My Brooklyn

George Alexander

My Brooklyn was just like all your Brooklyns—the most wonderful place in the world to be born and grow. The "nabe" was Flatbush although some maintain Lenox Rd., between Rogers & Bedford, was really Prospect-Lefferts. Holy Cross Grammar (1948), Brooklyn Prep (1952) and then to The Bronx for Fordham (1956). Brooklyn, for me, was the Rogers, Nostrand and Church Avenue trolleys; the BMT at Parkside, the IRT at Winthrop (there was a deli right at the top of the southbound Winthrop exit owned by a "Henry" who stayed open late at night to accommodate Kings County Hospital workers and where I often got a terrific roast beef sandwich on my way home after a night on the town); a bakery on Rogers, two stores north of Church, where we got the most magnificent crumb cake on Sunday mornings (I can still smell the wonderful aroma of fresh baked goods that washed over you like a tsunami when you opened the door); "Hennie" Rohe's on Rogers & Clarkson, the corner bar where my father stopped every night on his way home from work and where he'd tell the bartender to say "he's not here" when my mother would call to get him home for dinner and where I'd be dispatched 15 minutes later to to deliver this message to him—"Mom says NOW!"; Ebinger's, of course, on Flatbush Ave. and the Woolworths almost next door, where Lenox dead-ended into Flatbush, with the creaky wood flooring and short glass dividers on the display counters (which, even as a small child, you could still reach over to play with the toy cars and soldiers); the very existence of an A&P store on Martense & Rogers (such a smalllll outlet for such a giant chain); the great and not-so-great theaters up and down Flatbush Avenue—Kings, Parkside, the little art cinema next to Erasmus High, Kenmore and, my favorite, the Patio with its exotic Moorish lobby. There were Brooklyn Prep football games on the Brooklyn College field on glorious, sunny crisp autumn Saturdays and The Big Game against St. John's Prep in Ebbets Field on Thanksgiving morning; "Ma" Hayes bar down on—Bedford?—where we'd gather for beers after those football games and neither "Ma" (if she actually existed) nor her help ever asked for proof of age for our 15-cent beers. There was a tiny record store on Flatbush, near Clarkson or Parkside, that went out of business around 1948-1950, at which time I acquired a substantial collection of original, never-been-played! RCA, Okeh and other shellac 78s of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong from the '20s and '30s for 10 cents each—and which my mother threw out in its entirety when I went into the Air Force in 1957 (I still boil at the memory) and so much more. I was a writer for the Los Angeles Times from 1972-1985 and did a story on Brooklyn for the paper's "Going Home" series in 1979-1980. I'll send a photocopy to 1010 President and leave it up to David Neal Miller about whether and how to share it with you all. Of all the stories I wrote during a 28-year career in journalism, none got the response that my Brooklyn piece did. Best To All of You, Brooklynlites.

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