Tag Archives: Summer

I grew up in Long Island…

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I grew up in Long Island City, Queens in the Ravenswood Projects 1960’s. We played “skezie” religiously every day in the summer and after school. I have vivid memories of playing the game with my friends. I had patches on patches on my dungarees. We used beer or soda caps mostly and we didn’t have twist off’s back then. I remember melting crayola crayons into the bottle cap as we tried to come up with what we thought were cool designs. A few of the kids would use heinz ketchup bottle caps or baby food jar lids – we called those kids fagots. The kids across the street called the game skully. I have taught my 11 year old twins to play the game – but they just don’t appreciate it.

Fireworks…by the middle…

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Fireworks…by the middle of the afternoon in my neighborhood on Staten Island, South Beach projects you couldn’t even see the smoke was so thick and fireworks were illegal!!!! Actually the fireworks for the 4th usually started going off around June 20th (right after we got out of school) and we’d see all the people coming up from the South (where fireworks were legal) opening up their trunks and selling fireworks to anyone who had money…one summer we bought a mat of firecrackers (144 packs)…I was so tired of them after that!! Blue Angels always few at South Beach every 4th of July and you could see them from the roof of our projects…1976 4th of July was awesome…one of the best other than 1986 when the Statue of Liberty reopened after being renovated…one million people in downtown Manhattan…if you were claustrophobic you would have died! Bud beer being sold out of garbage pails in Chinatown…what a city! I live in California now and would never move back but my childhood was the absolute best! maryfinn

I grew up in the projects…

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I grew up in the projects on Staten Island, South Beach Houses to be exact and we had games for every season especially spring when the weather was warming up. First it would be kite flying time and we’d go to the corner store known as Ma’s or Pa’s or Boff’s for the “second store” and buy our 10-25 cent kite, put it together with rags for a tail and go fly it at the “big park’s” field. Every kid did this, the sky was filled with all different color and shapes of kites! It was awesome. Then came yo-yo season right on the heels of kite flying. We got our Duncan’s out and could do all the tricks; cats cradle, around the world, you name it; we could do it with a little practice. Next came summer and bee catching, yes, bee catching. We would get a glass jar or a coffee can, put some holes in the top for air and go out to the bushes and catch as many bees as we could, there was a hierarchy to the bees too; workers (lowest), queenies (bumble bees) and Shiny hineys (largest bumble bees and the highest) we all kept clear of wasps, those suckers hurt if you got strung…I never got strung, not until I was an adult camping in California by a yellow jacket (damn wasps!). This was followed by the long days and as soon as dusk came we were playing “ringalerio” or “caw, caw”…this can be looked up on this site so you get the rules and the fun! During the day we played skully (also on this site), assball, softball, rode our bikes for 100’s of miles (without helmets and all day with no adults); skated (remember skate keys) played with our spaldeens…one, two, three aleary…”three feet over Germany” (whomever knows about this game please answer, I want to know the history)…Fall arrived and we gathered all the fallen leaves and jumped into the biggest piles of leaves you’ve ever seen, we got cardboard boxes and jumped on the bushes and fell off in heaps…Winter brought sleigh riding near the park and at the cemeteries (we were bordered on 2 sides)…ice skating at Cameron’s pond (watch the thin ice…someone always fell thru)…snow ball fights…oops I forgot about Halloween and egging, shaving cream, and flour socks…little did we know that our hair styles after this would eventually become stylish in the 90’s and 2000’s!!!! Who knew! sorry to go on and on but growing up in the 70’s in New York City projects was the BEST! What about you? Mary

I grew up in the South Beach…

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I grew up in the South Beach projects on Staten Island in the 70’s. We played skully every single summer day. Got soda bottle caps with the crowns, melted our crayolas with matches or on the radiators in our buildings (pronounced rad E a tors, not raid). We always put pennies in the bottom for weight and because we grew up in the projects the skully board was actually official and painted (just like the hopscotch board). Growing up in NYC during this time was just phenomenal, we played what we called “caw, caw A ringalerio” every summer night. I have not heard anyone else call this “caw, caw” which is what we called it for short, anyone else ever hear it referred to like that? Live in California now and feel bad for kids growing up now without all these fantastic city games – anyone remember “errors” or “assball”. We were quite inventive! Thanks for the memories, Mary Finn

Grew up in Kensington in…

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Grew up in Kensington in Philly, great neighborhood, Stickball was the best. Pimple Balls were the best to play with, We’d play like 10 games a day in the summer time. They made the blue pimple balls before they stopped making them, would be nice to have one of each. We also played Freedom for hours on end. Freedom was a game where you had at least 5 or more on two teams and you set boundaries of the neighborhood, usual 2 or 3 block radius. The goal was to catch all the members of the opposite team and bring them back to base. The other members would have to touch base and say “Freedom!” and the ones that were caught would run and the whole game would begin again. Hours and hours played at Elkin School in Kensington. Oh yeah, when you caught a person you’d have to say “1-2-3 your my man no breaksies, no locksies, and throw away the key”.

