Readers Report
What wonderful, wonderful memories this site stirs! I don't always know the specific streets or restaurants or theaters some East NYers or Bushwickites mention, but then again they might be unfamiliar with mine. What is common to all, however, is that remarkable sense of special times in a special place. I thought I knew all the street games—stickball, punchball, stoopball, curbball, hit-the-penny, johny-on-the-pony, etc., but can anyone tell me what "scullys" or "skelly" was? Was that the game we played with old cigar boxes with small openings, each with a different value, that we'd try to roll marbles into from the opposite side of the street? I can't remember what we called it on Lenox Road. And no one has mentioned mumbldy-peg. We'd drive a wood match into a patch of dirt, mark off a square (or circle?) around it and then take turns flipping an open pen knife. Wherever the knife landed—the blade had to penetrate the ground and hold—and you'd cut a line to the borders. That segment was then erased. The next player flipped the knife and, if it stuck, he excised still more of the square. And so on and so on, until all that was left was the tiniest bit of dirt around the match. And if you happened to be the last boy who couldn't flip the knife inside that little plot, you got to dig the matchstick out of the ground—with your teeth. God how I hated that game—and the taste of dirt! Anyone else from Lenox Road, between Bedford-Rogers or even between Flatbush-Nostrand, reading these great vignettes? Brooklyn Forever!
Born Liberty Hosp. 11-1930 Brownsville. Lived at 413 Powell St. Around the corner from Murder Inc. (Livonia Ave.) A corned beef on club was only 10 cents. Spent a lot of time corner of Powell & Riverdale. Attended P.S. 109 with Red Kotin. Was drafted into USMC. Worked in garment center. Been living in California. Forgot to mention we played a lot of punchball, handball at Sackman St. park. I'm very lucky to have had the childhood we had then. It was colorful, exciting, fun, hard and wouldn't trade it for a million bucks. Every body got along—Italians, Poles, Blacks, Jews and you name it! Love to you all.
My Brooklyn was Brownsville—Park Place (Howard & Saratoga Aves.) I am an alumnus of P.S. 144, J.H.S. 178 and Boys High School (gym leader). Boy Scout Troop #264 at the H.E.S. on Hopkinson Ave. My second home was Fanny's Candy Store and an unforgettable gang of Bums! And our ten-couch club room on Rockaway Parkway (just north of Church Ave.). The Eastern Parkway Skating Rink—skate with the pretty girls during the day and watch great fights in the night. Brighton Beach Bay 7, 4, & 2. On hot summer days, my roof on certain hot summer nights. Pitkin Ave. anytime (from the Pitkin Theatre to Kishka King—the greatest 10¢ foot-long kosher hot dog in the world). Eastern (pick-up) Parkway (from Howard to Utica Ave.). The high bar and softball in Lincoln Terrace Park. Daredevil snowsledding down Buffalo Ave. (from Eastern Parkway down to East New York Ave.). Hitching the electric trolley down Rockaway Ave. to Canarsie. Biking to Prospect Park. Skating to the Library on Utica and Eastern Parkway. The great Italian Feasts near Fulton & Rockaway Aves. Vincent's Pizza in the cellar below the pool hall on St. Johns Place across from the Palace Theatre. Punchball, stickball, square,triangle, off the wall, three feet off, follow the leader, kick the can, jumping the fire hydrant (no hands), climbing the lamppost (to the top), roasting Mickies in Rooney's lot, climbing the infamous abandoned concrete structure near the abandoned lumber yard between Park & Sterling, the last car on the Cyclone with no hands all the way.
More to come . . .
Readers' reports continue . . .
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