(Air) ways to get into the USA

I flew to New York, USA in 1971, on a Varig airplane. Varig was the Brazilian international carrier then. It is no more today. All flights to the USA and Europe started from Rio de Janeiro. As I lived in São Paulo I had to take a 'domestic flight' from Congonhas Airport to Galeão in Rio. It took around 9 hours to get from Rio to JFK in NYC. 

As time went by and I settled in the US, I realized that most people I met from South America arrived in the US through Aerolineas Peruanas or Braniff International Airways. Here are some 1950s ads I've got from the Brazilian Reader's Digest. 

In the late 1950s, the flight from Rio de Janeiro to New York City took 'only' 25 hours and 3 minutes, according to this Braniff ad. One would take off from Rio on a DC-6 and fly over the Andes to Lima. From Lima it would fly to Guayaquil (Ecuador), Panama, Havana (Cuba) and finally New York.

Braniff and Aerolineas Peruanas ran more-or-less the same route from Rio de Janeiro to New York City in the late 1950s.

Rockefeller Center on 5th Avenue off 50th Street with Varig Brazilian Airlines offices on the right in May 1962.

12 February 1961 - 10 years before I flew to New York the air-fares were a lot cheaper. Look at these Varig prices. I paid more than double those prices in 1971; 19 February 1961 - on the right Braniff also advertises their low prices at Estadao (a week later).

Real - Aerovias Brasilia - flew from Rio de Janeiro to Mexico City and Los Angeles twice a week. They don't say how long the trip took (maybe) not to frighten their customers. They only extolled the virtues of their food and the excitiment of visiting such marvelous cities. The planes had stop-overs at Manaus, Bogota (Colombia), Mexico City and finally Los Angeles.

6 May 1960 - ad in S.Paulo's daily OESP - Loja para brasileiros em New York - stores especially catering for Brazilians who spoke little English. 

9 April 1961 ad in S.Paulo daily OESP from Victor Appliance Co. on 22 Albany Street, catered for Brazilian middle class who had their shopping done in Manhattan. Note that Victor is 'soon moving to 46th Street' where Brazilians of all persuasions have congregated since then.

Victor Appliance Co. had been selling TVs, radios, stereos, lingeries, linen, nylons to Brazilians for 15 years. They had a van-service Brazilians could use just ringing them up.

23rd June 1963 - Varig's Boeing 707 takes off from Rio de Janeiro's Galeão Airport at 11:00 pm and arrives in NYC at 7:30 in the morning. You fly during night-time which has got less turbulence. After a hearty dinner you will have a nice sleep. At 7:30 the plane will be touching down in New York. This was probably Varig's first non-stop flight from Rio to NYC. 

28 July 1964 - Ad at OESP in which Varig boasts of having 4 weekly flights to New York from Rio de Janeiro with stopovers in Recife-PE, Belém-PA & Santo Domingo (instead of Cuba which was ruled by Fidel Castro now). On top of 4 weekly flights to New York City, Varig had another 4 flights to other cities in the USA. Probably Los Angeles.

9 May 1965 - See this reel-to-reel Sony portable tape-recorder? This is the kind of stuff Brazilians bought in New York when they visited the city in 1965. New York World Fair was still on in May 1965. Victor International was now relocated at West 46th Street between 5th & 6th Avenues (Avenue of Americas). 

No man's land - New Jersey Meadowlands

I arrived in the USA, throught the JFK Airport in New York, on the morning of Saturday, 2nd October 1971. The very first time I took the Interstate bus to Newark at Platform 61, at the Port Authority Bus Terminal on 8th Avenue - and it went West through the New Jersey Turnpike... I noticed this No Man's Land spread out in a sort of eerie prairie beetween Manhattan  and Jersey City. 

Every time the bus flew over it on tall bridges that covered the swampland for kilometres I could not help but wonder about such a mysterious place...

New Jersey Meadowlands land fill.

New Jersey Turnpike on flooded Meadowlands.

Newark Bay Bridge - North Bayone Park.

Pulaski Skyway.

Blue Moon day seen from New Jersey - 31st July 2015.

Blue Moon day - 31st July 2015.

sometime before 11 September 2001. 

Every time I took the Newark bus at plataform 61, at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, on 8th Avenue, I actually prepared myself for a Magical Mystery Tour of my own. As soon as the bus finished crossing the Lincoln Tunnel and entered the amazing New Jersey Turnpike, especially after dark, my mind had a will of its own and flew away in space and time. The Turnpike was a real highway... I mean, it was built many metres above the ground...it was almost like riding an airplane...one could never see the ground which is the famous N.J. Meadowlands pictured above.

One of the most common recurring fantasies I had while I looked back at Manhattan's skyline getting ever so smaller in the distance was the thought that my Grandfather Giovanni Darin who migrated to Brazil in 1888, when he was 17 years old, had once wished to have migrated to the USA, which they called it America in his native Italy in the 1870s... a hundred years back. 

