We Used to Own the Bronx: Memoirs of a Former Debutante

Albany, NY: Excelsior Editions/State University of New York Press, 2009. Reprint. Second printing. Hardcover. Very good/very good. xiv, [4], 225, [1] p. Illustrations. Genealogy Table. Epilogue. From the books's website: "Eve Pell, author of the nationally acclaimed "WE USED TO OWN THE BRONX, " reported for three award-winning PBS documentaries and is an award-winning writer published in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Nation, Ms., Runners World, and other publications. She was a staff reporter at the Center for Investigative Reporting. She taught journalism at San Francisco State University and lectured at Stanford. Raised as an American princess whose family came to the New World some 375 years ago, she grew up in enclaves of privilege and wealth. Pell Grants are named for her cousin, Senator Claiborne Pell. "We are a sort second-tier American family, not quite as significant as Roosevelts, Tafts and Adamses, " the Senator used to say. Eve and her brother were kidnapped by feuding parents after their mother scandalized New York society, leaving her husband and running off with another blue-blood. For a time, the children had round-the-clock armed bodyguards. She vividly describes the dark side of privilege and wealth. And, in "We Used to Own the Bronx, " she describes bizarre upper-class behaviors: her younger sister was offered a race-horse to turn down a Wellesley College education, her grandmother never entered her own kitchen; her grandfather had an employee of his club (with the same foot size), break in his new shoes. Her stepfather showed the future debutante how to train his fighting cocks. Defying her family, Eve married a Catholic from Chicago, moved to San Francisco, and broke out of her upper-crust wifely role to join the 1960s fight for social justice. Turning to political activism and reporting, she covered famous trials and other events for radio stations and news services. In the tumultuous 1970s, as prisons exploded in violence, armed Black Panthers walked the California streets and heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped, she encountered people at the opposite extreme of society from her aristocratic friends and family. In "We Used to Own the Bronx, " readers gain fascinating insights into two fascinating aspects of that dramatic and conflicted period in America." From the same website: "In the nationally-acclaimed "WE USED TO OWN THE BRONX, " Eve Pell gives readers an inside look into the hidden, often bizarre world of America's aristocracy, from debutante balls to servants' quarters, to the fanatical pursuit of blood sports and private, secretive men s clubs. As she traces her absorbing journey from East Coast debutante to activist to investigative reporter, she provides fascinating insights into the prickly and often perplexing issues of social class in America. Her book is an Award-Winning Finalist in the Autobiography/​ Memoirs category of the Best Books 2010 Awards, sponsored by USA Book News. Eve Pell comes from a famous WASP family, growing up on opulent estates staffed by live-in, uniformed servants. Her mother, forbidden to date young Joseph Kennedy, the future president's older brother, (because he was Irish Catholic) secretly met him at the horse races. Her great-grandmother, "the First Lady of Tuxedo Park, " held dinner parties for 125 guests at her Tuxedo Park mansion, a liveried footman behind each chair. Eve's cousin, the patrician Senator Claiborne Pell, started Pell grants, which help 5 million students a year obtain a college education. "WE USED TO OWN THE BRONX" exposes the dark sides of wealth and privilege; her unhappily married mother scandalized New York society by running off with another man. During their parents' bitter divorce, Eve and her baby brother, while en route to visit their mother, were kidnapped by their father; after that, the children had round-the-clock, armed bodyguards. She shows the underbelly of her Town and Country world of fox-hunts, private schools and elegant cotillions. Find out why she fled her gilded life to get swept up in the whirlwind of radical politics of the 1960s; follow her subsequent adventures and misadventures with bold,