Category Archives: Locales

The museums were a mecca…

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
Original author: dwoncisz
 

The museums were a mecca for truants. It was the only place where you wouldn’t get questioned by security. they always thought you were with a class trip. Meet up with your crew on a cold day, when your funds were low. Truant officers were waiting for you at the cheap action movie theaters on 42nd. Spoof on the art pieces, imagine yourself from far away places. Good fun. The museum of natural history, art, in Manhattan and the one in Brooklyn. Guggenheim (if you could afford it) horticulture gardens, whatever (I can’t remember them all), people always seemed to smile at you when they saw you in those places. I guess they thought it was great that you took an interest in the “finer things in life”. Actually, in spite of myself, I did take a liking to museums for the rest of my life.

Wow, it’s been so long since…

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
Original author: Jeanne [e-mail]
 

Wow, it’s been so long since I’ve been back to this site. I remember all of the above. The games, the streets, and the theaters. We lived across the street from the Forsythe Street Park. Does anyone remember the bike store on Forsythe Street just pass Delancy? You could rent a bike for 25 cents an hour. Of course in those days 1950’s that was considered a lot of money. I ran many a bike into the brick wall in the park. Got lots of scars to show for it. Do you remember that Pickle store on Hester Street? I went to P.S.42 and on our walk home we would stop and buy a pickle. You had to point to the one you wanted and the man would fish it out. The smell of a pickle, even now, brings those days right back to me. And the knishes. One of my favorite foods. What I would do now for a knish. Haven’t had one in years. I live in a state that doesn’t even know what a ‘knish’ is. Only those of us born and raised in New York know what these are. How about the Academy of Music on 14th Street, Manhattan? When Rock n Roll started, we could not wait to see all the new rocking stars. We saw them before they became a household name.

I played for hours on the…

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
Original author: Suarez [e-mail]
 

I played for hours on the corner of 85th St and 21st Ave in Brooklyn, with the rumble of the B train as background music. We had our court on the sidewalk, because there was just too much traffic from 86th Street… there was no way to play a game on the asphalt. We played 13-box, in two versions. If there were a lot of players it was 1-13, for a more leisurely game it was 1-13,13-1 before you could start knocking other players out of the game. In the dark ages before twist off caps, the most prized cap was one with only a slight indentation from a bottle opener. We would rub the caps back and forth, back and forth on the sidewalk to get a smooth silver matte look on the bottom. Pop in a penny over the cork, and melt a candle (“wasting” a crayon that way would have made my mother berserk, “Whaddya think, we get them free from somewhere?”). When the wax was just about firm, if you pulled a piece of paper towel over the cap it put a pattern in the top of the wax. With box ball, tops, yo-yo, skelly, and chinese handball, who needed camp?

Does anyone remember the…

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
Original author: Adrienne H. [e-mail]
 

Does anyone remember the rest of this: …to the Jackie Gleason Studio Mr. Knickerboker, Knickerbocker Doobi-di do Your sure look slick A Hickory Stick Now lets get the rythmn with the hands 1,2,3, We got the rythmn with the hands 1,2,3, Now, lets get the rythm with the feet 1,2,3, Now we got the rythm with the feet 1,2,3, Who’s got the rythm with the eeeeyes We got the rythm with the eeeyes Who’s got the rythmn with the hips Oh Boy!! We got the rythm with the hips Oh Boy!! Who got the rythm with the count by 5’s 5, 10, 15,….so on. I think this was achoosing song with the girls standing in a circle. When you started counting by 5s the girl in the middle would close her eyes and spin around in a circle with her hand pointed out. When we reached 100, that girl would replace the girl in the middle and the song would start all over again. This was played in Jamaica, Queens during the ’60s.

I grew up in Flatbush in…

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
Original author: shep
 

I grew up in Flatbush in the 50’s. For some reason, we did not play stickball, but we did play punchball and slapball. In slapball, the ball is pitched on a bounce to the batter who hits it with an open hand. You could put all kinds of different spin on the ball so that after it bounced it would swerve left, right, stop dead, or shoot ahead. We called this “fluking”. Anyone else remember that word? We used mainly Spaldeen, though I do recall Pensy Pinkies. Many balls were lost in the sewers. I recall kids saying to each other, “Walk me to the corner. I have to get a new Spaldeen.”

I was a skelly adict. In…

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
Original author: David Moreau [e-mail]
 

I was a skelly adict. In Starett City, Brooklyn in the late 70s, clay was the only choice. I remember using milk tops with wax, but I could never be competitive. It would end up rolling down the sidewalk. Clay was great because you could swirl the color. I would eat a Push-Up every week to get a new top. It was embarrassing to use anything put a push-up top with clay. please include clay in the survey! The only downside was worn out fingernails. I tried to alternate between two fingers to spread the wear-n-tear. We usually played on chalk boards, unless someone had the courage to spraypaint one. The painted ones would usually be cleaned away, and the dimensions were usually off.

Hi. I live in Sydney and…

Streetplay Discussion Archive Posted on by
Original author: michael
 

Hi. I live in Sydney and am keen to re-introduce Marbles to our local primary schools. Aussie kids play outside lots, but computers,game boys et al are diminishing this. Nevertheless, soccer and cricket and handball are very popular. I also intend to write a book about marbles to help the kids (and dads)learn how to play. I am thinking reintroducing marbles will require the process to be somewhat sophisticated, using marble mats and cd roms to show how games are played. Aussies, in particular…contact me. Does anyone know if there is an actual “international book of rules”? Michael