So Long, Astoria
Mom’s the last of our immigrant family of seven to move out of Queens
It was one of those crisp February days, sunny and unbearably bright. Piles of dirty snow and ice lining the curb gave credence it was an ideal time to head south and the promise of warm air and green vegetation. A perfect day to move out of Astoria.
She and I waited by the front door for the movers to roll in. Soon enough, an enormous truck from Big John’s Moving arrived ready to clear out my mother’s possessions. The maroon behemoth seemed out of place on her narrow street. With parking spots at a premium, the driver squeezed the truck trailer into the spot in front of her building, then disconnect the cab, and drove off to park it elsewhere. The behemoth had been beheaded.
My mother’s departure was a milestone for our family; she would be the last of seven to leave the Queens neighborhood. We arrived on a bright orange Braniff airplane in 1967, settling on Crescent Street. The neighborhood around Ditmars Boulevard — from 21st Street to Steinway Street — was mostly working-class Irish, Italian, and Greek, soon to be replaced by more Greeks, Yugoslavians, and Latinos.
My mother leaving Astoria felt like a natural progression, making room for newer immigrants from Egypt, Morocco, and Central America.
The five kids, we easily adapted to the new language and culture, thriving in our studies, moving on to college campuses one by one, never to return. The breakup of my parent’s marriage around the same time meant there would be no nest waiting for us. After the divorce, my mother moved into a small apartment, lived on her own, surrounded by a group of close friends, most from the old country, orbiting the lives of her children, and eventually, her grandchildren.
My mother leaving Astoria felt like a natural progression, making room for newer immigrants from Egypt, Morocco, and Central America that now dominate Astoria.
When the driver, Pablo, came back, he spoke to my mother in Spanish. He talked to the señora of the house with typical chivalrous respect while finalizing the paperwork. His courteous approach relaxed my mother, who had been anxious about strangers handling her possessions. “No se preocupe por nada, señora,” he assured her more than once.
Big John sent a crew of three. The Irishman prepped boxes in the apartment. He was all business, quiet and attentive even while my mother gave him tips on how to pack. Earlier, while we waited for Pablo to park the cab, he told me he had been with Big John’s for nineteen years. The other crew member, the one I dubbed “the ox,” spit into his hands to add grip to his fingers, dried out by the cold air. He stacked three heavy boxes, leaned them against his spine, and carried them piggyback down the two narrow flights of stairs and out to the trailer. Hand trucks would not work for the walk-up apartment.
The men propped open the building’s exterior door, making the marble stairs colder and harder. The steps were also wet and slippery from the dirty slush dragged in by their heavy boots. After Sofia, the landlord, complained that her first-floor apartment was freezing, I became a doorman to keep some of the heat inside.
The trailer easily swallowed box after box. The men moved everything my mother owned into that trailer in under two hours. Her stuff fit into the small loft space at the front of the trailer, leaving plenty of space for their second load, also heading to North Carolina. As they were about to leave, my mother pleaded with Pablo to take good care of her belongings. With a smile, he said he would, repeating, “No se preocupe, señora.”
It was not yet noon when my mom headed downstairs to hand over the keys to the building owner. There had been friction between the two of them from time to time. My mother’s twenty-five-year tenure meant she paid a lower rent than others in the small building. Sofia used that fact to push back on any requests my mother made for necessary repairs. “You hardly pay any rent,” she would complain before reluctantly agreeing to the work. The two of them embraced, each recognizing that their time together was over, defusing any animosity between them.
Witnessing my mother give the older woman a long goodbye hug underscored the finality of the situation. There goes forty years of my family’s history in Astoria — soon our name won’t even be in the phone book, not realizing phone books would also disappear.
Forty years seemed fleeting at that moment. The only thing we get to keep are our memories of growing up in Astoria. The schools, P.S. 122 and 141; Astoria Park and its Olympic-size pool; our parish, the Immaculate Conception Church, and La Guli Pastries next door; the Ditmars stop, terminus on the double-R train; and Crescent Street and our first dwelling in the U.S.A. We’ll remember the holidays we shared with the Gomezes, Cadavids, and Namurs; and our uncles, aunts, and cousins. There will be many stories to relish and embellish at family gatherings for years to come.
We went back upstairs to pick up a couple of bags she would hand carry to North Carolina. My mother was sad, looking around each room one last time. The apartment was broom-clean, spotless. She wouldn’t turn it over any other way. She locked the apartment door from the inside and pulled it closed for the last time. “Vamos, Mauricio,” she said with a stoic determination I had encountered once before.
Years ago, when we walked across the tarmac to get on that huge orange plane heading to New York, I was struggling with an unwieldy shoulder bag and an even heavier sadness about leaving my abuelitas and everything else behind. Noticing that I was crying, she called out, “Vamos, Mauricio. Help your sisters up the stairs.”
We walked slowly down the wet steps. When we reached the bottom, she was off on a new adventure. “Vamos,” she repeated.
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