The Last Time I Saw Uncle Dave

I always wondered where I got my love of books, and why I was always at pains to lend them out or part with even the most undistinguished of tomes. My late Uncle Dave may be the answer.

My Uncle Dave to coin a phrase, was the last of a dying breed. David Kirschenbaum was born to Jewish immigrants, and as a young man sold books from a cart in the teeming streets of the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the early part of the century.

By the time of his death, he was prominent rare book dealer, and a well-known face at the tony auction houses of Christies and Sotheby. Because of Dave my house was always supplied with enigmatic first editions, with wonderfully florid illustrations. Children’s books, ancient books on ancient history, literally littered our attic when I was a kid. On holidays, when I got to see Dave, he was as mysterious and fascinating as the books he gave us.

He was a creature of the Old World, solemn and formal, with a hint of a Yiddish twang in his voice. He talked in a studied manner, with a slow, deliberate cadence to his speech. Every time we conversed I felt he was about to tell me some fantastic tale, even if what he had to say concerned the most banal aspects of life.

I think the last time I saw Uncle Dave was about 10 years ago at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. The family got together for my mother’s birthday. I remember sitting in the handsomely appointed dining room when Uncle Dave arrived. He was wearing some kind of Derby, and used a cane to help him with walking.

We all stood up as this distinguished, but diminutive, 96-year-old man crossed the room to our table. I felt like I was a cast member in some Merchant/Ivy production, as this Old World figure took his seat. He reminded me of some well-heeled figure that I encountered in a Isaac Singer or Saul Bellow story. He had an elfin twinkle in his eyes, and seemed to take in the surroundings like he was approaching an old book or manuscript.

He summoned me to his side of the table like a benevolent king to a beloved subject. After talking to him for a little while I felt a profound sense of loss. I regretted that I was so self-involved in my own life that I never took up his invitations to have lunch or spend some time talking with my Uncle.

Interacting with this man I became aware of his great expanse of experience and knowledge. I could see the traces of the scrappy Lower East Side kid pushing a cart, and the self educated man -of-the- world he had become.

He was the last man who will ever tell me, “Gershwin was a nice kid.” But, Dave knew George Gershwin when they were mere kids in the city.

Dave had appraised libraries all over the world, and had conversations with everyone from Robert Frost to William Faulkner. Dave had survived the passage from Poland to Ellis Island, the vagaries of the Depression, and lived through the many of the manic swings of the last century.

Near the end of our conversation I asked Dave what made him decide to become a book dealer, he said with his characteristic understatement: “I had to make a living.”

I realized that this man was as rare as the things he sold. He was the last glimpse of another era, a time I had only the vaguest idea of. He was part of a world where men sat in cafeterias, and sipped tea through sugar cubes held tightly between their teeth. He was as mysterious as the mumbled, and at times lyrical Yiddish, my grandparents exchanged tit-for-tat in the cramped apartment in the hinterlands of the Bronx.

He was a link to what I am, where I came from. I will miss him.