The Hayes family lived on the ground floor of 487. That would be Jackie and Denis. Denis was the youngest and he had Downs syndrome. At that time Downs wasn't a popular name and we always quietly said Denis was Mongoloid. He required a tremendous amount of attention and Mrs. Hayes was a little women and he really got to her. She passed at a much too early of an age. Denis and Jack were still teenagers. Like many of the parents in the neighborhood Mr. Hayes was born in Ireland and he must have had some connections because he got Denis full Irish citizenship. Denis was sent off to live with an aunt in Tipperary and when she could no longer take care of Denis he went to the national Irish health care system. He had wonderful care and only recently passed at the grand old age of 67. Jack Hayes and his wife Marian just celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Awhile after Mrs. Hayes passed Mr. Hayes remarried and he and his wife, Josie, had two daughters in that same apartment. The daughters were Alma and Joanne. Josie, I guess short for Josephine, taught school at Annunciation for several years.
Jack and Denis' mom was a sister to Joe Coughlin who lived upstairs in 487. Joe and his wife, Beatrice, had three children. There was Joe, Anne and Paddy. I recall Mr. Coughlin having a little dog and I think his name was Tippy. ( maybe that was short for Tipperary). Mrs. Coughlin had a great love for Bingo and she would be off six days a week to a game some where. The only reason she didn't play seven days was that she couldn't find a Catholic church that had Bingo on Sunday.
There was two Murray families in the building. The older family had two boys and I can't remember their names. I know one of the boys ( he's in his mid 70's now) lives up in Pearl River. His name escapes me. The other Murray's were my age and younger. ( I'm early 70's). Michael was in my class and I believe he had a younger brother and a sister. They were all redheads. Mr. Murray was a bus driver for the Third Ave. Transit.
Another family was the Manions. That would be Lawrence and Kiernan. I recall that Mr. Manion passed away and shortly after that Mrs. Manion died of a broken heart. I believe that Lawrence and Kiernan were sent back to live with family in Ireland.
Also there was the Ackerman's.That was two girls, Virginia and Denise. Virgina and Pete Mugan from 499 married. Mr. Ackerman was an insurance agent, not a salesman but an agent. He went around to all the policy holders in the neighborhood and collected the weekly premiums. I always remember my Mom straightening up the house because Mr. Ackerman was coming. I think the premium payment was something like $1.25.
Mr. and Mrs. Hannon were there. Mrs. Hannon and Mrs. Buonocore from down on Amsterdam were sisters. The Hannon's had no children and so she loved taking care of her niece and nephew, Sissy (Frances) and nephew Sonny (Vincent).
Billy Woznak and his sister Catherine lived on the top floor. I always remember Mrs. Woznak coming home with such a cheerful disposition after climbing those five flights of stairs. She was a widow and a lovely lady. Billy's son and my daughter Kathi went to Bergenfield H.S. together but never knew each other. At their graduation I found that out after running into Billy. Another guy was Georgie Knowles. He didn't go to Annunciation and if you didn't go there you were kind of like an alien. I'm not sure but he may have been from 485.
The families that I remember from 485 were the Finn's. Johnny was a great basketball player. I always remember his mother was a very attractive lady with beautiful silver gray hair. Another great basketballer in that building was Denis Hurlihy. I think Denis had a couple of sisters and I remember Theresa from my building (500) after she married Tom Lovett. Also there was the Moore sisters. Margie was my age and she had an older sister.
On the ground floor was the Lopez family. Norbert (Norbie) was in my class and he had a younger brother. Their mother was a very tiny lady and they were from South America, Venezuela or Columbia. There was another kid in the building and he went to public school. We called him Alex the Russian. If you weren't of Irish decent we had to identify what country you came from.
If you look up vpike.com you won't find any of the buildings on that side of 135th Street. They are all gone thanks to City College expansion. That whole block from Amsterdam to Convent and 135th to 136th is no longer. That includes the infamous pub, Vinegar Hill which was on the corner of 136th and Amsterdam. The only remnant is the street post sign on the corner of 135th Street that denotes Vinegar Hill Corner. The picture of it is on the 502 W. 135th Street blog.