I lived in NYC on 162nd st….

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I lived in NYC on 162nd st. in Washington Heights and we played stickball quite a bit during the late 40’s and 50’s. I remember we had a team called the COMETS. It was a rather loose organization and some of us had blue t-shirts with the name in red while others had no team shirt at all. The “Spaldines” spent quite a lot of time on the roof of Jumels Garage, which is still there by the way. Every so often someone had to go up to the roof of an adjoining apartment house and jump from a fire escape to the roof of the garage to retrieve some so games could continue. It’s been 50 years but I can still conjure up the sounds of the bats hitting the ground after a solid hit and the smells of the hot tar street baking on a sultry summer afternoon. Not to mention the occasional sound of breaking glass as someones window became a sacrifice to the game.

Pook, from 1154 Stratford…

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Pook, from 1154 Stratford Ave (bet Watson/Westchester) here. Born and raised in the Bronx, lived in the same apt until I was 21 and we moved to Puerto Rico (’65-’87). Son of Sam used to live on my block as a kid. The summers were the best…lots of good memories as a kid, playing all the street games there were. The old Ward Theatre was where we’d go watch all the Bruce Lee flicks (it later became Roller World skating rink then a furniture outlet of some type). Carvel and Hebrew National deli was down the block on Westchester across from the original Yankees Pizza. Man, a slice with extra cheese and a Carvel shake???!!! That was heaven. Went to JHS 123 (or as we called it, “The Rikers Island Annex” heh heh). We’d all go check out Bambaataa at the Zulu Nation jams in Bronx River projects. Hanging out in front of the stoop with all my friends, rapping to all the girls or snapping on each other. I’d bring my box and we’d chill out listening to 98.7 Kiss/92 KTU/BLS. Red Alert/Chuck Chillout/Mr Magic. Then we’d get 25 cents and get a “piragua” down the block (or a “coquito”). It was cool ’til the mid 80’s when crack took over and messed EVERYTHING up. Before that, it was a cool place to live and grow up. After I left, i lost a few friends who were killed in front of my old building. I went back in ’98 and ’04 but everyone I knew (except for a few old ladies like my boy Pedro’s grandmother) was gone. Although a mural of one of my boys that was killed is still there (on Stratford, near Westchester). Very sad going back to the block. Sandra, you said it right, those were the days…peace.

I grew up in Richmond Hill…

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I grew up in Richmond Hill NY, playing skelly every day, come summer time in Smokey Park in the early 70’s. I remember using crayons and the rim of the glass beer bottle to make a skelly cap, but there was one more way of doing it that was my favorite. We’d take a twist off beer cap, find a plastic soda cap, and some small pieces of glass for weight. I’d dig the plastic insert piece out of the soda cap. The glass went inside the beer bottle cap and the plastic piece was fitted in side the beer bottle cap, over the glass upside down, to hold the glass in place.I remember always giving the new cap a real good rubbing on the ground to roughen it up. I was a good shooter and didnt want it flying anywhere I didnt want it to. I have taught my kids how to play all the street games I can still remember. Their favorites are: I Declare War, Box Ball, Chinese Hand Ball and Stoop ball and Red Rover.

So many memories! I ended…

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So many memories! I ended up being the elementary school champ in 6th grade, about 1959, in Arizona. What about the original “Pats” we used to do between games? Another game I remember playing was ‘pat-cherry-pat’, with the additional version of that plus ‘turnover-pat’. I am having a summer activity with girls 6 to 10 y/o from the neighborhood in a couple of weeks. Thanks for jogging my memory! Dot

Kenny, I’m glad that you…

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Kenny, I’m glad that you remember the Mott Street team. Actually, the Mott Street team was a collection of all the best players from the various blocks of Little Italy–Mulberry St., Elizabeth St., Mott St., Grand St., Prince St,. etc. Many of the guys who played against your team and the other fine teams of that 1950-1960 era are gone. Do you remember Vinny Head? Tiger? Big Gary? Jimmy Alber? They’d hit the ball as though it were fired from a cannon; they’re all gone. My generation of players–Mike Fink, Smitty, Anthony Arms, Billie Barns, Lil Maxie, Mimi, Crazy Dom, and the Beaver brothers (and a few others I can’t think of right now) were probably the last of the great stickball players from Little Italy (Mott Street). I, myself, was more of a schoolyard type player because crowds made me nervous, and I could never play well with hundreds of people lining both sides of the street during those “big” games. Although, once I did go up to the South Bronx with a Mott Street team to play a doubleheader against an outstanding Puerto Rican squad. On that particular day I fared well–hitting six line drives into the outfield: three of my liners fell in for hits (two singles and a double)and the other three were caught. My seventh at-bat I dribbled out to the third baseman.We got trounced the first game 8-3, but we were leading the second game 3-0 when an argument broke out in the eighth inning, and the game was never finished. That was my last and finest moment “rounding those bases.” Perhaps, it was the summer of ’71 or ’72.