I

At Battery Park, Shanghaiing drunks was still going on when I was 11 years  in 1904. 

The First mate of a schooner was anxious to Shanghai me when he saw me, a husky boy, sleeping one night in the park.

He gets me up, takes me to a saloon and fills me with whiskey and then brings me to his ship. He says to the Captain of the ship, "I have one for you. He is young and strong."

II

The Captain looks at me, grabs me by the shoulders and gives me a shake, and then asks me how old I am. I look up at the Captain and tells him I am 11 years old now.

The Captain turns to the mate and says, "Are you crazy? I do not want to Shanghai children. Get him off the ship!"

Putting Abe Richman's Memoirs Together

The Final Draft

I

I was sitting on the fire escape at the time I was four years old watching the steam engine trains on the elevators run by. The Street was Allen Street on the Lower East Side of New York City.

It was 1895, the middle of the Gay Nineties and New York was as raw as a raw steak.

The Bowery was four blocks from Allen Street and at that time it was the hottest street in New York. When I was 5 years old I walked to the Bowery and sat at the curb watching the Cable Cars go by.

II

Later on, we moved to Stanton Street at the corner of Meagan Street two blocks from the River. It was the time of the Spanish American war. Admiral Dewey was the hero of the day.

Later on, when I was much older I decided to swim in the River. I was a wild kid, so one day I saw the bigger boys swimming in the River. In those days no one wore or knew about bathing suits. Everyone was in the nude swimming.

For some reason I thought I knew how to swim, so I jumped in the River.

III

When I went down I wondered when I would come up. Finally, when I did come up I waved my hands frantically. The Big Boys could see I was drowning, so they jumped in and grabbed me by the hair and saved me.

For two days I was sick from the water I consumed.

As I grew older I started to peddle newspapers at the Brooklyn Bridge. At that time they were two papers for a Penny and I sold them for a Penny each. Selling newspapers at the Brooklyn Bridge lead me to Chinatown where I saw the opium dens.

IV

There were no laws against drugs at that time. Young girls were lying in the bunks and smoking opium pipes. I became a CHARACTER following that kind of life.

When I was 12 years old, a man took me to the London Theater Burlesque show for .10. It was raw!

V

New York was then full of brothels with young girls from 13 to 18 working them, while the older women walked the Bowery. Prices for girls and women ranged from .50 to $1.00. 

While it was hard for women to find work there was lots of work for men, such as dock work, trucks, and building railroads.

VI

In 1904 when I was 12 years old, I left school, never to return to any other school at any other time in my long life. The only school I thereafter ever attended was TSOHK, The School of Hard Knocks! But I was fortunate that in those days there were no truancy laws that either I nor my father knew about, so my father used my 12 year old muscle power to subsidize his budding painting business to help pay for my younger brother's, (Hymie) cello lessons, while I went to work as a painter in my father's business. It was slack season in the winter, so I applied for a Messenger Boy  job at the Western Union located at 195 Broadway. 

Turner, the hiring man, said I will give you the job if you will first take the paint off your hands. So I became a messenger boy,

Finally, I began shipping out of town to railroads.

I worked for the Union Pacific Railroad putting down steel rails.

The wages were a $1.75 a day for 10 hours a day. 

We worked in open wild country.

We camped on the jobs.

VII

I shipped out to Guild, Tennessee to work on a dam. We were put on trains and we rode South.


To be continued...