Harry Von Arsdale Avenue!

[Peter Farruggio]

I'm not sure about the original reference (is it a street in Queens, NYC?),
but Harry Van Arsdale was one of the biggest labor bureaucrats in NY City
in the 1960s.  I'm shaky on his personal history, but he was among the crew
of Democratic Party/Tammany Hall anti-communists who rose to prominence in
Labor as a result of the violent Red purges that started in the late 1940s
(and which later became known as "McCarthyism" when the senator from
Wisconsin jumped in front of the anti-Red parade).  I had several
unpleasant run-ins with his goon squads when I was helping to organize the
dissident taxi-drivers union and with some political struggles within the
AFL-CIO.  Not a nice guy in my book.



At 08:18 PM 8/20/02, you wrote:
>In a message dated 8/20/2002 10:52:52 PM, rkmck at EARTHLINK.NET writes:
>
><< until you get to 69th Rd which was inexplicably (to
>me, anyway) changed to Harry Von Arsdale (I think) Ave. >>
>
>This sounds like a crude joke based upon the associations of "69" with mutual
>fellatio and the possibility of puns on Harry/hairy and ars/ass--or is it
>just late at night and I am having trouble focussing?