Real Music & Real Estate . . .

Yiddishe Cup’s bandleader, Bert Stratton, is Klezmer Guy.
 

He knows about the band biz and – check this out – the real estate biz, too.
 

You may not care about the real estate biz. Hey, you may not care about the band biz. (See you.)
 

This is a blog with a gamy twist. It features tenants with snakes and skunks, and musicians with smoked fish in their pockets.
 

Stratton has written op-eds for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post.


 
 

PHIL HART

by Bert Stratton

Phil Hart, a resident at Wiggins Place assisted living, sometimes wears a Navy baseball cap. I know another WWII Navy veteran, Al Gray, who lives at Stone Gardens assisted living. Phil used to teach aerobics/calisthenics-of-some-kind at the JCC. For decades. He also was an architect, city councilman and photographer. Now he says he’s an “inmate.” I hear “inmate” occasionally from other nursing home residents. (I don’t think I’d mind a top-quality nursing home. We’ll see.)

I remember seeing Phil kneeling, shooting photos, at an Elderhostel about five years ago. I was jealous because at the time I couldn’t kneel due to meniscus surgery.

One thing about hanging around nursing homes, I’m under no illusion anybody gets out of this painlessly. Phil is doing pretty well, I think, for 95. His mind is all there.

phil hart, about 2014

Phil Hart, about 2014

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4 comments

1 John Hilton { 12.06.17 at 11:19 am }

Glad Phil’s still kicking. I’ve got a friend the same age in assisted living in the giant Old Jews’ Home in Bloomfield Twp; she and her friends sit and gab for hours after dinner. Lots of politics, and complaints about the food.

2 William J Jones { 12.06.17 at 12:15 pm }

Thanks, Bert. I remember Phil fondly as both an architect and councilman. Great guy

3 dave rowe { 12.08.17 at 2:17 pm }

Hope Phil gets to hear good live music before he goes on to his reward.

4 phil hart { 12.21.17 at 3:04 pm }

thanks bert – keep on playing your clarinet and yiddishe cup and come on back to wiggins as often as you can- last concert was really special and all at wiggins really appreciated your playing and your talent for “Klezmer”

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