Levittown

by David Kushner

  “Brutes!” cried one person.

  “Dictators!” shouted another.

  “Gestapo!” cried one woman with a foreign accent. “This is America! I came here to be free. Now I have to live with Negroes! This is America!”

  As the cops dragged the protesters away, others in the mob broke into song. “America!” they sang. “America! God shed His grace on thee.” Daisy could hear them outside her window as she put her baby to sleep and sang her a lullaby over the noise.

  The next morning, a honk came outside the Wechslers’ home. Lew poked his head through the drapes and saw a car idling. It was Frazier, there to take him to work as usual. But this time when Lew came out and climbed into the car, he felt tension. Whereas Frazier had once ribbed Lew about his overgrown lawn, now they drove in silence. Finally, Frazier spoke, telling Lew that the situation on Deepgreen Lane had grown too dangerous, and his wife didn’t want him carpooling with Lew anymore. This would be their last ride.

  Lew couldn’t tell which side of the battle Frazier fell upon, but expressed his understanding nonetheless. Once they pulled into the DeLaval Steam Turbine Company and went to their rounds, Lew saw that the tensions were seeping into his workplace too. For years, blacks had been relegated to working as maintenance men and janitors at his company. But on this day a black man came on and was given a post at the biggest, most expensive machine. Angry white faces leered around him. “The niggers get all the breaks, while we pay the taxes and get none,” muttered one man near Lew. “Look at the unemployment insurance lines and who gets on relief.”

  Lew looked up from his machine and noticed that this man was tan from the summer. Lew piped in with characteristic humor, “You don’t have to suffer, your skin is dark enough that you could pass. Why don’t you just say that you’re a Negro, then you can get all those breaks.”

  Frazier and Lew drove back to Deepgreen Lane that afternoon, but this time the charade would finally come to an end. Katy, who had been playing with the Wertzs’ kids for years, came home and told her parents that the Wertz girls said they weren’t allowed to play with her anymore. The battle lines had been drawn. And Bea and Lew were feeling it.

  They weren’t just on the periphery of a struggle anymore, they—and their children—were in the middle. For once, all their strength couldn’t keep them from feeling frightfully under siege. For years, their political activities had infiltrated into their personal lives. FBI investigators showed up at their door. Lew lost jobs. But throughout it all, their children had never really felt any sort of retribution. Only now, in this civil rights struggle, had that vengefulness crossed into the world of Katy and Nick. And it terrified Bea and Lew.

  The Wechslers’ phone was now ringing at all hours of the day and night, with people hurling racists epithets such as “nigger-loving Jewish motherfuckers,” before hanging up. Kids refused to play with Katy and Nick at their parents’ behest. One night, Nick looked out the window to see one of his friends’ mother screaming, “Nigger lovers,” on his lawn. Another day, Lew had taken Nick to swim at the local Levittown pool, where a group of families with their children muttered something about “nigger-loving Jews.”

  Hateful letters poured in as well. “Mr. Lewis (I love Niggers) Wech-sler,” read a typical one. “If you lived here (Newark) you wouldn’t let your wife and children walk the streets at night. The niggers will always be an uncivilized race regardless of how nice they may seem . . . I only hope as long as you like them, someday the nigger Mr. Myers son falls in love with your daughter and she has a nigger baby then you can be one happy family.”

  But the more under fire Bea and Lew felt, the closer they and the Myerses came to be. Every day, the Wechslers would go over to be with them—and their friendship was a great source of strength. While the kids played, the adults drank coffee, commiserated, and strategized. With the drapes drawn to the circus outside, Bill smoked a cigarette as he and Lew talked about their service in the war. Daisy and Bea chatted, and Nick and Katy fawned over baby Lynda. It almost seemed like a normal suburban evening. But it was constantly underscored by the sound of jeers and honking outside. The two families were from such different backgrounds, but found commonalities as they were cast together now. As Lew said, they felt as if they were under siege, and they were bonding together to survive.

