The area around Bathgate Avenue and 174th Street is an industrial park, a contradictory term for a place that has more concrete-covered factory floors than grassy fields. Yet the term is quite fitting, actually, in another way: This ordinary corner of Bronx blue-collar life was once home to Studs Terkel, who earned fame by writing about people who were utterly devoid of it.
Mr. Terkel, who died last week in his adopted home, Chicago, was born in the Bronx in 1912 and, according to the 1920 census, lived with his family at 1721 Bathgate Avenue, just south of 174th. He did not mention Bathgate in his last memoir, referring only to Clinton Avenue, a few blocks to the east, in a few pages, before shifting his memories to Chicago.
He once said the best interview question was the gentlest: And then what happened? Read more..
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