Arthur "Sonny" Illery, HHC Dietary Aide & 237 VP

I went to work for the city in 1952 as a dietary aide at Metropolitan Hospital. Before that, I had three jobs. . . . and I had three kids. When I got to the hospital, I finally earned enough. I earned $1,100 a year. . . .

One day a guy named Bill Lewis {then president of Local 237] came around and said, We’re starting a union. Do you want to join. I asked, Why? He said, Because you need representation.

Thomas Leath, NYCHA Caretaker

When I got out of the army after World War II I went to school on the GI Bill and married my childhood sweetheart. Then I got news that every man wants to hear: I was going to be a father. So I had to get steady employment. Everywhere I went, it was, “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

Then I ran into an old army buddy and he told me the Housing Authority was hiring. I said, What the heck, I have nothing to lose. I expected the same thing. A young lady gave me a lot of papers to fill out, fingerprinted me, and interviewed me. It took a long time. Then she told me to “report tomorrow.”  I said, “For what?”  “For work,” she said. I was shocked.

Irma Rabinowitz, NYCHA Teller

I came into this union not wanting to.I had been fired from my last job for joining a union.

To collect unemployment, you had to look for a job. So they sent me for an interview with the Housing Authority for a job in accounting. I started work with the Housing Authority on July 11, 1941 as a cashier. It was called NCR operator at the time.

Pauline Dyer-Woodson, a dietician at Cumberland Hospital, played a major role in the union’s organizing drives. She was appointed to the board in 1967.

Today, Local 237 members take it for granted that women serve on their executive board, but that wasn’t always so. For 15 years after the local was founded in 1952, the board was all male. Then, in 1967, Pauline Dyer-Woodson was named a trustee by then President Barry Feinstein, becoming the first woman, and the first African American woman, on Local 237’s executive board.

Started at NYCHA 1966; Retired in 1980

I began working 01-03-1966 at the East River Houses as a Teller. I transferred from the New York City Corrections Department. My tenure there was 02-05-62 to 12-31-65. I do not remember if I was in a union while employed by the NYCCD and I do not remember which housing project I was in or the year I joined the union.

Joined Local 237 in late 1950s; Retired in 1991

I went to work at City Home in 1951 as a dietary aide. I went into the army in 1952, and when I returned  to my dietary aide job in 1954, the City Home patients had been moved to Coler Hospital. I became a cook in the 1960s.

This month we mark Local 237’s  50th Anniversary with reprints of  recollection contributed by two NYC Housing Authority superintendents, Thomas Santiago (top)  and Leon Siegel (bottom) and whose careers spanned the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s.

Julian Friedman, went to work as a laborer for the New York City Housing Authority in 1949. In 1951 he passed the maintenance man test and was hired at Bellevue Hospital, where he remained until he retired in 1984, serving a brief stint as shop steward.

Anthony Gannatti, a retired bridge operator-in-charge. Gannatti, who describes himself as a “solid rank and file member,” was at the Borden Avenue Bridge on that historic day in June 1971 when 25 of the city’s 29 drawbridges were left in an open position, shutting down the entire city.

Hercules Cornish went to work for the Housing Authority as a caretaker J in 1952 and retired 24 years later as a stores worker.

Rocco Micari began his career at the NYC Housing Authority as a provisional junior accountant in 1954 and rose to housing assistant, assistant manager, manager, and, finally, assistant chief of staff development, the title he held when he retired in 1984.

John Hartter, who lived to the age of 92, was a founding member of Local 237, which was chartered in 1952. He retired from his job as water use inspector for the New York City Water Department in 1975 after 27 years on the job. After he retired, he pursued his long-neglected talent in art and developed a new talent for gardening. Following are excerpts of an interview with Hartter conducted in April 1999 at his home in Brooklyn, New York, where he lived with his wife, Marie, until his death in 2005.

In 1951, Woodrow “Woody” Asai, holding a degree in floral culture and ornamental horticulture from the Cornell College of Agriculture in Ithaca, New York, was hired as a gardener by the New York City Housing Authority in 1951. That was a year before Teamsters Local 237 was chartered.

I joined the Housing Authority in the 1970s. I lived in a housing project and the manager referred me to a job in the JOP program. I had switchboard and typing experience, but my first assignment was to clean and organize the hall supply closet. I guess they thought "once a housewife always a housewife."

For 16 of his 38 years as a heating plant technician and shop steward at Breukelen Houses, from 1970-86, James Spicer coached a little league football team, with help from Local 237. Following is Spicer’s story of the Falcons.

The last monthly 50th Anniversary/
Oral History Project interview excerpt is with Bert Rose, who was the director of organizing for Local 237, under President Barry Feinstein, from 1969 to 1983.

Sam Hall retired as a cook on December 30, 1990, after 33 years of employment at Coler Hospital, on Roosevelt Island.

Daniel Siciliano went to work for the city as an assistant bridge operator in 1966 at the Willis Avenue Bridge in the Bronx.

Mike Shaw is a retired mainte-

nance worker from Bellevue Hospital. Following are excerpts from that interview, conducted in 1999, focusing on his experiences as a shop steward and grievance rep from the late 1970s to 1995, the year he retired.

Working women have historically had to struggle to balance work with caring for their families. This Local 237/Oral History Project interview focuses on the relationship of work and family. Following are excerpts of an interview with Carmen Rodriguez, a retired housing assistant and mother of four children.

Following is an excerpt from Local 237's Retiree Division's Oral History Project interview with Local 237 retiree Anthony Annattone. Annattone went to work for the New York City Housing Authority at Classon Point Houses in the Bronx as a maintenance man in1951 and retired as a superintendent 32 years later, in 1983. He was one of the local's earliest shop stewards. Speaking of Local 237, Annattone said, "Sally Rags [Salvatore Raguso, an early organizer] and Mr. Feinstein [Henry, founding president] were good people. They started it, they really put their life into it. They did a job for all these people. People who have retired and who have been involved with the union should kiss the ground these people walked on."