  Supporters form the Friends and Human Relations Council milled in and out of the house. This sense of community was a stark contrast to the hateful mob outside the window. As Bea and Lew said to the Myerses, the town was being divided into two factions: the Baddies, and the Goodies. And while the Baddies got all the press, the Goodies were showing what a true model town was all about. At one point, Daisy looked down to see a well-dressed white woman scrubbing her floor; the woman was the wife of a prominent doctor in town, and she wanted to help any way she could.

  And as the mob began to grow again outside on Tuesday, August 20—a week after the Myerses moved in—they needed all the strength they could muster. With Bill’s nervous tension rising and his knees constantly bobbing up and down as he sat, he and Daisy decided they would not submit to the reporters’ questions anymore. Instead, they prepared a statement, which their supporters delivered outside:

  “Mr. and Mrs. Myers wish to express their deep appreciation of the fair and sympathetic understanding demonstrated by the press, radio, and TV. They hope that all of these will appreciate their feeling that the sooner they can return to normal privacy the better for all concerned. They feel that neither their new neighbors nor the police may appreciate their doing anything that may contribute to the circus atmosphere here on Deepgreen Lane.”

  The Myerses would give no more interviews, they concluded, until if and when they had anything else to say. And any further statements would come through their spokesperson, the Reverend Mr. Harwick of the Citizens Committee for Levittown.

  To ward off the crowd, the police tried to forbid anyone other than residents from driving into the Dogwood Hollow section. They placed No Parking signs around the streets. But while the cops were able to keep out the cars, the mob began to slowly filter onto the lawns across the street, about five hundred feet away. As the police stood guard, the protesters began hollering insults at the officers. “Gestapo!” they jeered. “Wife beaters! This is Russia!”

  Bristol Township police chief Stewart, the officer whom attorney Sam Snipes had initially notified of the Myerses’ move-in, surveyed the mob from his car. Known around town by the nickname John R., Stewart was considered a local hero. He had battled gunslingers on horseback and climbed up a rope on the side of a ship in the Delaware River during Prohibition to foil armed rumrunners.

  But tonight the suburban crowd was rallying against him. Slowly, they began to surround the black-and-white police car, staring it down. There were children and adults, defiant men and women with arms crossed, dressed in shorts and casual slacks. Finally, one man in the crowd took Stewart to task for the clubbing of the Levittowners the other night. “What are you,” the man asked, “a nigger lover?”

  Stewart recalled how years before, while working as a state police officer, he had once been chasing an African-American man thought to have raped a white girl. When Stewart confronted him, the man shot him twice—in the head and in the hand. Stewart still had the scar as his proof, and he would brandish it now in his defense. Now, Stewart eyed the man who called him a “nigger lover” and held his maimed hand aloft. “See that?” Stewart pointed to his thumb, a mangled stump of flesh missing a joint. “A nigger shot that off.”

  With each passing hour, the crowd grew and grew, forming a thick human wall five people deep and fifty yards long down the lawns across the lane from the Wechslers’ and Myerses’. Many teenagers and young children were in the crowd. One young boy wore a football helmet to protect himself, he told an officer, in case violence broke out. As the mob reached four hundred people, the police officers could do little more than stare them down.

  By nine thirty, the mob began to break of
f, one by one, darting for the Myerses’ house. On cue, the cops grabbed their batons and charged forward to push them back. But no sooner had they moved than someone threw a huge rock. It flew through the air, over the angry faces, slicing the glare of the streetlight, and crashed down on a young police sergeant’s head. His eyes shut as he crashed back on the ground, arms stretched on either side, his upturned hat beside him. The sergeant was a father of four, and a Levittown resident. Now he lay there perfectly still. The blood ran from the side of his head into the dry, brown lawn.

  Thirteen

  BATTLE LINES

  ONE MORNING IN Levittown, New York, Nassau County judge Paul J. Widlitz stepped up to the stage of the Levittown Theater and looked out into a sea of smiling white faces. The occasion was a fund-raiser for the upcoming Tenth Anniversary Celebration honoring a decade since the first three hundred residents, including Widlitz and his family, moved in. Widlitz was about to unveil a bronze plaque dedicating the theater to the town’s lifeblood: the veterans.

