IN THOSE DAYS

On summer evenings the old men in their undershirts would gather on the sidewalk on dining room chairs and talk about whatever came into their heads. They would light up their Italian stogies and chat away in their dialect, using their hands and eyes for emphasis. If it started to drizzle, they’d cover their heads with pages of the Daily News and continue talking until the rain stopped. Sometimes they argued and the discussions were loud. Sometimes they just sat there not making a sound. When the light faded they came in.

LaGuardia was the mayor back then, a short feisty guy who wore a white ten gallon hat too big for his body. We called him the Little Flower because his name was actually Fiorello. On Sunday mornings he read us the comics in his funny voice over the radio. We were sometimes embarrassed by him but we were glad he was one of us. At that time, DiMaggio was playing for the Yankees, and Dolph Camilli was at Ebbets Field for the Dodgers. They too were paisans. On Saturdays we imitated them while playing stickball on Union Street. During the week though we played handball against the brothers at the St. Francis school yard. They were mostly Irish.


Back then men and women wore hats – the men donned fedoras, and on the job they wore caps with visors. Women covered their heads with hats that sometimes involved feathers and veils. The hat I wore was a brown leather cap with long ears on the sides. I pretended to be an airline pilot like Lucky Lindy. Back then a “lady” didn’t wear pants, and young boys, including me, frequently wore knickers. For those who don’t know,
knickers were pants that ended just over the knees and barely covered knee-high stockings. I hated them because my stockings would sag and I’d always be pulling them up. I got to wear long pants only after leaving
elementary school.

In those days, in the late thirties and forties, commerce and industry came knocking at our doors. Bottles of milk and cream were delivered to our house early in the morning by a noisy milkman. Butter and eggs too if you liked. Every few days, a Dugan’s man, dressed in a white uniform brought crumb cakes and jelly doughnuts. Even bottles of seltzer water were delivered to our door.

There were no super markets back then, except for maybe a small A&P or a Bohack’s. Also, there were no mega-stores, no WalMarts and certainly no Costcos. Instead there were small mom & pop stores throughout the borough. In our neighborhood there was a tailor shop, a German delicatessen, a drug store, and of course, a candy store. Up the block there was a fancy ice cream parlor and an undertaker.

Back then almost everyone had a radio, a small table model or a floor
console if one could afford it. As kids, we listened to Uncle Don, the Lone Ranger and the Tom Mix Ralston Straightshooters. I saved the Ralston
cereal boxtops and sent away for the Tom Mix ring and the compass in case I’d ever get lost in Prospect Park. We also listened to Gangbusters and Mr. District Attorney. The adults listened to the LuxRadio Theater, “Lux Presents Hollywood”, Bob Hope’s Pepsodent Show, the Jack Benny Show, (“Oh, Dennis”), Allen’s Alley and Fibber McGee and Molly. There were others like The Great Gildersleeve, the Inner Sanctum, “with Raymond, your host”, the Whistler and Suspense. On the lighter side, we listened to the Amos and Andy show, never realizing it was really two white guys in blackface. The radio also gave us our music. Songs that played on the Hit Parade stayed with us for quite a while.

The radio was also popular with the older Italians in the neighborhood. My grandparents listened to an Italian comedy program called the Pasquale C.O.D. show, probably on station WOV. I sometimes listened and because I understood a little Italian I laughed along with them. Grandma also
listened intently to the sad Italian soap operas that came on during the week. I remember the announcer doing the macaroni commercials, telling his listeners to save the valuable LaRosa macaroni coupons.

On Saturdays we went to “the show”, the movies, which at that time were all in black and white. My favorite movie house was the Carlton on
Flatbush Avenue near Seventh. We also went to the Plaza across the street
where we tried sneaking in but the usher usually caught us every time. The Plaza was kind of a seedy place. Whenever the projectionist had a problem, which was often, and the screen went blank, we yelled and clapped in unison until the movie came back on. The usher would run down the aisles shining his flashlight to see where the noise was coming from. He never once caught us.

At the Plaza, we would watch a double feature, cartoons, newsreels, a
weekly chapter and maybe a short subject, all for about a quarter for kids
and thirty-five for adults. Sometimes we looked up at the screen for four solid hours and walked out after a familiar scene came on and one of us said, “this is where we came in”. Sometimes you’d go in on a bright sunny morning and come back out on a gray rainy afternoon. One time I went to a morning show and hours later I walked along Seventh avenue in snow that was knee deep. The blizzard of ‘47 had begun while I had my eyes glued to the screen.

The Plaza showed a lot of westerns starring Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy, Red Ryder and Roy Rogers. There were comedies with the Marx Brothers and Abbott and Costello but our favorites were the monster movies. Three of the best were Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolfman. We always felt sorry for Frankenstein and the Wolfman but we hated and always booed Count Dracula.


