Humans of the Heights: A Conversation with Fred Koss
Author’s Note: As I am graduating in a few weeks, this will be my final print edition of Human of the Heights. So before we begin, I want to first express my gratitude to the people of the Heights, my neighbors, for sharing your stories with me and the YU community.
On a personal note, this series has meant a great deal to me and I’ve learned so much from all of you. Time and again, you’ve shown me the meaning of resilience, faith, family, community and love.
And to the YU student body, I know there are those among us who are skeptical of this project and weary of traveling outside the bounds of YU. I hope this series demonstrates that connecting with and supporting our neighbors does not come at the cost of community. And more than that, connection is necessary, isolation serves nobody. So get out there.
For the ninth installment of my series sharing the stories of the people of the Heights, I spoke with Fred Koss. In a way, Mr. Koss was the inspiration for this series. He was the first person I really knew who came from Washington Heights and is a fine representative of the neighborhood. When you sit down with him, you’re met with a warm smile and charming affect. In this interview, you’ll read about his passion for learning, love for the Mets and his remarkable perseverance. He has lived an incredible life. He is also my Zeyda.
This is his story:
Avraham Frohlich: Okay, so let's start with your background.
Fred Koss: Well, my parents were European. My father came from a city in Slovakia called Bratislava and my mother came from Vienna. They met in 1937 and lived in Bratislava until World War II broke out. Hitler was coming close, and they were afraid for their lives. My mother and oldest sister got the last plane out of Bratislava on Shabbos.
And they ran to London, where I was born eight years later, the youngest of five.
AF: How was their arrival in London at the start of the War?
FK: Things were very bad. The Luftwaffe was bombing London. When I was a kid, my father would talk about how one time he woke up and his neighbor’s house was completely destroyed by a bomb. How he used to put out the fires as part of the civil defense.
My parents had to leave London for a year and go up north to escape the onslaught of the Germans. It was tough. My father was in the family feather business, and there wasn’t a lot of money. Because the economy was so bad, my family left for New York almost two years after I was born.
AF: How was it arriving in New York?
FK: We first came to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 1949. It was tough living in a small apartment. Cramped. My mother was looking after us kids and did some jobs here and there to make ends meet. She’d sew gloves for the U.S. Army. Finally, my parents left Williamsburg and went to Washington Heights.
AF: What are your first memories of living in the Heights?
FK: I remember moving into the building on 180th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue. I remember my father coming to the door, schlepping heavy items.
Really, my first memories are of going to kindergarten at the Breuer’s school when I was five years old. I remember stomping my feet at the kitchen door in my house and saying, ‘I’m not going to school. I don’t like it. I’m not going. I’m not going.’ And my mother said, ‘Yes, you are.’ And guess who won that fight.
And that was the beginning of my career, so to speak, at Breuer’s Yeshiva. I went there from kindergarten to high school. And the friends I made when I was six years old, I’m still friends with them today. I’m talking 70 years later.
AF: What was an average day for you growing up in the Heights as a kid? What did you do for fun?
FK: When I came home from school, I used to turn the radio on and listen to the Lone Ranger, drinking hot chocolate with a crumb bun. My twin sisters would go into their room and listen to rock and roll. And my oldest siblings were in college.
On Shabbos, I used to meet my friends in the park. Sometimes, things got a little touchy in that park because the Gentile boys didn’t like us very much. You talk about antisemitism today, and you talk about antisemitism then; it was the same antisemitism, it just manifested itself a little more extremely.
I’ll never forget this one kid on my block, Peter. One day we’d be playing ball together, the next day he’d be taking my cap away. The boys used to come at us and corner us in stores and push us. And some of them were my friends. I used to play stickball with them on a Monday, and on Tuesday, they were hitting me with a stick.
But I was always involved in sports, baseball and basketball.
AF: Remember seeing any great players?
FK: I saw many great players. Mickey Mantle. Willie Mays. I saw Koufax once or twice. I actually started out as a Yankee fan, but became a Mets fan during their first year in 1962.
AF: Why did you become a Mets fan? What's the story behind that?
FK: In 1962, the Mets were horrible. They won 40 games and lost 120, which I don’t think has been duplicated since. I went to a game with my friends, and, in those years, the Mets were playing in the Polo Grounds, the stadium of the New York Giants who had left town.
The Polo Grounds had many, many pillars. You had to have a good seat, otherwise you really couldn’t see the field well. And the Mets had a first baseman who was very, very not good. He would drop every ball that came to him.
In front of us, there was this fellow who was very drunk. And every time this first baseman, whose name was Marv Throneberry, would drop the ball, he would bang his head on this pillar. He was so upset that they were losing. He banged his head so much on the pillar that after a while, he started bleeding from his head. But he was so inebriated that he didn’t even know that he was bleeding.
I said to myself, if this guy could be like this, so dedicated to being a Mets fan and be such a fanatic, I can be the same fanatic as he is. And I became a Mets fan from then on for the last 63 years.
AF: How was Jewish life in the heights back then?