  “In addition to introducing a new concept of community building,” he said, “the Levitt family’s objective was a community of homes with ball fields and trees where the harassed GI might take hold of life once more. One decade has seen not only the transformation of potato fields into a teeming, bustling community of seventy thousand people, but also the transition of the harried, uncertain war veteran into a mature husband, father, and responsible resident.”

  Despite the mounting tensions in Levittown, Pennsylvania, the residents in this sister city did their best to celebrate—and defend—the reputation of Bill Levitt and the suburb known as the “most perfectly planned community in America.” Levitt, the master marketer, had established for years how to spin the story. He had billed his community from day one as a dream come true, and himself as the Disney-like dream-maker. Whether naming his town after himself or defying the Supreme Court’s stance against racial covenants, he stood unfailingly behind his product.

  Now as he sat on the sidelines of the race riot on Deepgreen Lane, his followers came to his defense. With their tenth anniversary approaching, the original Levittowners went out of their way to show that—despite the critics predictions—the town was something to be proud of. They showed how, despite the assertions that they lived in ticky-tacky boxes, the community in fact valued and cultivated diversity—at least in the design of the homes.

  In fact, Alfred Levitt’s innovative designs were now paying off. The young, self-taught architect had specifically created these affordable homes to be modified and expanded as the owners’ needs changed. He had set houses back off the roads at different angles specifically to accommodate growth. As one writer marveled, “The houses of Levittown appear to have been exactly what their owners needed—a start. Most of the early Levittowners were short on money and long on energy and ingenuity.”

  The buzzword around town was remodeling. In Levittown, New York, a magazine called Thousand Lanes: Ideas for the Levitt Home was dedicated to showing all the ways that residents were making over their homes. As one reporter observed, “The sound of the hammer and the electric saw goes on incessantly in Levittown.” Kitchens were being squared off. Living rooms extended. Carports enclosed. Attics finished. At the adult education program in town, “How to Finish an Attic” was the second most popular class behind “Fine Arts.” “It is hard in Levittown today to find a house with an unaltered exterior—and rare to find two in a row with the same alterations,” the article said.

  This sense of great American gumption, of the inventiveness of veterans, the ability to pull themselves up after living in chicken coops, created an incredible sense of vindication and pride. While Levitt’s creation of Levittown was long deemed heroic, it was the residents who confirmed the promise in the popular imagination. “The degree to which these predictions have been refuted is probably the most remarkable aspect of the community,” effused the New York Times. “Far from deteriorating, the property values have increased.” Without irony, the national media proclaimed Levittown a truly diverse place. “And if there is one outstanding common trait among Levittowners,” the Times concluded, “it appears the urge to be different.”

  With this uplifting story making the rounds despite the events on Deepgreen Lane, it was easy for Bill Levitt to continue to compartmentalize—or deny—the divisiveness of his whites-only towns. As a result, he gladly steamrolled ahead with his plan to construct more exclusive communities across the land. After eyeing the Belair Estate in Bowie, Maryland, Levitt outbid rivals with a $1,750,000 offer. He would now commence building six thousand homes there, he said. As for the three-story, prerevolutionary mansion on the property, he would turn it over to local citizens to turn into a library dedicated to the legendary racehorse that once grazed on the site.

  Meanwhile over in Willingboro Township, New Jersey, Levitt was busy making way for his next brand-name community. With his father out of the picture, he had no problem bulldozing the peach orchards that lined the land. He promised fifteen thousand affordable homes for veterans, as well as the world’s largest shopping center and an administration building said to be “the last word” in modern construction. And it would now bear his name: Levittown, New Jersey.