At the Carlton the big stars at that time were Clark Gable, William Powell and Myrna Loy, Alice Faye and Judy Garland. We watched Betty Grable, Don Ameche and Edward Everett Horton go down to Argentina to watch Carmen Miranda balance all that fruit on her head. Also, Sonja Henie danced on ice while John Payne chased after her. Errol Flynn along with Randolph Scott and John Wayne fought the Indians. Tough Guys like Cagney, Bogart and Edward G. were there too but my favorite down-and-outer was John Garfield. Somehow he was always doomed from the start. There he was, he and Lana Turner, kissing on the sly at the Carlton Theater on Flatbush Avenue. Back then the war was on and we learned about sacrifice from Bogie. We watched as the engines fired up and we all said goodbye to Ilsa as she boarded that plane to Lisbon with that other guy. I remember the lump in my throat. We were thrilled when Bogie finally shot the arrogant German.

In those days, there were trolley cars, old red ones that clanged up and down Union Street, and ran on tracks over cobble stones. On Seventh
Avenue there were newer green and silver cars that went all the way along
Flatbush Avenue to the Manhattan Bridge and back.

In our neighborhood, there were also horse and wagons, especially on Saturday mornings when they came delivering fruits and vegetables. The vendors were always friendly and loved chanting their wares for the housewives to hear. Usually the horses left a few of their calling cards on the street.

AH, THE FOOD...

There was a time when pasta was called macaroni and spaghetti sauce was made from scratch and was called gravy. When ricotta came in a tin and was cut with a string, and fresh mozzarella balls swam in water. Cassata was sold in Italian pastry shops, and cannoli filled with sweet ricotta were big and fat. Coils of fenneled sausages hung on hooks in pork stores with sawdust floors, and live noisy chickens were sold from wooden cages. Strange goat heads stared blankly out at the street from store windows, and salami and cheeses were almost always tasted before they were bought. “Here, signora, try a slice - mangia.” Ah, the wonderful smells of an Italian grocery store.

Food was everywhere and was eaten just about anywhere. In those days, men and women with shopping bags leisurely walked the streets looking for bargains while they casually ate street food: a frankfurter covered with mustard and sauerkraut, a large soft pretzel, or maybe a hot knish wrapped in paper. They munched on warm peanuts sold from pushcarts in the summer and roasted chestnuts in the winter. At the pizzeria on the avenue, slices of pizza covered with stringy cheese just hot out of the oven were offered over the counter. Scrumptious hero sandwiches, made with crusty Italian bread were filled with mountains of cold cuts, provolone and roasted red peppers dripping with good green olive oil. Sometimes the sandwiches were stuffed with veal and peppers, potatoes and eggs, or maybe Sunday’s leftover meatballs. A sangweecha, my grandfather used to say. Che bellezza!

In the mornings for breakfast, we kids hungered for “Yankee Doodles”, chocolate cupcakes three to a pack and stuffed with a cream filling. Sometimes we had jelly doughnuts along with our coffee with lots of milk and sugar. For lunch on Saturdays we usually had pasta brodo, with pastina, a minstra or macaroni with beans, what we called pasta fazool. Good, hearty Italian soul food! And because we were also good little Americans, we sometimes ran to the corner deli and asked for ten cents worth of baloney and fifteen cents worth of potato salad, food we never had at home. Later if we behaved, maybe Mama would buy us a mello-roll, a charlotte russe or a dixie cup with a wooden spoon. In hot weather we usually cooled down with small paper cups of thirst-quenching lemon ice we bought for only pennies.

Thursday nights was always spaghetti night. And we’d have spaghetti, linguini or maybe angel hair pasta, sometimes with garlic and oil or maybe a plain marinara sauce. We were saving ourselves for the big Sunday dinner. On Friday nights, of course, we always ate some kind of fish. And on Sundays, without fail, we all sat down for the big family dinner. It usually started about two and lasted until around five. The food was always something special, maybe sausages or braciole, some baked ziti or maybe a big lasagna. On special occasions, there would be platters of ravioli or manicotti.

In those days, food was a constant and was always with us. After riding the BMT to Coney Island, we walked among the crowds enjoying mouth-watering franks from Nathan’s. There would also be hot yellow corn right out of the pot and, of course, we always had French fries. Later we topped it all off with soft ice cream which we called frozen custard. If we overate we had seltzer water at the candy store or if we suffered from a serious belly ache, a tall glass of Brioschi in a blue bottle was waiting for us at home.

It was great to be alive. The war had ended and the adults got together and organized huge block parties in the neighborhoods. Again, the occasion revolved around food. On outdoor grills there would be hot sausages, sliced onions and green peppers - the original Italian barbecue, long before the rest of the country had thought about backyard barbecues. We strolled around and sucked on hard ceci beans. The streets were filled with the wonderful aroma of hot cooked foods. The girls were pretty and tempting. The music was good and loud. And the food... ah, the food...

