Category Archives: Toys

grew up in jersey city,…

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grew up in jersey city, NJ during the 70’s…..one weapon i learned to use was the “dirt bomb”……balled up a wad of dirt in to a tight ball and throw it….those dirt bomb fights were fun until my friend shelton hit me in the chest one day and yelled out “WIN-CHEST-ER”!!!i was wearing a brown windbreaker as i recall and it stung by boney little chest and i though it’d cave in………………wonder if i can find shelton (back turned, preferably)

I lived in the Fort Green…

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I lived in the Fort Green Projects when it was a family place. One day the housing put tar in the playground area’s which were in a couple of spots. We would all put on our skates and everyone would be skating, their had to be at least 30 of us, all ages. The bigger boys would start the whip game. Almost like a conga line the big boys would be in front and and back of the line and the younger would be in the middle. We would start slow but man it got real fast. I remember I went flying one day I think i was near the end. And we would skate till dinner time and then return all over again. I also found a pair of roller skate with the big clamps in a fleamarket and i have the skate too. I also remember at leat in Fort Greene if a guy gave you a skate key to hold oh man he liked you it was also like having been pined. I love my childhood, my sisters and i are always going back to our childhood, there are four older two years apart and were still hanging out with each other.

Growing up in Queens Village…

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Growing up in Queens Village in the 50’s/60’s (JHS 109, Van Buren), we used to fashion girls’ metal bobby pins into ‘bee stingers’, with a backward twist in the spring-quality steel, and set ‘just right’ (so it wouldn’t go off in your pocket), it delivered quite a painful jab when pressed on a victim’s shirt of pants. The problem, of course, was that it was an extremely close range device.

these “shooters” were called…

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these “shooters” were called carpet shoooters, and the preferred projectile were pieces of linoleum or remains taken from the cans that held furnace refuse. We would fashion a crossbow from wood and secure rubber bands at the top and a spring clothespin at the base. Does anyone remember the seasonal items, Tops, I think in the fall and a game called crack top where a contestant would have to throw his top in a circle and if missed, have to place his top in the circle and risk others hitting and breaking it. There was often a kid who couldn’t throw a nickel top and have to use one of those $1 duncan plastic tops with predictable ending.Then pea shooters and in the spring yo-yo’s. Representatives would come to school yards to show their craft.Very often they were Phillipinos.

yeah but the tops at toycrafters…

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yeah but the tops at toycrafters aren’t like the one’s we used to play with. As I recall we played with two different types of tops in the Harlem River Projects. We used to buy them at this store on Bradhurst Avenue called the “Peace Store”. None of the tops had any manufacturer’s markings on them and they were red, blue or green. I can’t remember if they came in yellow too. Anyway, most of the tops we played with had steel points. We also played with tops we called “Ball Bearings” because instead of a sharp steel point they had round points on the end. These ball bearing tops were also larger than the other steel point tops. I would be curious to know who actually made these two types of tops in the mid to late 60’s and early 70’s. I’ve seen some of the steel point tops around but I haven’t seen any of the ball bearing tops.

Does anyone remember the…

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Does anyone remember the type of knock hockey boards that we used to play with in the late 60’s to early 70’s in New York? I could have sworn they were orange and blue, possibly made by AMF. I remember playing knock hockey a lot during summer day camp in the Harlem River projects.

I still have my two Ginny…

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I still have my two Ginny dolls, and the little case with their clothes and shoes. The clothes hung on little hangers. One outfit was a dark blue velvet skating outfit with tiny white skates. Also I loved paper dolls, would make them clothes by tracing around and then coloring them. Do kids even play with paper dolls these days? They were so much fun.