Mr. Eddy and his wife, Margaret Ruth Eddy, who was known as Peg and was
also a minister, moved to the area as co-pastors of the East Harlem
Protestant Parish, an assembly of four storefront churches that they had
helped establish while attending Union Theological Seminary in
Manhattan.
They raised their three children in a walk-up at 330 East 100th Street,
staying put as narcotics trafficking, arson and gang violence swept the
area. An article in The New York Times Magazine in 1962 called their
street, between First and Second Avenues, the city’s “worst block.” When
they moved, in 1970, to accommodate a housing renewal project initiated
by one of Mr. Eddy’s neighborhood groups, they settled in a brownstone
on East 105th Street. The Rev. Ruth Eddy died in 1990.
Mr. Eddy, a tall, soft-spoken, prematurely white-haired man who insisted
on being called Norm, became a fixture in the area during its worst
decades, a white man who plied the streets un-self-consciously in a
predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhood, stopping to talk to
addicts and churchgoers alike, inviting people to meetings on the parish
calendar, helping tenants in disputes with landlords, sometimes
mediating gang rivalries.
And then I read this:
Norman Cooley Eddy was born in New Britain, Conn., on Feb. 9, 1920, to
Stanley and Alice Hart Eddy, who were both from prosperous New England
families. His father was a stockbroker. His mother’s family owned a
summer retreat on Martha’s Vineyard, which later became the Eddys’.
“It didn’t occur to us that there was anything unusual about our living
where there were muggings, fires, gunshots, that sort of thing,” Martha
Eddy said in an interview on Friday. “We had so many friends in the
neighborhood. We felt protected” — though certain adjustments were
required.
“We spent August at Martha’s Vineyard,” she said. “That was always a culture shock.”
Oh, well. The Eddys still led a pretty admirable life.
3 comments:
Working on a book with Norm and Peg's writings as well as stories from their friends. Just thought you'd like to know that "Norm vowed at age 17 to never spend another summer on Martha's Vineyard. And later in life he really preferred to not spend more than a weekend there. When August felt quiet to many NYers Norm was anxious to be back - during that most important time of year. What was so important about August? Buying #2 pencils to prepare his kids for school? No, David Calvert, reminded us - it was preparing for the primaries. local democratic action was at the heart of all potential change in the neighborhood. Supporting the community meant the community voting and developing representation and fighting corruption..which in turn could lead to funds for food, housing, recreation and drug rehabilitation." Look out for a publication in the coming year.
I just by 'divine coincidence', as Norm would say, opened up my copy of "Conversations With Goethe", and in it was a letter from Norm dated January 9, 2013. It may have been the last letter he sent me. I got to thinking of him and it dawned on me his birthday was either today or yesterday, but I wasn't sure, so I started looking for places to find his birthday and wound up here.
There's a story you may have heard Martha, that Norm told me, of how as I child he used to, "lay awake at night in bed worrying about the poor people". He then laughed and said, "And I'd never even seen a poor person". So for MTracy, there's this too for a counterbalance to your Vineyard lens. There's way, way more than this.
Mark Norman Elmendorf
Post a Comment