BLACK COAL AND PURPLE GRAPES

Most people prefer spring and almost everybody enjoys summer - but ever since I was a kid, my favorite season has been fall.

There are times in late summer when I’ll look up at the sky, take a deep breath and realize that, oh yeah; I can almost smell it, a slight something, a little bit of fall is in the air. Soon enough, autumn arrives quietly and there is now a clean, crisp quality to the outside air we breathe. From then on, the mornings and evenings are cooler and I guess you can say it’s officially autumn.

When this happens I always think of my grandfather arranging with the coalman to come and park his truck in front of our brownstone. Grandpa would always make sure there was an empty parking space in front of the house by standing out there, waving the cars off. I watched while the coalman who was also our ice man in the summer, rigged up a metal chute in our airyway that led down into our cellar. From the truck he would load a metal barrel with black coal and wheel it over to the chute to dump. I remember the loud noise as the coal bounced and banged heavily against the metal as it rushed down the chute. In the basement, my grandfather and I would quickly shovel the black nuggets into the empty bin as fast as we could. Later we would feed some of this coal to our mammoth furnace in the middle of the basement. The shovel was heavy even without the coal. The ancient monster of a furnace was huge with heavy arms that reached upstairs into the main part of the house. Throughout the winter my grandfather and I fed the hungry monster daily, he in the morning and I after school. Actually I loved doing it; maybe I was too young to realize it was hard work. Many times I kept track of the shovelfuls of coal I tossed into the firebox.

There were times when Grandpa would surprise us with a special dinner treat. With a hand-held wire grill he would cook his Sicilian sausages over the hot coals of the furnace. I remember the taste of fennel, red crushed pepper and coal dust on my tongue.

In those days fall was also wine-making time, and Grandpa and I would again be working together in the basement. We would toss clumps of purple grapes into the V-shaped chopper with our purple-stained hands, and then he would crank the handle. Hardly saying a word, we would work for hours. After the chopping we transferred the crushed grapes to the wine press and then we turned the wheel and squeezed the shiny purple liquid into gallon jugs. Sometimes we would stop and Grandpa would toss me a small bunch of grapes. He would lift his head and softly whisper in Sicilian, “Vitu, mangia ca ti fa forte”. Eat. that you’ll be strong. We needed the strength I guess, to lug those heavy jugs upstairs toward the front of the house where we would fill the oak barrels. We kept the barrels under the stoop which sometimes made for a curious odor upon entering the house.

In late fall we started thinking seriously about Grandpa’s two fig trees in the back yard. To protect them from the oncoming winter winds they had to be covered so we carefully wrapped them with oilcloth. We did this every fall time without fail. In the bleak Brooklyn winters they sometimes looked like gray ghosts that were guarding the yard.

There’s no furnace to feed anymore and I don’t have a basement with coal bins or any coal for that matter. I have a gas furnace and all I have to do is pay the bill at the end of the month. It’s easy, really, like Grandpa would say, it just takes money. I also buy my wine at the local grocery store or if we’re having company at a good wine shop. It costs a few dollars but then there’s no mess, no purple-stained hands or any hard work. The local supermarket almost never has figs and the checker doesn’t even know what they are anyway. Still when fall rolls around and the air becomes clean and crisp and the mornings and evenings are cooler, I remember black coal, purple grapes, brown figs and my grandfather.
.

THAT WAS CONEY ISLAND

Sometimes on summer mornings my teen-age friends and I would put our nickels into the turnstile and board the Culver local from the station at Union Street and Fourth Avenue. At 36th Street we’d transfer to the Sea Beach Express and ride all the way to the end of the line. We were excited and had smiles on our faces. As the trip progressed we were gradually joined by others, kids and adults, some carrying brown bags stuffed with food, others holding blankets and maybe a pillow. The smaller kids usually had pails and tiny shovels. Soon, the car was filled and we became a huge crowd with a single purpose and one destination in mind - Coney Island. Finally, when the train screeched to a stop at the end of the line, we all burst from the terminal and stepped out onto the street like ants hurrying to a picnic.

Immediately we sensed the salty air and the mixed odor of bodies and wet sand from those returning from the water. We inhaled aromas of garlicky hot dogs, hot corn on the cob, and sugary sweet cotton candy. Our ears were bombarded with the shouts of the sideshow barkers, the organ music of the carousel and the cacophony of words and laughter of probably a million people in search of relief from the heat.

That was Coney Island in the Forties. And we were glad to be walking the streets of Stillwell and Surf Avenues, away from the hot streets of the neighborhood.

