Stratton Park Message Board

Hi
Hope is all well. I was just reading this article in the NYT and it reminded of our old neighborhood.
i thought 15 cents was a lot for an egg cream but then it was about Queens. What did an egg cream cost at Gelman's. I remember 8ents or a dime.
Obviously there were many similitaries to Stratton park and many NY neighborhoods:
Love of sports;
many friends;
a big family climate;
love of games;
many things to do.

Marie-Elena. What game were you were talking about? With The ice cream stick and the spaldeen. and tried to hit the stick and move it to over to your opponent's box on the sidewalk. Was it Potsy? Or was that another Game.
enjoy.
all the best.
Les



Memories of Stickball and Egg Creams at Queens Reunion
By CHARLES DELAFUENTE
A group of people with graying hair, beauty-parlor hair or virtually no hair gathered Saturday on a Queens street corner to prove a point — you can go home again.

Most of them were in their 50s and 60s and had returned to the street where they grew up in Jamaica to reminisce about what they called a very special block and even play a little stickball for old times’ sake.

They came from as near as other parts of Queens and from as far as California for a reunion of people who lived on the block in the 1950s and ’60s.

Virtually everyone who was asked what they remembered most about that block described the same thing — a sense of family and camaraderie.

The “block” is actually a two-block stretch of 149th Street between Jamaica and 90th Avenues that dominated the neighborhood: It is a section of solid six-story buildings, about 80 years old, with more than 300 apartments that loomed over an area that was then made up largely of private houses.

Two of the block’s alumni decided to organize an informal reunion, as they had twice before, which on Saturday drew about 50 people under cloudy skies. They hung out a banner proclaiming the reunion.

Someone broke out a broomstick and a Spalding (pronounced Spal-DEEN) rubber ball, and half a dozen of the men ran to Lowe Court, which dead-ends at 149th Street, and took their cuts until one, Paul Bennett, hit the ball into home run territory — about 150 feet away, according to Gary Meltzer, an organizer.

Mr. Bennett, who lives in Los Angeles, added: “There were always kids out playing. Whatever age you were, it didn’t matter. The big kids and the little kids, they all mingled.”

Elaine Wieder Siegell, the other organizer, who lives in Boca Raton, Fla., remembered the block this way: “We just lived together — one family. You could always knock on anybody’s door; everybody knew you. We were one very large family. We didn’t need camps and all the other outlets that our children have.”

Robbie — as he was known in those days— Clare also talked about the difference between childhood then and now, and about “the incredible camaraderie we had. We didn’t have play dates. We just got together and played. Stickball. Stoop ball. Curb ball.”

Stanley Brownstein, an accountant who lives in Sterling Heights, Mich., and insisted that his building, 90-23, was “the best one,” also said he remembered “all the camaraderie. We were always playing some sort of sport.”

And, he said, he would never forget the 15-cent egg creams from the candy store down the block. (It was one of the few that would make a vanilla soda on request.)

Steve Cohen, who grew up in a private house around the corner but made 149th Street his playground, also remembered “the camaraderie, the spirit of all for one and one for all. It was just a fun place.”

The neighborhood, like so many others throughout the city, has changed significantly since Saturday’s visitors grew up there. None of them, or their children, still live on the block. The current residents welcomed their predecessors. “It’s beautiful to see that they all came back, just beautiful,” said Clelia Ramos, who has lived there for 20 years.

Jill Kavolchyck — then Jill Kesselman — who lives in North Miami Beach, Fla., said, “We were all one big happy family. Everybody’s parents knew everything about you.”

She recalled playing potsy — a hopping game played on a chalk grid drawn on the street — a decidedly girls’ game, while “the boys played ball.”

And she recalled that the closeness had its downside. “The neighborhood yentas would have their heads out the window. You couldn’t do anything bad. They’d tell your parents.”

Two current residents, Douglas Brooks, a City University public safety officer who moved there in 1971, and his son, Robert, a bus operator, watched the stickball game with amusement.

Told what the strangers were doing, the younger Mr. Brooks said, “I think it’s very nice all these people stayed in touch and came back to ‘the block.’ ”

Hi Everyone,

The game that the girl from Queens called potsy with the grid on the ground, we called hop scotch. I also remember the game with the popsiscle and the spaldeen. Each player had their own box (flange of the sidewalk which we used) and the popsiscle stick would start at the middle of the two. You would have to hit it with the spaldeen and get it all the way through the other players box. Don't remember what we called it though.

As you said Les there were many other neighborhoods like ours that had the same values as we did. I remember visitin my cousins in Manhattan and they were doing the same exact things we did. But naturally our neighborhood was the Best.

To all of us from Stratton Park I lift my glass.

