Readers Report
I was born in Brooklyn Jewish Hospital in 1957. Lived at 356 St. John's Place 1957-1967. It was between Underhill and Washington, a 4-room apartment on the top floor of a 4-story walkup. We moved to 175 Eastern Parkway in 1967 (corner of Washington), which was a nice bulding with an elevator and a big marble foyer and doctors' offices on the first floor. It was across the street from the Brooklyn Museum and the Botanic Gardens.
I went to P.S. 9 (1962-69), I.S.320, Berkeley, then graduated John Jay in 1974.
I left Brooklyn in 1974, my parents left in 1980 so I don't get back much. But I went there recently to show my son where mommy grew up. I don't think he understood, being only 6 and living in the lush suburbia of Westford, Mass.
Some of my Brooklyn Memories:
Herman's luncheonette on Underhill Ave—ice cream in small, metal dishes, malteds poured from metal tumblers into tall glasses, the juke box in the back where the high school kids sat, the Schrafft's candy in the display case. Twirling around on the swivel chairs at the counter, triple ice cream cones (the cones really had triple heads).
Harry's candy store, two stores down from from Hermans, with all the cool toys in the window, and if you wanted something you told Harry and he unlatched the plywood door to the window, crawled in, and pointed to the toys while you stood on the sidewalk trying to show him which one you wanted. And the comic book corner where we'd read Archie comics until we were forced to buy one or get out.
Associated grocery store, on the corner on St. John's and Underhill, where we would play hide and seek behind the stacked cases of empty Coke bottles until we were yelled at to leave.
Ruder's department store on Washington Ave., with a big table of little 10-cent toys, and ladies underwear and gloves in boxes behind the counter, and the hardware section in the back where I went with my father.
Guider Park, in the triangle between Eastern Parkway, Classon Ave. and Washington Ave, where we rode bikes and played punchball.
Cherry Lane in the Botanic Gardens, sitting on blankets playing on the grass. When we got older we'd fish the pennies out of the fountain, or catch snails in the brooks and put them in peanut butter jars where they'd always die.
The swing park (between the gardens and the public library), never knew its name, but it had swings so it was the swing park. There were sprinkers that the park man would turn on in the summer, and sometimes he'd let us into his little park man building to play with the toys and games that were in there.
Storytime at the public library, in the garden next to the children's room.
Treasure hunts at the Museum on Saturday afternoons.
Chocolate pudding at the museum cafeteria before they turned it into a Nathans. And the big party they had when it became Nathans, and all of the prices were from 1905 so we ate 10-cent hotdogs all night.
The Zoo in Prospect Park, with the carousel. Once I kicked the man who ran it because he told me to wear the belt but I thought that was babyish and he told me to get off, so I kicked him. My parents would buy me a balloon at the zoo sometimes, but never one of the cool ones with a mouse balloon inside because they cost a quarter. And the bathrooms at the zoo had little kid toilets that weren't in stalls but nobody ever used them because they were right out there in the open.
Gardening classes at the gardens, where I grew radishes and lettuce and probably more but I don't remember. And art classes at the Museum where I always drew horses. And ceramics classes after school at the Museum.
Playing punchball or handball and losing the Spaldeen ball and it would roll down the street and through some dog poop and you'd have to roll it on the ground with your foot to clean it off.
My mother would hang the wash to dry on the roof on St. John's Place and I would climb over the dividers between the buildings and look out onto the street through the railings at the front, and in the summer I could melt crayons up there. Also in the summer my father would carry a table and chairs and food up there and we'd eat dinner outside.
Graduation at P.S. 9, 1969, singing "What the World Needs Now" and the alma mater " . . . P.S. 9 our alma mater, We will long remember thee".
The Good Humor man... the ones that pushed the green hand carts through the park. The old trucks where the driver would get out and open those heavy little doors on the sides and back of the truck. One of them even let us sit in the cab and ring the bells once. The newer trucks when I lived on Eastern Parkway, the sign inside said "Hi! My name is Hy."
Getting pushed in my stroller to see the plane crash on 7th Ave. December 1960. I don't remember seeing the plane, but I remember crying because my mother wouldn't buy me a candybar on the way there.
I miss Brooklyn. Sometimes I have dreams where the whole neighboorhood is back the way it was and I'm sitting in Hermans having a soda. Then I wake up and I'm back in Westford. Nobody believes me when I say that there were things about growing up in Brooklyn that were better than the suburbs. Like public parks and stores that you could actually walk to, and neighborhood stores run by people who actually knew you.
I have a really nice garden now and people will compliment me on it and ask how someone from the city knows how to do that stuff, and I tell them that I grew up in the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens and this is just my little piece of it.
If any of this is familiar to you, please get in touch.
20 August 1997
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