Sounds Of The City-With Washington Square In Mind
Josie Davis was afraid of New York City, had been made mother-afraid as she was growing up. You know the usual “don’t talk to, much less take candy from, strangers, (and maybe not from known parties either)” “don’t go into darkened areas at night, in fact don’t go out at night,” “avoid the subways at all costs and always have taxi money available in your well-guarded pocketbook.” In addition to that Josie had always been afraid, been made Josie-afraid of the tall buildings in Manhattan which dwarfed her 5’ 3” height, made her even afraid of looking down in the Stuyvesant Town building where she and her family lived in an eighth floor apartment. Afraid of the usual eternal car honk noises of the bustling city that never slept, afraid to cross the zooming streets and afraid to take that early morning subway trip to Hunter College High School and would as often as not take a cab if her mother had given her enough money for the fare. So Josie as soon as she finished high school fled, there is no other way to put the matter, to bucolic (bucolic by New York City standards anyway) Madison, Wisconsin to attend the well-regarded university there (along with many other New York City and Long Island college age ex-patriates who has the same hectic feelings about the pace and scale of life in the big city). After college she had moved to Boston, another lesser scale city, to pursue her advanced degree programs (eventually Master’s and Doctor’s degrees so we could properly call her Doctor Josie but she did not stand on such ceremony so just Josie here) and decided after that to stake her career prospects on that city.
And so she remained in Boston but would every once in a while have a hankering to go back to New York, to get the feel of the pulse of the city, to see what was happening (that hankering very distinct from the necessity of going home to family for certain holidays, Jewish high holy days, Thanksgiving and the like obligatory since as a poor student and budding professional she depended on their monetary subsidies as she called them to keep her head above water financially). That feeling would come back to her especially when something would remind her of Washington Square, Washington Square in the early 1960s when she learned to hold her fears in abeyance for the time she spent there. This time, the time we are talking about, the tripping point had been her reading Henry James’ novel Washington Square which while it spoke of a much earlier time in the 19th century and centered on the ill-fated romance of a proper New York woman and a cad, made her think of the first time she had gone to the Square and taken in the life there.
Josie had had as much teenage angst and alienation as any member of her generation which had been feeling squeezed in by the cautious, keep your head down life of the post-World War II Cold War night. Until she was about sixteen she handled those hurts by internalizing them, by working like a dog at her studies and keeping indoors and safe most of the time which satisfied her mother’s dictates as well as her own predilections. But sixteen is a funny age, a funny age in teen world and in teen sexual desire world and Josie was not immune to those thoughts. Thoughts egged on by the talk in the girls’ lav at school and by her best friend the precocious Frida Hoffman. Frida had her tales of sexual exploration and of getting around town that filled Josie’s ear with a certain wonder. She was especially enthralled by Frida’s talk of the doings in Washington Square, the folk scene that was just budding, or rather breaking out of the confines of some clubs in Greenwich Village.
So one Saturday afternoon, Josie did not want to venture out at night even after Frida told her that the place was lit up like daylight at night, Frida and Josie took a cab from Josie’s apartment building to the Square. After being let off Frida noticed a crowd around a guy singing with a guitar and told Josie they should head over there since that was where the action was for the moment. As they reached the edge of the crowd they, Josie, heard the guy (who later she found out was Guy Vander, one of the lesser lights of the New York folk revival) singing this mournful tune, The Cukoo Bird, followed by another East Virginia and as they settled in she told Frida that while she had heard something about folk music she thought it was all Yiddish stuff from the old country that her parents’ were trying like hell to get away from. This she liked.
What got to Josie was the simple message of the music, the simple melodies that evoked an early time and while the themes could range from the gruesome murder in Tom Dooley to forlorn love in Come All You Fair And Tender Ladies to the foolery of the Banana Boat Song and the feeling that the music spoke to her. She along with Frida were along the cutting edge of the folk revival minute of the 1960s when the old stuff on the rock radio stations was not enough to satisfy that craving for roots, for something different.
Oh yeah it didn’t hurt that a guy, a guy in a short beard and beret, shod in sandals, a sophomore at nearby New York University, came up to her and asked if she was a folksinger, if she planned to sing that afternoon. Whatever the value of that line in the history male introduction lines, and it was not bad if you think about it, it got him two, no three things. Got him to spout forth for the entire afternoon about the this and that of the New York folk scene, more than she ever needed to know about some guy in Kentucky named Hobart Smith who played the fiddler, got him to escort Frida and Josie back to Josie’s home, and got him a real live date for the next Saturday night, night if you can believe this, to go to hear this guy Dave Von Ronk playing at the Gaslight in the Village.
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