I had this strange pleasant feeling that just by being in 'America' and looking at the Empire State Building in the distance I had it made; I had made my Grandfather's dream come true a hundred years later! Isn't it peculiar? Actually my Grandfather was born on 11 November 1871, which would have made him just a baby if we were to turn back 100 years into the past. It was a feeling that made me feel good. The dream lasted for a few minutes until the bus swerved to the left and entered Newark's area which made me wake up to reality instantly. 

Returning to Newark from Manhattan after dark - usually on Saturdays or Sundays - made me a little uneasy for it was almost impossible to see people walking on the streets for Americans are notorious for not walking when they can drive. So after I got off the bus in the Ironbound, I walked murky and deserted streets until I got to where I lived. I wasn't afraid of being robbed or assaulted but only despondent for being so lonely. Fortunately all this gloom would disappear as soon as I got home - whatever 'home' meant at the time. Once I turned the radio on or got myself something to read or a letter to write I was back being my old self again. 

early 1970s in Montclair, N.J. & Manhattan.

Mountclair, N.J. 

Mountclair, N.J. in the 1970s.

at the Two Guys parking lot in 1977 - Mountclair, N.J.

Mountclair, N.J. in the 1970s. 

8th Avenue in the Chelsea district; the Hotel on the right is on the corner of 22nd Street; the car is a Cadillac 1973, so it must be late December 1972.

O' Jays

For those who lived in the United States between 1971 and 1973 there was no way one could avoid listening to the music made by the O'Jays! 

Even though I hardly spoke English having just arrived in Newark, N.J. from South America I used to listen to New York City's Top 40 radio stations and was impressed by the O'Jays sound. Listening to the introduction of 'Back stabbers' was a dramatic experience. That piano exuberance followed by the sound of bongos is something unique in pop music. After the luscious overture come the voices of the 3 fellows asking the crucial question: 'What'd they do?' Superb!

Then in early 1973, the O' Jayss had their first and only Number One with marvelous 'Love train' an ode to peace, brotherhood and understanding among the countries of the world. 

I had to move back to South America in March 1973, but I kept my ears open for any O' Jays new single having had the pleasure to dig 'For the love of money' around May 1974. 

By mid-1975 I was back in the States and to my joy the O' Jays had a big hit with 'I love music' which played through the new year (1976). 

William Powell (* 20 Jan 1942 + 26 May 1977), Walter Williams (25 Aug 1943) & Eddie Levert (16 June 1942).

Eddie Levert, William Powell & Walter Williams.

Walter Williams, William Powell & Eddie Lavert.

O'Jays pre-1972: William Powell, Bill Isles, Walter Williams, Eddie Levert & Bobby Massey.

Eddie Levert in a prominent central position as The O'Jays were in the 1960s;  from left to right: Bill Isles, William Powell, Eddie Levert, Bobby Massey & Walter Williams.

1. When the world's at peace (Kenneth Gamble-Bunny-Sigler-Phil Hurtt)  5:21

2. Back stabbers (Leon Huff-Gene McFadden-John Whitehead)  3:07

3. Who am I? (Sigler-Hurtt)  5:14

4. (They call me) Mr. Lucky (Gamble-Huff)  3:20

5. Time do get down (Gamble-Huff)  2:53

1. 992 arguments (Gamble-Huff)  6:09

2. Listen to the clock on the wall (Gamble-Huff-Whitehead)  3:48

3. Shiftless, shady, jealus kind of people (Gamble-Huff-Whitehead-Mc Fadden))  3:36

4. Sunshine (Sigler-Hurtt)  3:42

5. Love train (Gamble-Huff)  2:59

release date: August 1972.

The first great album of 1970's Philadelphia soul, 'Back stabbers' took the best impulse of the era's pop music -  the inclination to celebrate love as something precious - and bathed it in the studio-orchestra opulence that became the defining characteristic of the Sound of Philadelphia.

This was a potent combination, and a gold mine. On the opening track, lead singer Eddie Lavert proclaims the albums's guiding philosophy: 'Love is not a state of mind, love's a fact of life.' Nine songs later, on the massive hit 'Love train', the singer sends an urgent, idealistic appeal to others who might feel the same way: 'People all over the world, join hands, start a love train'. In between are accounts of love trouble  ('992 arguments'), fear of commitment ('Time to get down'), and a trenchant cautionary tale about deceitful  friends ('Back stabbers').

The songs are all great, but the arrangements - far more lavish than anything else on the radio - makes them undeniable classics. Producers Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff assembled a team of arrangers who conceived of pop on an orchestral level. The Philly Sound is distinguished by active, often tricky string parts that snake around the vocal lines, offset with jazz guitar and vibraphone and other sophisticated touches.

The arrangers - and the musicians of what became known as the MFSB (Mother Father Sister Brother) Orchestra, which included moonlighting Philadelphia Orchestra members - do the hard work. All the O'Jays' Levert (and Teddy Pendergrass and the other Philly-soul stars) had to do was slide their vocals into a sumptuous, instantly sensual mix.

'Back stabbers' contains most of the key O'Jays tracks - one exception is the ambitious 7-minute masterpiece  'For the love of money', issued on the subsequent album 'Ship Ahoy' and 1975's 'I love music'.

text taken from '1.000 recordings to hear before you die' by Tom Moon.

William Powell, Walter Williams & Eddie Lavert.