Izzy Young, Founder NYC’S Folklore Center, Dead at 90

The back room is crowded even when there are no people in it. For some reason when people come into the store the back seems the most desirable of all places and that’s where they congregate. The back fills up quickly.

Invariably when there are fifteen people jammed in talking and violating the No Smoking Rule (Izzy can’t stand the smell of smoke but if you are his special friend or a girl you can smoke anyway and he will only make faces). Then, at that very moment he will decide he wants something - Right Now!

If you can’t find that something immediately the accusations will begin: ‘You threw it out. I told you it was important! You threw it out! It’s not fair! Why does everything happen to me?’

Work at the Folklore center is never accomplished like work in other places. At the Folklore Center it’s always under fire and in the face of overwhelming obstacles. Izzy will look over your shoulder while you are working until you are ready to scream, and when you do scream he will say: ‘I’m just trying to find out what’s going on.’

Also in the back was the desk. The bottom drawer of the desk was exclusively reserved for letters that people, mostly young girls, had written him and for his voluminous diaries. The diaries were penned in a microscopic hand and traced his daily life. He filled it with entries, mostly about girls. The bottom drawer was sacred: woe unto you if you misplaced something in the bottom drawer. The rest of the desk was filled with paper clips, folk music articles, pens that didn’t work and check books that didn’t have any money in them.

Rounding out the contents of the Folklore Center is the closet for Izzy’s wardrobe, an eclectic collection of Brooks Brothers meets 14th St, the first aid kit for emergencies, the rack for hanging instruments which never work quite right, and the typing table with an electric typewriter (state of the art technology in 1962). There is the red chair for guests, the brown chair for throwing stuff on and the swivel chair where I work or he sits.

And then there’s Jack, Izzy’s sidekick. In my day Jack was a permanent fixture at the shop. They hold the same philosophy of work. Work is bad. Work is to be avoided.

The best times are when the shop is empty and we three sit around with cookies and milk and talk philosophy. Philosophy covers a wide range of topics including but not limited to business, making money, why some people are better than others and women.

The subject of women is the most complicated and one that does not lend itself to summary. Suffice to say there are two categories of women – Modern Women (bad) and Real Women (good).

About once a week Izzy will announce he is in love. Sometime she will announce it by doing a Morris Dance the length of the shop (“Look how high I can jump!”) Or sometimes he will announce it by doing a Horn Dance. Sometimes he will put it in the form of a question: ‘Am I in Love?’ and he will answer it himself: ’Yes, I am in love.’

Well you get the drift. It was a unique establishment, filled with the ebb and flow of daily events and plenty of homemade drama. Those happy innocent bookish days are long gone. And the rest as they say is history.”

By 1965, when the Folklore Center moved to Sixth Avenue, I was long gone.