Harriet Salzman

It’s a sedate respectable neighborhood.  Tree lined streets. Upper Westside.  Mostly stone buildings now partitioned into apartments with wide entrance stairs fronting big substantial oak doors with float glass beveled panels.  A small lobby with subway tile and architectural deco fixtures.   Nothing pretentious but presentable in a quiet conservate “old” way that says high rent.  The apartments have high vaulted ceilings with plaster walls, fireplaces and polished wood ornate banisters .  Of course the kitchens are all renovated with the most desirable top end appliances .  Tenants all  have trendy furniture with grand pianos and Persian carpets.  Oh and art.  Notable art.  The words “upscale”and “entitled” come to mind.

But Harriet doesn’t live up there.  Her place is below street ,down  narrow stairs around and below the main building entrance staircase to a dark and mostly musty alcove with a small wired mesh and barred window and a heavy pitted and dented  metal door with a small brass lighting fixture next to it.  It has a perpetually broken away bulb globe. Harriet has to, more often than she would like, maintain the small concrete painted threshold as walk bys are forever throwing flasks, cigarette butts, condoms, and all sorts of trash down into her below grade entry.  If not social flotsam, its always blown leaves, standing storm puddles or ice and snow .  Plus the street dust and chaff is ever present wafting down to her lower level.

Inside Harriet Saltzman’s one bedroom basement apartment is a parlor, sizeable enough, but furnished simply with a 30's nylon frieze sofa she got at St Vincent DePaul for $70, a comfortable, but worn beyond it’s time ,weathered  leather club chair, a couple tables with mid century lamps (St Vincent again- $5 each) and, fronting her modest Pullman kitchen , a dinette with 1950's Chrome Craft chairs and a serviceable pine table with an oilcloth cover.  Bathroom has a florescent lighted vanity and a commodious old clawfoot tub fitted with a hook -on shower fixture, and fussy framed around vinyl shower curtain of printed palm trees.  It never drapes enough to contain the shower stream. The bedroom is barely large enough for a standard bed and one highboy dresser.  No closet.  It has two minuscule windows near the ceiling;, again meshed over and barred.  They don’t get much light as they overlook the alley, but Harriet has managed to nurture a spider plant in a macrame plant sling there.

I know you think at this point you know Harriet Salzman, and you’re thinking; impoverished, unhappy, lonely , and isolated  old lady.  “Hello In There” Bette Midler sang.  Pity her and move on.  She made her life.  And so on.

But you would be wrong, because Harriet Salzman isn’t any of that, just because she is not a conspicuous consumer.  (She doesn’t even own a cell phone) should not invite condescension .  Harriet just isn’t about spending or taking, or any jealousy.  What she is about is giving, and her life is  full with the warmth and kindness in her heart.  She is rich not in monetary wealth, but  in regard of others, and herreputation with them.  She is fulfilled in her life.  A very , very happy woman with the gift of being able to transfer her happiness to others.  Harriet “matters.” She needs no pity.
Harriet retired 3 years ago  as assistant librarian at a Manhattan Library-in manuscripts and antiquities.  So she is a learned woman.  A respected woman,but retired way too early for her to meander about the Jewish Deli at the corner, arguing about fatty corned beef,  or feeding pigeons from a bench in Central Park.

She doesn’t even like Mah Jong. No, Harriet is involved .  Big Time.  Harriet does  work at the neighborhood clinic as a social services volunteer.  Several of the young interns there also work as ushers at Broadway theaters and along with pay, get freebie balcony seats to the big productions, so Harriet has seen all the marquee productions, gifted with theit generosity.  She loves “Les Miserables” so much, she has gone three times.

Given it’s location, the Jewish community Center next to  Aish HaTorah  synagogue Manhattan,  is well endowed by its upscale neighbors and they make a conspicuous contributions to charity events.  They always happen to have a couple extra seats at the function tables they buy.  Harriet uses St Vincent dePaul to shop for old couture gowns and she found a coveted Chanel she favors because it fits as though made for her. Worn with a beautiful Spanish shawl, she gets complemnts whenever she makes fancy charity event appearances.  Her scintillating dinner conversations put her as a  desired guest.

But primarily Harriet is rich because people love her .  Those on the down and out brighten to her kind manner and unjudging demeanor.  She will try to help in anyway she can.  Because she is out and about, her wealthy neighbors know her, and she has endeared herself to them.  At Temple, Sylvia Levy often slips her a package of Kreplach and others invite her to Sabbath dinner because she is a highly educated guest with fascinating stories.  They adore her.

So when Harriet returns to her oilcloth table basement apartment, she is happy to have made a life of accomplishment and is a person who has spawned love all around her.  She has her own refuge of comfort , maybe not in the itchy frieze sofa, but in her redemptive soul. 
Harriet Salzman is a person you would be honored to know, not to feel sorry for , except in not having the pleasure of knowing her sooner.

Because , you see, Harriet Salzman died today .  But not nearly alone, sad or forgotten.  Where you are is never who you are.  Harriet will be missed .
I hope this tale gives small indication of why.

-Jerry Wendt