Next up I'm going back over to the other side of 135th and will try to cover the rest of the south side from 504 down to the garage. I'm a little fuzzy on who was in what building but I'll give it a try and see how close I come.
I am getting some very nice comments through the grape vine. I understand that it is not easy to comment at the end of the blog. If you would like to comment or make a suggestion, my email address is tomyread@aol.com. I'd love to hear from you.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
499 West 135th Street
On the east side of Amsterdam there were only three apartment houses, 499, 487 and 485. They were on the north side of the street and next to them going towards Convent Avenue was another building sometimes referred to as the "home". It was part of City College and I used to go to Cub Scout meetings there. Across the street was the water tower. It was a mysterious place as it had a fence all around it and almost no one was ever permitted in there. I got friendly with "Red" , one of the guys who worked there and he let me and a couple of the guys, I forget who, inside for a tour. There wasn't much inside that would impress anyone. The tower was some kind of monitoring device for the water pipes that were supplying the NYC water system. When the city put the new water tunnel into use in the nineties, I'm not sure when, the water tower was declared obsolete and was actually put up for sale. Next to the tower going back towards Amsterdam was the Annunciation Park. We always just called it the playground.
499 was a big building with many families. The Rooney's, the twins, Jack and Jerry, Leo and Kevin. I believe there was also a sister who passed away at a very young age. The twins were very bright and also great athletes. They went to Regis and were great basketball players both at Regis and in the neighborhood. I believe they played for some of the famous Vinegar Hill basketball teams. Mr. Rooney was an officer for the Sanitation. I always remember him in his fancy green uniform.
The Mugan's were there also. That would be Peter, Steve, Bartholomew,(Bart) John and Tommy. I hope I don't have myself confused but I think they also had a sister who also passed away at an early age. (Maybe I have the Mugan's and the Rooney's confused). Bart was in my crowd and now and then I run into John. Mr. Mugan was a bus driver for the Fifth Ave. Coach.
Jerry and Anne Marie Sullivan were there too. Jerry was one of the great Vinegar Hill basketballers and Anne Marie was one of the neighborhood beauties. Mr. Sullivan had a little Boston Bull terrier and I always remember him walking his dog.
Tommy and Mike Sexton and their two sisters were there. Tommy and Mike were fraternal twins. When I was little I thought twins always had to be identical and I couldn't understand when I heard Mike and Tommy were twins. They didn't look anything alike. One time I went "hiking" with Tommy and Pat Dunican and a couple of other guys, up to Van Cortland Park. We took the train up and then went "hiking". Klutz that I was I took a header off one of the paths and fortunately the Sexton's had an uncle who worked in the Van Cortland Museum. They lived in the house. Anyway, the guys got me to the house and got me bandaged up and I think we all got a soda and a tour of the house.
John and Pete Clark were there. They had two sisters, Joan and I can't remember the other one. I always remember John sitting on the stoop of 499 studying. He went to engineering school at Manhattan and at one time he worked for my dad in the camera store. In fact a few of the guys who lived in 499 worked for him. I believe the Rooney twins and also John and Pete Clark. One time when were all learning to smoke we would go up to the City College grounds and hide up there and smoke. Well Pete Clark had a pack of Kools, they were new then and the first mentholated cigarettes. Evidently they didn't agree with Pete as he turned ghost white and started to pass out. We had to carry him home. Mr.Clark also worked for the Fifth Ave. Coach.
Next, there was the Murphy's. Jackie and his sister Marie, I'm not sure if there were more. Marie was in my class at Annunciation. Mr. Murphy was a cab driver and he was killed in a robbery around 1948. It was a terrible tradgedy and it was very rare for an attack on a cab driver then, no less a homicide. Small world that it is, Jackie and my brother Harry are now related, through marriage. Jackie and my sister in law are cousins.
As much as we would like to believe, the buildings were not all Irish and 499 was a great example of that.
Georgie Asfendis and his sister Pepper were there. It was not uncommon to identify a guy by his nationality and Georgie was known as Georgie the Greek. George was the first guy I ever knew who got a tattoo. It was a skunk,Peppy La Pew. Georgies sister Pepper used to hang out with Bernie Campbell's little brother whose name escapes me, but they were together so often that we called them Salt and Pepper.
