Readers Report
My Brooklyn is canoeing into the inlets off of Jamaica Bay, jam car racing at Floyd Bennett Field, hanging out on the Gil Hodges Bridge at midsummer, and getting all that natural air conditioning.
My Brooklyn is best experienced on a 10-speed, starting in Canarsie at 7:30 going through Flatlands, Borough Park, then the Slope and onto the Bridge by 8:15 just as the borough is getting to work.
3 May 1999
I am a Bensonhurst Brooklynite, and we grew up in Brooklyn all my life also our family generation too! Since 1995 last time I visited my parents lived in apts on 85th St. When I walked on 18th Ave. about two blocks past on street and I saw the New Utrecht Reformed Church on Eighteenth Ave. and Eighty-Third Street. It's really old built and worn out things also missing on the top church cross with white colors I remember since I was kid. What happens to do now? I saw on sign for church service their different foreign language? I tell you that this is histrionic church! dates back to 1677 was the first settled by Dutch colonies was until the 1890s the town of New Utrecht. The present building, a meetinghouse, was built in 1828, with stone from the older church, built about 1700. I saw white pole with worn out peel off never paint on it? The Liberty Pole in front of the building is the last remaining on Long Island, and the fourth (1910) on this spot since 1783. I hope this histrionic church keep the future! Our children will visit that I will show them this my hometown!
I now live in Independence, MO. Funny thing, I drove on I-70 Highway near downtown Kansas City I saw the sign on exit. It was named Brooklyn Ave. Sigh! I miss a lot with Nathan's (the original Coney Island), bagels, pizza slice, Italian ice, deli, bakery with fresh Italian bread, subways ride, old friends, our neighborhood, our guys chased with rival the gypsies just corner street, biking near shore on Bay Parkway, playing stickball, handball, bottle cap games, flipping baseball card for trading, football in the streets. It make you feel that all was good with the world. Brooklyn was the best world! Brooklyn will always hold a special place in my heart. Thanks for the memory!
6 May 1999
I lived at 1159 President St. (between Nostrand and Bedford Ave.) from 1956 to 1965. I attended P.S. 161 and Lefferts J.H.S. These were great times to live in Crown Heights and President St. was the best block in the neighborhood. We would hang out on a building stoop or at the corner candy store (owned by Sam & Ester) and drink Coke which was kept cold in a large ice bin. Do you remember stick ball, roller skates with "keys," egg creams and stick pretzels, cream soda? On hot summer days the building super would spray us with a garden hose and in the evening our parents would bring chairs down and relax in front of the building or under a tree while we waited for the Good Humor truck so we could get an ice cream for a dime. And at night we would sleep out on the fire escape to keep cool. On Saturday afternoons we would go to the Loew's on Eastern Parkway or the Savoy and see two shows and cartoons for twenty-five cents. Sometimes the movie stars would appear live on stage and the theater would hand out special finger rings to all the kids. But the most fun was tormenting the matrons who policed the isles with there flash lights picking out the talkers and popcorn throwers.
7 May 1999
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