Cheers,

Jo Rizzo

Jo
Good memory! and I agree we had the best neighborhood.
When we were in our early 20's We had a special relationship with a group of Irish guys from the 138th street area. We played a lot of softball and touch football in the park. And of course we enjoyed good times in Cotter's afterwards.
But that wil be a a subject of a future post.
FYI we are having an Archer Boys luncheon on Thursday may 21 at 12PM at Fiddlers' elbow on Trement ave.
We are trying to drum up interest of younger "older guys" to join us. all are invited.
My e-mail adress is lessherwood@comcast.net.
All the best.
Les

Les,

Would have loved to make the "Archer Boys Re-union" on Thursday but have a Business Trip to Boston. Keep me in mind for future reunions.

Don Diehl

In seeing the "Archer Boys" meeting I thought of all the people (kids) from my time growing up on Taylor Avenue. I knew them by which building they lived in and perhaps to what apartment they lived in.
Beginning with 1535 (Dr Feiner's building). Billy and Tommie Cannon (Tommie died in an accident with a home made swing operating in the Lumber yard, That is the playground now.) Mike Detko also lived here.
1531. Walter Baxter, Alice Brady, Larry Mulaly (younger brother Joe) and Larry (Yogi) Moskowitz.
1527. Anne Lyons (number of brothers), Billy Fitzpatrick, Eddie Mahoney (younger sister), Pat and Mike Gately (both deceased I believe) and Joe Sparks (I have tried several times to find him with no luck, he has a younger brother Eddie).
1523. Joan Connors, Irvines (Marcy, Judy, Kate, Wesley (Buzzy) and Bruce), Lou Rizzo, Carol Lyons, Cookie Luke, Sherwood (Joan and Les), Jimmy Walker (Sister Geraldine), Eileen Lehr, Frank (Rusty) and Virginia Shields, Somereve (Rosemary, Ernest and Frances; some comments here said she was still living in the same apartment some time ago), Mary Jo and Helena McNiff.
1517. B-29 (Tosi), Leone Pallas.
1513. David Flynn and Ray Jackson. Ray is the only one I have had contact with since leaving Taylor Avenue in 1958. In 1966 I was attending graduate school at Catholic University in Washington D.C. My mother was talking with Ray's mother and found out he was at the Augustinian Seminary at Catholic U. At that time the Seminarians were semi cloistered and could only leave on Sunday afternoon for four hours but they could not come to your house. In any case for about ten years we stayed in touch, in the earlier years seei each other every week.. I then heard that he died of a stroke some years latter.
Archer Street Adress. Matti McQuinlan.

There were a whole host of other names some half remembered, Rock Brothers, Stack Brothers, Buster Patterson, Pat and Jerry O'Connor, Melvin and Sheldon Bard (Twins), Falc, John Hackett, Frances Moran, Barbara McGovern, Rosemary DeLaeo, Frankie Ryff, John Frnklin, Kissanes (Danny, Jimmy, and Jerry).

It would be some reunion to see all these people again.

Hi
I was having some trouble in entering a new post so I "hiched a ride" on this post. I wonder if others having any problems There has not much activity lately.
My we can get a help secttion.
Here i my post_

[b]"For whom The Bell tolls-for a friend(s)":[/b]
In the words of a famous poet, John Donne, his poem includes these words:”No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell toll; it tolls for thee…” These words are poignant especially if you lose a friend, a classmate etc
A few weeks ago the toll rang for two of our Archer Boys: Ed sparks and Ed Bonitz. Ed Sparks was a close friend in my youth. It reminds of us who are older that in the words of the famous "baseball philosopher", Satchel Paige said in reminding himself of getting older that “don’t look back because someone or something maybe gaining on you”.
We also lost another Archer Boy recently, Ed Mahoney.
At our semi-annual luncheon on October 15 we remembered and raised a toast to the three Archer Boys who passed away since the last luncheon in May.
And just last week we heard the sad news that Kay O’Neil O’Brien died, a classmate of our 1955 class at St Anthony
However I would like to make this a means to rejoice of having good friends over the years.

Ed sparks was a good friend in my youth. He lived in the next apartment building at 1535 Taylor
The Spark’s family had one of the first TV’s in the neighborhood in 1950. We had many great times in the old neighborhood.
As we got older we went our different ways. At 17 he went into the Navy and shortly after his returning he got married.
However, about 5 years we met again at an Archer Boy luncheon and it was like we were in contact all the years.
I am sure you had the same feeling about old friends. One remembers the good friends of our youth.
Ed called often to check how I was doing and I did the same. One regret was when I found that he was not feeling i said I was going to over to see him. However , I procrastinated and soon Iafter I found that Ed died. I did not realize how sick he was.
How many times did this happen to you. especially as we get older?
i did not know Ed Bonitz well( e was a friend of brother, Bobby)and Ed Mahoney was older than me. But I had fond rememberance of his family and I know he was a good person, a veteran of the Korean War and then a policeman for more than 20 years.
After Kay died, i had the opportunity to read the eulogy his brother, Jack wrote. She was a very good person and she enjoyed life.

I would like to make a suggestion: Cherish your friends, make new ones and nurish the friendships you have(had) by contacting and getting together with them while we can.
All the best.
Les