My Brooklyn

Readers Report


Phil Sills

"You had to be there," that's what I usually tell people when I attempt to explain what it was like growing up in Brooklyn. No matter what I say or how I say it, my stories have no substance unless you were a Brooklynite growing up in the 40'and 50s . . . and from reviewing the other touching memories listed within "My Brooklyn" many others feel the same way as I do.

Like pollen we've scattered to all corners of the earth but no matter where we landed, we carried a part of Brooklyn in our hearts and minds. We share these nostalgic memories with those we love trying to give them a sense of a community of immigrants who during and after the worlds most horrific, unimaginable slaughter in human history lived together, laughed together, played together, danced and sang together, and loved one another. I wish there were more Brooklynites, possibly the world would be a better place to live in. I wish all my fellow Brooklynites what my mother always said, "May you live as long as you want and never want as long as you live."

2 February 1999


Gail Lanpher

What a treat to discover this site! What is it about Brooklyn? It never leaves you, no matter where you go!

My Brooklyn was East 25th Street between Clarendon Road and Avenue D, from 1954-1972. I lived in a brownstone house surrounded by tall beautiful leafy trees. As do all good Brooklynites, I remember the food: a slice of pizza and a coke for a quarter at Angelo's on Flatbush Avenue (he was a great guy), Blackout cake and old fashioned layer from Ebinger's bakery, ice cream sundaes at Fulton's, and jelly apples, rootbeer in frosted mugs, frozen Milky Ways, and penny candy from the local corner stores. There were games of stoop ball with our "Spaldeens"—a fresh one was always so satisfying. Skating on those annoying metal skates with the skate keys, playing hopscotch with a rock using the pavement squares, and dancing to the Supremes on our transistor radios on hot summer nights. Fireflies. The Blackout. Brighton Beach. Ring a leevio (or Co-Co Colevio). The public library on Nostrand Avenue on a rainy afternoon with my mother, and a delicious strawberry malted afterwards. So many memories—thank you everyone, for providing me with more.

2 February 1999


Bob DiGiulio

I am Roger Maris; it is 1961 and I smell the pavement on Clara Street in Boro Park. My Dad is still depressed about the Dodgers leaving; the Yanks are the only team on tv & radio. Somebody's Emerson portable is blasting out Red Barber, Mel Allen & Phil Rizzuto as we play stickball, calling "Time" when a car comes by. Hit the Spaldeen onto the roof? Pay up: 25 cents chips on the ball.

Maris, then Mantle belt one. I, then Mike belt one, too, touch the sewer cover (2nd base) as I go into my home run trot. "Showoff," they shout. No stickball team at Bishop Ford High School, but a neighborhood filled with kids to play with. We learned how to get along; no adults imposing "little league" rules. I hit hundreds of homers each summer, and learned how to talk, negotiate, argue, swear, and be fair to others, avoiding the dreaded penalty of not being chosen in.

How I miss Brooklyn. I see it; I smell it.

3 February 1999


Readers' reports continue . . .

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