The Campbell family was there, Bernie and his unnamed brother. Bernie married a beautiful red head from 136th Street, Rae. She was related to the Mc Goldrick's from 1525 Amsterdam and her dad and Mr. McGoldrick could always be found playing handball up at the Oval.
The Miller's were there. There was Hughie and his sister Nellie. They had a dog named Rusty who looked like Little Orphan Annies dog. Nellie opened up a bakery and frozen custard shop in the middle of the block between 135th and 136th St. on the east side of Amsterdam. The shop didn't last too long, the baked goods came from a commisary. Frozen custard was new then and it was hard to come up with a tasty formula. Carvel had a lock on the business, even then.
As we would say today, 499 was multi-ethnic. The Wrobel's were there. There was the Aunt and Uncle and then the guys I remember, their nephews, Leo and Bernard. Once again, Bernard was known as Bernard the Pollak. I guess you would say Leo and Bernard were refugees as they came to America when times were very hard in Poland.
John Keskis was there,too with his son Chris. John opened up a lunchonette between 135th and 136th Street on the west side of Amsterdam. The store had been for the longest time Joe's Candy Store. It was between Bill's Deli and Mary Esposito's fruit market. John and his son Chris ran the store. At one time they had one of those juke boxes that had a movie of the person singing the song. It was the forerunner of today's "videos".It was very popular and we would all crowd around the machine to watch the movie. French fries were not as common then as they are today. We had no MacDonalds and the White Castle down on Broadway and 136th Street didn't sell them. John had french fries and they were a big attraction. If you got them to go, the bag would be dripping with grease by the time you got home but we loved them. At one time when I was twelve or thirteen I had a fake pistol but it looked very authentic. It was a copy of a Baretta. Jokingly, one afternoon I walked into John's, pulled out my gun in front of John and announced that it was a stick up. John's hands flew up and the color in his face disappeared. I realized I had made a terrible mistake and it took a lot to convince John that I was only kidding and that it wasn't a real gun. John and Chris ran the shop for a number of years but like everything else in the neighborhood , they eventually closed up. I remember Chris went to work for E.J. Korvettes up in Westchester.
The Cinnonetti's were one of the younger families in the building. I remember they had a little boy.
I think it was around 1953 that the O'Connor family took over as the supers for 499. Eileen O'Connor was one of the older sisters and when she married she moved to Pearl River, NY. It turned out that my wife and Eileen worked for the same real estate agency in Pearl River. We were talking one day,. when I discovered that it was her family, the O'Connor's, who were the supers. She told me how she so looked up to Anne Marie Sullivan and I was able to get the two of them together. They met at one of the Pearl River St. Patrick's Day parades. They were both thrilled to see each other again. Sadly, shortly after that Anne Marie passed away.
My dad had the camera store that was on the corner of 499. The address of the store was actually 1519 Amsterdam. The store had a basement that he never used. One time Pete Mugan and Buddy Clancy (1525 Amsterdam) made arrangements to rent the basement and they turned it into a gym. All the guys who wanted to get on the fire department or the police would worked out there so they could pass the physical. I remember Buddy Clancy, Pete Mugan, Frankie Nugent, John Kelleher, Bernie Owens and a bunch of other guys working out there.
Next door to the camera store was a Puerto Rican Evangelical store front church. They had services two or three times a week. For music they had a piano, a drummer and a tambourine . My dad claimed their music "drove him crazy". Fortunately for him, they didn't meet every day. Next to the church was a shoemaker, I think his name was Pete. Around the corner, on 135th Street next to the stoop was a big Chinese laundry.
It was a wholesale operation in that they did the laundry for other Chinese laundries. You could stand outside and watch the guys pressing the shirts. There must have been ten to fifteen of them in a row and all day long they pressed these shirts. They even took their meals there at a big communal table in the rear. The boss was a guy named Pang. As I said in one of my early posts we used to practice our Chinese cursing there; rub your index finger on your teeth and shout mach a how ding ding. Then you ran like hell. Pang never caught us.
