Riverdale @ 256th St. is where I was raised. I lived just up the hill from PS 81 on Riverdale Ave. We had lots of kids my age living there – I can’t imagine growing up anywhere else being better! Later I attended JHS 141. I hung out at the Neighborhood House on Mosholu Ave. and had a pass to the pool every summer. Winters I had a pass to Kelton’s ice skating rink by 234th St. & Broadway – Cortland Park area. If you continued West on 256th toward the Hudson, there was a monastery. They gave me a scapula – many there took a vow of silence. I had a friend, Steve Talerico, and when I met another Talerico years later, I mentioned knowing him. He told me it’s a common name. He said Steven Tyler (Aerosmith) was originally a Talerico. In 1999 when I got my computer I looked up his bio – he lived in the next building. We used to put up signs that there would be a carnival, then we’d make up games of skill where for a small sum you could play and possibly win one of our old toys. We’d also take what appeared to us to be unused & unwanted carriages and dismantle them to make gravity powered go-carts. One day, Robert Kennedy was in a parade on Riverdale Ave. & I followed his vehicle to a retirement home in the rural looking parts down the hill toward the river. I snuck in thru bushes, walked right up to him, handed him my pink, zippered, autograph book, filled with pages of “Yours ’til Niagra Falls” type signatures from my classmates, handed him the book, and he signed it!
There were many wooded areas, lots of BIG rocks like the Adirondacks. One such was a 30ft tall (at least) single smooth outcropping on Riverdale Ave. that was dynomited and carted away when I was young to make way for a shopping plaza. And there was a Magic Shop filled with so much stuff you could barely squeeze thru.
All the games I’ve read about here I played – seemingly forever. I was outside as much as possible. I now bike & kayak a lot, but I rarely see kids out, it’s mostly people my age doing these things. Geeze, sometimes instead of going to the Neighborhood House pool – I’d walk to the river & swim there. Now even the public pools where I live are almost devoid of life. One by one they’re closing.
Nice site this Streetplay – brings me back!