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.
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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.