Americana: The Monkey Man

Stories about shabby beggars who hoard secret fortunes are commonplace enough, but Eddie the Monkey Man, who died in his sleep last month at the age of 79, was unique. The son of a Jewish immigrant peddler in Pensacola, Fla., Eddie Bernstein lost both legs at the age of twelve when a train ran over him. He began riding around in a goat cart, selling newspapers. In the mid-’30s, he left the Depression-ridden South and moved to Washington, D.C., where he established himself on a wooden platform on F Street between 12th and 13th Streets. He joked and chattered and begged for his living. Women shoppers often took pity on the legless panhandler, and one of them, Evalyn McLean, owner of the Hope diamond, gave him a capuchin monkey named Gypsy. It did tricks for what Bernstein called his “clients.”

For more than 30 years, through three wars and half a dozen presidencies, Bernstein occupied his corner. But only in the spring and summer. Winters, the Monkey Man would disappear. In 1972 an envious beggar told a newspaper that Bernstein was rich (he was reputed to make up to $150 a day) and had invested his wealth in Florida real estate. Bernstein rushed to the newspaper to complain. “If I had money and property,” he protested, “do you think I’d be sitting out in the cold all day?”

In Pensacola, however, the Monkey Man was known as a prosperous businessman who wore sporty clothes and walked about on two artificial legs. He liked to read the Wall Street Journal and talk of his travels to Israel, Greece and Spain. He owned an $80,000 building, containing a disco called the Red Garter, a home worth $30,000, and had $16,000 in cash, $46,000 in Washington checking accounts and $365,000 in a bond account with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith. Then why did he go on begging? Said his banker: “I think it was a lifelong habit.”