Podcast Transcript
Buzz Knight:
On this edition of the Taking a Walk series, we’re in the historic Roxbury section of Boston, lush history in the inner city. I’m here to learn about this area from a new friend. His name is Topper Carew, an amazing resume as a film director and producer, he’s got great stories to tell on the Taking a Walk series. He’s also a principal investigator at the MIT lab. I’m so excited to learn about this area of Lower Roxbury, and to be taking a walk with Topper Carew.
Speaker 2:
Taking a Walk with Buzz Knight.
Buzz Knight:
Well, Topper, it’s so great to be taking a walk with you here today in Lower Roxbury. For me, one of the great joys of the Taking a Walk series is meeting new friends, but also learning about areas that maybe I don’t really feel like I’m as educated about. So I’m looking forward to taking a walk with you. It’s so nice to meet you.
Topper Carew:
It’s very nice to meet you and thank you for taking this time. I’d like to start with 14 Windsor Street. That’s the place of my original home. As I said, it was the apartment building in which my grandmother lived and where I lived with my mother and her from, oh, from birth through about the fifth or sixth grade.
Topper Carew:
Now, that apartment building unto itself has an interesting story. It was four stories and everybody knew everybody. I had even been at three fires in that apartment building. The most hilarious, if you can think of fire as hilarious, was a fire in the basement that had been started by a homeless person who at five o’clock every day used to cook pork chops. You would smell the aroma of that food coming up through the hallway. We nicknamed him Pork Chop. Well, one day the frying pan caught on fire and it caught his mattress on fire, and unfortunately, Pork Chop got evicted.
Topper Carew:
Now, this could-
Buzz Knight:
I could smell pork chops right there.
Topper Carew:
You could smell pork chops. I love food. Everybody in that building loved food, and he obviously loved food as well.
Topper Carew:
Directly across from 14 Windsor, which is now no longer there… It’s a street over from the Melnea Cass Boulevard, which was originally an urban renewal project, so the whole neighborhood just got kind of wiped out and it’s no longer there, but I drive through it all the time. Sometimes I walk through it because it has so many memories for me. Now, ironically, it is right across from what was once the Robert Gould Shaw Neighborhood House. The irony is I am presently making a film about the restoration of the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial, which is Downtown and across from the State House. What people should know is that’s one of the 10 most popular and most visited monuments in the United States.
Buzz Knight:
Wow.
Topper Carew:
it’s been restored. The history of that is the Robert Gould Shaw Brigade was the first Black brigade to fight in the civil war. These were freedmen and formerly enslaved men who came together under the aegis of Robert Gould Shaw, who was white and an aristocrat, a Boston aristocrat, and they built a brigade of the 54th Regiment. They participated in the civil war struggle. That Neighborhood House is where I went to nursery school. It’s where I went to an after school program and it is the place where I in fact did my one and only stage appearance as Tiny Tim in the Christmas Carol. I think-
Buzz Knight:
One and only? Come on.
Topper Carew:
My one and only…
Buzz Knight:
We’re on stage now.
Topper Carew:
Yeah, we’re on stage now. But I will tell you that when I was a little boy… My mother had me when she was 18 and my father got killed in the war, so my mother would be out and about, and I would ask my grandmother if I could come and get in her bed with her. It is the birthplace, Windsor Street is the birthplace of my writing interest, my writing connectivity, my storytelling, which has been the spine of my entire professional career. This is how it used to work. I would say, “Nana, can I come and get in bed with you?” My grandmother had the biggest, fluffiest sheets, the softest pillows, the great covers. I would get in bed with her and look across at the nursery school, at the Shaw House and I would say, “Nana…” And I would tell her a story. She would just go, “Mm-hmm.” Now, she was asleep. She was hearing me. I’d say, “And then,” and she’d say, “Mm-hmm.” That was her greatest response, but that was the birth of my storytelling.
