PBA Galleries

7 pages, typescript on rectos only, plus two carbon copies. On thin typing paper 11x8½.

Steinbeck writes about his first visit to New York, and his early experiences there. "...When I came the first time to New York in 1925, I had never been to a city in my life. From Stanford University I had made undergraduate trips to San Francisco and thought naturally that I knew all about it, particularly as related to sin in my income bracket. I was 23 years old and my bracket was low... New York changed for me. I was a reporter and that was a pretty romantical profession. I made one-fifth as much as I had with a cement barrow. I could eat or have my laundry done - but not both. My girl lived on Gramercy Park and naturally I moved there. The old Parkwood Hotel had some tiny rooms - six walk-up flights above the street - for $7.00 a week..." There are about four pencil corrections to the text, which are not present on the carbon copies.