My Bread Got Buttered Over Light, Not Heavy

When I made my first million in Big Board assets, I phoned my dad and told him so. Pop’s response sort of floored me: “Bah! Sosnoffs don’t get rich. Maybe comfortable, but never rich!”

My father spoke from his tailor shop in Harlem. When I told David Dinkins I spent more time in Harlem than he did, David shot back “Yeah! But you don’t live there now, do you?” 

We never spoke much about money in our family because it didn’t exist. My elder brother, Gene, attended Yale Law School on scholarship and fulfilled his dream as a labor lawyer. But, he came to me for funds to furnish his office in New Haven. Pop slaved 12 hour days over 40 years. Finally, we made him close up shop after he was pistol whipped one Friday night. 

My middle brother, George, became a powerful junk dealer in Chico, California. But, George got taken by a con man peddling so called safe bond investments. He wouldn’t listen to my reservations on such high yield crap, but that was George. 

Early on, the family pretty much left me alone to shift for myself. I developed a “side” in pennants and souvenirs hawked at football games in Yankee Stadium and elsewhere. These became 50-to-100 dollar days for me from the time I was 10 to college age. I never got to see Army beat Notre Dame. 

For me, the country was always action filled. I used my father and brothers as negative role models. New York was my game.  Mid Great Depression our feisty mayor Fiorello La Guardia, created 5 special high schools, including Music and Art, only a stone's throw from pop’s shop. 

I was a woodwind player. Pop had taken me to an upstairs music school on 125th Street. We called pop by his first name, Ben. He paid for my instruments a buck a week with backup lessons on the alto sax and clarinet which I played through college.

Decades later, I gave “CCNY” a multi-million grant. But they proved flabby operators. Their leaders misused my funds. I learned the hard way how to make grants but follow-up on the execution. 

When I think back on growing up poor in the Bronx I remember the first class education you got there. The poor took care of each other in those “hard” times. I remember Lenny Bernstein coming down to conduct Rhapsody in Blue for our band. Lenny was a young, handsome, maybe 23 year old charismatic conductor. 

Growing up poor in the Bronx wasn’t so bad after all. We took care of each other. The world of music opened up for me and later, going down to Wall Street came naturally. Now I understand why Pop wouldn’t believe me about my net worth, but that was his problem. 

I should say my father at 19, living in Russia, rose up in the 1905 Revolution. He was collared by the Czar’s henchmen. Pop was clapped into jail along with fellow revolutionaries.  He was one of the few Jewish survivors and finally got lucky.  His elder brother, Gene, was already established with a tailor shop in Brooklyn. He sent Pop a ticket for a ship embarking for New York harbor. 

So my father started his tailor shop career early on in Harlem on Convent Avenue. When he was 9 years old Ben’s parents had apprenticed him to a tailor. It became his livelihood for the next 50 years. 

If somebody asked me today what growing up in the Bronx did for me, I’d have to admit “Luck of the Irish” prevailed. I wasn’t Tom Sawyer or David Copperfield but I knew enough not to settle for pressing Dizzy Gillespie’s pants, thanks to Pop.