Odds are, anyone reading this has no idea who I am; well, I’m a stoic goon of a guy not prone to show feelings. Yet I’m misty-eyed as I write because Harry Kulkowitz, AKA Koke, is no longer reachable by earthly phone.
Harry gushed with love for humanity. That took social courage. “Geezus*” it was also inspiring! In my own dysfunctional family where the only strong emotions to be shown were shouted angry ones, we had no idea how to relate to other people. Harry was my first exposure to people saying “I love you” aloud to family and friends –or to hugging. Thanks largely to Harry’s influence I’ve been an enthusiastic hugger for decades. (It is still tricky within the family.) He showed me by example that it’s okay to emote sometimes in a positive and kind way. (* a favorite exclamation of his –also by influence, picked up by me)
Now sure, you can’t take the New York out of a New Yorker. City life makes a virtue of directness. When someone in Manhattan traffic cut Harry off, his “aw FOCK YEWWW” (delivered with such assurance and in that Bronx brogue) to me had the resonance of a Zen master’s pronouncement –really, I found it nearly poetic. There was also a time (maybe 2010 or so) when some foreign Mad Batter restaurant guest-workers were up to some shenanigans that Harry disapproved of and he confronted a few of them on the stairs of his Jackson Street apartments where they lived: “you keep that sh1t up and I’ll put your a55es right on a boat back to Poland!” Hah! NY-Zen poetry! Where’s my ink and a scroll?
Harry’s among the five people in my life who were “always” there and who I sort of assumed would always be there. Only the last two remain out of Harry, Favorite Aunt Joan, Dad, Mom, and Quasi-aunt Sue –sobering indeed. How did Harry –unrelated by family or Dad’s advertising trade– get so connected?
Even after a disagreement (and between Harry The Communist and Ed The Far-Right Winger, this amounted to: after every other phone call) Dad always named Harry as his own best friend. Since they were school chums, “the artists” of their area –Dad, the Modern watercolorist and abstract photographer; Bob Cariola, the oil painter; and Harry, the art-photographer – looked out for each other and kept aware of family milestones and children’s progress. I’m one of the kids.
Some time in the Bicentennial era (1976, 77, 78, or so), Dad was unemployed AGAIN (see Paragraph Two: “dysfunctional”) and Harry had acquired a gigantic Victorian hotel which he and a few intrepid loyal (/crazy) friends were turning into the Carroll Villa inn and the Mad Batter restaurant. At the time, my family could sure use a rent-free place to stay for a season and Harry needed help transforming the building into the vision. Dad and Mom could both lay down house paint well and fast. Meanwhile, the folks assigned tasks to me including sandpapering of spackle, trim painting around windows, and all the masking-off with tape I could manage. At least one of my two sisters worked as a chambermaid –the first time I heard that exotic word. My memory is foggy since I was in kindergarten or at most second grade at the time.
Some random items that my kid-memory preserved include: 1] Not being aware that the Batter’s breakfast table jelly packets were really meant for paying customers (and nutritionally-subsisting largely on such filched packets for much of the season),
2) Crawling around under the building’s floors while pulling another Romex electrical cable to where a new outlet would go –and, to my unending thrill, finding a 100-year-old bottle,
3) Getting allowed a tour of The Cupola (and memorizing another then-exotic new word) and taking in the stunning view,
4) Sometimes being seated at the Batter and getting fine food –memorable 40 years later how key cook Dennis Findlay (now a regional journalism prince) even made toast with passion,
5) One time when being treated to a meal, finding no menu items which I (as a kid) liked, but then seeing PIE in a dish’s name, and selecting “shrimp pie, ” later having an awful digestive disagreement with the dish and later barfing it all over a decorative bush in the yard of the neighboring future Poor Richard’s Inn –thus killing this bush, 6) Experiencing new things like jetties, jellyfish, lighthouses, horseshoe crabs, beach tags, arcades, ferries, and abandoned World War II coastal artillery facilities.
7) A soft-sculpture stuffed old woman in the lobby of the Carroll Villa who held a sign of some sort to direct guests someplace.
After Harry’s place looked great, someone restored the place next door. House by house, inn by inn, Jackson Street in Cape May went from decrepit to Victorian wonderland. Then neighboring streets were refurbished. Historical Cape May has been a major tourist draw since the 80s.
