New York City has many old, gray-faced apartment buildings wherein the struggle for survival is fought and won...or lost. In the poorer districts, where too many people have to live to close, evidence of little kids with no place else to play is found in chalk scribblings on the facades of these dwellings. There is one such chalk-marked old apartment building in Washington Heights that is unlike any other building in New York. Near its entrance, written awkwardly but with love and adoration, you will find such greetings as "Welcome home Tiny Tim."
    For the Bronx neighbors who live nearby, it has recently become something of a monument to one who millions of children, teenagers and adults consider a fascinating new personality.
   
Until a year ago there were only a few who thought Tiny Tim great. The audiences he tried to sing for thought he was stark, raving mad-loony. And his hair! Whoever saw a man with such flowing locks? But that was way back in the early '50s. In those days there were no welcoming messages for Tiny Tim, either from without or within the old building. It was seldom that his "dear, sweet Mother" gave him a smile at five o'clock in the morning as he would tiptoe past her bedroom to the inner sanctum of his own room. Mother didn't understand why he stayed out so late. She didn't understand why he had to sing in such "dumps." "I'm not afraid," he would say,"God is with me." That may have reassured her but she still didn't like it.
    Here was a strange young man, understood by no one, least of all his mother. A strange young man with an obsession that knew no exhaustion, no surrender, only persistence.
    Over 40 years ago Tillie Staff and Butros Hanna Khaury-better known now simply as the parents of Tiny Tim-met in a community church. They used to attend lectures on world events there, and one night Butros asked Tillie for a date. That was in November; in March they were married. Somewhere in time a son was born to them (they are just as mysterious about the date as TT is).                                                                                                      

    In some ways Herbie was a typical little boy. He loved to play baseball and he even joined the Boy Scouts. But he soon lost interest and turned in his uniform. Yes, Tiny Tim was a Boy Scout dropout! Hiking through the woods wasn't his scene. He much preferred to hike along "Bar Row" and sing ... for anybody who would listen.
    "Herbie always sang," Mrs. Khaury recalled recently when TV Radio Mirror visited the Khaury home. "Even as early as two years old he was singing songs he learned from me. I am musically inclined and used to go to concerts and the opera whenever we could afford it. While doing my housework I would sing and my son would listen and memorize the lyrics and melody."
    "That's right," her gentle-natured husband, who sat beside her, nodded vigorously. His silver Van Dyke beard stabbed at his tie with each affirmative nod. His black, searching eyes were identical to Tiny Tim's. This slightly built, delicately-boned man had a giant-sized bellow to his voice. Mr. Khaury (spelled Khoury on his citizenship papers) added: "Even in a baby carriage he was singing. One day I said to my wife, 'He's going to be a great singer when he grows up.'"
    Mother Khaury, a Polish Jewess who came to this country with her family as a young girl, sat opposite me in the living room of the same old-fashioned apartment they've occupied for 20 years, where the past seemed to take precedence over the present. The interior was simple and clean. One sensed immediately a quiet dignity and self respect. It was a hot, sultry day and the warm air blew in through the windows, giving no relief. When I mentioned an air-conditioner, Mr. Khaury bristled; he didn't think air-conditioners were good for you. Tiny Tim would buy them one if they wanted-Tiny Tim would give them anything-no, Papa just didn't believe in it.
    One thing he does believe in-his son. "I'm proud of him from the day he was born!"
    Mrs. Khaury seemed tense, nervous and quite bewildered by her son's sudden international fame. "So much money he is making! ($7,500 per evening). Who gives such a prize? Who are these people?" She sat for a moment, toying with her handkerchief. Her Old Country accent and perplexity were equally endearing.
    "He used to tell us, 'You'll see, someday my picture will be in all the papers.' Who could believe it with that long hair? Nobody else had hair so long! I don't understand, but I am very honored that people should love him." She leaned toward me, her eyes bold and steady, and asked me, "There's one thing would you explain to me, please? Why did it take everybody so many years before they decided my son had talent?"
    "Our son," piped up Mr. K.
    At this point, the proud mother asked us if we'd, like to see her famous son's room-the room she's kept intact for him so he can feel at home whenever he visits with them. As we entered the room, the first thing to hit our eye was a calendar with a painting of Jesus which hung over the bed and scrawled on the wall next to it the words "Christ Jesus is my Lord." And above a chest which contained his old records, another version-"Jesus Christ is my Lord."                                                                                     

    Mrs. K. continued her lament. "Oh, for so many years he has been trying. We wanted him to go to college, but no, it was music, music, music. That's all he ever cared about. He was already playing the violin when he was five years old. He told us he wanted to play an instrument and he decided on the violin, all by himself.
