Here I sit, at my writing desk and amongst my books, taking tea beside the fireplace of the 1951 Levitt & Sons Ranch house I rent. This living is, alas, no elegant 18th Century drawing room or stately Victorian conservatory.
Nevertheless, I can't help but think how very much it symbolized the good life; how very much it must have seemed - to the GI who first moved into this house after World War II - as a microcosm of the American Dream. Indeed, how far the nation had progressed from the grimy soup kitchens, shabby breadlines, and squalid shantytowns of twenty years earlier when the Great Depression seemed prone to engulf everyone and everything.
The locust years have returned - for those who'll gaze away from the Idiot Box, Facebook, or glitzy promos at the Mall long enough to notice the bankruptcies, foreclosures, unemployment, underemployment, and homeless in our community and beyond. The proverbial wheelbarrow of worthless banknotes is now filled with credit card debt and diplomas. The nation that had been the greatest military, commercial, and political force on the planet when this house was build for some homecoming GI is not a superpower unraveling in a manner reminiscent of its old rival two decades ago. Talk of a "recession" notwithstanding, for millions of Americans - and many Levittown residents - this is the Second Great Depression.
This rumination might sound pessimistic - especially whilst being mused upon in a room that epitomized post-WWII optimism. Perhaps it is. It's worth noting, however, that the striking contrast between the poverty of the Great Depression and the seemingly limitless opportunities of middle class suburbia in the 1950's reveals that under the right set of circumstances, with a paradigm apropos to the reality of the situation and leadership and political regime therewith, prosperity can rapidly overtake penury. (Just look at the "Asian tigers" like Singapore in the last quarter of the 20th Century).
The dream of the good life may be a reality again in 2033 as it had been in 1951. Of course, the world has changed so it can't be the dream of the GI who first enjoyed this living room in 1951, but a dream all the same.
Want to learn more about the history of Levittown and the surrounding communities? Visit www.levittownhistoricalsociety.org
