Interview with Henry Jablonski, Part 1

I did a phone interview with Mr. Jablonski on March , 2010.   I am almost done transcribing it, but I thought I would go ahead and start posting it, probably over the course of three or four posts.

Eve: So the first question is, how long did you work at Dubrow’s?

Henry: How long? All together, about thirty years.  I worked there, eh, 1940…I was going to high school,  dishwashing, you know, for the summer,  and when I graduated I worked there for awhile,  and I was going to go to school and then a war broke out and I went into the service,  I didn’t go back to Dubrow’s until after the war, so in 1947, and uh, worked there until it closed.  Eastern Parkway closed, and then I worked at King’s Highway,  I didn’t work in New York, my son worked in New York, one summer. 

Eve: What was your son’s name?

Henry: Greg. Greg Jablonski.  They had another store called, they had a bakery, called Dubson’s. Interesting store, because it was a storefront, second story,  a floor down, and it had high ceilings, carved ceilings, and at the far end of the store was a big window so you could watch the bakers bake things…I’m not sure exactly what happened,  George got killed or something, turned it over to Adler or something and then they ran the Eastern Parkway store, but I think the bake shop and the Eastern Parkway store, we had a bake shop there until the end,  for the holidays and stuff like that.

Eve:  So did you work on King’s Highway until it closed as well?

Henry: Yes,  over on King’s Highway, for Mr. Tobin.  I worked for Mr. Tobin until he passed away. 

Eve:  Max Tobin?

Henry:  Yes, and his son, Paul Tobin…I do recall around that time, I was going home from work one day and I suppose I was mugged in the street.  I was in the hospital for a month or so and I came back, and this movie they made, Boardwalk, sort of a racial movie I guess, with all the college kids running around in that area, it wasn’t very popular,  but I have the whole review of the movie, which I will send you if you’re interested, when my sons come back for the holiday. 

Eve:   I definitely would like to see that.

Henry: Yeah, what was interesting about that was the entrance to King’s Highway store had a curved glass window,  you know, pretty much all the glass you see if flat, you know,  plate glass, well this plate glass was curved, expensive, so in the movie they, I guess these kids had to break this window,  I sort of forget for what reason they had to break this window,  it was in anger or whatever. So the movie company had to take this plate glass window and put over it this phony window that looked like the real thing,  so the window that was broken in the movie was not the real window, but a phony they put up.  It was a very expensive, curved window, from the floor to the ceiling. It was more or less based on the Dubrow’s family, I mean, they didn’t mention the names, but it was Janet Leigh and…I sort of forget the other people.

Eve:   So what positions did you work at the various stores? You said you were a dishwahser to start…

Henry:  Oh, I was a manager, when I was a kid I was a dishwasher, when I was in school.  I was a manager of both stores.  Assistant manager, manager, you know, there were a couple managers. Day manager, night manager,  we split shifts.

Eve:   So of both King’s Highway and of Eastern Parkway?

Henry: That’s right.