Harold Charles Schonberg was a class C player who overpopulated the Manhattan Chess Club. He was, of course, the music critic for the Times for a number of years. He was doing good by doing well. But it turns out he was just a cheap, common hustler. Every person I spoke to when I told them I met Harold Schoenberg, responded, “You knew Harold Schonberg? He ruined every musical person he every reviewed.”
Harold Schoenberg (because he was being fed chess information from me for nothing), gave me little more than an occasional opera ticket as pay (which Harold never used). I never even got a dinner or a snack. Taking out a dollar from his pocket was too great a gesture.
And, in 1972 in Reykjavik, he was there in the Chess Match, inserting himself in because Fischer asked that three rows of seats be turned back to prevent being distracted. Thorarensen and I made a deal in which it would look like three rows would be missing.
When Bobby came out onto the stage, he shrugged his shoulders and nodded his head in approval. Schonberg inserted himself and said, “Well they only moved one row, not three rows.” I responded, “Harold. As far as you are concerned, three rows were moved.”
Harold punished me by giving the chess column to Robert Byrne who held it for years, all because Harold did not get extra private information on Fischer (which would have, of course, violated my position in the Match in which Fischer had a right to know that I was protecting his privacy — Not to mention being a fully ordained Roman Catholic Priest who must be held to a higher standard).
Robert Byrne and his wife lobbied for the Times’ chess position by kissing Harold’s ass.
Schoenberg was a rascal and every legitimate musical person thought so. Schonberg, for his part tried to promote that he was a real chess master, when, in fact, he was no better than a C-Class Player: Hence, Harold C. Schonberg.
Sadly, the Times has done no better with their reporting. The reporter, a one Matt Chaban, was supposed to write on the real estate and he couldn’t even do that. He showed me the landlord’s Major Crapital Improvement papers that are entirely fictitious and fraudulent. These papers were presented as evidence in a court of law (which makes them fraud).
Mr. Chaban did not do his job of equally presenting both sides. In fact, he told me that he would take my side, yet, when he appeared at my house and stole 4-5 hours of my time, was simply there to oppress me.
In fact, a fan of mine was the one who got in contact with Mr. Chaban. The whole point of the article was to present my side, since the landlord is already allowed to present their side by an extremely biased and entirely unconstitutional housing court that violates due process every day it refuses to notify defendant-tenants of their right to a trial by jury.
For 42 years, the New York County Housing Court, has been in violation of a Supreme Court decision that guarantees the right to a trial by jury under the 7th Amendment (Pernell v. Southall Realty, 416 U.S. 363 (1974)).
Furthermore, no one is sworn into Court, and therefore, landlords have no incentive to tell the truth.
