1975
I had started immediately to offer the sale of our house and office with ads in newspapers, had called also a few real-estate men. There were some calls and some people came, young doctors, who were interested, but nothing came out of it. When I had come home, I started with office hours for two hours a day, later three hours and only by appointment. I saw one patient every 15 minutes. For some patients I needed only 5 or 10 minutes, so that I could spend more time with others when it was necessary. I did not take anybody who did not have an appointment. That went on for about two months, and still there was no real candidate to take over. It looked very bad.
But one day there was a call which sounded promising. It was a doctor, a woman, who knew Francis and had heard that I wanted to give up the house and office and said that she was interested. A few days later she came and was apparently very impressed. She was a black woman, very pretty, a specialist for pediatrics, still working in the Montefiore Hospital. She understood that I had a lot to offer: A running practice, with great many patients coming all the time, a kind of mass practice, that would bring her an income right away, and great many of them colored people or Hispanics, and a complete equipment, where everything was installed, nothing missing. Two things I would take with me, I told her: The electro-cardiograph and the microscope. A few days later she came again, this time with her mother and stepfather, to show them everything and to talk about the price. That was the most difficult point to discuss. I knew how much other neighbors had gotten when they sold their houses. Most of them got about $ 25,000. The prices had come down in the course of the last few years, because the neighborhood had deteriorated very much. Our house was a cornerhouse and therefore worth more, also on account of the garden. With the practice, I figured, I should get between $ 45 and 50.000, but I had little hope that I could get it. So, when I mentioned 45,000, they said that it was too much and that they could not afford it. I then said that the lowest I would accept was $ 43,000. They left and said that they would let me know.
For a long time, about a month, we did not hear anything from them and we had become quite disillusioned. But then they called to tell me that they could get the money for the mortgage and that they wanted to discuss the whole thing in the presence of their lawyer. I had contacted a lawyer some time before, who was highly recommended to us, and had discussed the case with him. I called him now and asked him to come also to that meeting at a certain hour at our home. To make the story short, everything fell into place and a provisional document was initialed and the date fixed when we would more out and they take over, and that was the 30th of September, 1975.
We had already long before started to look for an apartment, had visited many places in and out of town, had considered White Plains, Dobbs Ferry, Long Beach among many others and finally agreed that we would move to Cabrini Boulevard in upper Manhattan near the George Washington Bridge, and I had rented an apartment two months before, without being sure that the deal would go through. It was only a few days before the agreed date that the agreement for the sale of the house was signed in a bank in the presence of the lawyers of both sides and the other participants and that we received the check in the amount of $ 43,000 from the bank.
Packing had gone on for weeks before and was an ordeal. Johanna was most helpful. Without her help it would not have been possible. There were well over 100 boxes, which were filled with stuff. Before that, I had transported many things by car to the new apartment, things that were breakable and delicate.
On the 30th of September, very early in the morning, the moving van came and was loaded and the ordeal continued, then the unloading at our new domicile and afterwards the unpacking of the boxes, more and more of an ordeal. It took about 14 days, till everything was in place. Lisa was very helpful in unpacking the many boxes. We had now a beautiful apartment, consisting of two bedrooms, a living room, a dining room, kitchen and bathroom, on the 11th floor, with a beautiful view at the George Washington Bridge and the Hudson River. We had reasons to be very happy.
Life in that apartment was pleasant, as it was a fine apartment and a fine neighborhood. I felt like a free man, free of worries about patients, free of a great burden. I had difficulties to put all the things I had taken along from my office, the many, many things into one single room and I was arranging and rearranging things for a long time. My whole butterfly collection, 17 display boxes, had to be hung on the walls of my room, since Hedy agreed to let me hang only two of the bigger boxes in the hallway. Two of Else’s paintings were also hung on the walls in my room and so it looks like a museum-room, in my opinion really beautiful. Two of Else’s paintings are hanging in Johanna’s and Marvin’s home in Usonia, and 8 paintings I stored in Francis’ apartment on Central Park South in a very big closet.
I should have mentioned another big event in 1975, the celebration of my 50th anniversary as doctor of medicine, which took place in the Medical Society of the County of Kings, when over 50 doctors were honored in a big banquet, and many pictures were taken.
Another big event in our family was the engagement of Ginny Rosegg and Lenny Hirschberg, which took place on May 25th, 1975 in Francis’ apartment on Central Park South, beautifully arranged by Lisa, attended by great many relatives in our area and also by some from farer away like John and Mary Ziegler, who had come in from Boston and Lenny’s brother and his wife, who came from Florida. Unnecessary to say that all participants of that party were very happy, that the food was great as usually, when Lisa was the cook; Papa Hirschberg gave a very fine speech and proposed a toast in honor and for the health of the two young people, and Francis played with mastery on the piano a piece by Mozart. It was a great event for all of us.
