Category Archives: Street Lifestyle
Most people don’t realize…
Most people don’t realize that all the pigeons in New York City are feral (gone wild) descendants of domesticated pigeons kept on the rooftops as pets, for sport, for show and for food earlier in the century. (Pigeons of the type we know are not native to the U.S.) When you see a flock of wild pigeons spontaneously leap into the air and fly around in circles in a tight group, you are seeing the behavior their ancestors were bred to perform by rooftop pigeon fanciers. The breeders selectively intensified the natural behavior of the birds to fly out from the nest, forage for food, and return to the nest, resulting in specialized strains that can find their home lofts from long distances, covering 500 miles a day (homers), birds that can fly above their loft in circles continuously for 15-20 hours (tipplers, or as they are called only in New York, “tiplets”), aerial acrobats that spin backwards in a series of multiple somersaults (rollers), as well as the garden variety of New York flyers that circle above their rooftops in tight groups, trying to get the neighbor’s birds to defect to them. As a resident of suburban Bayside, Queens in the ’60’s and ’70’s, I kept pigeons, which I was first exposed to by “urban flight” neighbors, who came out of the inner boroughs, bringing their tradition of rooftop pigeon keeping with them. Pigeons, of course, are much maligned, especially for their dirtiness. All I can say is that domesticated pigeons, when fed dry grain and clean water, are clean animals. If you put a pan of water out on a sunny day they will even take a bath. It’s like the difference between an observer’s perception of a homeless person and one who has shelter, clean clothes, and eats good food. My Web site about Bayside in those times is: http://www.covername.net/bayside Dave T.
In Southwest Philly back…
Hey Ted i grew up on martense…
Hey Ted i grew up on martense & nostrand what year was that there i have older brothers and sisters i have to ask about that i remember going to the granada what a great a great neighborhood it was i went to holy cross wow do you remember the great egg creams from the candy store on church& nostrand and al’s toy store
On my block I was a pogo…
How about Johnny the Ice…
How about Johnny the Ice Cream Man and Charlie the Knish Man from the Sheepshead Bay area? Man, were those Knishes good with the all the salt Charlie put into those waxy bags. And Johnny, if he caught you buying ice cream from Good Humor or Bungalow Bar, he’d give you a good scoulding about only buying from him with his unitelligable chatter. Anyone remember these guys?
Does anyone remember angel…
I think that Fred (Wednesday,…
I think that Fred (Wednesday, December 22, 1999) is right. I grew up in Brooklyn and we always called it a “sliding pon”. I think that what’s happened is that when some of us reached adulthood and tried to make some sense of this phrase to non New Yorkers we assumed that it must have really been a “sliding pond” and that we were just mis-remembering. In fact, I’m convinced that it was “sliding pon” which is a corruption of another term for that piece of playground apparatus. Maybe some posters will suggest what that term might be.
i grewup in queens rochdale…
i grewup in queens rochdale village i remember many friday and sat.nites going downtown to the fillmoure east and seeing some of the best music of our times at the late show ill allso never forget comming home at 4 or 5;00 in the morning and waiting for the bus at parsons blvd.and having the best pizza i ever had.these were the best days of my life and i woulding change them for anything.i just want to thank all my freinds for making this possible.love wayne
I’m 16 and have recently…
I’m 16 and have recently started serious stunt pogo sticking. I’ve already ripped one pogo in half in two month and I’m starting on my second. I’m also currently working on a design for a better stunt pogo. As far as I know, I’m the only one in the world that is still does anything besided jump up and down on these things. Send imput if you’d like to thegreatgoon [at] hotmail [dot] com or visit my stunt pogo homepage I’m building at http://www.redrival.com/pogo