My Brooklyn

Wayne Chimento

What a great site you have. It's wonderful reading all of these Brooklyn memories. My Brooklyn was Flatbush in the 50s, 60s and 70s. I was born and raised on East 29th Street, between Farragut and Foster Avenues - a wonderful mixture of people, all different yet all the same. I went to St. Jerome's School, class of 1967 and then on to Brooklyn Tech, class of 1971. I fondly remember:

Rocky's Peter Pan ice cream truck (Rocky Vitale); Mike's and Carl's candy store on Foster and Nostrand; Harry's candy store on Nostrand and Farragut. Harry always lied to me and told me that the baseball cards were the new series when in fact they were the old. Thanks Harry wherever you are; Weber's candy store on Nostrand and Newkirk—great egg creams; Land's pharmacy, John's deli—the best hot corned beef sandwiches ever; Sam's barber shop—me and my friends trying to sneak a look at the Playboy magazines but always getting caught; playing handball at the Brooklyn College courts; Schenley's bakery—how about those lines after Sunday Mass; the older women sunbathing on the apartment roof in the summer; the Junction—Star Value City; Mel's Record Rak—bought a lot of 45's there; Trunz—where I sometimes would get the end of the bologna when I was little and cute; the old soda machines where you'd put in a dime and the cup would drop down and you'd get the seltzer water with the fly floating on top (no extra charge for the fly); Hoffman and White Rock soda trucks making deliveries to my best friend Louie Stern; so many old friends, Louie Stern, Craig Putnam, Georgie Obsfield, Tony Antario, John Murtha, Bobby Borch, Frankie Carle, Richie Vogel (too many to name); there were always so many friends in Brooklyn; Stewie Meyer and his group singing do-ops on the corner or sometimes in an alleyway; the Half Moon ride; sewer-to-sewer football; 4-corner slapball; punchball; hit the stick; box ball; stickball; do-overs; hanging out on the stoop on summer nights listening to the Good Guys on the radio; flipping baseball cards; punchball; racing the fire trucks out of the Rogers Avenue Firehouse with our bikes; Cohn's bike shop; horse drawn fruit wagons in the 50s; itchy ball fights; basketball in Foster Park; Anne's Pizzeria; Earl's Discount Store; playing softball on cement fields, diving for balls—were we crazy?; air raid sirens; getting away with the wrong bus transfer. The memories are so many. Flatbush was a great place back then. I think back on it with great fondness and wouldn't trade it for anything..

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