buzzthetower
Administrator
Hello everyone,
Over the weekend, I received an email from the grandson of Mr. Tenenbaum, of the company Bogen & Tenenbaum. Below is what he wrote me about the history of the company and his family, which I found quite interesting:
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The owners were two Jewish immigrants from Poland, my grandfather Isidore (Izzy) Tenenbaum and his partner Max Bogen. My grandfather was the inside guy who worked on the machinery etc, and Max was the outside sales guy. The first record I could find about the company was that it was located in 1924 at 1160 Washington St in Boston. In 1925, it had moved to 21 South Street in a neighborhood of Boston still known as the Leather District, although there is for sure no leather manufacturing there anymore, mainly condos, boutique restaurants, and part of Chinatown. By 1933, they had moved to 217 Jackson St in Lowell. My mother says they moved to get away from union organizers in Boston, which is ironic since my grandfather himself had been such a person in NYC in his younger days. The building in Lowell still stands within the boundaries of the Lowell Urban National Park, but has not been rehabbed as many of the buildings have been. After that, the corporate records go blank which is really frustrating. I have even been to the MA Secretary of State's office and they tried but failed to track it down further. My grandfather continued living in the Boston area, and one of my favorite stories is of him driving back and forth to Lowell during the Great Hurricane of 1938 as trees and powerlines fell around him because, well, no one in those days ever missed a day of work!
Anyway, we know of course that they made the army and Navy jackets during the war and made a lot of money. After the war, my grandfather's two sons were not interested in going into the business while Max's sons were. Max's sons had received "essential worker" draft deferments during the war and worked in the business during those years, while my grandfather's sons served in the military. We suspect that by 1951 my grandfather had sold out to Max. This is because in January, 1951, my grandfather traveled to Argentina for the one and only time for a reunion with his two surviving sisters. We figure he must have suddenly had the time and loose cash to take the trip. The family narrative is that Max, knowing my grandfather's intense desire to get out of the business, fleeced him on the sale, and the name Max Bogen has been a curse in the family ever since. I only saw Max Bogen once in my life. As a kid, we were driving down the street and my mother pointed out some old man walking with a cane and said, "that is the infamous Max Bogen."
My grandfather used the money from the sale to stake his two sons in the real estate business. One of them enjoyed some initial stunning success in Sarasota, Florida as a young man, but eventually was done in by alcohol, profligate spending, womanizing, and all of the rest. My grandfather died at age 81 in 1974 of colon cancer while retired in Sarasota. Both of his sons are dead now and we no longer have any contact with their children, my first cousins. My mother, Miriam Tenenbaum Cutler, Izzy's daughter, however, is alive and well at 97!
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It's really hard to tell which building is now 217 in Lowell, but here's a street view that shows the many factories there now:
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.641...!1e1!3m2!1seI7pcLRuWJuWGCKL2qdq0w!2e0!6m1!1e1
Thanks!
John
Over the weekend, I received an email from the grandson of Mr. Tenenbaum, of the company Bogen & Tenenbaum. Below is what he wrote me about the history of the company and his family, which I found quite interesting:
=======================
The owners were two Jewish immigrants from Poland, my grandfather Isidore (Izzy) Tenenbaum and his partner Max Bogen. My grandfather was the inside guy who worked on the machinery etc, and Max was the outside sales guy. The first record I could find about the company was that it was located in 1924 at 1160 Washington St in Boston. In 1925, it had moved to 21 South Street in a neighborhood of Boston still known as the Leather District, although there is for sure no leather manufacturing there anymore, mainly condos, boutique restaurants, and part of Chinatown. By 1933, they had moved to 217 Jackson St in Lowell. My mother says they moved to get away from union organizers in Boston, which is ironic since my grandfather himself had been such a person in NYC in his younger days. The building in Lowell still stands within the boundaries of the Lowell Urban National Park, but has not been rehabbed as many of the buildings have been. After that, the corporate records go blank which is really frustrating. I have even been to the MA Secretary of State's office and they tried but failed to track it down further. My grandfather continued living in the Boston area, and one of my favorite stories is of him driving back and forth to Lowell during the Great Hurricane of 1938 as trees and powerlines fell around him because, well, no one in those days ever missed a day of work!
Anyway, we know of course that they made the army and Navy jackets during the war and made a lot of money. After the war, my grandfather's two sons were not interested in going into the business while Max's sons were. Max's sons had received "essential worker" draft deferments during the war and worked in the business during those years, while my grandfather's sons served in the military. We suspect that by 1951 my grandfather had sold out to Max. This is because in January, 1951, my grandfather traveled to Argentina for the one and only time for a reunion with his two surviving sisters. We figure he must have suddenly had the time and loose cash to take the trip. The family narrative is that Max, knowing my grandfather's intense desire to get out of the business, fleeced him on the sale, and the name Max Bogen has been a curse in the family ever since. I only saw Max Bogen once in my life. As a kid, we were driving down the street and my mother pointed out some old man walking with a cane and said, "that is the infamous Max Bogen."
My grandfather used the money from the sale to stake his two sons in the real estate business. One of them enjoyed some initial stunning success in Sarasota, Florida as a young man, but eventually was done in by alcohol, profligate spending, womanizing, and all of the rest. My grandfather died at age 81 in 1974 of colon cancer while retired in Sarasota. Both of his sons are dead now and we no longer have any contact with their children, my first cousins. My mother, Miriam Tenenbaum Cutler, Izzy's daughter, however, is alive and well at 97!
=======================
It's really hard to tell which building is now 217 in Lowell, but here's a street view that shows the many factories there now:
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.641...!1e1!3m2!1seI7pcLRuWJuWGCKL2qdq0w!2e0!6m1!1e1
Thanks!
John
