Searching For J. Ades

Not long ago, I made a blind call to a J. Ades listed as living on the Upper West Side. I was looking for a man named Joseph Ades, an English-born hawker of vegetable peelers who shows up on various corners around town in a well-cut Glen plaid suit of olive green, pitching his wares in a tireless voice like the men known as patterers in Victorian times. When his audience disperses and he's left all alone, he goes right on in an endless loop, talking and gesturing into the wind, an actor soliloquizing in the true sense of the word. His swarthy complexion, hawk nose and wooly beard are like false features added for effect. When purchasing one of his vegetable peelers, you're paying for his showmanship as much as for his gadget. No finer peddler exists in New York.

There was only one J. Ades listed in the phonebook. Before I made that call out of the blue, what little I knew about Ades the man, I owed to a display of an old Daily News story ("Veggie Peeler Pitchman Has the Spiel & the Deals") that Ades sets out like a shingle when he works, even though he doesn't have a vendor's license. This article originally appeared in the News on September 14, 1994. Ades was 60 years old at the time and had been in New York for just over a year. (Australia was given as his previous address.) He lived rent-free on the Upper East Side, in an apartment supplied by a son-in-law. A father of three, he'd been married three times, most recently to a Ph.D. in philosophy. A virulent ear infection suffered in youth had left him partially deaf for life. He was born and raised in Manchester, England, and pronounced his surname to rhyme with "Gladys."

I knew right away I had the wrong Ades when a mature-sounding woman answered the phone. Or could this be the fourth Mrs. Ades?

I gave my name and stated my business: "I'm looking for a Joseph Ades," I said.

This set the woman off for some reason. "Tell me somethinghave you called here before?"

"No. Never. I'm sorry if I'm disturbing you."

"I get calls for this guy all the time. His mail comes, too; there's a package downstairs. Who is this character, and what do you want with him?"

I told her a little about his background and occupation, and described myself as a freelance writer.

"You're doing a story about a beggar?" she said.

"He's a peddler, not a beggar. He's the best peddler I've ever seen, certainly in New York."

"And his name was what?"

"Joseph Ades."

"Is he Jewish?"

"Excuse me?"

She repeated the question, louder this time. And suddenly I saw his face before me. Nothing in that old Daily News story about him had so much as intimated he might be Jewish. But seeing his face, his punim, rise up, I felt this lady was on to something.

"Ades is an old Sephardic name," she explained. "It's from the name of the port city Cadiz, in southern Spain. Way back when, the town was called Gades: Take off the silent 'g,' and it spells 'Ades.' This is where we come fromyour peddler guy, too. He may not know it, but what can I say? He may not even be Jewish at this point. My kid sister once met an Ades in England who had been in one of those monk type things."

"A monastery?"

"Whatever it was, he had taken his vows. Anyway, he hadn't done well in it and had left, and now he was telling my sister all about it and speculating on how come he couldn't make it. And she said, 'Well, of course you couldn't make it. You're Jewish. You're descended from us.'"

I asked about the different pronunciations of the name. She gave it a long "a."

By now I was used to her blunt way of talking. "Some familiesnot usused to pronounce it 'AIDS.' But then the disease came along, and a lot of them changed it."

My informant's name was Naava AdesJanet, her given name, was no longer current. She had lived in Israelfor how long, she didn't sayand this is where she picked up the Hebrew Naava.

I felt I had struck a bonanza with this call, even if I hadn't found the person I was looking for, and was no closer to finding now than I had been. Sadly for me, the Joseph Ades who plagued Naava's life was not the famous peddler of the same name, after all. I had this from Naava herself at the end. Knowing a few things about "her" Joseph Ades, and hearing me describe a few things about mine, she saw that we were talking about two different people.

"My guy," she said, "had a printing business. That's what I know from his mail, at least. People who have called, who were looking to serve him with subpoenas, said that he was a very wealthy real estate guy. I've no idea about your guy," she added. "Never heard of him."