    "He studied for a very short while but lost interest and then it was the guitar he wanted. So," she shrugged her shoulders, her eyes just a little teary, "we bought him a guitar. We wanted to give him lessons but he said, 'I'll get it by myself.'
    "He taught himself everything. He started writing music and lyrics for the guitar when he was six. I used to worry because he would lie on his bed all day--all day long--and write and sing to his guitar. I would say, 'Why don't you go out on the street and play?' But no, he wanted only to stay with his music. I told him I would take him to Dick Haymes' mother. I heard she was a good vocal coach. He wouldn't hear of it. No. He didn't want to study anything with anyone.
    "He was always a very considerate child. He would read the papers, looking for bargains on guitars; he bought one after the other. And sheet music and records! He would sit and listen to records, to the radio-wherever there was singing, he was listening. You don't know! He was thirsty all the time, you understand? Thirsty for more and more music...a very unusual child.
    "I made a lot of mistakes with him. It isn't easy to always know what to do. Once, when he was about seven, he had a job in the neighborhood as a delivery boy for a drugstore. When I found out, I stopped him. I wouldn't let him earn money as a child. I didn't understand then that he wanted to buy things with his own money. I was wrong, but I refused to 1et him work. Now I realize a child should do such things to give him self-reliance." She nodded her head profoundly, "Yes, I made a lot of mistakes..."
    "You see," Mr. Khaury explained, "we were not youngsters when we married and ... well, we wanted our son to have the best. The things we didn't have as children. I guess sometimes we tried too hard."
    "He used to love to play baseball," Mrs. Khaury went on, a big smile growing as the hour-glass of time was turned upside down. "Even today that's his favorite sport. The Dodgers, he loves them! When he watches them from that TV set over there, you should see him when they win. He shouts and gets so excited. I never saw anything like it. But, as I was saying, he used to play baseball with the children and if they saw anybody trying to start a fight with him they would all take his part. He was a very gentle boy and the children seemed to understand him. I didn't. I used to say to him, 'In this world, sometimes you have to stand up for your rights.' No, he didn't believe in fighting. He wasn't a coward-just good. I never knew anyone so good. You know, it's on the streets that children learn slang but I never, never heard him say a bad word or lose his temper in my life." She threw up her, hands, her eyes aglow with amazement at this saint-of-a-son.
    "As he grew older, I didn't like some of the friends he brought home because they would try to make him bad and I would tell him so. He would say, 'Mother, there is no bad and good. There is only good.' He didn't learn anything from them, but they learned plenty from him! I'm not a braggart, but even his teachers at school would tell me, 'I've never seen such a child. Everybody loves him.' The teachers were always giving him gifts, books mostly. He was very bright, very unusual.
    "We never pushed our religious faiths on him. We let him decide for himself. He would go to synagogue with me one day and the Catholic church the next day with his father. He finally decided, when he was about 13, that "There is One God for all." He doesn't attend any church but follows the teachings of the Bible. He carries one with him wherever he goes."
    Tiny Tims's deep spiritual life is not so strangeconsidering his parents' background. Butros Khaury was born in Lebanon and came to this country alone, as a young man in 1913. He is a grandson of a priest, the nephew of a priest, and the brother of a priest. Mrs. Khaury's father was a Talmudic student-a devout Jew-a Shaychud. In this country he would be like a rabbi.
    "I always taught him to obey the Ten Commandments," Papa Khaury said. "That is the rule of life," I would tell him, "you have to obey. If you do harm to other people you do harm to yourself. It always comes back to you. Not that I had to teach him this, you understand? I explained the Bible to him as best I could. He would ask me questions and we would talk."
    Tiny Tim is a phenomenon. A child born with a pure soul, and born a vegetarian. He has never eaten meat or eggs in his life.