Topper Carew:
Now, let’s go down to the corner where Shawmut and Windsor intersect. Right there was the 12th Baptist Church. That is the church where Dr. Martin Luther King launched his ministerial career. It was pastored by Reverend Hester. But that’s where he learned to preach, right at the… He was at Boston University as a divinity student, but he would come here to do his initial pastoral work. That church is now up on Warren street, but the original 12th Baptist Church was right there.
Buzz Knight:
Unbelievable.
Topper Carew:
Oh, by the way, I should mention that Reverend Michael Haynes, there’s a great monument to him built in Roxbury, was the director of the Robert Gould Shaw House. Mr. Shelbourn, who was the first Black graduate of Dartmouth College was the athletic director. So, right there at that corner, there’s an abundance of history. In fact, right next door to 14 Windsor, at 16, where the Guscotts. Ken Guscott built the tallest skyscraper in his day in Downtown Boston. So that hub, that little hub, right there was a very rich contributor to Boston and American history.
Buzz Knight:
Topper, I have a question about your grandmother.
Topper Carew:
Yeah.
Buzz Knight:
And this was an appropriate time to stop and ask it. Did she ultimately know that you would continue to have this career as a storyteller, or not? And what would she be thinking now?
Topper Carew:
Well, first of all, none of us knew, including me. But my grandmother would be very proud of me. I can tell you that the apartment was the launchpad for so many tributaries of my family. It would go like this. My mother and I slept in one room, she was in another room. When my aunt, uncle and their two children came, they slept in one room. Oh, and three children, the girl slept with my grandmother and I slept in the den. By that time, my mother had moved on, she had remarried. It was a launchpad. What was so interesting about life in Lower Roxbury was you never had to lock your door. There was one bathroom with seven or eight people and it never felt too small. Okay?
Buzz Knight:
Think about that now.
Topper Carew:
Yeah. Think about that. It never felt too small. In Lower Roxbury, everybody knew everybody. If I was in another part of Lower Roxbury, someone would throw up a window and say, “Topper, does your mother know you’re over here?” And I’d better say yes because if I said no, the answer would be, “You go home right now.”
Topper Carew:
Now, right on the corner of Windsor and Shawmut, on one corner was a variety store that was owned by a Chinese entrepreneur named Shorty. Now, what would we do? We would go to that store, we would buy penny candy, you’d get a little brown bag, you’d have a dime, and you could almost fill that entire bag. There was a Coke machine. It was like an ice box with a block of ice, when Coca-Colas used to come in glass bottles and you could get one for a nickel. You could get a pickle for a nickel, or you could get a hard-shell crab for a nickel.
Buzz Knight:
Pickle for a nickel. I like the way that rolls.
Topper Carew:
A pickle for a nickel.
Buzz Knight:
Sounds like a song.
Topper Carew:
It is a song. I mean, it was a delight to be a young kid with a dime to go into a store where a dime could buy you a whole delight-
Buzz Knight:
Joy.
Topper Carew:
… in a little brown bag.
Buzz Knight:
Amazing.
Topper Carew:
Okay. On the opposite corner… Oh, I should say this, that it became to be a store owned by Mr. Williams, who continued that tradition, but he also had another very powerful tradition. That’s where you would put in your policy numbers and play the numbers. So sometimes I used to have to go down there with a dime wrapped in a little piece of paper the number on it. The numbers were based on the last three digits of the treasury balance on that day. They always appeared on the back of the Record American, and you could win money. It was basically gambling.
Buzz Knight:
But you call it the policy numbers.
Topper Carew:
Yeah. That’s what they… That’s the numbers, they called-
Buzz Knight:
It was in that cartoon.
Topper Carew:
Yeah.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Topper Carew:
Oh yeah?
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Topper Carew:
Now, on the opposite corner… Was it really in the cartoon or was that just a tale that…
Buzz Knight:
Because where I grew up, which is in Connecticut, I remember reading the New York papers and my mother telling me exactly the fact that, “Look at that cartoon.” I think it was called Ching Chang or something like that. “There is the number in there to play.”