There might have been a couple-dozen times Dad would drop in on Harry (often unannounced and expecting a room –see Paragraph Two: “dysfunctional”) and sometimes Harry would call ahead and visit us. My memories of these times are faint –happy though.
I surely do recall much of being in 8th or 9th grade and having been assigned a school project of interviewing a World War Two veteran. I knew no WWII vets except for a neighbor who only admitted to digging and mucking-out latrines on Guam. My uncle the Navy salvage diver had already died –so too had the Flying Tigers uncle. Everyone else fought in Korea. Dad piped up that Harry not only was in WWII (a surprise to me then), but also he was in some elite unit; he had a card allowing him to be released ahead of a general if captured and subject to a prisoner-of-war exchange. Dad also said he had some photographs of soldiers killed in a massacre –images which were somehow still “secret” and could lead to arrest if divulged. True? Who knows. The U.S. did cover up the Chenogne massacre. But also, Dad had a fuzzy grasp of facts, a habit of embellishing, and an admitted tendency toward blarney. Still, as a history-lover (even as a grammar school kid, staying up late to watch “World at War” documentaries on PBS), I decided I had to interview Harry. I wonder how many times this happened to Harry as word got around among those of us who had history class projects to do –a dozen?
I’ve still got the cassette tapes somewhere in which Harry obligingly recalled keeping abreast of European news as part of a “very political” family and of wanting to enlist upon seeing where the European situation obviously would soon lead. The odds of getting a good assignment were better anyway if one were an experienced enlistee with some training by the time they started up a draft, which of course they would soon do. (He was right.) In classic military form, when he said his skill was photography, they assigned him to do: not-photography. He kept a camera with him though.
His task would turn out to be radio-interception. Googling it today gets one ~no~ useful results. The story is yet to be written. There were only a few such trained troops. They might all be dead of old age now, and so it might not ever be officially written.
In England, they listened to recordings and real-time intercepts of radio messages in code sent from German units. Messages were in code, so a G or an H might really mean T or F; yet these coded messages were sent in Morse code. Whether or not one knew what a coded G would finally represent, it would still be sent as a G in Morse code: dash dash dot. H would be dot dot dot dot. Well, of course –but it was not so simple. Just as individual handwriting samples vary (and can be individually-recognizable), so too does the Morse code timing: you might render “dot dot dot dot” quickly, but someone else might have just a half-second more time between the keying of each dot. Telegraphers even have a word for the repeating and recognizable habits of the sender’s timing: the sender’s “fist.” Memorizing the “fist” of the key German units’ telegraphers was a large part of the training. This-and-such pattern of typing was clearly the Fifth Panzer Army, while another “fist” was the handiwork of the 9th Fallschirmjaeger Regiment’s radio operator –and so on. So with practice they could determine WHO was speaking –WHAT they said was not their immediate concern.
There might be a crew of five men to a radio-interception truck. If three trucks fanned out a known distance from each other, they could use direction-finding and signal-strength analysis to triangulate to the source of the signal: they could determine WHERE the enemy unit was. They would then contact fire-control personnel or headquarters and let them know that the Nazi 9th Fallschirmjaeger was transmitting from so-and-so location. Off some tanks or dive bombers would go.
There were some amazing stories. Among the more memorable items was when radio-interceptors found a Volkssturm radio operator’s signal. The Volkssturm (“people storm”) were “cannon fodder” units in Harry’s words –and he said wherever they went, one could expect the fighting to happen because they were put out in front. Harry and crew found the German cannon fodder troops to be surprisingly close to either U.S. or Allied headquarters. Harry’s guys sent the word out, but a U.S. Sgt. Van Brunt said there was no way Germans could be so close: it must be a mistake. Harry’s team rechecked and the Germans were on the move and getting closer still. Van Brunt said this must be wrong and that he wouldn’t pass along such crazy intercepts. The radio-interceptors actually were not wrong: the Battle of the Bulge was starting. It is said that the U.S. was caught by surprise by that epic German counterattack, but actually headquarters could have gotten some advance notice.
Other memorable WW2 episodes include: 1) New Yorker’s first exposure to segregation –while at a dance in England arranged by the Allies.
2) Let’s steal this whole German warehouse of Leica camera lenses and parts (failed plan).