I mentionded the guys working for my dad. That was one of the many after school jobs that were in the neighborhood. Guys worked as soda jerks in the drug store or behind the counter in the deli or delivered groceries. The A &P was always hiring part timers and so was the Safeway, when they came in. When the summer came there was always work at Lewishon Stadium for the "concert under the stars". We worked as hustlers, for every one hundred dollars worth of what ever you sold, beer, soda, ice cream, you got thirteen per cent or thirteen dollars. Beer was thirty five cents a bottle. In order to sell one hundred dollars worth of beer you had to sell two hundred and eighty eight bottles of beer. Supposedly you had to be eighteen to sell beer. Nobody ever checked our birth certificates. If you didn't hustle inside the stadium, you hustled outside. Guys would open taxi cab doors with one hand while the other one was out to collect the ten cents tip. The other hustle was "minding" cars for the concert. The guy would say, "what do you mean, mind my car?" You'd remind him what a terrible neighbor hood he was parking in. Cars were always good for a quarter. The problem with minding cars was there was territories. Most of the territories were spoken for and if you horned in on a territory you were looking for a fight. If one of your buddies had a territory and he didn't want to work a particular night he'd let you work the territory for him. A territory never went unprotected.
Next up will be 487 and 485. Don't forget to pass the word to any Vinegar Hillers and drop me a line if you have any comments or criticisms. Either way I'd love to hear from you.
499 was a big building with many families. The Rooney's, the twins, Jack and Jerry, Leo and Kevin. I believe there was also a sister who passed away at a very young age. The twins were very bright and also great athletes. They went to Regis and were great basketball players both at Regis and in the neighborhood. I believe they played for some of the famous Vinegar Hill basketball teams. Mr. Rooney was an officer for the Sanitation. I always remember him in his fancy green uniform.
The Mugan's were there also. That would be Peter, Steve, Bartholomew,(Bart) John and Tommy. I hope I don't have myself confused but I think they also had a sister who also passed away at an early age. (Maybe I have the Mugan's and the Rooney's confused). Bart was in my crowd and now and then I run into John. Mr. Mugan was a bus driver for the Fifth Ave. Coach.
Jerry and Anne Marie Sullivan were there too. Jerry was one of the great Vinegar Hill basketballers and Anne Marie was one of the neighborhood beauties. Mr. Sullivan had a little Boston Bull terrier and I always remember him walking his dog.
Tommy and Mike Sexton and their two sisters were there. Tommy and Mike were fraternal twins. When I was little I thought twins always had to be identical and I couldn't understand when I heard Mike and Tommy were twins. They didn't look anything alike. One time I went "hiking" with Tommy and Pat Dunican and a couple of other guys, up to Van Cortland Park. We took the train up and then went "hiking". Klutz that I was I took a header off one of the paths and fortunately the Sexton's had an uncle who worked in the Van Cortland Museum. They lived in the house. Anyway, the guys got me to the house and got me bandaged up and I think we all got a soda and a tour of the house.
John and Pete Clark were there. They had two sisters, Joan and I can't remember the other one. I always remember John sitting on the stoop of 499 studying. He went to engineering school at Manhattan and at one time he worked for my dad in the camera store. In fact a few of the guys who lived in 499 worked for him. I believe the Rooney twins and also John and Pete Clark. One time when were all learning to smoke we would go up to the City College grounds and hide up there and smoke. Well Pete Clark had a pack of Kools, they were new then and the first mentholated cigarettes. Evidently they didn't agree with Pete as he turned ghost white and started to pass out. We had to carry him home. Mr.Clark also worked for the Fifth Ave. Coach.
Next, there was the Murphy's. Jackie and his sister Marie, I'm not sure if there were more. Marie was in my class at Annunciation. Mr. Murphy was a cab driver and he was killed in a robbery around 1948. It was a terrible tradgedy and it was very rare for an attack on a cab driver then, no less a homicide. Small world that it is, Jackie and my brother Harry are now related, through marriage. Jackie and my sister in law are cousins.
As much as we would like to believe, the buildings were not all Irish and 499 was a great example of that.
Georgie Asfendis and his sister Pepper were there. It was not uncommon to identify a guy by his nationality and Georgie was known as Georgie the Greek. George was the first guy I ever knew who got a tattoo. It was a skunk,Peppy La Pew. Georgies sister Pepper used to hang out with Bernie Campbell's little brother whose name escapes me, but they were together so often that we called them Salt and Pepper.