As we hurried along with the crowd we saw again that familiar structure, the one we would climb and conquer one more time, the mighty Cyclone. There it was, its wooden frame and its treacherous first hill reaching into the sky. Even from a distance we could hear the yells and screams of the riders as it slowly climbed up the tall hill – click clack click clack, and then raced down, rocking its passengers from side to side. There were other roller coasters, the Thunderbolt and the Tornado but our favorite was the Cyclone. Further down was the giant 150-foot Wonder Wheel, slowly moving round and round, the cars swaying back and forth high above Coney Island. Toward the water looming above was the magnificent Parachute Jump that had been built for the 1939 World’s Fair and now resided in Coney Island. I remember being strapped in and taken aloft while those down below would be waving and calling out names. “Hey, Carmine, Vic, don’t fall out!” Then, finally, when we reached the top we saw a beautiful view of the city and then, without warning, like World War II fighter pilots jumping from their planes, the chute opened quickly and we plunged to the ground. The Whip was another ride we liked a lot. It was the one where we sat in a car while being swung around until it felt as if our necks would snap. If we were with the girls from the neighborhood we’d take them to Steeplechase Park and ride the horses so we could sit behind them, get close up and hold them around the waist. We also secretly watched as they unknowingly walked over the blast of air that shot up their dresses as we exited the Park.

After a while, we’d rush to the beach and stake out a spot on the sand near the water. We’d quickly throw down our blanket and towels, strip down to our bathing suits and run for the ocean. It always icey cold but we’d jump in head first anyway. We’d stay in the water for hours. In those days, there was always a polio scare but we never really worried about it until after we got home. People said you could get it from others, wherever crowds gathered, especially in the water at Coney Island. I remember seeing the leg braces kids had to wear.

Back then the older people went swimming too but they called it “bathing”. So you would sometimes see old ladies with soap in their hands, walking up to their knees in the surf and scrubbing themselves as if they were back home in their bathtub.

If any of us had extra change we’d go to a shooting gallery or a penny arcade. We once paid good money to see “Tirza in her wine bath”. Instead of seeing a naked lady we watched someone in a skin-colored body-suit splash herself with purple water.

Before leaving for home we’d always stop at Nathan’s for a hot dog and maybe some fries and a root beer. I remember the sign: “Follow the Crowd - Original Nathan’s Famous”. The long counter always seemed crowded and the countermen were fast and sometimes gruff with us. “Come on, kid, how many, how many, how many?” If we had enough money we’d end the day with a frozen custard which I loved. On the train going home,
sunburned and tired, we’d sit with our feet up on the wicker seats.

I visited the place again in the winter of ’56. After having been away from Brooklyn for a number of years, I wanted to show my new wife what Coney Island was like. We sat on a bench on the boardwalk looking out at the ocean and because it was cold we huddled closely and listened to the seagulls. As we sat, not speaking, sharing a chocolate bar and looking out at the waves, Up and down the boardwalk was deserted. I glanced behind us and noticed that the food concessions were boarded up and that the rides were also closed. The place looked dirty, and part of a crumpled up newspaper was skipping along the ground like tumbleweed. We watched the waves breaking on the shore and I knew then that Coney Island would never be the same and that I could never go back to that earlier time.

ON CARROLL STREET

In those days I thought every barber was Italian. And because our barber was a part-time musician I thought for sure all barbers played an instrument in the back of their shops. At that time we lived on Carroll Street, deep in the bosom of the Italian neighborhood we called South Brooklyn.
Originally, most of the Italians who came to Brooklyn usually came from Manhattan’s overcrowded Little Italy, the area around Mulberry Street. Many of them settled on Union, President, Carroll and the surrounding streets of South Brooklyn. And although these street names are non-Italian, they invariably conjure up a neighborhood filled with Italian sounds, smells and sights.




