Readers Report
Tearful Memories
My Brooklyn really wouldn't be complete with out the Brooklyn from my parents. A time and place that is suspended in time in my mind. Brownsville and East NY. Long walks down Eastern Parkway and taking the train without fear. Everyone was as good as the other and all were immigrants from somewhere. Listening to my mom telling me about a place called the Chocolate Shop for her first date. Off Sutter Ave. People selling fruit and wares in the street. Flatbush in the 60s didn't compare to the days of my parents. Murder Inc. ruled certain areas but for the most part only hurt themselves. My mom told of stories getting off the train at 1 a.m. and no one would bother her because of the neighborhood people. Pitkin Ave. was the mall of the day. Things my kids could never understand. Stories how my grandparents would keep moving closer and closer to the school so my mom wouldn't have to cross as many streets. Fire escapes were the air conditioning of the day and the beach was the roof (Tar Beach). Coney Island was a family place and the beaches were clean. The movie theaters were places of luxury and no one ever thought of defacing them. My Brooklyn changed very slightly but now the memories of the Brooklyn past is now gone. Area are drug ridden and crime is the norm. It hurts to go back to see the difference and see the places that kept such memories in your heart are now destroyed. So I try to remember more than what is and keep those memories alive. Telling stories handed down by grandparents and family. Things always change I guess and we must accept this. A tear comes to my eye when I think of the things we did and the friends I made. The lessons taught by the greatest teacher of all—BROOKLYN.
I am a former Brooklynite (1st Place between Henry and Clinton Sts). I lived there from 1962 until 1975.
I've been trying to track down a confection that's used in the making something called "Jelly Apples." Louie's candy store (Henry St. between 1st Place and Carroll St.) used to make them in the fall. Essentially, apples on a stick were dipped to order in this hot confection. It was red, sweet and the consistency was something between a jelly and a syrup. You had to wait for the apples to cool and the jelly to set a bit before eating it (most of us would lick the jelly off and throw the apple away). In order for the hot jelly to not drip on your hand, you'd walk down the street maneuvering the apple in some sort of figure eight motion to cool the stuff off and prevent it from sliding off the apple.
I remember the stuff coming in a box. Louie used to keep the boxes on the counter.
I hope you or your reader can help me.
My Brooklyn was South Brooklyn. Teeming with immigrant families from Italy, Ireland and the Scandinavian countries. When the new UN building opened up, we considered it to be a hotel full of our ancestral countrymen come to visit. It was baseball at Ebbets Field, strolling through Prospect Park, stick ball and stoop ball games and a first-class high school education at Brooklyn Tech. It was playing and watching Soccer Football at 8th Avenue and 65th Street in Bay Ridge. I left in 1957 when I joined the Navy and never looked back. But, I'm hoping to visit in June and attend the home opener of the first professional baseball team to play in the Borough since the Dodgers left.
Readers' reports continue . . .
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