Stories
The First Leap:
from Neosho to New York
Eshagh and Andi
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During my last semester at Columbia in 1962 I lived in an apartment with three roommates, two of whom became good friends for the rest of our lives. At the left I am with Andi Owens, many years later in his Harlem museum called "Genesis", which provided cultural heritage of African Americans to thousands of visiting school children. And on the right, in a photo taken in 1962, I am with my other two roommates, Ghassem Yaraghchi on the left and Eshagh Shaoul on the right. Both were from Persia, but Ghassem was Muslim and Eshagh was Jewish.
I first met Eshagh in 1959, at the Hotel Alexandria which we had both chosen because it was the cheapest rent in Manhattan. Eshagh had come, penniless, from Persia to seek medical treatment for his brother. Somehow or other, he was having success, and we decided to rent an apartment on Claremont Avenue across the street from Riverside Church where I was a paid member of the choir and also across the street from International House where Andi produced and directed theatre productions. Needing more roommates to pay the rent, we found Ghassem as well as Andi.
We had a lot of fun together that spring, including improvised sessions of music in which Eshagh drummed on an old, beat-up grand piano that Andi had found somewhere. A memorable moment was when Andi engaged me to drive a huge flatbed truck from Greenwich Village to International House transporting a huge paper maché Sphinx that served as a backdrop for a play he was producing.
Over the years we lost touch with Ghassem, but Eshagh, Andi and I kept in touch from time to time.
Eshagh got a position with Rockefeller in the Chase Manhattan Bank, and with his international skills, he was responsible for the financing of the huge replica of St.Peters Cathedral erected by Felix Houghouet-Boigny in Yamoussoukro, Cote d'Ivoire. We got back in touch after the turn of the Century when he lived on Rikers Island in New York, and later when he and his wife Rosie bought a beautiful house carved into a mountain in Vermont. Kiki and I visited him several times there. He and Rosie came to our wedding in 2019 where he entertained us by playing Persian music on his violin. Although Eshagh passed away in 2023, we stay in touch with Rosie and he children.
As shown in the photo above, Andi founded a museum of African heritage in Harlem, which I visited in 2010, having been put in touch by Eshagh. A few years later, Kiki and I joined Andi on one of the tours of Harlem that Andi led on foot. Andi passed away in 2023.
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Stages
1986-1992
Fall of Soviet Empire
1992-1997
UNESCO Culture of Peace Programme
1997-2001
UN Intl Year for Culture of Peace