MD: We lived at 37 west 114th street in a 5-story tenement house each story had 2 apartments. So there was like 10 families in that building. And that building had Italian families, had one black family, had Jewish families, had Puerto Rican families. This was during the depression time. There was no surplus food program in those days but somehow the army used to send in trucks now and then and dump food on the street or on the sidewalk under the culvert. And people would come, you know, pick up apples or corn or whatever. And then the day that we all looked forward to was the day when the trucks came in and dumped grapes. “Oye! Oye! The grapes are here! The grapes are here!” everybody used to run with baby carriages with pushcarts with pillow cases to pick up the grapes that were dumped by the US Army trucks. And then we would bring those grapes home. And this was during prohibition, mi...
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