Broadway Features and Reviews
A Catered Setting - The Bronx In The 50s
By Mary Bowers, Broadway Magazine
The Bronx in the 1950s throbbed with music, movies and dancing in an ethnic diaspora. The slowly growing prosperity which forms so many of the tensions in A Catered Affair were enclosed in a world of community celebrations, stoop conversations and street games.
It was a time of political tension. The Korean War, which takes the life of Janey Hurley's brother in the musical, brought the Red Scare to a borough that was traditionally left-leaning. And while the Communist threat created tensions in American society, schoolchildren were taught to "duck and cover" from nuclear bombs and air raid practices forced pedestrians off the street. Dog tags, which were given out to children in the event that their scarred remains should have to be identified, turned instead into toys and they played stickball in the street, calling out and hiding from the cops on patrol, who would confiscate their balls and sticks.
The hot summer days would bring people out to sleep on their fire escapes, and to open their doors wide. Gangs such as the Fordham Baldies may have been active in streets and high schools, reputedly shaving the heads and body parts of those they killed, but still most considered it bluster and continued to share their cooking pots with neighbors.
Kids wandered the streets, buying apples or marshmallows dipped in hot jelly from vendors for 5 cents. Teenagers spent days on Orchard beach, buying hotdogs and sauerkraut on their way home on the overhead trains or the subway. Or they went to the cinema on 188th Street and Grand Concourse, to woo dates under the starred ceiling, walking past the exotic goldfish in the lobby. They would watch features and newsreels, serials and races.
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After the war had finished, the crowd's cheers could once again be heard from the Yankees Stadium, where Joe DiMaggio might be hitting long ball after long ball. Latin music would be spilling out down the street from windows; jazz would be played in sweaty clubs; and doo-wop was slowly evolving, created by bands such as The Cardinals and The Swallows, named curiously after birds.
Italian laborers, Jewish tailors and Irish civil servants lived on different. Jewish delis selling knishes and pickles were as popular as Tony's Pizza, which sold a slice and a bottle of coke for a quarter. Chinese restaurants served curious customers to the clatter of teapots and plates. Kosher bakeries sold steaming crusty bread, apples were 29 cents a pound and hot dogs were sold for 12 cents, accompanied by mustard in waxed paper cones.
These were the Eisenhower years of prosperity. The first television sets were appearing, and neighbors came around to watch their favorite programs. Girls walked around in crinolines, in cardigan sweaters with lace Peter Pan collars, wearing white bucks. The baby boom years after the war resulted in more young marriages-and more children. These were years of vibrancy, and years of prosperity, played out before the reels of glamorous black and white movies, and a hip-swaying soundtrack. These were the years of A Catered Affair.
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