Readers Report
I was born in Brooklyn in '37 and moved to 1048 Union Street, just around the block from 1010 President, before the start of WWII. Was moved to 470 Ocean Avenue—heart of Flatbush—for a few years and then back to 255 Eastern Parkway whence I married and left NYC. While I have made pilgrimages back, even in the early years, one could never go home again.
I also went to P.S. 241 and was in the first of what was called IGOP classes—today known as "gifted" and was selected for the pilot for the first J.H.S. programs to allow some of us to do grades 7-8 and 8-9 all in two years. I attended Winthrop J.H.S. and had to go alone via 2 busses/trolleys and an eight-block walk. All my neighborhood friends went to a nearby school which made me a bit of an outsider until H.S. It also put me a year ahead of my age mates when we attended Erasmus Hall.
I was graduated from Erasmus in '54 and went to Brooklyn College. I wonder if I will ever run into anyone with whom I went to school? The internet may just allow it. I recently was united with a first cousin I don't recall ever meeting before and also with a cousin who was a year ahead of me at EHHS whom I hadn't seen since the early '50s. Three "alta kochas" (I was the baby at 60) and my non-NY "child bride" of 47 gathered for a wonderful afternoon in Manhattan last spring. Running down Franklin Avenue to Ebbets Field, "sneaking" in to the bleachers after school to see the ends of games and watch Jackie and PeeWee, Duke and Gil and Carl et al. My eyes filled with tears when I first saw the "apartments" where Ebbets Field stood. That was the end of an era.
Sledding behind the Museum, "hiking" through Prospect Park, playing stickball and street hockey. Wow.
Teen years included both Flatbush and my return to the Brooklyn Museum area.
While I remember Cookies I think more of Garfield's, Woolfies and hanging out at the intersection of Flatbush and Church and Ellmann's. Of long summer night's walks through the park with my first true love. Brooklyn was a state of mind. Gone with fading memories. I might be too myopic but it seems to me no place has changed more anywhere in the US than has the "sovereign state of Brooklyn" which I claim as my roots.
14 November 1997
Spending a summer day at The Flatbush Boys Club. A Saturday afternoon at Ebbets Field. Sitting with my father and brother in the right field bleachers. Chatting with Carl Farillo and Duke Synder between pitches. Being on TV with Happy Felton's Knot Hole Gang.
Going shopping with my parents downtown and getting a bite at the Automat. I remember watching with amazement at the person making change. My father would give her a dollar bill and she would count out twenty nickles with BOTH hands at once. One dollar usually feed both of us.
I could go on and on, but maybe some other time. . . .
18 November 1997
My Brooklyn was E. 29th Street between Beverly and Tilden. Holy Cross Catholic School and Church on Church Ave, P.S. 181 on New York Ave., P.S. 246 (Walt Whitman) on Veronica Place, Erasmus Hall High School on Flatbush Ave. Hanging out at the old Dutch Church on Flatbush and Church Ave. The two pizza places one on each side of Erasmus Hall. Garfield Restaurant, Prospect Park , Coney Island—the Cyclone and the Wonder Wheel. Great pizza, hot knishes, great delis, Drakes cakes, egg creams, cherry cokes, Italian ice, the clams sold at Sheepshead Bay. The many, many friends. The games we played, the music we listened to. The baseball games on the radio.
But there is one sad note about all this: I never took any pictures of the schools or the hangouts. I guess I thought I would always live there in Brooklyn, but here I sit with the memories but no pictures to look back on. Left brooklyn in 1972 and never returned. Thanks for the memories. And thank you to the person or persons who were nice enough to make this web site.
27 November 1997
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