Growing up is bewildering and exciting to every child. This was particularly true for a child born during the Great Depression (1930's) and who also experienced the "Home Front" efforts of World War II. Coupled with these great national events was the fact that this child lived in a multi-ethnic "melting pot" city of Passaic, New Jersey. The true growing up adventures are told in a series of stories, some with side-splitting humor, others highly poignant. For example: How learning the "facts of life" from the older guys on the street corner caused a major lifetime disaster; how, with his best friend, he personally helped defeat Japan and Germany in WWII; how he witnessed the three greatest aeronautical events of the 20th century; how the handwriting rules in the Passaic schools caused a blunder in front of President John F. Kennedy which helped Kennedy to decide to send a man to the moon; how the structural design of the giant Saturn rocket booster was actually invented in a Passaic toilet bowl. But more important, the stories provide the secret of how the immigrant-dominated Passaic uniquely prepared its children to succeed in America, and how it still doing it today.

Wonderful Passaic: Memories and Recollections

Biographies & Memoirs

Rosenthal, Bob

Historical

iUniverse

Rude Awakenings

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

Yellow Pr

A series of true adventures is described in the life of Bob Rosenthal, one ofthe aerospace engineers who put the first man on the moon.

From Passaic to the Moon: An Insider's True Adventures

Professionals & Academics

Star-L Pub

A memoir of a YM-YWHA in Passaic, NJ.  A slice of American life from the Jewish neighborhood in Passaic.

Memories of Our Y

For more than 150 years, waves of poor immigrants flow into Passaic, a small city in New Jersey seeking jobs and a new life. The common dream of these hard working people is for their children to become educated and then successful in America. Climbing The Rainbow. And that's exactly what happens. Each generation is educated in the city's school system, then moved on to successful careers throughout our nation. This mobility allows a new flood of even poorer immigrants to take their place. The success process is again renewed. This book contains twenty-eight stories, each written by a person who grew up or worked in the unique City of Passaic at different times during the last ninety years. These authors are representative of the many ethnic, racial and religious groups that live peacefully side-by-side in this unique melting-pot city. Quoting from one of the book chapter authors, Jose Rodriguez who describes his reaction as a seven-year old on his first day in Passaic. "...As I walked into the parking lot on Market Street, I entered a strange new world, exciting and alive with activity, life and color...black, white, brown, yellow and yes, even red. This was not the pigment on the walls of this parking lot but the skin tones of the youth in this piece of the world. That day in 1978 in the wonderful City of Passaic I saw the rainbow that would make up the road of my youth...it was the truest of melting pots."

Climbing the Rainbow: 28 Glimpses of Growing Up in Passaic

Allen Ginsberg was not just a poet; he was one of the most recognizable and outspoken public figures of the late twentieth century. From the mid-fifties onward, Ginsberg was rarely out of the public consciousness as he raised civic and spiritual awareness for all causes large and small. He traveled the world, reading poetry in more than sixty countries, and managed to organize university degrees and mentor young poets.Arranging Allen’s life took a team of dedicated and talented people, and of these people poet Bob Rosenthal worked as Allen's personal secretary over two decades. In this intimate new book, he tells what it was like to be behind the scenes of the Allen Ginsberg industry. From first encounter to Ginsberg’s death, Rosenthal recounts the highs and lows of employment in the internationally most-famous-living poet's circle, in a book that is in turns poignant and hilarious, always fascinating.

Straight Around Allen: On the Business of Being Allen Ginsberg

Arts & Literature

Beatdom Books

THE EAST VILLAGE, NYC, 1976. A 26-year-old starving poet needs $60. What else to do but register with a temp agency as a house cleaner? The excitement never wanes as he is catapulted into the everyday yet unimaginable worlds behind closed (apartment) doors. Bob knows one thing: the dirt will always win. Clients are a bit more unpredictable, he discovers, as he comes to terms with eccentric domestic habits and strange discoveries. When Bob becomes a weekly fixture in his clients’ lives, anything can happen, and does, including a memorable encounter with an obliging Hoover that ultimately proves unable to get the job done. Cleaning Up New York has been a cult classic since it was first published in 1976 in an edition of 750.

Cleaning Up New York: The '70s Cult Classic

Poetry

Little Bookroom

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Books by Rosenthal, Bob