The Campbell family was there, Bernie and his unnamed brother. Bernie married a beautiful red head from 136th Street, Rae. She was related to the Mc Goldrick's from 1525 Amsterdam and her dad and Mr. McGoldrick could always be found playing handball up at the Oval.
The Miller's were there. There was Hughie and his sister Nellie. They had a dog named Rusty who looked like Little Orphan Annies dog. Nellie opened up a bakery and frozen custard shop in the middle of the block between 135th and 136th St. on the east side of Amsterdam. The shop didn't last too long, the baked goods came from a commisary. Frozen custard was new then and it was hard to come up with a tasty formula. Carvel had a lock on the business, even then.
As we would say today, 499 was multi-ethnic. The Wrobel's were there. There was the Aunt and Uncle and then the guys I remember, their nephews, Leo and Bernard. Once again, Bernard was known as Bernard the Pollak. I guess you would say Leo and Bernard were refugees as they came to America when times were very hard in Poland.
John Keskis was there,too with his son Chris. John opened up a lunchonette between 135th and 136th Street on the west side of Amsterdam. The store had been for the longest time Joe's Candy Store. It was between Bill's Deli and Mary Esposito's fruit market. John and his son Chris ran the store. At one time they had one of those juke boxes that had a movie of the person singing the song. It was the forerunner of today's "videos".It was very popular and we would all crowd around the machine to watch the movie. French fries were not as common then as they are today. We had no MacDonalds and the White Castle down on Broadway and 136th Street didn't sell them. John had french fries and they were a big attraction. If you got them to go, the bag would be dripping with grease by the time you got home but we loved them. At one time when I was twelve or thirteen I had a fake pistol but it looked very authentic. It was a copy of a Baretta. Jokingly, one afternoon I walked into John's, pulled out my gun in front of John and announced that it was a stick up. John's hands flew up and the color in his face disappeared. I realized I had made a terrible mistake and it took a lot to convince John that I was only kidding and that it wasn't a real gun. John and Chris ran the shop for a number of years but like everything else in the neighborhood , they eventually closed up. I remember Chris went to work for E.J. Korvettes up in Westchester.
The Cinnonetti's were one of the younger families in the building. I remember they had a little boy.
I think it was around 1953 that the O'Connor family took over as the supers for 499. Eileen O'Connor was one of the older sisters and when she married she moved to Pearl River, NY. It turned out that my wife and Eileen worked for the same real estate agency in Pearl River. We were talking one day,. when I discovered that it was her family, the O'Connor's, who were the supers. She told me how she so looked up to Anne Marie Sullivan and I was able to get the two of them together. They met at one of the Pearl River St. Patrick's Day parades. They were both thrilled to see each other again. Sadly, shortly after that Anne Marie passed away.
My dad had the camera store that was on the corner of 499. The address of the store was actually 1519 Amsterdam. The store had a basement that he never used. One time Pete Mugan and Buddy Clancy (1525 Amsterdam) made arrangements to rent the basement and they turned it into a gym. All the guys who wanted to get on the fire department or the police would worked out there so they could pass the physical. I remember Buddy Clancy, Pete Mugan, Frankie Nugent, John Kelleher, Bernie Owens and a bunch of other guys working out there.
Next door to the camera store was a Puerto Rican Evangelical store front church. They had services two or three times a week. For music they had a piano, a drummer and a tambourine . My dad claimed their music "drove him crazy". Fortunately for him, they didn't meet every day. Next to the church was a shoemaker, I think his name was Pete. Around the corner, on 135th Street next to the stoop was a big Chinese laundry.
It was a wholesale operation in that they did the laundry for other Chinese laundries. You could stand outside and watch the guys pressing the shirts. There must have been ten to fifteen of them in a row and all day long they pressed these shirts. They even took their meals there at a big communal table in the rear. The boss was a guy named Pang. As I said in one of my early posts we used to practice our Chinese cursing there; rub your index finger on your teeth and shout mach a how ding ding. Then you ran like hell. Pang never caught us.
