Readers Report
Oh yes, B'klyn, I remember it well. The best years of my life are there, Coney Island, Steeplechase, Nathan's, punch ball, hand ball, skulley, skating in the streets, pizza (15 cents a slice),the subways with no fear (also 15 cents). I now live in upstate NY past Albany, but always think of the good old days of Brooklyn. Yes, I too am guilty of leaving such a great place, as I read all 291 pages of this site, and can also share in its magic.
I went to P.S. 217, Montauk J.H.S. and David A. Boody (I am staring at my sixth grade 1964-65 class picture, teacher's name Miss Starr.) I will never forget the day in class when the news hit of JFK being shot and Miss Starr ran out of the room crying. We were shortly told to go home for the day. . . . I would love to know whatever happened to the people I went to P.S. 217 with and the people of Webster Ave. I lived at 171 Webster Ave. Looking for Elizabeth Rosak and April Knorr and Alice and Beverly. Please write me if you are or know of their whereabouts. If anyone out there has pictures of P.S. 217 and Webster, I would love to see them.
1951—We came to live in the Quonset huts on Rockaway and the Belt Parkway. This was the last stop for the number 42 trolley which ran those tremendous Peter Witt street cars and those beautiful long green streamlined trolley cars. This area at Canarsie Pier was always busy when the weather was nice because it offered a swell place to fish, either from the pier or out on the bay by boats, available for a small sum. If my mind serves me right, back in the early 1950s the mall boats (seating 25 to 50) charged fifty cents to Coney Island or to the Rockaways (Playland or beach). People also just bathed or played games provided by the park service. At the snack counter, 2 franks and a coke for 2 bits! Those were the days of the housing project boom - so we had to leave our hut (put up during the war, mainly for returning veterans and their families). We moved into the Brownsville Houses about three miles across Rockaway Pkwy/Avenue, and closer to central Brooklyn and all of the stores and shopping which Canarsie lacked. Brownsville was a large ethnic community with Jewish, African American, and Italians all living throughout the neighborhood. Pitkin Avenue was the shopping mecca and for a boy, a wonderland of toy, candy stores, and the movies. The Palace theater 3 movies and 10 cartoons for 25 cents, The Loew's Pitkin was the grandest place on earth huge outside an it seemed twice as big inside with its three balconies and box seating dotting the walls on high. With a deep blue sky and twinkling constellation of stars it offered two of the latest pictures and a newsreel and serial (Batman or Superman) all for 50 cents. The stores all stayed open till 9 or 10 for window shopping and big heavy gates did not exist. That all came after the blackouts and riots of the late 1960s. I still live in my neighborhood and love it.
Farragut Pool, The Little Flower, Albany Ave., Midwood High, the Brooklyn Public Library, Deborah Dichario, John Gennerella, Don Reese, Joe Russo, Steven Walcott . . . the places I saw, the friends I loved. E-mail welcomed.
Readers' reports continue . . .
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