    "I couldn't get him to eat either one no matter how I disguised it," said Mrs. K. "When he was taking a bottle I would mix the yolk of an egg in the milk. But he would recognize it and he wouldn't take the bottle. I couldn't trick him into eating any kind of baby food that had meat mixed in it. I loved him and wanted him healthy. I worried about him-oh, how I worried that he would get sick. But it didn't hurt him any. He has never been sick a day in his life-never even had a cold. He had the usual baby sicknesses like measles, mumps, and once he had appendicitis. That's the only time he's ever been in a hospital. He loved big salads, or used to. Sometimes maybe he would have tuna fish and he drank a lot of milk, though lately he doesn't even want that.
    "He has never taken medicine, not even aspirin. If he ever had a headache I would offer him an aspirin. 'No, I'll make it go away.'" She shrugged, still puzzled at the strangeness of her son. "I don't know. I don't understand. Sunflower seeds and honey? As long as he's well, I guess it's all right."
    According to the Khaurys, Herbie was singing in bars ("dumps," as his mother called them-and they were) since he was twelve years old. Carl Deane, Artist Relations Manager for Warner Brothers East Coast record company, says, "TT used to hope they would throw money instead of punches."
    After all the years of being tossed out of bars, it is incredible that Tiny Tim has remained a truly pure spirit. He has never acquired any of the night life vices such as smoking or drinking. Butros Khaury laughed at my question as to whether TT had ever indulged. "Every now and then I would have a little schnapps and he would say, Quit it, throw the bottle away.'" To their knowledge he has never even tasted it.
    No matter who you talk to that knows him, they all agree that here in this ungainly body is the nearest thing to soul we have on the scene.
    When asked what their relatives and friends think of their now-famous son Mrs. Khaury laughed, perhaps just a little bit cynically, "Oh, now they're very excited, but before they didn't think much of him. All my nephews went to college except him. Harold Stein, his best friend and cousin, is today a very successful television script writer. Some became lawyers, you know, executives..."
    Mr. K. interrupted, "If you don't make it, people don't know you. If you make it they hooray you."
    He went on to explain how he tried to get Herbie interested in the antique shop he once operated on E. 88th Street near Lexington Avenue. "But the boy didn't like working in the store," he said, disappointedly.
    Because TT showed no interest, Mr. Khaury sold the place and retired. But as a hobby, he still collects antique pocket watches and repairs them. He proudly showed us some of his restorations.
    "For all those years when he didn't get paid, or if he did it was yery little, he used to tell us, 'You'll see. Someday I'll put you in a penthouse!' How do you like that?" Mrs. Khaury beamed with pride. "I just can't believe it has finally happened for him." A quizzical look settled over her pleasant face, "I don't understand. Why do they think so much of him with his long hair? I told him, 'Nobody has hair so long as yours.' And every time he comes home with his manager, I say, 'Couldn't you cut a little bit off?' Once, when he was singing for practically nothing, some manager told him to cut off his hair. He did and I'll never forget it. He came home from the barber shop crying. He said he would never listen to anyone again about his hair. He was lost-he wasn't himself for days. And, he never did cut it again. Not even a little bit!" she laughed. "All right," she wagged her head from side to side, "I don't like the long hair, but he's a good boy. He's a good son and very generous now that he can afford to be."
    "I don't know of anyone as kind and thoughtful as he is," Tiny's silver-haired father said. "He's different from most people I know, but as he always told us, 'I'm an individual. This is the way I want to be.' Now, a lot of people are wearing their hair like his. Hippie? I don't know what it means..."
    "I can't understand, I tell you the truth," Mother Khaury interjected, "but he has something by nature. It just took us a long time to realize."
    It took a long time for everyone to realize. As Carl Deane told us, "Tiny Tim truly believes in himself, in being an individual. God gave him a voice and he wants to share it-to entertain people. His philosophy is simple: To live a clean, wholesome life; to find good in everyone. I've never heard him knock anybody, ever. He's a true hippie and has been since long before anyone ever heard of the word."
    The one anti-hippie thing about Tiny is his belief in cleanliness, outside as well as inside. He proves it by taking more showers a day than any living person. Clean in mind and body, pure in heart, this skeletal, hawk-nosed man is beautiful to millions.
    That is, once you stand still long enough to look, to see his soul beyond that face, the get-ups he wears and the unexpected manner. As you watch him whip out his uke from the tired shopping bag and begin to pluck the strings, you know you're being turned on ... and you receive! Receive what? You wait, listen, watch. Suddenly it hits you and you want to say thank you. But thanks for what? Then you know-thanks for love, free of charge. And plenty of it.
    LOVE! That's what Tiny Tim is all about!