By Adam Kramer
Irving Lasner sat in his chair with his head gently resting in his right hand as he contemplated the past 100 years.
“What is a hundred?” he said. “I don’t feel anything. I have been expecting this for quite a while. I have become used to it.”
Lasner, who has lived in Hollis Hills for more than 40 years, was to become one of Queens’ newest centenarians Thursday two weeks after he celebrated the milestone with more than 200 family members and friends at the Hollis Hills Jewish Center. His son Barry and daughter Renee Goldberg, as well as his three grandchildren and four great grand children attended the party. His wife Mary died a few years ago.
“They were more excited than I was,” Lasner said. “I am glad it is over. It has been going on since last year. I am glad and everyone agrees.”
Lasner was born in 1902 on Siegel Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Like many other children during the first third of the 20th century, he went to work at a young age. He began working with his father in the wholesale banana business at the age of 7.
“Siegel Street,” he said as he let out a sigh. “I enjoyed living there. I manned a push cart and we managed pretty good.”
As a child, Lasner said, his family was poor. In fact, he said, everybody in the neighborhood was poor and had very little, but “we managed to keep people’s mouths full.”
Barry said his father — who had a difficult childhood — rose before the crack of dawn to take care of and feed the horses that pulled the cart. He said it was why his father developed a love of animals.
“In fact, every now and then he will ask me: ‘Is my horse in the garage?’” he said.
As a boy, Lasner learned how to get the best bananas for his father’s cart. He would head down to the docks on the East River and watch the bananas being loaded onto the trucks and then run back to tell his father which truck to bid on that had the best yellow fruit.
“His love for bananas and what bananas can do for you stays with him even until today,” said his son. “He eats a banana every day and wants everyone else to eat a banana everyday.”
Lasner took over the cart after his father abandoned the family, which forced him to drop out of school and support his mother and four siblings. A number of years later Lasner, along with partners, opened up the first supermarket in Brooklyn. He then settled in working for Goldsmith Brothers at 77 Nassau St. as an office products buyer.
Working at Goldsmith Brothers on Oct. 29, 1929, the day of the stock market crash, he said he thought the country would fall into a state of turmoil and “head down the river.”
Barry Lasner said as a child he remembers his father telling him about “Black Tuesday” and seeing people jump from the buildings.
After marrying Mary, Lasner and his wife moved to the Bronx, Yankee country. Though he lived in the enemy’s borough, Lasner’s heart still remained with “Dem Bums.”
“I always liked the Dodgers,” he said. “They went through a whole lot. The Yankees won because they were good. I am still mad at [the Dodgers] for moving.”
The family lived in Forest Hills before they settled in Hollis Hills.
Barry said the recent birthday party for his father was great and he expects many more. Talking care of his father, he said, has brought them even closer and he wants to spend more time with him.
“I was shocked,” Lasner said about the party and turning 100. “You don’t think things like this can happen to you and then there you are.
“Today I dreamed of what I might have wished for,” Lasner said, “and everything came out all right.”
Reach reporter Adam Kramer by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 157.
