A House with a History

A long time ago, in a place not so far, far away...lived a man and his family, on 66 Brite Avenue in Scarsdale New York. This was the Friedlander family, who moved into the Village of Scarsdale, bought an empty plot of land, and built their own house in 1932. Modestly renovated over the years, it still stands today. Dr. Bernard Friedlander was the youngest of the family, attending Fox Meadow Elementary in the late 1930's. Today 66 Brite is home to my family of four, my mom, dad, my 18 year-old twin sister and me.

In May, Dr. Friedlander returned to Scarsdale to visit the house for the first time since his family sold it in August of 1944. As the current resident of the house, I spoke to him and heard all of his nostalgic stories. Though he did not offer his age, we guessed he was in his 80's. He explained all the "modern conveniences" in the house at that time, which seemed anything but modern to a tech-savvy teen in 2015. We always wondered why there appeared to be a trap door in the basement and he told us that it was a "log box" with a passage into the living room, to allow the handyman to deliver firewood without having to walk around the outside of the house and through the front door. He explained that the box beneath the telephone ledge, a modern luxury in the 1930s, housed the bell system, which was used to summon the live-in maid. The bells can be better seen in my room, which was the former maid's room, on the third floor of the house.

Two homes that are now across the street were not there in Friedlander's time. The lot where they now stand was a deep lot that stretched all the way from Oak Lane to Brite Avenue and became Bernard and his older brother Henry's play area. The owner at the time, a Mr. Steinberger, was tolerant of the boys, until one day, when they pushed their luck too far. Bernard, his brother, their friends and cousins set up an archery range in the yard, firing towards Mr. Steinberger's house, which they thought was a good distance away. During one such archery session, Dr. Friedlander remembers Mr. Steinberger running up the yard, shaking his hat in one hand and one of their arrows in the other. "This arrow just went through the brim of my hat!" bellowed Mr. Steinberger, frightening the children off his yard. Soon after, the archery range was moved.

Today families often gather in living rooms at night to catch up on their favorite TV shows or news programs and spend quality time together. Dr. Friedlander recalls sitting with his family and listening to their favorite radio shows. He remembers helping his father spray pesticides on the trees in the yard, pumping the pesticide through his father's hose while straining his ear to hear the latest jokes on the Jack Benny Show, which was broadcast into the driveway from a radio in the kitchen window. He also remembered the night that the disturbing news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor interrupted the radio broadcast. Dr. Friedlander said his family was fortunate to own the radio at the time and how similar the radio culture was to TV culture today.

The home at 66 Brite Ave has a few attractions that now seem commonplace. For example, an old bay window on the north side of the house was an architecture marvel during Friedlander's years, as it was one of the first freestanding bay windows. Dr. Friedlander remembers that people used to come to the house and photograph or sketch the window in order to study the architecture. Furthermore, the Friedlander's installed a dumbwaiter system that broke back then and was used instead as a laundry chute. We still throw our clothes down the chute today.

One of the best portions of Dr. Friedlander's visit was our trip to the second floor closet by his old room, where he cleared up a mystery that has perplexed my family for years. In that closet there are a series of pencil marks with corresponding dates and letters, such as B Oct 1939, H Oct 1940. It was not until Dr. Bernard Friedlander explained these letters did we fully understand the significance. The marks were height measurements for himself and his older brother Henry as they grew. These marks remain in the closet wall between Bernard and Henry's rooms. During his visit, we measured Dr. Friedlander and we were able to update his height chart as of May 2015. We found that he had actually shrunk.

Dr. Friedlander asked if he could plant a peony in remembrance of his parents on the property. My father obliged and planted it beneath the unique bay window, Dr. Friedlander's mother's favorite window in the house.