Streetplay Discussion Archive

My husband and I grew up in Yorkville (now known as the Upper East Side.) We played marbles in the sewer covers, Points on the side of a building, Catch a Flyer Up, War, Cross over Cross Over, Old Mother Witch, Jacks, Rope including Double Dutch, Potsy, made our own Pusho (milk carton with a long stick that had old skates attached to it), stickball, handball, skating on four wheel skates that you had to attach to your shoe toe with a key, sliding down the snow in Central Park on cardboard or tops of garbage cans, swimming in the East River (not me, just my husband and his friends), Hide and Seek. And a myriad of other games whose names I don’t recall at the moment. Our playgrounds were concrete, our slides (sliding ponds), the metal swings were great and we often rode two at a time, one in front one in back and went as high as we could, and it is true some of the kids did jump off the wooden see-saws and left us hitting the ground. Ouch. In the summer the girls had a park lady who taught us how to make baskets. When it rained we went into the park building to play games. We lived near the *Farmer’s Feed Factory* and every day at 4:30 they would blow a whistle which was quitting time and all the kids would run home as it was suppertime. Who needed a watch. Many of the houses did not have steam heat so people would go down to the barges berthed in the East River and *borrow* some coal for their coal stoves. Oh, yes, another thing, we used to make *Hot Mickeys*. We would get a potato and make an *oven* out of coal, wood and leaves. Put the potato directly into the fire and cooked it until it was black. It tasted great! Everyone had their own little oven.