Readers Report
My Brooklyn . . . is a faraway land in a place from long, long ago, where there were no gardens or mountains, just sidewalks and buildings. That's what my Brooklyn was. Hopkinson Avenue, in Brownsville, just off the corner of Pitkin Avenue. Where I spent so many childhood hours window-shopping at the many, many stores. I couldn't wait to grow up and have money to shop in each and every one of them. My block was my Brooklyn. Where we all went to the school down the block, only one street to cross, and where we all were in the same classes from Kindergarten to sixth grade. Where we knew our many neighbors, where the grocery down the block closed before sundown on Friday night and reopened in time for us to get ice cream on a hot Saturday, after the sun went down. Where our mothers called us from the windows that faced the alleys. Where our stoops were our patios, and the rooftops were our playgrounds. Hearing the mixture of Yiddish, Polish and other European languages. Hopscotch and potsy grids on the sidewalks. Pushcarts being rolled down the street, by little old men, selling anything you could ever dream of. The candy store across the street, where my pennies bought candy to last a week. My Brooklyn was like one big happy family. And no matter where I go, whatever part of the United States, people still know of my heritage. I still have that Brooklyn talk, that Brooklyn walk, and that special attitude that Brooklyn was all about.
24 March 1999
Dorchester Rd. between Flatbush Ave. & E 21st St. . . . what a place! Mr. Rubin's grocery, Hymie's Candy Store, bike riding to Prospect Park, ignoring the trails and riding through the woods . . . Holy Cross Elementary School, Erasmus (Annex & Main Campus) . . . Flatbush Boys' Club . . . Kings County Cadets . . . the Sullivan brothers (John & Billy, where are you?) . . . LIRR tracks at Brooklyn College . . . Manhattan Beach . . . long subway rides just to see where the train goes . . . Geez, Brooklyn was great growing up in the 50s and 60s. . . . Graduated from EHHS in '65, joined the Marines, saw the bigger world, retired to civilian life, settled in No Virginia . . . not quite country, but not quite city either. If I had it to do all over again, would probably do everything the same (almost). You can take the boy out of Brooklyn, but can't take Brooklyn out of the boy! Thanks for the memories!
23 March 1999
I lived in Greenpoint from the time my family moved there from Flushing in 1945 (when I was 10 months) until I was 16 in the very early 1960s. For years I went back to see family, hang out with friends, go to wakes, see the dentist, Dr. Sterinbach on Manhattan Avenue near Greenpoint Avenue who drilled my teeth from the time I was a little kid until he retired sometime in the 1970s. I went to St. Anthony of Padua grammar school. To this day I go back from time to time just on a sentimental journey. I was a junior Brother in the late '50s along with my best friend Dennis Wynn (RIP since 1994), Artie Leistman, Dennis McComb and so many others. Nice to see so little has changed. It was a solid place when I was a kid. Still is.
28 March 1999
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