Palm Trees on the Hudson: A True Story of the Mob, Judy Garland & Interior Decorating
Elliot Tiber
Square One, Jan 1 2011, $24.95
www.squareonepublishers.com
ISBN 9780757003516
Palm Trees on the Hudson is a wonderful memoir that chronicles events in the life of Elliot Tiber up until Taking Woodstock. The author realized early on he was gay, which in the homophobic Post WWII Happy Days was an unacceptable sexual preference, especially for a Jewish kid in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn. His mother, traumatized by the Russian program, controlled the roost with an iron fist until he moved to Greenwich Village where he found a gay lifestyle was welcomed. Mr. Tiber became a highly regarded interior decorator though that did not sit well with his mom who expected him to be a doctor, a teacher, Hank Greenberg or a rabbi; sadly he admits he never won their approval though he worked at their motel in the Catskills on weekends. The highlight film is Mr. Tibor’s account of hosting the title escapade as he tossed a mobster birthday bash attended by Judy Garland and Mayor Lindsey on the Hudson River Day Line; this left him near bankrupt when the birthday boy refused to pay the tab but his head is still attached though allegorically he argues otherwise as he physically moves to his parents’ motel. Readers will enjoy Mr. Tiber’s amusing but poignant anecdotal recollection of the key events in the first three and a half decades in his life.
Harriet Klausner
Elliot Tiber
Square One, Jan 1 2011, $24.95
www.squareonepublishers.com
ISBN 9780757003516
Palm Trees on the Hudson is a wonderful memoir that chronicles events in the life of Elliot Tiber up until Taking Woodstock. The author realized early on he was gay, which in the homophobic Post WWII Happy Days was an unacceptable sexual preference, especially for a Jewish kid in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn. His mother, traumatized by the Russian program, controlled the roost with an iron fist until he moved to Greenwich Village where he found a gay lifestyle was welcomed. Mr. Tiber became a highly regarded interior decorator though that did not sit well with his mom who expected him to be a doctor, a teacher, Hank Greenberg or a rabbi; sadly he admits he never won their approval though he worked at their motel in the Catskills on weekends. The highlight film is Mr. Tibor’s account of hosting the title escapade as he tossed a mobster birthday bash attended by Judy Garland and Mayor Lindsey on the Hudson River Day Line; this left him near bankrupt when the birthday boy refused to pay the tab but his head is still attached though allegorically he argues otherwise as he physically moves to his parents’ motel. Readers will enjoy Mr. Tiber’s amusing but poignant anecdotal recollection of the key events in the first three and a half decades in his life.
Harriet Klausner
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