Category Archives: Locales
Growing up in the East New…
[e-mail]";
}
?>
Growing up in the East New York section of Brooklyn in the ’50s and ’60s meant being out on the sidewalk after school and during the summer. One of the games that we girls played with a bouncing pink rubber ball; either a Spauldeen or Pensy Pinky, entailed crossing your leg over the ball as you “sang” verses that had changed names, places and products based on the letters of the alphabet. We started with: A my name is…….. And my husband’s name is……… We come from………… And we sell………… It went on as long as you didn’t miss crossing over the ball. We competed to see who could go through the whole alphabet with a mistake or repeating someone else’s choices. Lots of giggles accompanied this game as the choices narrowed and became more difficult. The letter “Q” was always a tough one. Ellen Grove
I grew up in Brooklyn on…
[e-mail]";
}
?>
I grew up in Brooklyn on a dead end street and I was a stickball fanatic. We pitched against a chalk drawn strike zone and hit down onto the freight train tracks. Up over the other side was a homerun. It was a pretty good shot–maybe 250 to 300 feet. I remember one time my friend Ralph and I were playing against “the big kids”—guys 2 or 3 years older than us. But we were getting to the point in life where those years didn’t mean so much anymore– physically we were catching up. We may have been 15 or 16. Anyway, we were holding our own–striking them out and scoring runs against them. They were getting annoyed. One of our opponents had an even older brother. He was probably in his early twenties. Ralph and I had actually never even seen this guy before that day–or since. Well, these older guys are getting more and more embarrassed that the former “little kids” are beating them, so they decide to let the older brother pitch. He starts warming up and man oh man did he have a fast ball. I literally could not see the ball as it exploded out of his hand. I am trying to time this guy while he is warming up and I realize he is just too fast for me to hit him. If you have ever been hit in the face with a spaldeen thrown with all of someone’s might, you can imagine my reluctance to get into the batter’s box. Right then and there I knew two things. Ra;lph and I are going to lose the game because we can’t hit this guy. And the only thing I can do is swing at the first pitch as hard as I can. I stepped into the batter’s box and got into an exaggerated stance with the bat held far back and high. Every muscle was coiled. As soon as the pitcher started his windup on his very first pitch I started my swing. I did not even look at the ball, I just swung with every ounce of enegy that I had. And I connected. On the sweet part of the bat. Dead center on the ball. I never saw a ball go so far so high so fast. I creamed it. I obliterated it. It was a pea in the sky. I will honestly never forget that shot. Everyone just stood there speechless. That was the only pitch they let him throw. He was immediately yanked from the game. If one of the “little kids” could do that to the first pitch, the “big kids” reasoned the pitcher must really stink. Thus saved from the unhittable older brother by what was really a lucky eyes closed shot, we won the game.
just to keep this active..Anyone…
The girls in my neighborhood…the…
[e-mail]";
}
?>
The girls in my neighborhood…the lower East Side of Manhattan played a game where we put down a penny on the sidewalk. They stood apart from each other, usually using two square cement blocks of sidewalk. One girl would stand on the right of the penny and the other on the left. And you bounced the ball hoping to hit the penny with the ball to get a score. If the penny flipped over, you got a higher score. Don’t remember anymore of the particulars. Does anyone else remember this game.
The BEST schoolyard in Queens…
[e-mail]";
}
?>
The BEST schoolyard in Queens in the late ’60s – early ’70s was PS 108 by the entrance to the Aqueduct racetrack. It was relatively square, fenced all around and had poured cement “boxes” roughly 5′ x 5′. These boxes served as softball basepaths, football yardlines, stickball pitchers’ mounds, handball court short lines, and distance markers for stickball and automatics. Connected to the large square area, there was a perfect sized handball court and wall, and the “little schoolyard” – a blacktopped area surrounded by 3 walls and a fence, perfect for roller hockey. Any afternoon in the summer there could be a softball game (sometimes two), a basketball game, 3 stickball games and a handball game going on at once. Summer nights was Ringoleario and just hanging out. In the fall and winter, it was touch football and basketball. Everyone met at the schoolyard. Just show up and you’ll get in some kind of game. We’ll never forget it.
I remember potsy. In Woodhaven,…
I grew up in Woodhaven,Queens…
[e-mail]";
}
?>
I grew up in Woodhaven,Queens during the late 50’s and early 60’s. We used to play a varity of games, including Snake, Redrover, Red Light-Green-Light, but my favorite was Punchinello. Does anyone remeber this game? The person named Punchinello had to come up with some body contortion that no one could copy. The kids that matched the move stayed in and the ones that didn’t were out. Also, do any of the girls out there remember Baby Carraige Racing? My friends and I would find a good hill and let the buggies fly. What fun we had!
I was at that famous game…
[e-mail]";
}
?>
I was at that famous game against South Queens along with all the other Rochdale Jets games in 67, 68, etc. Bryan, my older brother, was the free safety on the team and my dad, Dave, was the “trainer”, although he was better known as the purveyor of the oranges at halftime. Was Lenny Solow the head coach? I played for Phase II – The Rochdale Chiefs – Bantam Division in 71 – 72. Bob Felder was “head coach” and we had numerous “assistant coaches” – especially, Charlie King with his constant yelling you could hear all the way over to Section 2. We went 2-6 and 4-5 respectively and we too had some monstrous losses – namely a 62-0 loss to Far Rockaway and 44-0 to LynVets. Fun times though… Every homegame was preceeded by walking the field for glass and rocks. After 72, the Chiefs disbanded and everybody went their different ways. I remember Bryan and the whole crew went to play “Junior Ball” for the Queens Falcons over in Springfield Gardens and then for the Long Island Tomahawks up at Alley Pond Park. That paved the way for some more of us to play for the Tomahawks in the early-mid 70’s, when making the playoffs was a way of life.