[question] Yes, you are right, it is a wonderful thing that at least I had my grandchild, my Rebecca. You say this like it is a new idea but we go over it already every time you come to bother me with the questions. Is that why you come here again? You already know she wasn’t in the car that day with them, why do you ask me again? So I can say it again? It is good we had each other, yes. So?

[question] You want this for your tape recording, even though we discuss it over and over? Ach. So I say it again for you and then we are done. Thank God for that, yes, she was asleep with me so they went out after we had lunch, it was a Sunday, when they would visit me, and I said I would watch her so they should go out and enjoy the afternoon. I don’t think there is any more to the story of that day, you have heard it by now from me more than this time.

[question] How many times do I say to you there is no connection [between the Triangle Waist Company fire and the death of Isaac Gottesfeld and his wife, Barbara, in a car accident of uncertain origin on March 24, 1961], and you shouldn’t keep asking me such a stupid question to make a connection that doesn’t exist? How could you imagine something so foolish? What difference does it make that it was the day after the anniversary of the fire? You make nonsense out of my life just to make a cockamamy pattern. I am not going to answer more of your questions. No, no. Please turn off your tape recorder. I am very tired now and there is nothing more to say. No. Farlawzt meer alain!

[note: Esther Gottesfeld terminated the interview at this juncture, before all of the prepared questions had been posed, which is deeply regrettable considering the valuable information she possesses, especially given how remarkably intact her faculties remain as of this writing, in July of 2000, at age 105. rz]

[note: Despite numerous attempts to schedule another interview in order to complete the questions, Esther Gottesfeld was not able to comply with the request before her death earlier this year, perhaps owing to her declining health and advanced age, and so there remain significant gaps in the material. Attempts will be made to interview her granddaughter in the hope that she can add to the record, although she has expressed initial reluctance to cooperate. rz, October 2001]

Five

GEORGE BOTKIN ’73
AND THE QUEST FOR NEW MUSIC
Yale Daily News Literary Supplement, Spring 1999
Interview by Blake Shapiro ’00

When George Botkin walked into Linsley-Chittendon Hall for the first time in the fall of 1969, a freshman trying to find his English 120 section, he was struck by the pitch of the building. What’s that you say, you didn’t know buildings had pitches, and we don’t mean the roof? Welcome to George Botkin’s world. Linsley-Chit is an F-natural building. Next time you have a moment, take a music major with you to check it out. He’s right. The YDN Litmag talked with Botkin one afternoon when he was on campus teaching his popular music-composition seminar this term, and we went down into Linsley-Chit’s resonant bowels so the MacArthur-winning composer could demonstrate the pitch of the building with a tuning fork he just happened to have on hand.