NY Times article "Odes to Suburbia"
March 5, 2006
Copyright New York Times Company Mar 5, 2006
FOLK singers have long written songs of love about freight trains and racehorses, but some have also written with disdain about the suburbs. And no community's name signifies suburbia more than Levittown, which listeners believe has been pilloried in song for decades.
But now one Long Islander has taken up his guitar pick and composed a series of favorable songs about Levittown, where he lives. They are on a CD that will be released this fall.
Bob Koenig is a folk singer who has owned a tidy ranch house in Levittown, which many consider the iconic American suburb, for four years. He said he draws his creative inspiration from the history and culture of the community.
''My hometown is my passion,'' he said. ''The people and places here have stories to tell. I just listen and set them to music.''
A mail carrier by day and a student in social history and popular culture at Empire State College in Old Westbury by night, Mr. Koenig, 43, said he writes music in the folk tradition of Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, using similar melody lines and chord patterns.
''I try to blend popular culture and history with a feel for what's important to people on Long Island,'' he said.
Mr. Koenig, who often wears a Levittown sweatshirt, has performed at neighborhood clubs and local libraries, on local radio stations and at festivals celebrating Levittown, the post-World War II community built on what were then potato farms. He is writing more songs for Levittown's 60th anniversary celebration in the spring of 2007.
Mr. Koenig said that people ask him if his song ''Levittown'' is like ''Allentown,'' the 1980's song by Billy Joel, who grew up in a Levitt-built house in Hicksville. ''He started writing that song about Levittown, but then ran out of ideas and refocused it on the steel-mill town in Pennsylvania,'' he said. ''With my song, I found so much history here I just kept going.''
Mr. Koenig, a Mineola native, became active in Levittown life when he attended its 50th anniversary celebration in 1997, five years before he moved there, and found himself attracted to the local history. Today he helps run the Levittown Museum and teaches visiting schoolchildren about local history and culture.
''Local history disappears if no one collects it and preserves it,'' said Polly Dwyer, president of the Levittown Historical Society. ''Long Island needs more people like Bob Koenig who love their town.''
While outsiders ask what he finds to love about Levittown, Mr. Koenig said there is plenty. ''The pools, the parks, the playgrounds,'' he said. ''The patriotism, the flags, the veterans' memorials.''
Yvonne Murphy, a professor at Empire State College, who is Mr. Koenig's adviser, said that he ''understands how neighborhoods extend out into the American landscape and the world culture.''
''It's his ability to inject popular culture and social history into his music that makes it so meaningful,'' she said.
Take his ''Talking Suburban Veteran Blues,'' for example, written in the tradition of Woody Guthrie's ''Talking Dust Bowl Blues.''
With just a little down, and a firm handshake,
Levitt himself handed me the keys and we were on our way
Drivin' around those winding roads, I got lost --
Everything's a lane. Hey! Finally found my patch of mud though!
Before finding his niche as a folk singer, Mr. Koenig sang and played guitar in a rock band (whose claim to fame is that it once performed on national TV on the program ''Dance Party'') and wrote and recorded country songs. His favorite group is the Beatles, although his 7-year-old son's middle name is Arlo, after Woody Guthrie's son. In addition to the guitar, Mr. Koenig plays mandolin, banjo and the harmonica.
One of his favorite Levittown songs is based on a poem by a neighbor, Wendell Storms. ''When I heard it, I could tell right away it would by dynamite set to music,'' he said. Those who remember the Berkeley balladeer Malvina Reynolds's poke at conformist housing -- and conformists -- in her 1962 hit ''Little Boxes'' may enjoy hearing Mr. Koenig sing that song with a few verses of his own:
Now the community has kept on growing
and so have these houses
That they all called little boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.
Now there's big ranches, now there's large Cape Cods
and long homes, amidst the small homes
now they can't call our houses
little boxes anymore.
''Many people think 'Little Boxes' was written about Levittown, but it was really about housing tracts in California,'' he said. ''It's true that all the houses in Levittown looked pretty much the same when they were built, but it's not that way today. I thought it was time to bring that home, so I tacked on some of my own lyrics, words that tell the story of Levittown today, about its growth and individuality.''