501 West 135th Street

http://www.vpike.com/?place=501+West+135th+Street+NYC%2C+NY&submit=Go

Hello Everyone,
Rather than go down 135th Street on the South side and then go to the North side I am going to jump back and forth. From 504 and 505 on down I am not going to be specific about who lived in what building since I'm not sure . I just have a lot of names in my head.
If you click on the link at the top of the page it will bring up a picture of 501. Using the arrow in the upper left corner of the picture you can scan up and down the block. Vpike.com is a terrific website for looking up old buildings or what has replaced them. ( panning to the right of 501 on the other side of Amsterdam you can see that 499 is no longer there, just some new CCNY building)  Many thanks to Artie Lamarch for putting me on to this site.
When I looked out the windows of our apartment on the 135th Street side, 501 was the building I looked at. For some reason there wasn't as many kids in that building as there were in the others. The kids I remeber there, and some of them weren't kids, are the McKennas. There was Pepper, I don't remember his first name. He was, with respect to me, one of the older guys. I recall he had three sisters. Winnie was the oldest, then Pat who I believe married Bobby Woods from 502. The youngest sister's name escapes me and she would have been  two or three years behind me. I kind of recall that Pepper was involved with the bar business up in Inwood.
The Tighes were, I think, below the McKennas. Millie and Tom Tighe were part owners of the candy store in 500. They had a son, Bobby, (Tiger) and a daughter,Jean. They also had a boarder, Frank Rooney. He was known as Scotty since he came from Scotland and  he had a great Scotch accent. Scottty was a "regular" at the Vinegar Hill. When I went to work I ran into Scotty one time downtown. He worked for Hudson Blueprint on Hudson Street.
The suppers in the building were the Joneses. I can still picture Mrs. Jones. She did most of the work and I don't think I ever saw that woman smile. She had a hard life.
Also in the building was a Jewish guy, Ben. There wasn't too many Jewish people on the hill. Ben was a watchman up at CCNY. He was always chasing us and we used to drive him crazy. He always carried this big time clock to record his rounds and if he was chasing us he'd miss one of his punch ins.
The Sullivans were also in 501, one of the many Sullivan families in Vinegar Hill. I don't remember the parents but I remember their daughter, Eileen. Eileen was dating Jake O'Neil. Jake was the soda jerk in Louie's drug store, which was on the corner of 501. What I remember about the two of them was that practically every night, some time after nine o'clock, they would make out on the stoop of 501. I don't know if they realized that the whole neighborhood was watching but it didn't seem to bother them. I wonder if they ever got married.
One of the Coyne girls from 500 married an  O'Brian and they moved to 501.  I don't remember their first names. He was a fireman and he worked out of the house on 139th Street. They had two daughters, Mary Ellen and her sister whose name escapes me. I do remember she had beautiful flaming red hair. I ran into Mary Ellen about three years ago down in Manasquan. Like all of us from the hill she hadn't changed a bit.
There was a German lady, Mrs. Altsman. She lived on one of the upper floors and I always remember that my mother told me she was a nudist. She was not a "looker" and I always tried to picture her running around the apartment, naked.
I recall a young guy whom I believe was named Charlie O'Day or O'Dowd and I think he also lived in 501 for awhile. What I remember about Charlie was he had this big head of curly blonde hair and that he worked down at Rockaway's amusement park, during the summer. Charlie worked the merry go round and one of his jobs was to put in the brass rings that you would try to get for the free rides. When ever he saw us there, there was always plenty of brass rings to go around.
One of the few grocery stores to survive after Safeway opened was the one on the 135th Street side of 501. I don't remember the name of it and it seemed to change hands quite often. If you looked at the website picture, there is still a grocery store there.  I think it was Anton the barber who had the litttle shop next to the grocery store. He had a reputation for going to the back of the store for a sip of wine before he came out to trim you with the razor. He later moved up the hill toward 136th Street.
On the corner of the building was the drug store. Originally it was Stern's and that was the name embedded in the concrete entrance way. He sold out to Louie Englesberg and I remember him the most. The best feature of the store was the three phone booths and the soda fountain. As I said Jake O'Neil was one of the soda jerks there. There was few, as I recall, but he stands out. We used to love the malteds and the cherry Cokes. There was also a penny scale there that told your forturne. Being a fat kid I was always accused of breaking the scale. There was a guy who lived down the block, a muscle builder. His name was Teddy. One time he was going to pick me up, with one hand, by the belt. My belt broke. We always used to sit on the stoop of the drug store. One day a black guy walks up to me, says he talked to me a few days ago, that he liked me, and I should get out of there. I did, and sure enough a lot of black guys showed up looking to rumble with the guys who hung out on the stoop. Jimmy Magner was hanging out at the soda fountain and when he saw what was happening, came out swinging with a milk shake can on each of his fists. The black guys took off and we never saw them again. We never did find out what they didn't like about us.
My Mom always got her Christmas present from the drug store. At Christmas time there would be a big display of all the gifts available for sale in the display window of the store. She always got a box of "Evening in Paris"perfume.  Was I the big spender?
Next to the drug store on the avenue was Bill's Delicatessen. Bill was from Hackensack, N.J. Bill was a terrific cook, his cole slaw and potatoe salad were the best and I've never been able to find clam chowder as good as his was. The only thing he couldn't beat was the roast beef that Robert's Deli, down by 133rd Street had. Bill had a guy working for him whose name was Spanny. I never realized when I was a kid, but Spanny was short for the fact that he was Spanish. One of Spanny's jobs was to candle the eggs. Ahh, the good old days. Bill  had made a contraption that was just a tin can with an lamp in it. There was a wide hole on the top. Spanny would hold the egg over the hole so the light could shine thru it. If he saw a dark spot, the egg was no good because it had been fertilized. That got thrown out. I guess today they would call them free range eggs. Bill went out of business because of credit. Like all the Mom and Pop businesses in the neighborhood, Bill had a "Book." When you bought something in the store and you had no money, he would put you in the "Book". When your folks got paid, they  paid off the "Book". When Safeway came in on 131st Street and the prices were so great, a lot of people forgot that they owed the "Book". It forced not only Bill but a lot of the other neighborhood groceries and delis out of business. Now it wasn't everyone who stiffed these guys but enough so that they couldn't pay their bills. It was a crime, but in those days before credit cards, trust was the only thing those guys had. What a shame.
A lot of people didn't realize it but there was a 503. It was the dry cleaners store in that little spot between 501 and 505. It was a mom and pop shop and their last name was Emanuel. They had one daughter and her name was Queeney. I don't know if that was her real name or not. I believe they were Syrian. She didn't go to Annunciation so she wasn't with the in crowd but later on, in our teens, she would hang out with us on occaision.

I'm looking into the possibility of posting on Facebook. I'm not that familiar with it and I'd like to be able to reply to peoples posts and also keep them active. I'll let you know what I'm up to via e-mail. If you didn't know it Annunciation has a facebook page. In the meantime you can write your comments at the end of the blog and I can get back to you that way. Everything will stay posted.
I plan on getting together with all the Vinegar Hill Snowbirds down here in Florida soon, and we are trying to get a sembalance of the Gazette back on line. None of us are websperts so our efforts may be limited.
Regards,
Tom