My Brooklyn

Readers Report


Florence Ginter

I well remember hot summer nights when, for a treat, Mother would take us to the "outdoor" movie. This was in the movie house "yard." There was a big screen and we would sit on wooden slat attached chairs. People who lived in the area around the theatre would sit on their fire escapes and watch the movies. The one we went to in the Bushwick section was called The Ridge or the "ridgee" as we used to call it. My aunt said that it was aptly named because at the end of the movie show, we were full of ridges from the chairs.

25 August 2000

Susan

I grew up on E. 18th between Albemarle and Beverly, across the street from Holy Innocence, until I was about 10. We used to play at the "dead end" and we'd ask strange ladies to "cross" us when we were too young to cross the street ourselves. Victor was the Good Humor man— but Bungalow Bar tasted like tar. I remember those rides, the whip, and that other thing my mother wouldn't let me go on, that used to come around and you'd get fake lick-on tattoos as prizes. We had no "play dates" back then, you just "called for" someone. Went to P.S. 139 on Cortelyou Road, then Walt Whitman where tough girls beat up me and my friends on the way home almost every day, and Erasmus ('71). I remember we had no prom I think because we fancied ourselves hippies and that was way too "bourgeois" for us. We moved to Woodruff Avenue between Ocean Avenue and the parade grounds when I was still at 139, so I had to take the subway (QJ) to school. We rode the trains very young in those days—I remember I had to travel to DeKalb Ave. to go to the dentist when I was about 11. Friday nights we hung out at the Caton Center, the boys played basketball and afterwards we danced in the cafeteria. Saturday the girls shopped and had lunch (french fries and a Coke) on "the Avenue." Saturday night we hung out on the church steps and in front of the record store and men's clothing shop (Bert Lou/Bob Rich), smoking Marlboros and flirting with the guys. In winter, Saturday nights we skated at Prospect Park and then went for pizza. Sunday mornings we watched the guys "speed skate." So many memories I forgot all about—"spaldines," egg creams, Chinese handball, Chinese jump rope (made with rubber bands), Italian ices. I think I spent my entire senior year at Erasmus smoking pot and hanging out next door at Chock Full o' Nuts and across the street at Charcoal Chef. Jahn's would kick you out if you stayed more than two periods. I haven't been back to the neighborhood since I left in 1974. I have wonderful memories of my childhood and I'm grateful that I spent it in Flatbush.

27 August 2000

Bill (Billy) Ginden

Eastern Parkwy between Schnectady and Troy P.S. 167. Graduated Erasmus 1942, football in high school, Brooklyn College, Navy in l943. Played baseball at St. John's Orphan Asylum. Anyone out there remember me?

27 August 2000

Readers' reports continue . . .

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