3) The sh1thead who made us leave our group mascot pet behind gets paid back when his war booty souvenirs get tossed overboard on the troopship back home.
4) Feeling great when a small ship with a band and huge “WELCOME HOME” banner appeared –only to be crestfallen as the party steamed right past them (as they traveled on the humble U.S.S Schmeltzer –the “Schmeltzer Peltzer”) to instead greet the big ocean liner (possibly one converted to a troopship) approaching behind them.
Harry’s World War Two history will be its own write-up at a better time. Now, back to the 21st century U.S.
Harry was always Dad’s best friend who also happened to own a hotel, restaurant, and apartment house in Cape May –and was always offering meals and stays. He and partner Vickie Seitchik made the long drive to the site of my 1993 wedding to fellow artist Mia LaBerge. He lent out his own Cape May residence apartment so that the penniless couple could have a happy honeymoon. This might have been 3-year-old stepkid Elaina’s first exposure to a beach and she loved every moment. We breakfasted on something delightful which pleasantly burned the word HOLLANDAISE into my memory.
Around that time Harry and Vicki spoke of their sponsorship of the family-semiautobiographical art film “Queer Son,” which was positively groundbreaking at the time. Back when gayness was still considered a mental illness, gay jokes were common, and same-sex marriage was just unheard of, such a movie was a pioneering piece. In 2017 with gay marriage legal and transgender bathroom accommodation a federal mandate, it is easy to overlook the social courage such a stance took at the time. We watched the video in the Jackson Street apartment’s living room as the Javanese shadow puppets and gilt bronze Buddhas looked on. The custom-neon of a motherly quote in Yiddish, “ess ess mein Kind” (eat ,eat, My Child) quietly buzzed on the kitchen wall in the background. Sometimes only decades later can we see and appreciate how ahead-of-the-curve, how visionary, some people are.
Always arts boosters, Kulkowitzes often invited Mia to exhibit at the Batter, and some time in the 90s or 00s she did an art show there. I was pleased to see that the soft sculpture I remembered from early childhood was still there in the lobby.
I recall sometime around 2005 during a visit seeing Harry glance at a television on which “Wheel of Fortune” was playing. The game hosts had just shown a new word puzzle to the contestants and viewers. I forgot just which letter a contestant asked for –let’s say R– and with perhaps three seconds of mumbled figuring, Harry announced the answer. It was something like: “_ _ _ _ _ _ _ R _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ R” and Harry says, “SOMEWHERE SOUTH OF THE BORDER.” It took the contestants a terribly long time to figure it out. I wondered to myself if maybe his head for puzzling around with wartime messages might have factored in the impressive speed he always showed with such things.
There was a time, 2005-ish, I got to visit Harry and stay with him in the NY apartment. Dad encamped in the living room. We went out to breakfast and it was as if Harry were the mayor of the block. The café managers all greeted him by name. A jam-packed waitlist place, upon seeing it was Harry & company arriving, cleared out a space for us and wedged us in. Waiters knew Harry too. Harry was spry: walking blocks to cafes and living in the 3rd (?) floor walkup on West Street . He would rattle off trivia of the various buildings: “a bunch of celebs live in that place –it’s been turned into condos¬– and Monica Lewinski has been trying to get in,” “this place had its own elevated freight railroad going into the back; a lot of the buildings here did.” Harry had a zany, wildly-painted “art bed” that a NY artist (possibly Steinmetz) had made.
Harry the former gallerist (also occasional collector of contemporary, risqué, and antique Asian art) appreciated the interest I, an artist, showed in the art scene. He wanted to show Dad and me around his favorite Chelsea galleries. Chelsea being Chelsea, many venues competed to out-avant garde each other –often by being in a de facto “arms race” of ever more politically and s3xually edgy material. I treasure a snapshot I took of Harry and Dad at Zach Feuer Gallery during a 2006 Nathalie Djurberg exhibit. None of us knew going in that her specialty then was art-claymation p0rn video. In the snapshot (scroll to a bit beyond halfway down this page: http://bit.ly/1g32M1O ), they’ve just wandered through a room with projected video of claymation characters (a male tiger and a female human) being XXX-rated with each other. None of that appears in the snapshot. Rather, the background has a repeating screenshot of some clay characters sprawled about with a voice balloon saying "LOWLIFE SCUM AND FREAKS." That was likely Dad’s thought exactly –him not being a fan of such things. Harry could stir up some eye-opening experiences.
