My Brooklyn

Joe Hernandez

Boy does this site bring memories. I moved to 244 Amboy Street (between Dumont and Blake Avenues) in 1959 . . . home of Irving Schulman's fictional chronicle of the gang "The Amboy Dukes" and just a block away from Betsy Head Park and swimming pool. It had a great and big swimming pool. Swimming was free until noon, then it was ten cents after. Behind the pool was a long row of handball courts. The neighborhood was predominantly Jewish and Italians with the Puerto Ricans beginning to take over. I attended P.S. 183, a great school. I remember going every Sunday to the Ambassador Theatre on Livonia and Saratoga. Here I saw in person Chubby Checker and the Three Stooges. The Ambassador was a beautiful theatre. For thirty-five cents you saw a double feature. You also had the magnificent Lows' Pitkin, retail landmarks like Stone Avenue, where everyone went to buy their tuxedos and wedding gowns. There was also Rockaway Avenue, where everyone bought his or her bedroom set. Despite the neighborhood being of a lower economic class and known for being a rough place, it was relatively safe. At the age of seven I would walk to the theatre alone with my younger brother. By the time I was eight I would take the New Lots #2 train from Saratoga station to the last stop in Brooklyn, the New Lots station at Asford Avenue, where my father had a business. Pitkin Avenue was a few blocks away . . . what a place to shop . . . always busy with shoppers. I remember the John's Bargain store where we often did our own shopping.

I would move out of the neighborhood by the end of 1963, only to return by the spring of 1967. I then moved to 417 Hinsdale Street, right off Livonia Avenue. Down Livonia Avenue was the Fortunoff's stores. These were located near Pennsylvania Avenue and the streets of Georgia and I believe Alabama. There were five or seven small specialty shops. Later on I would move to Van Sicklen Avenue. It was in East New York that I would meet and play little league and pony league baseball with Yankee great Willie Randolph and Jimmy Smitts. Jimmy and I both attended Thomas Jefferson High School. There are so many good memories and also many sad ones. By the mid sixties East New York had one of the highest homicide rates and heroin addicts in the country. Some of the guys that played ball with us lost their young lives in East New York. My experience growing up in East New York helped make me a better man. I strongly believe that the adversities I faced there strengthen and built my character. I will always have fond memories of this little piece of earth. . . . It is a shame to see what has become of it . . . or perhaps it's all part of the beauty in the lies of nostalgia.

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