Tag Archives: Lower East Side
I grew up playing games…
I grew up on the lower east…
I grew up on the lower east side of Manhattan in the late 50’s early 60’s. I am sure we called the game SKELLZIE. Our day would start off with a visit to the A&P on Bleecker and Leroy st. There we would, err……… borrow a cap from a Prell shampoo bottle, (it was plastic and tappered from top to bottom). It held lots of wax and your favorite, lucky penny. We would then go to the public park on Carmine street and play the game. The guy that worked for the parks deptartment, Rocky, was good enough to paint a Skellzie board on the ground for us. As I can remember, Rocky was a great guy always willing to do things for the kids in the neighborhood. I can’t remember the size of the board, although I’m sure what seemed very large back then probably wasn’t so. I don’t think the board could have been much more than 5’X 9′. When we tired of playing the game we would play Buck-Buck, Box Ball, Stoop Ball, and maybe if it was hot enough go for a swim in the Hudson. Things have certainly changed in 40 years, oh well! Any way, looking forward to seeing the final version of the Skellzie board. Keep the faith. Mike
I can definitely relate…
I can definitely relate to the “search for the roller skate key” scenario! There were five of us at home (not counting my mother), so we never knew who had it last or where they put it. I loved skating so much on the Lower East Side that I did it well into my adult years when I moved to Brooklyn at the Empire Roller Skating Rink and the Park Circle Roller Skating Rink, dancing to the music on my skates! I think I stopped going when I was around 35. Don’t ask me about roller blades — I put those things on once a few years ago — one ankle went in, the other went out — I took them off and haven’t been skating since. – webdiva
Thanks to all who posted…
Thanks to all who posted — NOW I know what this game was about! Kids who were a little older (faster? smarter?) played this game on the Lower East Side when I was about 8 or 9 (36 years ago), and I remember mostly the guys yelling, “Ringolevio, caught, caught, caught, caught!!” I wondered what the heck was going on, but they thought I was too young to play so I never knew much about this game — until now. – webdiva
SORRY it took me so long…
SORRY it took me so long to get back here! I lived in the projects in a building right near the corner of Houston Street and FDR Drive. The thing I loved most about the Essex Street Market was that there were so many buildings and so many different sections selling everything from soup to nuts. When I was in high school (Seward Park on Grand Street), I used to buy vanilla sandwich cookies from one of the vendors at Essex Street almost every day on my way home from school… – webdiva
As a 42 year old parent…
As a 42 year old parent one thing i never hear anymore kids calling each other out. What i mean is one or more kids standing just outside the front walk or back gate of a friends house singing out their name with a high note for the first syllable and first part of the second then dropping low. Nice and loud until some response from the home was achieved. Kids with 1 syllable names were made to sound like two. Either the kid came or some one would yell back. Boy you were gauranteed a reponse if you had three or more singin it out. Sometimes from a neighbor telling you to shut up! This was the lower east side of Detroit with most of the kids being 1st or 2nd generation American with the parents or grandparents being born in Europe. I don’t know if it was fear of who you would get anwering the door or what. But it was pretty common and something my kids would never do today!
I grew up on the Lower east…
I grew up on the Lower east Side and played skulley throughout the late seventies/early eighties. I just read your rules document, and it seems complete. We had prepainted boards that did not have numbers in the skull except 13 of course. We just gave everyone 6 boxus/advances if you knocked someone out of the skull. If you knocked them from skull section to skull section it was treated as a standard hit. Our start was also much further from box # 1. Usually on the oposite side of the board, so beginers often found themself in the skull on turn one. We often switched caps when we became killers and used blasters. My favorite was the libby caps (about the size of todays snapple caps)
I grew up in the lower east…
I grew up in the lower east side, being only 34 that wasn’t long ago. We played the same game but called it ‘Man hunt’….We usually played in the street, but had an apartment version where we played in the building and the staircases…someone always cheated and hid in their own apartment
On the lower east side we…
On the lower east side we also used to stand on the swings and “pump”. Another thing was to “take someone up” where one would sit and the other one would stand and pump. I was a chicken so I usually was the one sitting, with my eyes closed. We called them sliding ponds too. How about the wooden see-saws?