I mentionded the guys working for my dad. That was one of the many after school jobs that were in the neighborhood. Guys worked as soda jerks in the drug store or behind the counter in the deli or delivered groceries. The A &P was always hiring part timers and so was the Safeway, when they came in. When the summer came there was always work at Lewishon Stadium for the "concert under the stars". We worked as hustlers, for every one hundred dollars worth of what ever you sold, beer, soda, ice cream, you got thirteen per cent or thirteen dollars. Beer was thirty five cents a bottle. In order to sell one hundred dollars worth of beer you had to sell two hundred and eighty eight bottles of beer. Supposedly you had to be eighteen to sell beer. Nobody ever checked our birth certificates. If you didn't hustle inside the stadium, you hustled outside. Guys would open taxi cab doors with one hand while the other one was out to collect the ten cents tip. The other hustle was "minding" cars for the concert. The guy would say, "what do you mean, mind my car?" You'd remind him what a terrible neighbor hood he was parking in. Cars were always good for a quarter. The problem with minding cars was there was territories. Most of the territories were spoken for and if you horned in on a territory you were looking for a fight. If one of your buddies had a territory and he didn't want to work a particular night he'd let you work the territory for him. A territory never went unprotected.
Next up will be 487 and 485. Don't forget to pass the word to any Vinegar Hillers and drop me a line if you have any comments or criticisms. Either way I'd love to hear from you.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
505- 507-509 West 135th Street
The thing I remember most about 505 was Mrs. McGowan. She was the watch dog of the building and was forever standing on the stoop of the building. She was a tough lady and nothing got by her. She had two boys, Jack and Tommy and a daughter Mary. Mary was in my crowd and went steady with Junior (Albert) Rodriquez from the sixth or seventh grade until they got married. The two of them were hysterical when we went to Rockaway. We'd be a crowd of maybe eight to sixteen and we'd set our towels or blankets out on the beach and Junior and Mary would be under the blanket, in no time, making out. It was amazing, they could stay under the blanket for hours, in the sweltering heat, and never come up for air. I don't recall if I ever saw them go in the water. When we got home, there would be Mrs. McGowan waiting on the stoop.
The only people I remember upstairs was Red Foley. He was seven or eight years older than me and he hung out with Sonny Grosso, and Boppo DeGracia. The Grosso's lived in 505 and Boppo lived in 507. The MacIntyres were also in 505. There was the twins, Tommy and Charlie and they had a younger sister. Was it Mary Ellen? The Emanuel's (the tailor) were also in 505.
Billy Barton lived in 507. I think he moved not too long after that picture was taken. The Branchini's were there, that was Tommy and Francis. Mrs. Branchini remarried and she had Michael and Diane Pirone. There may have been more Pirone's but I'm not sure. Tommy moved to Creskill, N.J. He and Paddy Coughlin (487W135) were the closest of friends and could always be found at the Giant games. Francis had a very successful career at MONY.
. Upstairs was the Montiel's. Bobby and Johnny both became NYC cops and they .both passed away much too young. They had a much younger brother. Mrs. Montiel (Nellie) was Polish and her husband was from Spain. They were still living in the building as little as five years ago. I haven't seen Mrs. Montiel for about five years now. She was funny. One time Jim Considine was at one of the reunions. I'm not sure but I think Jim and his sister lived in 511. Anyway, Jim was a very brilliant young fellow, I think he graduated from Annunciation when he was 10 or 11. At this particular reunion Mrs. Montiel walks up to him and says, "Did you know you were a genius?" We all had a good laugh.
Matthew McGarry was in the building. His mother never let him out of her sight. She was still walking him to school when he was in the eighth grade. As I said before, the DeGracia's also were in 507. They moved shortly after they sold the candy store. I think the "older guys", Red Foley, Sonny Grosso et al had a reunion one time, honoring Tony.
