Category Archives: Bronx

For skully caps our favorites…

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
[e-mail]"; } ?>
 

For skully caps our favorites in my bronx neighborhood were the plastic liquor bottle tops filled with some tar scraped out of the street; or the metal cap from the bottom of the school chairs legs that made the chairs slide on the floors. The school chair pieces were heavy enough the you didn’t need to give it any additional weight, the only problem was the extreme difficulty of getting it off of the bottom of the chair leg. In all the years that I tried I don’t think that I ever got one off of a chair.

I played Hot Peas & butter…

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
[e-mail]"; } ?>
 

I played Hot Peas & butter in the Bronx in the late 60’s early 70’s before the bronx started burning. I was about 5 or 6. I remeber the person would hide the belt and come back and say “Come and Get It”, or “Hot Peas and Butter Come Get Your Supper”, then we would look for the belt.

Riverdale @ 256th St. is…

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
[e-mail]"; } ?>
 

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!

Several years ago, I was…

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
[e-mail]"; } ?>
 

Several years ago, I was trying to explain the game of skully (skullies) to my wife, when I came upon this site. I told my brother and sisters about it, and haven’t been back here since. Recently, we were talking about other games we played in the city (Bronx) and we all remembered the game SLUGS. We never knew it as any other name, no one on the block called it Chinese Handball, Ace-King-Queen, etc. It was always known by us, and everyone around the block, as SLUGS. We lived and played this game around 181 St., on Valentine Ave, and over at P.S. 9/115, which isn’t even called that anymore (damn, imagine that, they changed our school names). Guess I shouldn’t be surprised, it’s been 30 years since I lived and played in the Bronx. Can’t tell you how much I miss playing stickball, and off-the-point (stoop-ball), off-the-wall and skullies (we use to take the school chairs into the hallway or stairs where they had those big iron grids covering the radiators, the grids just the right size to pop the metal chair slide off the bottom of the chairs – which we all know kicked ass over the bottle cap tops, or the bottle rings tops). And then there was kick-the-can, Ringoleavio, and on a hot summer day, we open up those fire hydrants and use a can with the lid removed on both ends to direct volumes of arching water all over… damn, it was great. Anyway… just wanted to share, and will be forwarding this forum to my brother and sisters so that they too can be assured, we weren’t fooling ourselves… it was called SLUGS.

Oh, my god!!!!!!! I cannot…

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
[e-mail]"; } ?>
 

Oh, my god!!!!!!! I cannot believe I have found this site. Skelly was my all time favorite street game growing up in the Bronx, though I first learned the game during the short time my family and I lived in the Edgemere projects in Far Rockaway in the mid-60’s. They called it skully there, skelly in Co-op City, but no matter the name, it was so much fun! I moved to Rochester, NY 8 years ago, and no one has ever heard of it, their loss. I am going out as soon as I can, get some sidewalk chalk, and draw a skelly board on my driveway come this spring…….Maybe I can teach these hicks up here what a good game looks like……… Thanks to the webmasters, and the creators of this website, you have brought back a flood of great memories for me, and I am going to pass this along……

I grew up on Gerard Ave….

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
[e-mail]"; } ?>
 

I grew up on Gerard Ave. in the Bronx in the late 50’s and early 60’s, one block from the Stadium. We used to play stickball from sewer to sewer by bouncing and hitting or by pitching to the box on the door to the garage for the Bronx County Courthouse. Best game was sewer ball using the manhole covers at the corner of 157th St and Gerard Ave. Home, first, second and third. 4 infielders and sometimes one outfielder. Put the wire trash can lying down across the sewer behind 2nd base. Still lost many balls down that sewer. A really great time! Jeff

I was from the area of simpson…

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
[e-mail]"; } ?>
 

I was from the area of simpson and westchester avenue.in the 50s we played all the city games talked to all the girls and busted out those doo-op songs in every hallway every night. The popular songs were oh what a night, maybe,the wind, shout, tears on my pillow, i only have eyes for you, why do fools fall in love etc. Then we went on to salsa dancing at the tritons, hunts point palace, cuban club, tropicoro, international, yorkville casino, manhattan center, the corso, cheetah,the 3101/2, the shay jose, the gallery,terrace gardens, embassy ballroom etc. The boys on the block were manny, cookie, pucho, lefty,louie, fingers julio, tito flat top, frenchie, chickie, joe nose, thurman, mr. lee, lil diaz etc. some people talk about bad childhoods but I thank God for growing up in the Bronx. A lot of good memories a lot of good friends. Hopefully people pass on this sight to others so that we can start to find old friends through their stories. I am a young 63 that is a prime example of a city boy who now lives in the country.I went to ps 20 then to jhs 40

Up on simpson street in the…

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
[e-mail]"; } ?>
 

Up on simpson street in the bronx we hung out on the rooftops. We would plug in a record player to the hall light and dance on the sticky tar.Sometimes we would climb down to the street via the firescape and many times that top ladder to the roof was ajar from the building and shook enough to send us tumbling to the street below if we did not watch it. On the way down,being Puerto Rican neighborhood we would have to jump over jugs of a formenting drink called mavi.Each landing had a different aroma of pork chops, pastelillos, rice and beans and fried chicken. We would reach the bottom of the back yard starving and we had to be quick because there always was a mean dirty dog named buster waiting to bite someone. We would then go out to the street and play kick the can.ringolivio, stickball, marbles, johnny on the pony, skully or hitch on the back of trucks that we leave us somewhere in long island.A typical day back in the fifties.we had mucho fun.

yes I remember, we had agame…

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
[e-mail]"; } ?>
 

yes I remember, we had agame that we fondly called “off the point” played like baseball, where one would strike the ball against the cement curb WE lived in the projects in yhe Bronx where each separate building had their own playground, with each having their own dementions and ground rules. it was exciting when two buildings would battle it out, we even had a all star game and a world series, the playgrond would be packed. We would purchase spaldings for only 25 cents.

I grew up in the Bronx in…

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
[e-mail]"; } ?>
 

I grew up in the Bronx in the 1950’s on 146th Street and Brook Avenue. We use to play “Off The Wall” with a Spaldeen. We would stand close to the wall and throw the ball against it to propel it across the street to hit the wall on the other side and you would run bases. Catching the ball off the wall was an out, three outs per inning. If I remember ( I am an active 67 year old) we had three men per team, one on first and third and one in the outfield. You could also “hit” a line drive to the infield to get on base.