CHAPTER 4 YESTERYEAR: What the Neighbors Remember

SEVENTEEN RECOLLECTIONS OF HOT BEESWA X, SCOUTING, SMUGGLING, RESURRECTIONS, AND A BAND CALLED NEW ORDER.

- Petra Bartosiewicz, Christopher Bonanos, Devon Ivie, Alice Markham Cantor, Amelia Schonbek, Rachel Sugar, Camille Sweeney, and Laura Thompson.

THAT TIME WHEN

My Grandfather Ran the Show

Markian Surmach, 60, was of the third generation to operate Surma Book & Music Co.

My grandfather, Myron Sr., came from Ukraine with a third-grade education. He ended up in the coal mines in Pennsylvania, but that didn’t last long—he knew he would die there. He moved to New York City. His neighbors were getting letters they couldn’t read, and he became the go-to guy to read letters from people in Ukraine. He became a center of the community, and the idea of the store in part came about from that. He was a born entrepreneur.

The store was entirely his creation, and he ran the show. He started with Ukrainian books and sheet music. He would import the Ukrainian-language news paper, and people would hang out and read it all day. He was passionate about music. Eventually he started a publishing arm; the basement was stacked with piles of blank negatives. Some of the recordings were made at Webster Hall—he would host these traditional dances. It was a big singles scene. He was known for offering to pay for the honeymoon of any Ukrainian couple that met at one of his dances, but I don’t think he ever made good on that.