A Surprise Visit on Clinton Avenue

On a sunny Tuesday afternoon, early in April 2023, as my wife Dana was cooking some matzo ball soup and I was hovering nearby, we saw an all too familiar sight outside our apartment’s kitchen window — a gaggle of folks chatting by the building’s front yard and wrought iron fence. No doubt it was one of the many walking tour groups making the rounds in Clinton Hill to see its historic landmarked houses on the tree-lined streets.

Along with the Pratt mansion, St. Joseph’s University, and other architectural gems, our four-story building on Clinton Avenue is one of the usual stops on the tour circuit. We moved to the 12-unit co-op in 2001, 20 years after the historic district was designated and as part of a decades-long wave of gentrification. We had bought the apartment from one of the original co-op owners from the early ’80s who was relocating to be near relatives in North Carolina.

Soon after arriving, I learned that while the building had been erected as an elegant single-family mansion for a Pratt crony in the late 19th century, from the 1930s to its conversion to a co-op in the early 1980s it was home to the left-leaning Brooklyn Community Woodward School. It turned out my friend Ted had spent his early years in the building with other kids of progressives learning cursive and long division before moving on to Brooklyn Tech. Ted was buddies at the K through 8 school with Walter Mosely, who years later followed Hakeem Jeffries and represented the neighborhood in the New York State Assembly. Before he began his storied career in Apocalypse Now, Laurence Fishburne had apparently attended Woodward. I had also heard that Arlo Guthrie, son of Woody Guthrie, was a Woodward student years ago, but I was never quite sure if that was true or simply a Brooklyn urban legend.

As my wife and I peered out at the tour group that spring afternoon, we both realized it didn’t quite fit the usual pattern. A few young people stood around a woman with long curly hair, who appeared to be gesturing towards our building. After a few minutes, the throng, unlike the usual tour group, unlatched the gate door and stepped into our front yard.

Upon the sanctity of our building’s space being compromised, Dana called out to the trespassers, “Can I help you with anything?” The woman looked up and cheerfully explained she had gone to school in the building years ago, it was her birthday, and she was taking her children and grandchildren around New York City to see all her old haunts. The tension dissipated. We welcomed her, a downstairs neighbor soon unlocked the front door for them, and before we knew it the family was upstairs and outside our unit.

We opened our apartment door and proceeded to have a lovely conversation with what were now our guests. The birthday celebrant explained that as she took the young folks around New York that day, she offered up pieces of candy when they correctly provided answers to her questions. She recalled fond memories from her time at Woodward. She explained that what was currently our living room had in fact been the principal’s office back in the day. (And her brother, she noted, had spent a good deal of time there.) She spoke nostalgically about the city and Brooklyn back in the ’50s and ’60s. And she tested me on my knowledge of municipal trivia. That I was able to identify what IRT, IND, and BMT stood for won me a piece of candy and (I hope) her immediate respect.

Unfortunately, I had to leave to go to an event as part of my work at the time for Brooklyn Public Library. (A new art installation was being celebrated at the recently opened Brooklyn Heights branch. The piece, Jean Shin’s Something Borrowed, Something Blue, was a tribute to the sharing of knowledge and included a nod to the 62 public library locations around the borough.) But as I hustled down the stairs to catch the next G train on our corner (note: The G line was part of the IND system) I thought about how the experience with our visitors was a reminder to be open to the curve balls that any day might bring. And as I traveled west on the train, Dana continued to chat with the visitors and learned more about their interesting back story — and that the story was even more of a curve ball than I had realized.

Two weeks later, I arrived home and noticed two identical envelopes sitting on the table in our lobby. I peered at the first one, saw it was addressed to our neighbor who lived on the first floor and assumed the second one was as well. An hour later our neighbor texted that in fact the second package was for us. I walked back downstairs and picked it up. Inside the small envelope was a CD, a book, and a card. The CD was called “My Name is New York, Ramblin’ Around Woody Guthrie’s Town.” The book was a walking guide that went with it, written by Nora Guthrie and the Woody Guthrie Archives. And on one side of the card was a handwritten note in cursive: “Dana and David, Thanks for sharing your home (my old school!) with our family. Here’s a little more Guthrie NYC history — hope you enjoy the stories!” It was signed Nora Guthrie. As Dana had learned two weeks earlier, Nora, Woody’s daughter, years after attending Woodward with her brother Arlo, now ran Woody Guthrie Publications in Westchester County.

On the other side of the card, was a printed quote from Woody:

The note of hope

is the only note

that can help us or save us

from falling to the bottom

of the heap of evolution

because largely,

about all of a human being is, anyway,

is just a hoping machine.

And no doubt, Guthrie felt that hope in the sights, sounds, and people of the city. Our building is no longer a school – but the spirit of what it once was could still be shared. The visit was a reminder that when the opportunity presents itself, we should let our guard down and forge connection and community. For sure, there is hope in that.

[Photos by Susan De Vries]

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