Topper Carew:
Oh yeah.
Buzz Knight:
So that was true.
Topper Carew:
Oh yeah. It was the numbers, man. It was a big deal.
Buzz Knight:
Wow.
Topper Carew:
It’s a big deal.
Buzz Knight:
Now, we are under no duress thinking there’s some crime we committed back then.
Topper Carew:
No. No.
Buzz Knight:
And we’re worldwide with this podcast, Topper, so…
Topper Carew:
Oh.
Buzz Knight:
Everybody now knows.
Topper Carew:
Yeah. Well. This was pre lottery.
Buzz Knight:
That’s right.
Topper Carew:
This was the lottery.
Buzz Knight:
That’s right.
Topper Carew:
You could play for a dime.
Buzz Knight:
Yep, correct. For a nickel.
Topper Carew:
You could play for a nickel.
Buzz Knight:
You could go back in-
Topper Carew:
You could play for a penny.
Buzz Knight:
You could go back into playing the number as you watched it.
Topper Carew:
Well, so I would take it down. My grandmother would wrap it up, a coin, on a piece of paper, the number was written on the piece of paper. I’d run down to the store and say, “Okay, this is my grandmother’s.”
Buzz Knight:
Love it.
Topper Carew:
Right?
Buzz Knight:
Yeah. Right.
Topper Carew:
Okay. So, on the opposite corner of Windsor and Shawmut, right across from the church was Dolly’s Market. Now, Dolly Bolt had the meat market. Dolly looked like a Buddha. He wore a white jacket. He wore a white apron. Everybody knew Dolly. People used to hang out in front of the store. He lived in the Lennox Street projects, which are a bit of a ways down Shawmut Avenue, which was, by the way, the place where GI families, aspiring to be middle class, so they’d come back from the war, were living. We used to go to parties in there. I mean, we used to play in there. It was very respectful-
Buzz Knight:
Which war? I’m sorry.
Topper Carew:
The Second World War.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah. That’s okay. That’s what I thought.
Topper Carew:
Second World War.
Topper Carew:
Now, continuing down Shawmut Ave, we’re getting to Hammond and Shawmut. On the corner of Hammond and Shawmut was Ma Dixon’s. It was a soul food home cooking restaurant, with secondhand furniture, but with firsthand food. I mean, you could get all the stuff. She was this legendary neighborhood cook. You would go in there and you would get traditional Southern food.
Buzz Knight:
Oh man.
Topper Carew:
I mean, it was just absolutely delicious.
Topper Carew:
Then, as we continue to walk and look, about three doors down from Ma Dixon’s was John’s Chop Suey. Now, John’s was… At the basement level, you’d go in. You couldn’t sit. You’d just order. What could you get? You could get a 10-cent bag of French fries in a brown bag. You could get a 15-cent. You could get a 20-cent. You could go up in nickel increments all the way to a dollar. Then you could get a chow mein sandwich or a chop suey sandwich on a hamburger bun for a dime. So with a 10-cent bag of French fries, with a 10-cent chow mein sandwich and with a Coca-Cola, after you finished that, you would feel like you didn’t need to eat for a week.
Buzz Knight:
Now, by the way, would you be in agreement that there are no longer great French fries anymore? That that’s a lost art?
Topper Carew:
They’re very hard to find. The best French fry place I’ve found is in Portland, Maine, where they double-cook their them in duck fat. It’s called Duck Fat. They are unbelievable. When I first started going there, it was just a store front, now it’s a sidewalk restaurant, because people know those French fries, those French fries are legendary. I have not found a French fry in Boston to match it, and I’m a French fry connoisseur.
Buzz Knight:
Topper, I’m sensing a spinoff on Taking a Walk series where we go off and eat at restaurants and partake. Anyway.
Topper Carew:
Oh man.
Buzz Knight:
Sorry to take you off topic.