509 was loaded with kids. There was a handicapped fellow on the first floor. I think his name was Majeski. He was pretty much house bound. Upstairs was the MacIver's, there was Donald, my age and his older brother Kenny. Their mother was Barbra and their dad, and I was sworn to never tell this, but his name was Angus and he was a Scotchman. He worked in the Ford plant over in Edgewater and he used to take the 125th Street ferry to work every day. Upstairs from them was the Wenz's. They had one son, Jerry. Mrs. Wenz worked for the Marchione Ice Cream factory down around 129th St. Their popular ice cream was buiscuit tortoni. It came in a little pleated paper cup and was sold in all the Italian restaurants. Mrs Wenz used to bring a box of them home every week and whenever we went to Jerry's house we got buiscuit tortoni. It was delicious and another reason I was such a fat little kid. Mrs. Wenz maiden name was Tracy and Mr. Wenz first name was Dick. We always used to joke that if, when they got married, he had to take her name, he'd be Dick Tracy. Next door to them was the McVeigh's. Hughy was in my crowd and then there was Eddie his older brother, a sister who I think was the oldest and then Charlotte who was the youngest. Hughy had built in rhythm and most days could be found sitting on the fender of a car banging out his imaginary drums on the hood. If he didn't like the sound from a particular hood he would move to another car. Sometimes he would move to four or five cars before he got the right sound. When he found the right one he did sound terrific. Hughy had protruding ears, we used to call them Dumbo ears. For as long as I can remember he was always pulling them back with his hands. You know it worked, he succeed in flattening them.
After I got married I was invited to a party one weekend at the home of a friend of my neighbor. The hostess was Charlotte McVeigh and she had married a guy whom I went to high school with. What a small world.
On the same floor as the Wenz's and McVeigh's was the Saxton's. They had one son, Jimmy. Mr. and Mrs. Saxton both worked for the Fifth Ave. Coach Company on 133rd St. Her name was Theresa and his was Cliff. Mrs. Saxton and my mother were good friends. They would get together and gossip for hours. When she would leave our house my mother would complain that she never shut up. Meanwhile Mom spoke just as much as she did. Jimmy was a hapless kid and we would torment him no end. He was really just a sad sack. He was always the brunt of our practical jokes. One time the guys tied him up in one of those wooden vegetable baskets and put him in front of his apartment door with a note pinned on him. It read, "Please take care of this child." His mother was furious.
Upstairs again, was the Fallon family. They were all redheads. Fanny was in our crowd and he had two sisters and an older brother, Junie. Junie served a full tour in Korea and came home without a scratch. He walked out of the Vinegar Hill bar one night , got hit by a car, and was killed. It was a terrible tradgedy and the family moved away shortly after that. Mr. Fallon owned a bar up in Inwood somewhere. One night Jimmy Magner (521) and I were both home on leave from the service. We decided to go looking for his bar to find Fanny, whom we had lost track of. We never did find him but we had one heck of a night. Incidentally, Fanny's real name was Francis.
Upstairs from the Fallon's I remember the McKeon's. She was Catherine Hartney from 499 and when she got married, 509 is where she moved to.
That wraps if up for this time. Maureen and I have been down in Florida since the 18th of January and weather wise it has not been the greatest. If this was the first time we'd come to Florida it might be the last. We did have some great times though, in spite of the weather. On February 22nd we got together with a bunch of Vinegar Hillers in West Palm Beach. Bobby McKenna sent out a picture of our gathering and it is such a large file that I'll send it separately at another time. I only have dial up here and that takes forever. There was Bob McKenna and his lady, Jimmy Cavanaugh and Pat, Jimmy's sister, Betty, Artie Lamarche and Rosemary, Tom Sakel, Charlie Ortiz, Gene Feeley and his lady and Maureen and I. ( Sorry, Bob and Gene, I forgot the girls names. Great memory,ha!). Had we more time to plan we probably could have gotten more to come as there are many Vinegar Hillers here in Florida.
Walter Wheatley and his wife Margie (Maher) were down in March. The Wheatley's had come down to see their friends, the Ascerbo's. Fortunately the Ascerbo's are good friends of my wife and so we all got together at the Delray Beach St. Pat's day celebration. The following day they got to see Maureen and I doing our Irish set dancing with a group at the Irish Festival in West Palm Beach.
Next up I plan to go over to the other side of 135th Street and cover 499, 487 and 485. Don't look for those buildings on vpike.com, they are not there anymore. I hope I don't take as long to post again.