  Though Levitt wasn’t speaking out on the events in Pennsylvania, the Myerses and Wechslers suspected he was playing his hand behind the scenes. On August 21, the day after the young officer was stoned outside their home, the doorbell rang at 43 Deepgreen Lane. Bill Myers opened the door to find a well-dressed white man in a suit. Bill’s guard was up. Just days before, he had found the words NIGGER GO HOME scrawled on a wall of the building where he worked. The man in the suit introduced himself as a Levittown attorney and Bucks County district attorney. He was also the Republican nominee for district attorney in the coming election in November. “How can I help you?” Bill asked.

  The attorney said he represented two buyers, whom he could not name. But they wanted to offer the Myerses $15,000 for the home. Bill considered the man. That was a lot of money, $2,850 more than the Myerses had paid just weeks ago. Bill had a hunch about whom the man really represented: William Levitt. Sorry, Bill said, the home was not for sale. “I am here to stay.”

  While the Levittowners struggled to reclaim their reputation, the situation in Pennsylvania was only growing more grim. With the stoning of the second cop, who was rushed to the hospital and found to have a concussion, America’s model town was even further being torn apart.

  After a fifteen-year-old boy, who claimed innocence, was arrested for the assault, James Newell, the mob’s de facto leader, placed himself above the violence. “I am disgusted with what happened up there last night,” he told reporters the day after the stoning of the officer. “It was unjustified and uncalled for. I have always advocated complete cooperation with the police.” But the power was clearly going to his head. A meeting would be held, he promised, so that he could “tell my followers what I intend to do.”

  The police responded by setting a nine P.M. curfew in town for children under sixteen years of age who were not accompanied by their parents. Though the riot act had been read—and not enforced—before, the police now reiterated that crowds gathering on Deepgreen Lane would be arrested. But despite their warnings, they could not contain the violence. That night at 10:10 P.M., a second cross was found burning in Levittown—this time at the Penn Valley School in town. The wooden cross had been jammed into a backstop on the school baseball field.

  Newell’s minions expanded their campaign across the manicured lawns of Levittown, staging witch hunts on the slightest provocation. When a black man was seen leaving another house, Newell’s crew confronted the owner, who they feared was selling to another African-American family; the man proved to be merely a worker.

  But Newell was undeterred. He took the cause of the Betterment Committee to the local radio airwaves, where he espoused his racist views under the banner of free speech. Listeners took heed. Factions were increasingly convinced that Jews,
Communists, and the NAACP were plotting an African-American takeover of Levittown. When word of another black family moving into town spread, opponents wasted no time—spilling trash on the lawn and vandalizing the home at a cost of several hundred dollars. The rumor, once again, proved false.

  While the police were making more of an effort to keep people away from Deepgreen Lane, Newell and the Levittown Betterment Committee were secretly meeting—and the stakes were rising. One night at the home of one of Newell’s right-hand men, a dozen key members—husbands and wives—met to discuss the state of affairs. While Newell glommed on to power, however, it was the pit bull of the group, Eldred Williams, the unemployed man who drove the gray station wagon, who took command.

  “I’ve been contacted by someone,” Williams told the others, “someone representing the KKK who’s interested in our problem.” The group decided to take a vote on whether to pursue the Klan’s offer to help. Who was in favor? Williams’s hand shot straight up, and one by one he was joined by others in the group—a total of eight votes for the Klan. Who was against? Just five people, including John Bentley, the former township zoning officer, and Newell. Williams stared Newell down bitterly. Williams would follow up with the Klan and report back at the next meeting.

  When they gathered again the following week, Williams and his supporters were ready to move forward with the Klan. But Bentley, who had joined the Betterment Committee because he thought the Levittown Civic Association was not militant enough, feared that Williams and the others were going too far in the other extreme. “I make a motion,” Bentley said, “that we have nothing to do with the KKK.” This time, people agreed—and all but two backed the plan to keep the Klan away. Only Williams and one of his friends dissented. So it would be done—the group would proceed without the KKK. And when they asked if Williams had anything to report from the Klan over the previous week, he said, “Nothing to report.”