Topper Carew:
Because I’m a foodie, man.
Topper Carew:
Okay. Now, let’s continue our walk and let’s go up Hammond Street, which is the street parallel to Windsor. We’re coming to the Asa Gray School. That’s where I went to kindergarten and first grade, my teachers, Ms. Kramer and Ms. Day. Right across from the school was another penny store place. So after school, you go in, and you may remember, you could buy these strips of paper that had these little dots on them.
Buzz Knight:
Sure. The dots.
Topper Carew:
You’d go in there, for 2 cents, you’d get a strip of those dots and you’d kind of bite them off of the paper. You probably remember there were Hunts potato chips, Wise potato chips, and this was another store where you could buy pickles.
Buzz Knight:
I’m going to my knees, Topper, when you’re mentioning the chips.
Topper Carew:
Oh man.
Buzz Knight:
You’re getting me on the chips.
Topper Carew:
Oh, the chips, the chips were fabulous. These potato chips today aren’t like those potato chips that we had.
Buzz Knight:
You’re speaking my language.
Topper Carew:
You know what I mean? Nothing like it.
Buzz Knight:
Oh. I drop to my knees, literally. Anyway.
Topper Carew:
As we continue down Hammond Street on past the Asa Gray School, we come to Tremont Street. On the corner of Tremont and Hammond is a restaurant called Slades. Now, what’s so interesting about Lower Roxbury when I was growing up, on Tremont street, we had parades. We had three pharmacies. We had a dentist. We had two law firms. But we also had Slades, which was a chicken-specialty place where, when you look in the window, you see the chefs working on the rotisserie. The chefs are dressed in white chef uniforms and they have red hats on, those tall red hats. People would come from the suburbs because that was such a divine restaurant experience. There was no fear of white suburbanites coming to Slades. There was absolutely no fear.
Topper Carew:
When you go further down on Tremont Street, there was Estelle’s, which was a nightclub, a fine nightclub. Now, I know about those places when I was young because I used to hang out with my mother and I would sit on the bar stool and I would get a cup of tea and she would get a high ball in both of those places. So I came to know people who worked in those places.
Topper Carew:
Then, if you go a little farther down and you get to Mass and Columbus, there was a nightclub called the High Hat. Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Oscar Peterson, they all used to come there and perform.
Buzz Knight:
Did you go there with your mother?
Topper Carew:
I never… See, I was too young, because then you had to be 21 to go in.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Topper Carew:
So I couldn’t go in.
Buzz Knight:
Wow.
Topper Carew:
But if you continue down Hammond Street, down Davenport, you come to the Columbus Ballpark, which is a place that all of the sports teams used to play, the local sports teams. But it was also a place where I would go with my paternal grandmother and we would pick dandelion greens. We would take them home to her house and we would cook them and eat them like they were a delicacy.
Topper Carew:
But if you continued past the park and you’d go over the bridge that goes over the train tracks, you’re now suddenly on the other side of the tracks. My maternal grandmother, from Windsor Street, the thought that there was a life for me beyond Windsor Street. When it came time to go to the fourth grade, because my paternal grandparents lived near an area called Brigham Circle, they felt that would be a better school situation for me, so myself and two of my cousins were the first Black students in a school called the Farragut, which was a working class white school. I can tell you that in the fifth grade, in the sixth grade, I got black eyes because we integrated that school.
Topper Carew:
But the other part of that experience, that over-the-bridge experience, that’s why that bridge is so important to me, that’s right off of Columbus Ave and goes across the tracks right behind the New England Conservatory of Music, because my grandmother took me to the Pops. They used to have a Black night at the Pops because, in that day and time, the Pops were still segregated, so they had a Black night. There’s a picture of me in an old Ebony magazine which is floating around the family somewhere, where I’m a little boy, reaching up to hold my grandmother’s hand. I have on a white, short pants suit and white shoes and white knee socks. It says, “Topper attends the Black night of the Pops with his grandmother.”