When I close my eyes I see old ladies dressed in black, with their hair in a bun in the back of their heads, walking those Italian streets, their shopping bags almost scraping the pavement. When the weather turns steamy and hot I imagine rowdy kids, with names like Angelo or Carmine, playing stickball or maybe they’re opening up a Johnny pump and flooding the streets. Those were our glorious Bernini fountains, one in every neighborhood.
I almost see visions of wrinkled old men piercing the air with their canes while carefully stepping along the sidewalk. The stores then were small mom and pop shops bunched together, creating for each neighborhood a small village. If I try hard enough I can almost smell the bread at Guarino’s Bakery. Down the block I see yards of sausage hanging like rope at the butcher’s on Fifth Avenue, where also goatheads dangle from meathooks and eerily stare out at the neighborhood.
At the Latticini Freschi there are large trays of white mozzarell’ bathing in water, and dozens of large yellow balls of provolone and caciocavallo hanging like small planets from the ceiling.
Along the avenue there are pushcarts lining the street and at least one of them sells franks smothered with mustard and sauerkraut. There’s a far lady at the ice cream fountain in the candy store, licking her fingers while at the end of the fountain there are teenagers swigging down egg creams.
In that old neighborhood I hear melodic Italian sounds, dialects casually spoken as if we were all still back in those ancient villages. In the summer if I concentrate I can almost hear Red Barber’s soft Southern drawl announcing a Dodger game from Ebbets Field. Because there was no television, imagination was used to create what visuals were needed. And we did that on that special summer night when the entire neighborhood sat on those hard brownstone steps, listening to a raspy voice broadcast every punch and jab of the Tony Zale – Rocky Graziano fight.
We also got our news from the local newspapers. An activity we frequently took part in was waiting at the candy store for the bundles of papers, the Daily News and the Mirror. The bundles were tossed from a news truck around nine pm and we raced to get the first paper and turn to the back pages for the sports section. In those days we could easily recite the batting averages and home run records of our favorite players.
On Sunday mornings we watched the girls in their pretty pink dresses covered up to their necks, walk daintly to church, not even a hello from them. Yet the night before, these same bobbysoxers, their skirts hiked above their knees, danced wildly in front of the candy store to the music of Benny Goodmen. I’ll remember always elderly Italian gentlemen, unashamed in their undershirts, hunched over and sitting on dining room chairs out on the sidewalk, talking with their fingers and their eyes, while in the background, Carlo Buti sang Non to Scordar di Me.
This was the old neighborhood in its heyday – now gone – on Carroll Street, in the ancient village of South Brooklyn.
Nowadays, the area is called Carroll Gardens and many of the Italians have moved away. The Dodgers left Brooklyn in ’57 and finally, Ebbets Field was demolished in 1960.

WORKING MY WAY UP

When I was eleven years old I was introduced to the world of work at DeRosa’s fruit store on Fifth Avenue and Degraw Street in Brooklyn. Through the intervention of my persuasive grandfather who was always looking out for my leisurely interests, I was hired by Gaetano DeRosa at $4.00 a week to polish apples and stack fruit. “Stacker” was my official title but I was also a “go-fer” who in his spare time swept floors when needed, especially when Mr. DeRosa looked my way. For the most part the job was uneventful unless a few apples or oranges hit the floor and Mr. DeRosa hit the ceiling. With my first salary of four one-dollar bills I impulsively stopped at a sporting goods store on my way home and used all of my hard earned money to purchase an extraordinary hunting knife in a cowhide sheath. It was a wonderful idea, I thought, until I brought it home and Grandma looked at me as if I were un babbu stuppidu. I was told it was not only sinful but a horrible mistake not worthy of a member of our family. From then on I dutifully brought my earnings personally to Grandma from which she doled out all of a quarter for me to lavishly spend on anything I so desired. Summer ended and so did my first job as a “stacker” in our free enterprise system.

Not too long after, I was recruited again by my grandfather to join the staff at Giuliano’s’s drug store on Fifth Ave. & President St. Although I was not pleased with the idea, I was somehow impressed because of the gray jacket I was to wear so I would look like a young pharmacist. Feeling sorry for myself because of the loss of free time after school, I would eat an entire fresh mozzarella on my way to work while noticing that my friends were enjoying themselves playing stickball on Union Street. My favorite part of the drug store job was the nightly ritual of serving myself a double cone of free ice cream before heading home at the end of the day. This new job in training under the tutelage of a boy two years older than me was to eventually become a full-fledged soda jerk. However, in the meantime I was to empty the coal furnace of its ashes as often as once a week and wash all the dirty glasses behind the soda fountain. Bronzino, the young pharmacist who worked for the Giulianos, had a difficult time adjusting to my devil-may-care attitude and was sticking it to me whenever he felt like it.

“This, young man, is what a clean glass is supposed to look like”, the know-it-all would raise his voice to me, pushing the glass within an inch of my forehead.

After the third time, it was all I could bear so I told him to shove his glasses behind him somewhere south of his belt. Of course he immediately fired me for that but I felt somewhat vindicated and proud of myself. Until, of course, I saw the whites of Grandpa’s eyes. Without even hearing my excellent defense or any of my impassioned pleas, my grandfather immediately took me by the arm and the ear and marched me back to the drug store. There, in front of customers and the world, I was made to apologize to the arrogant Bronzino. Against his better judgment, he reluctantly accepted and I swallowed my pride and my ice cream on the way home that night.

