At the Esplanade: Journal of Harold Davis 1996-2000

Harold Davis was born over his father's saloon on the corner of Houston and Orchard Streets, New York City, on July 10, 1904. He was a practicing lawyer for more than 65 years.

At the age of 91 he moved to a senior residence at The Esplanade, on West End Avenue in Manhattan. He began writing this Journal as a way to keep in touch with family and friends, and also, it is clear, as a way to come to grips with a radical change in his life: he was now, for the first time in a long life, alone.

At first he was appalled by what he saw as the physical ugliness of his elderly fellow-residents, but after a few weeks he had an epiphany of sorts and realized there was beauty, intellect and talent inside their time-ravaged shells.

He told stories in his Journal about
• Selling hotdogs at the Dempsey-Carpentier fight in 1921.
• Attending the Pickle Shul on Ludlow Street.
• His wonderful, tiny teacher, Miss Murray, in 1-A and 1-B.
• His mother and father.
• Being told by the dean of admissions at NYU that they couldn't accept him because the 5% Jewish Quota had already been filled.

The Journal, then, is partly a lesson in aging, partly a family chronicle and partly a glimpse at one man's passage through the 20th Century.