Arnie’s father, who was two old for the war and had already served in World War I, commuted an hour each day to work at the gas station he owned in the Bedford section of Brooklyn. Though the hours at work and on the road took their toll, Arnie’s family felt lucky to have an apartment anywhere in the city, let alone a two bedroom with one room for his parents and the other for their only child. Arnie’s mother and father attempted to create a sibling for their son, but all attempts ended in miscarriage.
His mother, Pearl Charlotte Lynn, was born in Jersey City, New Jersey on April 30, 1917 and was a full-fledged “Jersey Girl” like her mother before her. His mother’s father, on the other hand, was born in Russia and had an entirely different cultural experience and understanding of America.
Pearl was Arnie’s primary source of emotional nourishment as a child, since his father worked from 10 in the morning until 10 at night most days of the week. He remembers his mother doing volunteer work and helping as a secretary at his elementary school (Bronx PSA 85), but her primary focus was on being in charge at home. She cooked, cleaned, did laundry, attended school events and got him up and going in the morning to make sure he got to class on time.
By the time Dr. Leff’s father married his New Jersey sweetheart, who was fourteen years his junior, he had already been through one world war and a multitude of character building conflicts on his home turf.
David Lefkovisc was born in Hungary on August 30, 1903 and moved with his brothers and sisters, at age five, when his parents brought them to the United States. They were processed, with thousands of other Europeans, at Ellis Island. His Hungarian name was spelled Lefkovisc, but when they came through immigration the authorities changed it to Lefkowitz. By the mid 1940’s it was changed once again, this time shortened to Leff. Because of anti-Semitism and a backlash against immigrants, David Lefkowitz decided to follow his brother’s example and change the family name in order to get a job. His brother was a plumber, but couldn’t get a job with the Plumber’s Union because he was Jewish and had a “foreign” sounding name. Due to this blind discrimination David Lefkowitz once again changed the family name, this time to Leff.
David Leff had a combative, abused childhood on the Eastside of New York and left home as soon as possible. He used his brother’s social security number to join the Army when he was only sixteen. The year was 1919, but instead of winding up in the madness of “the war to end all wars” in Europe, he was sent to Panama as a surveyor. Somewhere in Panama, there is a mountain with a little plaque in his honor called Mount Lefkowitz.
Not long after his return from military service during World War I, the Great Depression came rolling across America, throwing bowls of dust in everyone’s eyes. Housing, economic growth and the belief in a better tomorrow were trampled under foot until President Franklin D. Roosevelt brought out the New Deal and created the Civilian Conservation Core (CCC). He lifted up America and gave its people a renewed sense of hope and purpose. David Leff received a job working in the CCC camps during the 1930’s and was proud, in later years, to show his family the letter he received “from FDR himself” lauding his work in the CCC. If David Leff’s family had not already been die-hard Democrats before the depression, the New Deal made them life-long believers.
When the US became engaged in the Second World War, all of David Leff’s male cousins joined the military and went off to fight “the good war”, the “moral war”. There was no doubt that it was the “right” thing to do, but David couldn’t go. He was already a veteran from the first war and was too old for duty. But he wasn’t too old to fight the battles that needed fighting in the middle of New York.
In the early forties David worked his way up from gas station attendant to own several stations himself. It was common practice at the time to pay the cops for protection, which he did for several years. The same police were also paid by companies to break up rallies and demonstrations of workers who were demanding 40 hour work weeks, health benefits, protection against injury or simply the right to be heard. Not surprisingly, in retrospect, David Leff became president of the Oil Workers Union. He was a labor organizer. Being part of a union in the early forties, let alone one of its leaders, was no walk through fairy land. Protestors and pickets were routinely beaten up and thrown in jail and Mr. Leff had his share of cuts, bruises and unpleasant stays in New York’s “finest” cells and jails. It wasn’t uncommon for union leaders to suddenly disappear altogether.
David didn’t reserve all his fighting for labor disputes and police. His son remembers stories from his uncles and aunts about numerous arguments and fights his father got involved in or started, including one at his own wedding. Someone at the wedding party said something David didn’t like and he started punching away. He didn’t need to be drunk to put up a fight, it was in his blood. It was how he survived as a boy and believed as a man. You fought for your honor, your self respect and your family.
By the early forties, when Pearl Charlotte Leff gave birth to her son in the borough of Brooklyn, her husband, his family and the rest of America were at war. They believed in a strong defense, in liberty and truth. They saw Dwight Eisenhower and General MacArthur as heroes. In spite of his dealings with corporate America and company thugs, David Leff still believed in justice and the American way of life.
Arnie recalls the times he went with his Uncle Sydney, after the war, to the American Legion and how they all attended the Memorial Day parades and watched proudly as it coursed through the Bronx Grand Concourse. It was an important and valued yearly event. The US had won the war and saved the world. Patriotism was the norm, the expected. Nobody questioned the military, it was respected and revered.
The Leff family liked to party. Whether it was for a birthday, a religious holiday, a picnic, going to the beach, camping or having the family over for dinner; relatives were always close at hand. They drank, laughed, kidded and danced. In addition to riding a horse at the age of two, Arnie remembers celebration upon celebration, with the women of the family preparing food and treats and arranging the festivities and the men driving to the store for booze or telling private jokes just out of earshot of youngsters and “ladies”. Parties were about the only time he ever saw his dad or saw his father loosen up. For a generation where many still believed in kids being “seen and not heard”, the Leffs were the exception. They took pride in their children and encouraged them to act out and be part of the celebrations.
In 1950, when he was nine years old, Arnie already had a good sense of who he was. On a page of his fifth grade notebook it states that he had a crush on Marjorie Thurston and played the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. It went on to say that his favorite books were the Hardy Boys and his desired profession was “to be a doctor”.
Two years later, at junior high school, a page in his yearbook provides the following insight into his future. His favorite motto is “Crime does not pay!” His favorite book is Tarzan and best song Kiss of Fire sung by Georgia Gibbs. His hero at the time was Crimebuster. Mark Twain topped his list for authors and he believed Princeton was the best college. For profession . . . “Doctor”. This was the same year (1952) when he played accordion at the Music Centre Conservatory Town Hall in New York on June 11th. If you put all these elements together, you have an eleven year old who sees himself as a Mark Twain look-alike accordion playing doctor, belting out Kiss of Fire at his graduation from Princeton!
As Arnie became a teenager it would have made sense for him to attend high school at the Bronx High School of Science, which was only six blocks from his home and rated one of the top high schools in the city. For various reasons, including his image of that school as one for “geeks”, with which he did not want to be identified (even though some at the time may have categorized his intellectual and social abilities as falling well within the geek Norma culture), he chose not to attend and applied to the Brooklyn Technical High School, which was an all-boys student body that focused exclusively on science and engineering. Over 10,000 young men applied