Eastchester Road at its intersection with Mace Avenue is a
commercial district, with small businesses on both sides of street. You could
walk the eastern side of Eastchester Road with your eyes closed and know which
shop you were passing by the one trait that characterized each from the other:
its smell. Continuing on this olfactory tour, we come to Villa Maria, Sal’s
next-door neighbor to the south.
The sign above the restaurant looked something like this.
The atmosphere surrounding Villa Maria captivated you as the aroma of baking bread mingled with the rich scent of melting mozzarella until you could almost taste those elastic strings that stretched like fili telefonici (telephone wires) with every piping hot bite. It called out to you, luring you in for a hot slice.
Most of us could scrape together enough babysitting or
allowance money to buy a fifty-cent slice, served on a sheet of deli wrap, and
a Coke to go with it, so we came here to mark occasions great and small.
An ordinary Saturday turned special when a group of us
decided to meet at Villa Maria for lunch. When school dismissed early during
exam week, we headed to the pizzeria for lunch. When someone had their braces
removed, we celebrated at the pizzeria with lunch. After a shopping trip to
Westchester Square, we left the Number 9 bus at the corner and headed straight
to the pizzeria for lunch. When we were older, we met at the pizzeria to rehash
all we had discovered about high school after a morning of freshman
orientation.
On summer nights when the group hanging out on the front
stoop inevitably started to think about food, our thoughts turned to Villa
Maria. Even as late as 10:30 p.m., we could order a pizza and have it delivered
for free. Still wearing his flour-dusted apron, the baker and proprietor
himself would struggle out of his compact car with the large, flat box. As he
lumbered toward us, we would be rummaging through our pockets for bills and
change to pay the man and offer a decent tip.
The boys of the neighborhood found Villa Maria to be a
convenient and inexpensive place to take a girl for something resembling a
date. In New York City you had to be 18 to get a driver’s license; 17 if you
completed the driver’s education course. Going on dates by bus was an option,
but not always financially possible. Taking a walk to Villa Maria was often the
solution, and never a disappointing choice.
The southward walk along Eastchester Road ends here for now.
Next, we turn north, cross Mace Avenue, and arrive at our supermarket,
Associated Food Store.
Further south on Eastchester Road, about midway between Mace Avenue and Williamsbridge Road, there was no escaping the odiferous air surrounding Mrs. Weinberg’s Kosher Chopped Liver factory. But the stores on Eastchester Road near Mace Avenue also influenced the air quality (for better or for worse) in that immediate vicinity.
First you would pass Mace Chemist Shop at the corner, then
Vinnie’s candy store, which emitted the scent of fresh coffee. Walk a few more
paces toward Paul’s hair salon, and delight in the fragrance of hair spray and
shampoo as the door swept open, or choke on the acrid stench of perm solution.
Passing the last two stores that occupied the ground floor of the apartment
building led to another strip of small businesses: the liquor store and then
another odorous establishment, Sal’s House of Good Foods.
Sal’s opened door startled the whole outdoors. It exhaled a breath ripe with the aroma of provolone and other pungent cheeses and salumi that hung over the counter, suspended from ropes. Below the countertop, the glass-front refrigerated case held the colorful display of black and green olives, roasted red peppers, marinated mushrooms, red and green pepper strips, artichoke hearts, giardiniera, potato and macaroni salads, cheese cubes, mozzarella balls, ready-made antipasto, and a vast array of other store specialties ready for dispensing into cardboard containers. Premium mustards and other gourmet condiments huddled on the countertop beside loaves of Italian bread and boxes of hard Kaiser rolls, club rolls, and hero rolls.
Despite the prevailing opinion that Sal’s prices were too high, people preferred to buy their cold cuts here rather than at the supermarket. Sunday evenings were especially busy as customers picked up enough sliced meats and cheeses for a week’s worth of brown bag sandwiches. We did too, but not only for the week’s lunches. Besides the cold cuts, we also bought hard rolls and a variety of cold salads for our much-anticipated Sunday night supper. (On Sundays we ate dinner in the afternoon.)
Depending on how many people were helping behind the
counter, customers could be served two or three at a time. Each person
inevitably had a long list.
“I’ll take half a pound of hard salami…”
“What else?”
“Half a pound of mortadella, a pound of sliced provolone,
half a dozen hard rolls. Give me the ones with the sesame seeds.”
“I only have poppy seed left.”
“Okay, poppy seed. And I need…”
It all took time. Everyone knew it, and no one waiting on
the long line grumbled. Patiently they stood by, ears alert for the words that
meant things were finally moving along: “Who’s next?”
The olfactory tour of the stores continued with Villa Maria, the pizzeria, right next door to Sal’s.