During the pre-Christmas holidays my mother worked part time as a sales clerk for Rose and Ellie’s variety store on Fifth Avenue, across the street from the drug store of all places. You guessed it. She got me the job of working there after school and on Saturdays. Rose and Ellie were a Jewish couple selling their wares in an Italian neighborhood. They had hired me not only because of my mother but for the reason that I knew a few words of Sicilian and they needed an interpreter for the old Italian ladies who shopped on the avenue. For those of you who don’t know, a variety store sells knick knacks and everything in between. And a helluva lot of plates, cups and saucers which had to be carried up from the basement. Now in this basement lived a very large undomesticated cat who apparently did not like fourteen year-old Sicilian boys. That cat was a demon, and more than once I dreaded going down into that dungeon. On one memorable afternoon, I had to retrieve some cups from the basement. When I was squeezing myself between the stacks of boxes I saw that monster cat above me on top of a shelf. I was apparently blocking its path so it raised its back, hissed and leaped through the air toward me while I leaned back to get out of its way. It was too late and the cat grabbed on to my left leg with its sharp claws until it drew blood through my corduroys. While yelling for Rose or Ellie to quickly come and save me I violently shook the cat off my leg and ran to the stairs. It was a narrow escape and I have never forgiven that damn cat. Of course, I stayed away from the basement until I brought a decent baseball bat from home. Then it would squint its eyes at me and hiss while I cursed it and waved the bat in its direction. I soon quit Rose and Ellie’s to play stickball on Union Street.

My next and last job before graduation from high school was at the corner candy store for Sal and Rosalie. I was still working my way up but now I was an experienced soda jerk, and also experienced in the ways of “stacking’, emptying coal furnaces and washing glasses for irritable young pharmacists. I was also good at fighting monster cats but I dreaded going down into dark basements. I worked at the candy store for about a year and my young apprenticeship was soon complete. At that time I thought the hard part was over with and that from now on it would be clear sailing. But when I graduated from high school and crossed the river to Manhattan (which we called New York back then) that’s when the real work began.

FROM THE AIRYWAY

The airyway was usually reserved for the adults - my grandmother, grandfather and occasionally my mother, who only sat there after her household chores were done. A peaceful and relaxing place for sitters, the airyway was the enclosure leading to the first floor entrance under the stoop of our brownstone. A person could sit there and watch people without intruding on their space. After all, the sitter was on his own home territory. So after dinner, my grandmother and grandfather would “take the air” until the light faded, sit quietly, and with hands clasped watch the happenings of the neighborhood. Sometimes I too sat and watched, not from the airyway, but from the stoop adjacent to it. From there I heard my grandfather’s comments about the unwitting and innocent people passing by.




Usually among the evening’s strollers was the smiling Pippo Scalia, the local tailor. He would be out for his after dinner walk, a passeggiata, dressed in his best and smelling of too much Bay Rum. His usual fashion statement was a snug pin-stripe suit, silk bowtie, and a flat cream-colored straw hat. He walked with a confident and conceited kind of bounce with his head slightly tilted. Pippo always seemed on the lookout for some lost widow or a newly arrived female in need of nurturing and instruction in the mores of our Brooklyn neighborhood and the world at large. So on balmy evenings he would stop by the airyway with a respectful “basciamu li mani,” tipping his hat to my grandparents. After a few words about the weather, he would prance into the night as my grandfather, under his breath, would smile and in disgust label him the neighborhood rooster. “Sa benidicca!”

Occasionally the area’s odd couple would walk by - a tall red-faced, hunched over gentleman and his short wife. He always walked in front of her, swearing in an Irish brogue, and she always tried to catch up, swearing back in her heated Calabrese. “Ancora,” my grandfather would whisper. Again. Always the same thing! “Sempre a stessa cosa!”

Mrs. Nicholson, the “American” who taught fifth-grade at St. Francis, would sometimes walk by, taking her short little steps, heading for the corner delicatessen, where she would purchase her nightly quart of Rheingold and a package of Old Golds. “Poveredda!”, grandpa would whisper. Sometimes Angelo Lo Curto, from down the block, would stop by and my mother would put out another chair from the dining room. Mr. Lo Curto was very civilized; he would join my grandparents for sometimes up to an hour, arms crossed and never saying a word. I guess it was his way of paying his respects to an anziano, an elder.

On real hot nights most of the airyways and the stoops were crowded. The streets were noisy, filled with a babel of conversations and the staticky sounds of a thousand radios. If you listened real hard you could hear a lot of dialect being spoken, including my grandparents’ Sicilian. On such a night Grandpa would hand me some change and tell me to go to the corner candy store and pick up a brick of ice cream. “Napulitan,” he’d say, with a smile. My mother would bring out the dishes while I ran to the candy store. By that time it was dark and while we ate strawberry, chocolate and vanilla, we’d watch Pippo across the street posturing to Annamarie, the barber’s daughter. She was pushing forty, in need of nurturing, and Pippo was always available.

The teenagers quieted down as they walked past the house, afraid they would receive a disapproving glance from the old couple in the airyway. In those days it seemed as if the older adults, especially grandparents, pretty much kept an eye out on things, and most people, kids included, knew that. So from the watchful eyes of the elders in our airyway, our small piece of the neighborhood was protected and kept safe.

