Essayist Shows 'True Love' for Bayside

Author and playwright Margaret Gruen said that a trip to her childhood library brought back memories of her “True Love” for Bayside, where she grew up.

Gruen, who lives in Manhattan, works as a school secretary and has, for years, performed one-woman plays that she has written across the five boroughs.

And every year, she treks out to northeast Queens to visit Bell Park Gardens, a housing complex in Bayside where she spent her youth from the 1950s through the early 1960s.

But it wasn’t until she survived two serious health scares, one of which resulted in a heart operation, and paid a visit to the Windsor Park Library that she came up with the idea to write a book of memoirs about her childhood summers in Bayside.

“It was kismet, a serendipitous event,” she said of a trip she made to the library five years ago. “After having heart surgery, I found myself back in the children’s reading room of my childhood library. The librarian asked me to contribute to the library’s newsletter and the result was “True Love.”

The book includes 12 essays on everything from Gruen’s memories of summer at Bell Park Gardens, which was originally created by Mayor Thomas Dewey as an apartment complex for veterans, to her surgery.

Last year, she shared several of her essays with Patch that were posted as weekly blog entries.

Gruen said her favorite essays in the book are the opening piece, “The Summer of Dappled Leaves,” and the final one, “Postscript: Women of My Age, Revisited.”

“The first encapsulates my love of the summer in Bayside and what draws me here year after year,” she said. “The postscript connects my past and my present and expresses the joy I felt after living through two calamities.”

Gruen wrote her first essay in 2008 and completed the last one on New Year’s Day of 2011.

Prior to writing “True Love,” she has performed her plays, such as “The Young Sophisticate” and “Tanya Talks: The Last Jew,” at a variety of venues, including Manhattan’s 92nd Street Y.

Currently, she is working on a piece on the anniversary of Hurricane Sandy’s visit to the five boroughs.

But she said penning “True Love” was one of her most personal writing experiences.

“It was a great place for a child to grow up,” she said of Bayside. “As kids, we splashed in wading pools and played hopscotch. We collected marbles and rode bicycles. Now, there are not a lot of kids in the neighborhood.”

“True Love” is available on Amazon and will soon be sold on Barnes & Noble’s website. It can also be purchased at Bayside’s Turn the Page Again bookstore.