Readers Report
My first three years (1953-56) were spent on 19th Street off of 5th Avenue. From '57 to '61 we lived on Bay 17 Street off of Cropsey Avenue. But the Brooklyn I remember is East 65 Street in Mill Basin from '62 to '77. I attended P.S. 236, Roy H. Mann J.H.S., James Madison H.S. ('71), Brooklyn College ('75), and LIU ('80) for my MBA. Unlike most of the previous writers here, my Brooklyn was without tree-lined streets in fifty-plus-year-old neighborhoods. Mill Basin was a sun-drenched area stripped of its trees by the building developers. With private homes and front yards, it was a slice of the suburbs transplanted to the city. Except for a shopping strip and the shops on Avenue N, there was paltry shopping until Kings Plaza opened. At the young age of 12, I was allowed on the buses and began to explore Brooklyn with friends. First Kings Highway, then Church and Flatbush Avenues, Borough Park, and Grand Army Plaza Library and the Brooklyn Museum. From time to time mom and dad would take us to Fortunoffs on Livonia in that other world of Brooklyn that so many of the other writers here know as Brooklyn. But, as for me, the Brooklyn I remember was a newly minted one with freshly planted trees and new homes. I live in the suburbs of Jersey now and have come to realize that favorite spots of the past fade away just as quickly here, if not faster, than those of mine in Brooklyn.
25 November 1999
I lived at 125 E 5th Street between Greenwood Avenue and Fort Hamilton P'kway. I attended Immaculate Heart of Mary Grammar School and was graduated from St. Brendon's Dio. High School in 1954. I married Kenny Lyle and he joined the Navy. We left Brooklyn in November of 1954 and have lived in various states since we left Brooklyn . We now reside in Virginia Beach, Va. We still have relatives in Brooklyn and on Long Island, so we get back still call it "home" at least every two years. No matter where we have lived there is no pizza like Brooklyn's or Bakerie that can match those in Brooklyn. I started going with Ken when I was 14 years old and we have been married for forty-five years. We have five children and thirteen grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Ken is retired, but I still work as the administrator of a child development center for the Government at the Naval Station Oceana. We have located a childhood friend from this website and visited with him and his wife when they visited this past summer. Our childhood, like many of the entries I read, included stickball, ring a leaveo, countries, handball with the real black ball at Prospect Park Playground, which has been replaced with the Prospect Expressway. The house I lived in was torn down, but the other side of the street is still intact. The candy store of my younger years was called Pete's on Greenwood Avenue but as a teen we hung out at one on the corner of 4th Street across from Immaculate Heart of Mary Church. Brooklyn is always where we refer to as our home and its memories are something I have tried to share with my children and grandchildren. I still feel anyone growing up in Brooklyn of my generation definitely has a past to treasure and share.
27 November 1999
Hanging out in Marine Park
Jamaican beef patties
Handball all day long at Brighton Beach
The Cyclone (of course)
6 p.m. Blues from Sheepshead Bay
The Buckley's to Kennedy's run (do they still do that?)
The shark tank at the New York Aquarium
Lots of cold, rainy days
Cutting class on the bleachers at James Madison High
Dirty water dogsMan I hate Arizona
28 November 1999
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