My Brooklyn (253)

Allan

Too many memories. Post war babies growing up in a tight neighborhood. I can reel off names but won't. Punchball, stickball, kick the can, off-the-wall, "roof it," anything and everything to do with the famous Spaulding or "pinkie." Weekends watching handball, basketball (Connie Hawkins, Lew Alcinder, Roger Brown, et al.) at Lincoln Terrace Park or going to the Carroll Theater for movies and cartoons. 1672 Union St. P.S. 167 ('59), Wingate H.S. and then Erasmus Hall (class '63). Anyone familiar with above feel free to contact me.

10 April 2000

Cary Shulman

I was born in Bklyn. in 1955—Rutland Rd. was my first stop. Can remember little except pickles in a barrel for 5 cents apiece and crowded sunny streets. Then to Linden Houses, 270 Wortman Ave., while my grandfather moved to 48 St. Pauls—a studio apt. was for him until even now on Roosevelt Island at 95. My other grandparents were on 46th in Williamsburg until the end—same apartment with the awesome and ominous lobby of stone, 4th floor walk-up of black and white hexagon tiles and marble treads. Huge plants, cuckoo clock and summers at Far Rockaway for him (and me sometimes) which seem like a hundred years ago to me and I am just passing my 45th birthday this month. How about "skelly" with the bottle caps filled with melted crayons played around a chalked field on the blacktop in "the circle"—a poor kid's croquet. Or "kick the can" for the older guys, a serious game. P.S. 190 and 115 in Canarsie a little later then Bildersee J.H.S. 68 7th and half of 8th grade "S.P." which I wasn't cut out for. Lots of friends in those 13 years in Bklyn—I remember them from four years old until my thirteenth birthday and I made plenty, but don't know where they've all gone now.

11 April 2000