Readers Report
My Brooklyn was Bay Ridge. My world was 60th and 61st Streets near 4th Ave. It was the 1960s. In the summer the hydrants would be turned on and we would run through the sprinklers wearing our bathing suits and flip flops.
We played stickball in the summer and stoopball all year round. My buddies Oscar, Eddie, Tommy, Bobby, Seymor and I would laugh as we told stories on while we sat on the front stoop of my apartment building on 61st Street.
If a lady came by with a package one of us would carry it up to the apt for her. We wouldn't take anything either. If I had 3 cents I'd buy a seltzer at Sam's Ice Cream Parlor. If I had five cents I'd get a large one. If I had a dime, (which I rarely did), I'd get an egg cream.
I loved Bay Ridge and the people who lived there. My neighbors were mostly Irish and Italian. There were Germans, Swedes, Puerto Ricans and other a few Greeks. People got along well. They kidded each other and learned about each others ways. We were mostly Catholics. We went to OLPH on sunday. Some of my friends went to school there. I was in public school. I got straight A's at P.S. 140. I loved school. Mrs. Costello was my 2nd grade teacher.
I left Brooklyn for "a better life" as many people did over the years. I didn't leave my memories there. I still have them. I still cherish them.
27 June 1999
I grew up in Flatbush, down by the Junction, in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Beginning around April many of the kids in my school, St. Jeromes, began to think about the summer and the summer meant Farragut Pool. Some of us were day trippers some of us had the coveted "Pass." Those holding a "Pass" shared a half locker, top or bottom, with as many friends as possible. The more people in the locker the lower the price per person. Oh, I knew some of the people who had Cabanas (walk in lockers), but most of my close friends were crammed into smaller metal worlds, as was I.
I can walk nearly every step of Farragut Pool, from the Men's Room showers looking up to the sky, to the snack bar with its heavy smell of frying oil. I can hear the crank of the bathing suit wringer and the screen door of the snack bar. I can name several lifeguards and remember conversations under the green awning. My best handball games were on the walls at Farragut Pool, on the smooth side. I remember the refreshing cool water from the refrigerated fountain by the pump house.
Many of us grew up at Farragut Pool. I am surprised that it has been mentioned so few times on the web. Isn't there anyone else who dreams of Farragut Pool?
28 June 1999
MY BROOKLYN was in the Boro Hall section (now known as Brooklyn Heights). I lived at 191 Amity Street between Court and Clinton in the 40s and 50s. Went to P.S. 78 (which is now an apartment building); junior high was P.S. 29 and Prospect Heights High School, graduating in 1954. We had a rooming house and rented rooms to mostly seamen from Norway and Sweden. I remember going to the Boro Hall theatre on Court Street every Sunday, the Long Island College Bakery on Court Street, Arbeeny's Store on Court Street, where we used to get Syrian bread for 4 cents a loaf (now called pita bread, but much smaller) the ice cream parlor around the corner where we used to get Mexican hat cones (shaped like a mexican hat, with ice cream in the middle and ice on the outside), a gill of ice cream; every night going for the News and Mirror (2 cents each) for my father, bike riding, roller skating (no TV until the early 50s). I have been trying for years to locate old school friends, Sheila Whalen (a redhead from Ireland), Nancy Tsatalos (from Greece) and Nine Velucci who I think lived on 3rd Street. We moved out of Brooklyn in 1958 to Brentwood, Long Island. I worked at Bankers Trust Company, 16 Wall Street. I've been living in PA for over 20 years now. Anything familiar on this page, please email me
29 June 1999
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