Readers Report
A refugee from the broken heart of the Village lands on Carroll Street in Park Slope. . . . After a few years, the concentration of coffee bars and Aprica strollers gets too dense for comfort, too much like Columbus Avenue. Where to go from here, in search of the next real Brooklyn neighborhood? Around the end of the park, into the world Mary Pickford left behind: Ditmas Park, where the hulking gingerbread houses of the Victorians are now home to West Indians, Pakistanis, Orthodox Jews, schoolteachers, Webmasters. . . .
5 September 1995
True Event:
Three cops standing outside the St. George in the wake of last week's fire. All are talking about the last time they fired their guns. The short, blond one says (in a thick Brooklyn drawl), "Last time I fired my gun there was a French fry stuck in the barrel."
6 September 1995
My Brooklyn centers on Chester Court, one of three dead end blocks between Parkside and Lincoln Road, a world bordered by Flatbush Discount City on Church and Bedford, just up from Jahn's, and the sweet aroma of the Bond Bakery near Eastern Parkway. I grew up there, nourished on Yoohoo and pizza from Sorrento's near Winthrop Street, burgers from Max's on Bedford near P.S. 92, and Aurora models from the Flatbush Hobby Shop near Erasmus. My father was a member of the Flatbush Tigers, a Jewish-Italian gang that hung out near the junction and had very cool reversible jackets made at Friedman's. They held a raffle to pay for the jackets. Funny, nobody ever won the raffle.
In the early sixties, my friend's parents pulled them away to Dobbs Ferry and Scarsdale. They built an apartment complex over Ebbets Field, and another on top of the Patio theater on Flatbush, which used to have a huge goldfish pond in the lobby. They closed the delis and sealed off the alleys where we played Chinese handball. And now I almost never walk the only streets that will ever truly be home.
9 September 1995
Gravesend, West 7th St. between Avenue U and V.
I am offering a seminar on Brooklyn: Fact and Myth as an American Studies course at Colby College next spring and would welcome suggestions for reading, syllabi, or other comments.
20 September 1995
My Brooklyn is Wingate H.S. in the 70s. Wondering what possessed a designer to make this school in the shape of a banjo. Was he a frustrated music major who could not get into Performing Arts? I may never know.
1 October 1995
745 President St. 1967 . . . Walking with baby carriages on 7th Ave. Stopping for an eggcream and shopping, storing groceries all over the baby and carrying it all up to an attic apartment. Love!!!!!! It's a long way from Bedford, In.
4 October 1995
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