EVERY KID HAD A PONY

We have a beautifully framed photograph that dates back to the Thirties that sits on a buffet in our dining room. It’s a small black and white 5 by 7 in an old-fashioned brass frame, the kind that sits on a stand. In the photo a small boy is tightly holding the reins of a black pony with a hairy mane. On the pony’s stirrups is written the name “Lulu”. The boy is probably about four or five years old and seems slightly frightened as he stares straight at the camera without smiling. The pony looks weary as if it had been traveling great distances. What may seem strange about this photo is that both the boy and the pony seem to be standing at attention, military-style, in front of a brownstone stoop in South Brooklyn. Of course, to me neither boy nor pony seems out of place and the whole scene looks perfectly normal and appropriate.
Recently our adult niece was over one evening having dinner with us. She saw the picture for the first time and innocently asked, “Did you have a pony when you were a boy?”

Now back in that wonderful time and place, some enterprising individuals earned their daily bread by shlepping tirelessly through the borough with pony and camera searching for little boys and little girls. Apparently their purpose was to immortalize - at least on Kodak paper - those children whose parents had some extra change to spare for such luxuries. I’m sure these wandering entrepreneurs existed in the other boroughs and cities during the lean depression years of the Thirties.

I also remember, in those days, an old rinky-dink truck with a small carousel (we called them “merry-go-rounds”) in the back and on the bed of the truck. Excitedly, we would watch this ancient vehicle slowly limp into our Italian neighborhood. It always seemed to lean one way and then the other, weaving from side to side, especially when turning corners as it slowly made its way down our narrow streets. Now that I think of it, the carousel’s brightly colored horses were small, no bigger than the size of police dogs but they were big enough for us kids to enjoy. I remember that the whole thing worked mechanically, with no electricity at all, just the driver, with all his strength, pushing and sometimes pulling the carousel by hand round and round while we yelled out with all our might. I guess it sounds primitive compared to today’s video games, cable TV, and computers, but back then this was one of our most entertaining pastimes. And it was cheap too; I think it cost only a few pennies or maybe at the most a nickel. The driver would wait by the truck until at least three or four kids showed up. Then he would securely strap us on to our ponies and start the ride from outside the truck by pushing the carousel. Our mothers stood by, arms folded, watching anxiously and occasionally waving to us from the sidewalk. I don’t know how the guy made music in that contraption of a truck but I seem to remember hearing lively “merry-go-round” melodies while we rode those fast ponies pretending we were Tom Mix, Red Ryder or the Lone Ranger.

I looked again at the photo recalling that bygone time and without smiling boasted to my niece that in those days every kid had a pony, at least in South Brooklyn. She went back to eating her pasta with a quizzical look on her face.

THE BOY IN THE AIRYWAY

If I walked along Sixth Avenue instead of Seventh on my way to the high school I had to walk past the boy in the airyway. His house, a four-story brownstone, was on Sixth Avenue near First Street in Park Slope.
What we called an airyway in Brooklyn is an area in front of a house that is next to the stoop and because it is gated becomes a semi-private area. The floor of the airyway is usually concrete and leads to the entrance to the downstairs part of the house. There can also be a small area for flowers and shrubs. Because in those days there was really no air conditioning to speak of, sometimes on summer evenings people would take the air sitting and relaxing in their airyways while watching the passersby as they walked along the avenue.
In 1946 it was my freshman year at Manual High School and I was excited about attending, even though I had heard the usual rumors about older kids indoctrinating freshmen by cutting your hair and beating up on you. Scary stuff, I thought. I never considered, however, I’d have problems on the way to and from school instead of actually on the school grounds. So I was a little uneasy when for the first time I was confronted by this crazy kid.
He was in the airyway standing by the gate and he yelled at me as I walked by. I remember he called me some kind of name. Probably something like “Hey, scumbag!” or maybe it was “Hey, faggot!” It’s too long ago to remember exactly. But I do recall that I was totally surprised and completely caught off guard. I stopped suddenly with my two feet solidly on the sidewalk turning toward him and just stared wide-eyed at him. Who the hell are you? I thought to myself, calling me a name like that. And how come? Is this kid a mental case or what? First of all he doesn’t know me and I don’t know him. Secondly, what did I ever do to this strange kid, I thought. Was it maybe because he was bigger than me and that he felt he could intimidate me because of his size? He was wearing a hat, a dumb snowcap with a red ball on top that covered his ears making him look taller than me. And he looked strangely different, as if he just didn’t know how to dress, certainly not like most kids that age. He was barrel-chested in his leather jacket and in his corduroy knickers as if he was stuffed into his clothes like a sausage. He was maybe fourteen or fifteen, a year or two older than me.
Again he looked straight at me and again he called me a name. “Yeah, you, you scumbag.” I stared straight at him, drummed up my courage and yelled “fuck you” and ran off as fast as I could. Half a block away I turned around to look but he hadn’t followed. I was surprised. Good, I thought. He was still in his airyway. Strange kid.

