Readers Report
Walking out of the house on East 3rd Street and breathing the air from those big old maple trees. The same trees that dropped the pods that could open and produced their own glue to put on your nose. Going to Avenue U and East 4th Street for a lemon ice in LoBasso or Tommy's Sweet Shop for his famous egg creams. Visiting Doc at the corner pharmacy when we needed a butterfly stitch or two. Bike riding down to Coney Island, Shore Road, Marine Park and of course everyday to Kingsborough. Schooldays at P.S. 215, Boody (where I will never forget Mr. Goldstein) and Lincoln. And finally the unforgotten memories of blowing up the Avenue on the 4th of July while music blasted out of Rudy's television store.
Bushwick . . .
My Bushwick is more my mother's Bushwick. My Mom was Phyllis DiGiovanna and lived on Hart St., between Knickerbocker Ave. and Wilson Ave. She went to St. Angela Hall Academy and St. Patron elementary school on Suydam St. My great grandfather was Luigi DiGiovanna, from Menfi, Sicily, and he owned the Regina Grocery store, on Wilson Ave. Across the Street was the Bonsignore Funeral home, owned by our cousins. Also from that neighborhood was my great grandfather, Leonardo Giovinco's barber shop on Seneca Ave. Leonardo's wife was Vita Liotta. We had Abruzzo relatives on Central Ave. and Buscemi cousins there as well. Rosa Brucia ring a bell? I know this area only by returning every so often to visit graves and to buy granita, or lemon ice from Chirco's bakery on Knickerbocker Ave. Now my Mom's Bushwick, that she left in 1968 at age 22, is not there despite the church that her grandparents built is as well as the apts. that her family owned. If anyone recognizes my family, let me know. My grandmother had two sisters, Rita Giovinco Abbate on Schaffer St., and Lee Giovinco Kraus on Irving Ave., next to their aunt Nini Ingrassia. Ciao!
BROOKLYN, FLATBUSH. It's just the the place where I was raised, and me Yary thinkin' about going back pretty soon because I miss it. I moved from Brooklyn for a reason--too much shooting, too many gangs, too many fights at the alley everyday. That is the only reason my mother made me move. I was raised up north, and I miss so much. The only reason parents said they wouldn't move back because of all the problems. I would like to move up to Jersey someday pretty soon. Florida is terrible. Plus I can't do much down here but just chill with morenos and blancos. I need to go back up north to see my homeboy, my girls. I will always be representin' NY. NY STATE OF MIND. Representin' Brooklyn for life. Where my katz at up north hit me with a message. Love to all my boriquas, cubanos, dominicanos, and crewsions. Peace.
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