<<  -- 5 --  Grahame Ainge    WITH CALLAS IN MIND

We emerged into the cold morning light glad that we had dressed warm and casual. There was a knawing suspicion that we still looked like tourists even though we hoped to blend in with the locals. I have a penchant for carrying belongings in a used plastic Tesco carrier bag and I'd packed a few for our holiday. This day the bag contained the camera, maps and guidebook. Should it have been a plain brown paper bag with no handles to complete my disguise?

Off St Nicholas Avenue the area was strangely deserted except for the odd passer-by and parked cars and not a yellow-cab to be seen. Washington Heights was a middle-class residential area in the 1920s and 30s. It seemed to be home now to a largely poor Hispanic community. Buildings still showed evidence of European design but there was a run-down feel about much of the area, described in our guidebook as having little in the way of attractions. But it was certainly on the map for us.

Nicholas Petsalis-Diomides says that the Kaloyeropoulos family, shortly to be named Callas, lived in this area from about 1931 till Litsa and the children left for Greece, 'starting on 180th or 181st Street, soon moving further out to 569 West 192nd Street where they stayed for about five years and ending at 520 West 183rd Street'. 'Mary was enrolled at Public School 189, a few blocks away from home, at 189th and Amsterdam.' He also mentions that at the age of nine or ten she started singing at Public School 164 situated at 164th and Wadsworth. So these were our destinations.

First to 569 West 192nd Street which was distinguished outside by a generous sprinkling of litter in the gutter, a line of double-parked cars and not a human being in sight. The six storey building itself was of no particular architectural interest being of red brick with two separate iron fire escapes clinging to the front with no visible means of support. A small notice in Spanish was affixed to the door above the number. We paused for a while. Perhaps it was here that passers by once applauded Maria's 'La Paloma' floating from the open window one spring day.

Continue >>