Topper Carew:
So she was beginning to open up experiences for me. Then, she would take me to Brigham’s. There was a Brigham’s on Huntington Avenue. That was like a treat. You’re now getting the ice cream delicacy from a place called Brigham’s. Then, later in life, when I was a student at Boston Technical High School, where I used to play hooky from high school, I would go to the uptown theater. I should have known what I didn’t know, that I would eventually end up in the film and television business as a writer. But I used to love the movies.
Topper Carew:
In high school, I only really loved two subjects, track and lunch. There was nobody telling me that there was a bigger world out there, until a man named John O’Briant, who came to Boston Technical as a guidance counselor… The first guidance counselor told me, he was named O’Brien, the Black one was named O’Briant, the first one told me, when I said I wanted to go to college and wanted to go to Harvard, he said, “I think you’d be better off going to the Navy yard and be a sheet metal worker.”
Buzz Knight:
Oh my god.
Topper Carew:
Okay?
Buzz Knight:
Jesus.
Topper Carew:
My grandfather had always said to me, “You’re going to be somebody. Now, what are you going to be?” He taught me so much. We read popular mechanics, popular electronics. We read the encyclopedia. He wouldn’t allow me to buy toys, we had to make them. He made me memorize the poem If by Rudyard Kipling. So when this guidance counselor, the initial one, said to me, “Go to the Navy yard,” I’m thinking, “Uh-uh. I got another drum that I’m marching to.”
Topper Carew:
As God would have it, three weeks later, John O’Briant appeared. He said to me, “What do you want to do?” “I want to go to college. I want to go to Harvard.” He said, “Well, I don’t know your grades, but I can get you in the other H, the Black Harvard, Howard University.” He saw something in me that I couldn’t see in myself. He said, “You are a mystery to me. You’re testing at the top of this test, high school, but your grades don’t prove it.” I said, “I don’t like it. I just don’t like it. Nobody’s saying to me, ‘Do this, do that. You can do this,’ or, ‘You can be more than you can be.'” I, to this day, mentor his son.
Buzz Knight:
Oh, that’s beautiful.
Topper Carew:
I mentor his son.
Buzz Knight:
How old is his son?
Topper Carew:
I’m not sure how old Richard is, but he runs an institute at Northeastern named after his father. I spent a fair amount of time with him and I was in a position to give John O’Briant, when he became the first elected school-board chairman, I gave his first fundraiser.
Buzz Knight:
I love it. Everything’s full circle.
Topper Carew:
That’s the circle. That’s the circle. Because if you give, you should receive, and if you receive, you should give.
Topper Carew:
Anyway, so I love Lower Roxbury. I think of myself as a son of Roxbury. I think of that. It was a very important thing for my grandmother. The principle motivation for me graduating from college was not the achievement onto itself, but to take my grandmothers, both of them, my aunt and my mother in a limousine to Yale when I graduated so they could see that. Because I was the first one on my maternal grandmother’s side to go to college, to graduate from college. It was common experience for my father’s family.
Topper Carew:
I should mention one last thing that I forgot to mention. The Shaw House, the Robert Gould Shaw House is also where my mother and father met. That’s where they started dating. So that also becomes a very significant place in my life. This whole area that I’ve shared with you, I mean, I could go on. But I have in a myriad of ways managed to give back to that. The biggest thing that I’ve taken away from my Roxbury experience is that love, family, friends, affirmation, cultural competency, and expectation are the things that helped me become who I am.
Buzz Knight:
I’m stunned by your storytelling, first of all. I love your storytelling. The essence of the Taking a Walk series is about storytelling, really, and about a particular location. You’ve had so many projects in your career. You’re still active with your current project that you talked about earlier. Are there any particular projects that are your favorites, or are they all like children and they’re all favorites?
Topper Carew:
Well, let me say this to you. First of all, I am pleased that you would think of me as a person who you might invite into your experience. I appreciate that.
