5-Max-Sollender

Sollender's newsstand was a major employer
Of the family during the Depression years
At last count, nine family members worked for Max, including most of the male offspring of the niece and nephews of Ethel Rubenstein Varonok (standing in 1897 photo at right).

Among them were Jack Rubenstein's two sons, Alvin and Bobby, Dora Rubenstein Karben's son, Phil, and all four sons of Morris Rubenstein: Sidney, Arthur, Larry and Sam.  Double shifts and all-nighters were the way Max managed to staff his newsstand 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

His staff ranged in size from 7 to 12, depending on their class schedules. "Not only were jobs hard to find, but you'd have to be working the hours they give you," Irving said. His father, on the other hand, would "vary the hours so they could go to school."

Max's student employees "learned a lot from him about how to handle people," according to Irving. He estimated that during rush hours, about 10,000 people could pass by the newsstand in 20 minutes. Thousands of these commuters would pause to buy papers and magazines, and the average purchase was not just one item.

Before television, when New York City was an eight-paper town, the newsstand carried them all, as well as "four or five" New Jersey newspapers. "Many people bought two to five newspapers plus a couple of magazines," Irving said, emphasizing the challenge this posed to making change fast.  Max had his newsstand at the ferry terminal at Liberty and West Streets from 1920 to 1970.

At right: Ethel Rubenstein Varonok in 1897, standing behind a woman who may well have been her mother-in-law. The photo, from a group portrait of the extended Varonok family, was taken in Russia, two years before the birth of Rose Varonok, who was to marry Max Sollender in 1923. The photo appears here thanks to the generosity of Max's daughter, Ruth Sollender Goldstein.

  

6-Max-Sollender
Quick change

Phil Karben, who occasionally found himself on the same newsstand shift as his first cousin and close friend, Sam Rubenstein, remembered his newsstand experience as "exciting and pleasant." He was "young enough and inexperienced enough," he said, to enjoy "watching all these different people rushing, coming and going, and figuring how to give change quickly."

Book money

Alvin Rubenstein started at the newsstand part-time before he was 14 years old, and he worked there through his years at City College. The job at the newsstand "gave me spending money as a kid, and then it put me through school," he said. "I had enough money to buy my own books, and never had to depend on anybody else." That was the story for most of Max's student employees.

Our VIP

"He was the source of jobs in the family," said Irving. During the Depression and its aftermath, when my father, Larry, worked at the newsstand, it was no small matter to have a job. In our family, Max Sollender was a very important person indeed.
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