played this game over and over hearing that special sound when all the balls are released after putting in your change? My brother and I could play for hours.

The photo shown here is of my family in 1930. It is taken somewhere in the Rockaways. The small boy in front is my father, Jack. The other boy is his older brother, Joseph. Aren’t his horn rim glasses wonderful? With them are my grandparents, Nathan & Eva Baumwoll. The first thing I began looking for in my genealogical research was my great grandmother and great grandfather on my father’s side, who up until a few months ago I knew very little about. I didn’t even know if they had made it to America. I am named after my great grandmother Bella Baumwoll and my grandfather’s older brother Samuel Baumwoll.

While I was growing up and all through my life, people who knew my my grandfather would say to me, “You know he was a motion picture operator and he put the sound in the Roxy Movie Palace in New York”. It wasn’t until all of this started to come together that it all began to be a story that is so American. A small boy (my grandfather) comes off an ocean liner to meet his father who is waiting for him. The year is 1910. The boy is 13. Within a short period of time this young man is working for the one of the pioneers of the new era of the great movie palaces. His name was J. Fabin of Union Hill, New Jersey.

So this is how my blog has begun. To discover my family’s history in Edgemere of 50 years; of the people they knew on the boardwalk and all the merchants who they did business with and had friendships with.

Edgemere is really all of ours now in our memories. It’s a place that only lives with and through the people who wish to share their times in words and photos for all of us to enjoy. None of these times will ever pass our way again. The America that was Edgemere is long gone.