Topper Carew:
Okay. I will talk about a project that is my most favorite project at the moment. Because you know how it is being an artist, after you’ve finished the painting, you lean it up against the wall and you move on. I don’t like to spend too much time drawing on work that I’ve done in the past, even though there are people who say, “Oh, you did that?” But here’s the thing that I’m most excited about: I have a project that I’m sending up to the International Space Station, and it’s called This Little Light of Mine. What is This Little Light of Mine? It will be a payload, and in that payload, which is going to the International Space Station, will be a film that I’m making about children singing This Little Light of Mine. This Little Light of Mine is a song that many people know. The essence of what it will be will include messages of love, peace, and joy at a time in the world when we need that, right now. Because the world and our nation has darkened. So this film will be broadcast back to earth.
Topper Carew:
There will be a website, and on that website, This Little Light of Mine website, there will be a screen that will allow you to track where the International Space Station is at any particular moment in time, so you can go outside of your house, look up and see it. There will be that light in the sky. It appears as the third-brightest star in the sky. Then you’ll come back, you’ll go to your phone, you’ll go to your pad, or you will go to your computer and you will be able to see, in real time, the song being broadcast back to earth, as children sing it. It will circle the globe for a month and a half to two months…
Buzz Knight:
Oh, that’s great. Outstanding.
Topper Carew:
… putting this message, sending this message back to earth. This is totally philanthropic. It is not designed to make money.
Buzz Knight:
Is this affiliated with your MIT work?
Topper Carew:
This is me.
Buzz Knight:
That’s you, okay.
Topper Carew:
This is me.
Buzz Knight:
Oh, I love that.
Topper Carew:
It’s a result of my MIT work. The Chinese wanted me to come to China to design a Mars colony. I didn’t, because China’s too far. That trip is punishing, man.
Buzz Knight:
Oh yeah.
Topper Carew:
I’ve had the best way you could possibly travel, but it’s just too long. If I were younger, man, I might have weathered the trips, but at the same time, I don’t want to give all those secrets to the Chinese community. I’ve got some issues with their authoritarianism. Even though my best friend in life has been Chinese, I’ve got an issue with the way they handle things.
Topper Carew:
As a result of that, I met somebody who sends up payloads. I mentioned it to him. He said, “Yeah, I would love that.” So that’s how it happened.
Buzz Knight:
That’s great.
Topper Carew:
Yeah. So it’s going to go up. It’s scheduled right now to go up on October 1st on an Elon Musk rocket.
Buzz Knight:
Oh god. Thank you.
Topper Carew:
So the engineers in Texas are working with me. The engineers in D.C. are working with me. We can make this all happen.
Buzz Knight:
What a great story. Thank you for sharing it. Thank you for sharing a delightful walk here in Lower Roxbury. I’m going to coin a phrase here by a new friend of mine that I know is a phrase, I have to let all of this conversation marinate.
Topper Carew:
Oh man. Let me tell you about the word marination in my life. That was one of the wisdoms that my maternal grandmother laid on me. She would say to me, whenever there was a decision that was deep, meaningful or whatever, she would always say, “Well, let it marinade.”
Buzz Knight:
Love it.
Topper Carew:
I believe in that word. I’m glad you brought that up. That’s a powerful word.
Buzz Knight:
Topper Carew, thank you for taking a walk. I’m honored.
Topper Carew:
Hey, listen, man, as I said, I wanted to do this because this is the first time I’ve been able to tell this story about this aspect of my life.
Buzz Knight:
It’s beautiful.
Topper Carew:
Thank you.
Buzz Knight:
Thank you. All right. God bless
Speaker 2:
Taking a Walk with Buzz Knight is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
About The Author
Buzz Knight
Buzz Knight is an established media executive with a long history of content creation and multi-platform distribution.
After a successful career as a Radio Executive, he formed Buzz Knight Media which focuses on strategic guidance and the development of new original content.
