Readers Report
My Brooklyn . . . is one in which I am in search of. I was born May 31, 1970 at Maimonides Medical Center and was brought to Angel Guardian Home one month after my birth. My birthmother is French, 5'6" tall with dyed red hair, blue eyes and a fair freckled complexion. She was married with a son and daughter, who should be in their upper 20s or early 30s. My birthmother was a clerk at an insurance company in the 1970s. The interesting factor includes that both her boyfriend (my father—Italian), was employed at an air conditioning company AND SO WAS MY GRANDFATHER, her dad. Anyhow, I believe my birthmother was born in 1947 or so and should be currently 50 years of age. Please help, as I am so interested in finding out about my Brooklyn heritage. My terrific adoptive family raised me in Maspeth, Queens, however I would like to find my birthmother and siblings. Both of my birthparents are Roman Catholic, as well.
Thanks so much!
Please e-mail me if you can fill in any info. for me.
23 June 1997
I've read your 1010 President Street page. I am the pastor of St. Teresa of Avila Roman Catholic Church on the corner of Classon Avenue and Sterling Place. 563 Sterling Place, 11238, is the address of the Rectory. I believe your address, 1010 President, is in our parish. Perhaps you were a member here. We are celebrating our 125th Anniversary in 1999. It would be wonderful to hear your memories of the parish and of the neighborhood. Do you know that Tom's Restaurant, corner of Washington Ave. and Sterling Place, still exists. It was established in 1936. Please feel free to email me at PNeri@aol.com. Thanks.
I'm sure that Father Pizzo would love to hear from anyone with memories of the church and the neighborhood. (I've written him about St. Teresa's from the point of view of a local Jewish kid who cut Hebrew school to play stickball with the Catholic kids . . . who were also cutting religious school. We were, in our neighborhood of the mid-1950s, the first generation to reach out across the wide gap that had earlier separated ethnic and religious communities whose parents' experiences and values were in many ways so similar.) DNM
24 June 1997
I have many vivid memories of my youth growing up in Brooklyn. Initially I lived in an apartment house in Crown Heights at 1578 Union Street, above the small grocery store that my parents owned facing Troy Avenue. I briefly attended P.S. 167 on Eastern Parkway. At that time my father spearheaded the opening of a huge super market called "King of Kings Highway" at the intersection of Utica Avenue and Kings Highway (where he operated the grocery division). This bold venture during the first years of WWII was way before its time and turned out not to be successful due to the dangerous street crossing at its location and the nature of public transportation available at that time (trolley car). This situation, coupled with the fact that privately owned autos were not in great numbers among the general populace, doomed this project from the start. My family then moved to another apartment building at 1248 St. Marks Avenue after my parents founded the "Kingsboro Food Center" at the corner of St. Marks and Buffalo Avenue, across from St. Mary's Hospital. I attended P.S. 191, 210 (John Marshall J.H.S.) and Tilden H.S. My most fond recollections of that time are of my friends and I spending most of our waking hours playing a variety of sports and games in the streets of Prospect Place and St. Marks Avenue. Most of these games consisted of stickball, chinese handball, stoopball, punchball, triangle (a variation of baseball using the open hand to slap a pitched Spaulding ball rather than a stick or a bat), off the wall, over the irons, etc. With regard to amusing ourselves at play we kids were very creative and clever in making the most of what was available to us. Mostly, I miss the characters I played with in the streets having nicknames such as Tricky, Koot, Mousey, Mucko, Yudl and RahRah. While life appeared much simpler and carefree then, I don't think that I would like a return to those years which were also characterized by many deprivations as well. Upon reflection, those years do however provide a number of very amusing and pleasant remembrances. I moved from Brooklyn in 1956 to attend graduate school and am now living with my wife and family in Potomac, Maryland.
27 June 1997
[ Jump to My Brooklyn, page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368]
Return
to Brooklyn Home Page.