Two doors down from Vinnie’s, Paul’s hair salon functioned
as another social gathering place. Brilliantly lit and reeking of perm solution
and hair spray, Paul’s vibrated at a frenetic frequency created by the
endlessly ringing telephone, the droning of the hair dryers, and the sloshing
and spraying at the shampoo sinks. Then there was the routine shouting,
necessary to be heard over the din or when an argument was going on.
Mr. Paul, a tall, slim, older gentleman with thick,
silver-gray hair and moustache, wore dark-rimmed glasses and perfectly pressed
pinstriped shirts. His trousers were similarly pressed, with a razor-sharp
crease down the front. Mr. Paul found favor particularly with older women.
Young children liked him, too.
Maria, petite and slender with Mediterranean-toned skin, moved briskly and efficiently, her espresso-colored, shoulder-length hair swinging luxuriously with every turn of her head. She had no time for small talk, but when she did speak her words flowed melodiously with a subtle accent of Italy. With total concentration Maria focused on the task at hand, whether it was trimming, rolling, teasing, waxing, or tweezing. Teen and preteen girls particularly liked Maria, and many from the other generations requested her as well.
Mr. Victor, Paul’s son, completed the staff. Fiftyish,
portly, and shorter than his father, with thinning hair and a serious demeanor,
Mr. Victor captured the “dad” image that eluded his father. Like Maria, smiles
rarely crossed his face, but his manner was courtly and pleasant. His clients
included children, the matronly, and the elderly.
Paul’s catered to females of all generations. In the 1960s,
women of near-middle age and older had their hair “done” once a week, filling
the styling stations that faced the wall of mirrors, then moving to the bank of
hooded hair dryers at the opposite wall. Younger women, teens, and children
came for haircuts, then those of preteen age and older went home to manage the
styling themselves. Everyone possessed the necessary equipment, available
inexpensively at Woolworth’s: curlers in a range of sizes, bobbie pins to
secure them, hairclips for creating pin curls, a portable bonnet-style hair
dryer, a teasing comb, and the indispensable can of hair spray. By the 1970s,
teens and younger women had replaced all their hair paraphernalia with one
single essential item—the blow dryer—as they shifted from weekly wash and sets
to daily shampooing and blow drying.
But back in the 1960s, if these younger girls and women were
preparing for a special event like a wedding, the prom, a bat mitzvah, or the
eighth-grade graduation dance, then they too would get their hair “done.” This
meant enduring the laborious wash, set, and sweltering stint under the dryer,
followed by the unraveling of the curlers, the comb-out, the teasing, the
anchoring of the up-do (if that was the style chosen), the clouds of hairspray,
the mandatory presentation of a hand mirror with which to admire the back and
sides of the head.
Middle-aged and older women frequently came for perms,
although sometimes a mother would request one for her young daughter. Anyone
coming for a perm planned ahead, knowing they would be sitting in Paul’s for up
to five hours or more. Not only was the process itself a long one (washing,
rolling, applying the eye-smarting perm solution, neutralizing, setting,
drying…) but the stylist squeezed in other clients during stage transitions.
The only stage that had to be attended to exactly on time was the rinsing or
neutralizing of the perm solution before damage could be done. Aside from that,
it was wait…wait…wait.
Most styles of the 1960s required a wash and set only, not a perm. In one popular style called the Artichoke, hair was cut very short in the back. Longer hair at the crown was set on large rollers. Wisps of hair at either side of the face were wound into pin curls at ear level. After drying, the hair was then teased (also known as backcombed) to a great height. Full or side bangs completed the look. This helmet-like creation, lacquered into preservation with billows of hair spray, lasted the entire week if the person under the helmet took precautions when sleeping or showering.
Similar lacquering attended other styles as well because of
the teasing that created the bouffant (high on the head, full at the sides)
look. For jaw-length hair, many older women favored the style similar to the
one Queen Elizabeth has worn for years—off the forehead with softly curled
ends. Height and fullness varied according to personal preference.
Younger women with longer hair wore it teased on top with
the ends flipped up. Sometimes they opted for the French twist, where hair
would be teased for height at the crown, then blended into the rest of the hair
and rolled sideways into a long bun in the back. For the beehive, another
ubiquitous style, hair at the crown was elevated to unnatural heights, often
with the help of an insertable hair piece. An optional French twist could be
fashioned from the hair left hanging down the back.
Most Eastchester Road stores were in-and-out places. You got what you went for and left. But like Vinnie’s candy store, Paul’s was a place you wanted to visit. Something good happened to you there, whether it was getting a cream soda or an attractive new hairstyle. You looked forward to sitting and staying, all the while absorbing the atmosphere, catching snippets of conversations, and taking in those fascinating stories of life that traveled through the neighborhood grapevine.
