Talking Location With author Sande Boritz Berger – the suburbs of 1950s Long Island

27th April 2019

#TalkingLocationWith…. Sande Boritz Berger, author of Split-Level, a novel of family set on Long Island in the 1970s.

How the Suburbs Changed My Family… and how that informed her storytelling.

Before the huge migration of urbanites heading to the suburbs in the early 1950s, which for my family meant settling on the South Shore of Long Island, my parents, two younger brothers, and me, slept cozily in one square bedroom on the fifth-floor of a red brick apartment house in Brooklyn. Night after night, it was the blended sounds of our familial breathing which lulled us to sleep, the hissing of the radiator during winter months, and the noisy blades of a ceiling fan in summer.

I was the oldest child and only girl, followed by a baby brother, fifteen months later, and darn, yet another boy… six years after him. Before long, our dwelling felt claustrophobic, as we banged into one another while trying to maneuver through a narrow hallway, which led to our only bathroom. Yet, a sweet baby powder aroma wafted throughout the rooms, emanating from a wicker bassinet kept in a corner, far from my brother and me and protecting the baby from harm. Though we were pretty good kids during the daylight hours, at night we were chock full of energy. Restricted by our cribs that my mother insisted on calling “daybeds” which had bars that lifted and locked, we challenged each other to climb over and out, much to my parents’ chagrin. We remained in this apartment until I was seven years old, and until her death at 89, my mother insisted our beds were not cribs.

Luckily, across a wide street, known as Ocean Parkway, resided my maternal grandparents. Their large Spanish style stucco home and lush backyard offered us kids the open spaces to unload heaps of mischievous energy, while providing my mother with the respite she so desired. As it was common then, our aunts and uncles lived nearby and also became loving surrogates of that innocent and happy time. Then, as young families expanded, and city living for children became less safe, and no longer desirable, additional space became a necessity. Though it fills me with melancholy because so many loved ones are gone, I sometimes return to my father’s black and white 16mm home movies to validate the blurry memories of such a different era. Silent, yet speaking volumes, each frame depicts a truly unique and magical time of family togetherness. What becomes evident in the first jumpy 16mm frames of my third birthday party, is the closeness and affection from two sets of grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins and family friends. Most of these bonds taken for granted, and sadly transformed by the exodus to the mecca…soon known as suburbia. The change, made by many, created a different type of pressure on families. Now there would be the pressure of carrying mortgages instead of paying rent, a need to care for lawns, flooding basements, and the long, tiresome daily commute to jobs back in the city.

At first, having a new home and a piece of land to call your own may have been idyllic to most, as exciting as taking an extended trip to a foreign land. Overnight, the cliquey wives of cramped city apartments, and noisy neighborhoods became wives of new communities with private driveways and manicured lawns. For some, with the family scattered, there was an immediate need to reach out to make new friends, yet not easy while caring for young children. Those who became home bodies, or housebound, often felt isolated despite the advantages of this spacious new place – the mecca called suburbia. Along with what was referred to as cul de sac developments, there were now modern new schools, convenient shopping areas, and many new faces. This exodus would continue expansion through the 1960s and beyond, evolving from cities and ultimately spreading families further apart, changing daily life from what once felt so familiar and was taken for granted.

When I think of the effect this transformation had on my family’s life, I realize the hardest adjustment had to have been for my mother, who was in her twenties when we tore up old roots and left our beloved Brooklyn. Overnight, she would no longer have the support of her mother and aunts who lived just across the street. When my brothers and I were sick, which we were often in those younger years, my mother was housebound for days on end. Eventually, she would have to learn to drive, which made suburban life a bit more tolerable for her. Sometimes, my mother would invite a neighbor to drop in for coffee, or she’d play cards, but I knew how she floated through the rooms, almost in a daze, that she was unhappy. It wasn’t the same as having your loved ones around the corner, and knowing your children were just a shout out the window away.

When my father began traveling down south for his fabric business, my mother’s moods, perhaps due to loneliness, caused her to lose patience with me and my middle brother. Since the new baby kept her up at night, she slept when we were at school, and in the evening, she seemed tired and hardly present. I doubt she would have shared any of these feelings with my grandparents and extended family, because she wouldn’t want to upset anyone. But I remember her incredible transformation when my father walked in the door after being gone all week long. I particularly recall how my mother dressed up for Dad’s arrival, and how she tied her hair back, off her face, a face that glowed with anticipation and joy. We were a family again, though far from the others we loved, for a while, we’d have each other.

Thank you so much to Sande for sharing her childhood memories. It has been so interesting to learn more about the emigration to the suburbs and what drove so many out into the sticks and the effect it had on family members.

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