FK: Shabbos was a very beautiful experience because the shul that I usually went to was Breuer’s, which was a huge shul. At its height, probably 1,200 men and women. It took 45 minutes to an hour for the shul to empty out.
And in the Jewish community, most came from Germany or Vienna, and had a similar upbringing. We spoke German in my house. Of course, there were many other communities there. Irish, Greek, Italian, Black and a big Hispanic community.
AF: What did you do after high school?
FK: After two years of learning in yeshiva, my father said, ‘You’ve got to find some kind of profession.’ So I enrolled in this computer programming course at the Empire State Building. And I was so excited because I had never been to the Empire State Building. So, you can imagine my chagrin when I came there and the course was given in the basement.
I got my diploma in programming while attending the Mir Yeshiva in Brooklyn. But it really didn’t interest me that much, so I got a degree in accounting while learning in MTJ and a master’s in urban planning.
Remember that at that time, there was a draft going on for the Vietnam War. They had a lottery system, and I had a very low number which meant I was likely to be drafted. And my parents were very worried because everyone knew what went on in Vietnam. We lost 60,000 boys. So I had to go to yeshiva in order to have a status of 4-D, a draft deferment.
And then came 1970. I met my first wife and I left Washington Heights.
AF: What was life like after the Heights?
FK: My daughter was born in 1971. My son in 1974. Over time I had various jobs. I worked in an electronics store, then a major plastic extruding company. After that, I worked in a roofing company for seven years. But we just couldn’t compete with the bigger companies. After seven years, we had to give it up.
Then, I went into the electronics business with my brother-in-law and sold telephones, radar detectors, scanners. We did very well for 18 years, but in 1998, we had to fold and liquidate the business. So I started networking, got my administrator’s license and became an assistant administrator at a nursing home. I was 53 years old, and starting a new career. And then in 2005, my wife got ill and passed away.
A few years later, in 2008, I met my current wife. My last job was as a purchasing director in a local hospital where I saved them a lot of money. At the end of 2017, I decided I had had enough, and I retired.
AF: What kept you going through all of life’s challenges?
FK: I have faith. And I realized whatever happened to me is from Hashem. I lost my wife. I knew that was what God intended. My job and my business failed and at the same time, my mother passed away. But I realized that this is the way it is. I have to accept it and go on. You’ve got to get knocked down and get up, like a boxer in a boxing match. If he gets knocked down, he’s got to get up and continue the fight. That’s the idea of life, I think.
AF: Do you feel like it all worked out in the end?
FK: Yes.
AF: What makes all the struggles and sacrifices worth it?
FK: Well, I look back and I see I have, thank God, a wonderful wife, wonderful kids, wonderful grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I have a lot. God has given me much good in my life. I’m very appreciative of what I have.
AF: Most people have a hard time having even one successful marriage. But you’ve had two successful marriages. So what’s the secret? What’s the key to a good relationship?
FK: When I was sitting shiva in Lakewood for my first wife, I was the oldest guy there because there are mostly young guys learning in Lakewood. I told them that my experience in life is to be good to your wife. When you come home, show her that you care.
And don’t forget, every marriage has its ups and downs. But if you have a fight, let it bother you for 10 minutes, then let it go. You can’t let the things that happen around you bring you down.
AF: What is it like for you returning to the Heights almost 60 years after you left?
FK: When I’ve visited, I’ve always walked the same route that I used to take as a kid. Even when I go to Washington Heights today, I drive by the old house just to look at it.
When I walk around, I conjure in my mind myself playing ball in front of the house, stickball in the street. And the images come back. I can see myself walking to school. I’m looking down. I am going on the bus, even though I didn’t have to, because I lived close, just to be with my friends.
I remember the candy store on the corner. I would go in there when school was over and get ice cream. We used to get egg creams, too. It was a drink of chocolate syrup, seltzer and milk mixed together, and it was delicious. Taking the girls to Woolworths to buy them a custard. All these memories fly back to me.
I remember these things because they were so good. It makes me happy just thinking about it.
AF: And how are things nowadays? What are you up to?
FK: Since I retired, I’ve been doing more Torah learning than I’ve done in my whole life. I belong to a kollel for retirees in Teaneck and have study partners throughout the day. And I do my own thing. It’s a good life.
AF: When you look back at your life, what do you think?
FK: I’ve always had a lot of friends and have enjoyed life. Yeah, of course, there are things that come along. You go into business and you fail. You have a 35-year marriage, and then all of a sudden, she gets gravely ill, and that’s it. So there’s certain things that happen that put a chink in the armor, so to speak. But as you take the whole armor together, with all the bumps and creases in it, it’s still a piece of armor. It’s still a good life.
AF: To end, what’s one piece of advice you could give to YU students?
FK: To me, the most important thing in the world is to have good friends and be a good friend. Help others out if you can. Try not to embarrass or insult anybody. Be good to other people. And recognize someone’s disadvantages and failures but don’t pick on them; try to help them. Focus on the good.
AF: Thank you so much. As always, it's been a pleasure.
Photo Caption: Fred Koss
Photo Credit: Susan Dworken-Koss