Wherever I had not managed to go in New York, Harry happily drove me. Being from such a prominently New York family, being so associated with the loud and boisterous Brooklyn branch of Wards, I was embarrassed to admit I had never walked around major Manhattan places like Times Square, Broadway, or the Garment District. Harry whisked me there. I liked the Garment District’s giant needle and button sculpture particularly. How did I miss that before? The deconstructed building was another thing Harry introduced me to. While I could navigate my way around Brooklyn and Queens easily enough, I owe my confidence in getting around Manhattan to Harry.
A memory I prize particularly was when Harry was going through some closet matter and found something. Perhaps he remembered my interest in his World War II activity and also saw me as artistic. This felt like an honor: he found a WWII negative of a photo he snapped and he told me the special image’s story, and added, “I’m going to make a print of this for you.” Harry in WWII Belgium was zooming along amid Nazi shellfire on some country road with his radio-interception truck convoy. Ever the art-photographer, he still kept a camera at hand. He saw a striking vision and halted his whole convoy while he set up to get the picture. Cannon-fire be damn3d, this was an image for the ages. A child was holding the bridle of a huge and muscular draft horse –the leader of several who were hitched to a cart. Belgian brick outbuildings and a barn are in the background. The strong and mighty horses were in a panic over the loud and scary German shellfire, and this tiny 9-year-old little boy was alone comforting them and stopping them from bolting. Sunlight angles in –in such a way as to make the lighting ~perfect~. (Click.) I don’t know how many prints of the boy calming the frightened workhorses Harry made, but he always kept the negative within his reach. The print he made for me remains (and always will be) in a place of honor on my office wall. Harry signed it: “HK Belgium 1944.” I like to show the photo next to the late 1930s photo of Mom’s dad in the WMBO singing chorus at the Empire State Building –historical black-and-white photos from different parts of the family past.
During that visit, we got the treat of a surreal sight. There was commotion on the river. Police boats, tugboats, private boats following along to get a look at the spectacle: the aircraft carrier usually parked as a museum ship was barreling full-speed reverse down the Hudson . (It needed to go get some special maintenance and, while trying to leave, it kept getting stuck in the silt that collected at its pier during years of inactivity; it was decided to GUN IT AND NOT STOP and so the 900-foot long behemoth splashed along backwards toward us at startling speed.) Dad raced for his camera and managed to get a snapshot from the NY apartment’s steps. He had it printed out large straight away and gave me a copy –another photo with a story from Harry’s place.
When Harry was signing his WW2 photo, he said “I wanna take you to France with me” –meaning: to visit the D-Day beaches and towns. He had made a tradition of going to the reunions. There were ever-fewer of the D-Day week veterans around –let along WWII vets generally. It has been interesting to get vicarious peeks of the France trips through others’ photos.
He had an amusing tale of one reunion trip. He returned to a town he had a history with –possibly Houseville. He went to a pub and was asking around about where one might find the town leaders because he wanted to give a gift to the town he had such good memories of. He had been lucky in life and wanted perhaps to fund a park for them. Someone at that pub happened to be the person in charge. This person was so struck by Harry’s generosity, he made a surprising reply along the lines of: we’re doing really well here thanks to the casino, but I’m so impressed with your generosity, I’ll get a park named after you. So, PARC HARRY KULKOWITZ is a thing.
The French awarded the Legion to surviving D-Day week vets who visited. How pleasing to see in later years that President Obama attended a big anniversary event there and namedropped Harry, shook his hand, and even said an original joke including him. Also timing worked out well for Harry that it was a Democrat in office when his presidential joke and special attention happened. I imagine it would have deducted a few points from the experience if it were W or Trump doing the proceedings.
Upon hearing that Harry had died, I pulled every military contractor string I had (sorry, I may not disclose how it is that I have any such strings) and had a medal ribbon bar made which included Harry's U.S. military awards and also the later French medals
But back to politics: it reminds me that in one possible view of the situation, now Harry and Dad can once again argue politics –for all eternity. Maybe there will be pinochle games and galleries and friends and of course artfully-made food. You’re a good guy, Harry –good friend and good mentor. I’m sorry we can’t hug. Love ya. You’ll be missed.
R.I.P. 1924-2017
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