It was a big school and voices echoed in the halls. That first day I was assigned my classes and schedule and it looked like it was going to be a hard year, my first year in high school. I didn’t see any of my friends from the neighborhood, so in effect I was all on my own on that first day.
As I went from class to class I had completely forgotten about the strange kid in the airyway. But when the bell rang and it was time to go home he crossed my mind. I knew that if I walked along Sixth on the way home I’d have to pass his house. That’s if he was in his airyway. I thought of taking Seventh Avenue but I felt that was being a coward so at the last minute I shamed myself into walking along Sixth. This time I was going to be cautious. As I approached First Street I pretended not to be concerned and to look straight ahead, going about my business in the usual way. Without moving my head I quickly glanced towards the house and saw that he was not there. The airyway was empty except for a straight back dining room chair. Maybe he didn’t live there I thought and that he was just visiting some relatives. Maybe I’d never see this bully again, I secretly hoped. Maybe he left and went back to where he really lived, somewhere in New Jersey or at least in another part of Brooklyn. I was happy about the whole thing now. I was glad he was gone. Gone for good, I thought.
But next day was another school day and again I wondered about walking along Sixth Avenue. Sure, I thought, I’ll walk anywhere I want to. Why not? Who cares about this stupid kid? I have a place under the sun like everyone else. And I have a right to walk anywhere I want without anyone bothering me. And if worse comes to worse, I’ll even fight this kid. Even if I don’t beat him up I’ll give him a real good run for the money.
As I neared the house, I saw him, damn it; this time he was sitting on the chair in the airyway. He hadn’t seen me yet because he was staring up at the lamppost, which I though was a strange thing for him to be doing. I thought maybe he won’t say anything when he sees me and that he’ll continue to look at the lamppost. But I was wrong. Sure enough, he saw me and yelled some garbled name. I just looked at him. He yelled again. His eyes stared hard at me and his face was contorted. As I came closer, probably invading his space, he yelled louder. “Scumbag!” He yelled and waved his arms wildly as if to strike but I was no where near him. I quickly walked past him, looking directly at him as I turned my head toward him, hoping he hadn’t realized how frightened I was. He was wearing that same silly hat with the red ball on top. And he looked kind of odd, kind of strange, as if he knew nothing about how to dress and what to wear. I was past the house now and he yelled some curses at me and I said nothing. Absolutely nothing. I still was frightened and yet I also felt pity for this strange kid.

The holidays had come and gone and we were in the doldrums of a cold New York January with no hope for any time off until spring break. Because I hadn’t seen him for quite a while I had forgotten about the kid in the airyway. I had passed the house a few times since that first encounter and hadn’t seen him. Maybe because it was winter.
On a particular Friday in February I was walking home after school, along Sixth instead of Seventh Avenue, past the house with the strange kid. This time he was there and was sitting quietly staring straight ahead. I stopped and waited for the name-calling but he stared right through me. “Hey, boy!” I yelled at him. But he didn’t answer. “Chicken shit,” I called out to him. But he never responded until finally he opened his mouth and made a strange non-human sound like a hurt animal. I was both startled and frightened. “Can’t you talk, dummy?” I asked. He made that sound again and attempted to stand up but couldn’t manage it. He slowly fell to one knee and began yelling. He finally struggled to get up and walked kind of wooden-like closer to the gate as if he were a robot. That’s when I really felt sorry for him. I got close to him and I don’t know why but I extended my hand as a peaceful gesture. He grabbed it forcefully and pulled me towards him and then suddenly with the gate between us, he put me in a headlock. I felt he wanted to hurt me. While trying to get away from his grasp he rubbed his lips against my hair, back and forth, back and forth almost in a kiss. I broke away and yelled, “You faggot! You fuckin’ queer!" I was angry and he looked at me stunned and his eyes were beginning to water. He was now clearly weeping. I ran off cursing him and not wanting anything to do with this crazy kid.

The next day was Saturday and because I somehow felt guilty I walked directly to the house on Sixth Avenue. He wasn’t there, but in the airyway was the empty dining room chair. I walked back home somewhat disappointed.
June was a happy time when the school year ended and I had almost forgotten about the boy in the airyway. Occasionally in the summer, however, I would pass the house and usually see the empty chair but not the boy. From time to time I thought about him. In September it was a new school year and on the first day I deliberately went by the house on my way to and from the school. Even the chair was now gone.
It was strange but I somehow missed seeing the crazy kid and wondered if he was all right. I never even got to know his name. I guess in a way I hoped that maybe he went back to where he came from, back to New Jersey or somewhere else in Brooklyn.