All the Best,
Tom Read
The only people I remember upstairs was Red Foley. He was seven or eight years older than me and he hung out with Sonny Grosso, and Boppo DeGracia. The Grosso's lived in 505 and Boppo lived in 507. The MacIntyres were also in 505. There was the twins, Tommy and Charlie and they had a younger sister. Was it Mary Ellen? The Emanuel's (the tailor) were also in 505.
This picture was taken in front of 501. On the left is Billy Barton, my brother Harry is in the middle and that's me hiding behind the fudge pop. That little trap door in the left corner is the chute door where they used to deliver the coal. To the right is Louie's drugstore. (not too neat looking, is it?)
. Upstairs was the Montiel's. Bobby and Johnny both became NYC cops and they .both passed away much too young. They had a much younger brother. Mrs. Montiel (Nellie) was Polish and her husband was from Spain. They were still living in the building as little as five years ago. I haven't seen Mrs. Montiel for about five years now. She was funny. One time Jim Considine was at one of the reunions. I'm not sure but I think Jim and his sister lived in 511. Anyway, Jim was a very brilliant young fellow, I think he graduated from Annunciation when he was 10 or 11. At this particular reunion Mrs. Montiel walks up to him and says, "Did you know you were a genius?" We all had a good laugh.
Matthew McGarry was in the building. His mother never let him out of her sight. She was still walking him to school when he was in the eighth grade. As I said before, the DeGracia's also were in 507. They moved shortly after they sold the candy store. I think the "older guys", Red Foley, Sonny Grosso et al had a reunion one time, honoring Tony.
509 was loaded with kids. There was a handicapped fellow on the first floor. I think his name was Majeski. He was pretty much house bound. Upstairs was the MacIver's, there was Donald, my age and his older brother Kenny. Their mother was Barbra and their dad, and I was sworn to never tell this, but his name was Angus and he was a Scotchman. He worked in the Ford plant over in Edgewater and he used to take the 125th Street ferry to work every day. Upstairs from them was the Wenz's. They had one son, Jerry. Mrs. Wenz worked for the Marchione Ice Cream factory down around 129th St. Their popular ice cream was buiscuit tortoni. It came in a little pleated paper cup and was sold in all the Italian restaurants. Mrs Wenz used to bring a box of them home every week and whenever we went to Jerry's house we got buiscuit tortoni. It was delicious and another reason I was such a fat little kid. Mrs. Wenz maiden name was Tracy and Mr. Wenz first name was Dick. We always used to joke that if, when they got married, he had to take her name, he'd be Dick Tracy. Next door to them was the McVeigh's. Hughy was in my crowd and then there was Eddie his older brother, a sister who I think was the oldest and then Charlotte who was the youngest. Hughy had built in rhythm and most days could be found sitting on the fender of a car banging out his imaginary drums on the hood. If he didn't like the sound from a particular hood he would move to another car. Sometimes he would move to four or five cars before he got the right sound. When he found the right one he did sound terrific. Hughy had protruding ears, we used to call them Dumbo ears. For as long as I can remember he was always pulling them back with his hands. You know it worked, he succeed in flattening them.
After I got married I was invited to a party one weekend at the home of a friend of my neighbor. The hostess was Charlotte McVeigh and she had married a guy whom I went to high school with. What a small world.
On the same floor as the Wenz's and McVeigh's was the Saxton's. They had one son, Jimmy. Mr. and Mrs. Saxton both worked for the Fifth Ave. Coach Company on 133rd St. Her name was Theresa and his was Cliff. Mrs. Saxton and my mother were good friends. They would get together and gossip for hours. When she would leave our house my mother would complain that she never shut up. Meanwhile Mom spoke just as much as she did. Jimmy was a hapless kid and we would torment him no end. He was really just a sad sack. He was always the brunt of our practical jokes. One time the guys tied him up in one of those wooden vegetable baskets and put him in front of his apartment door with a note pinned on him. It read, "Please take care of this child." His mother was furious.
Upstairs again, was the Fallon family. They were all redheads. Fanny was in our crowd and he had two sisters and an older brother, Junie. Junie served a full tour in Korea and came home without a scratch. He walked out of the Vinegar Hill bar one night , got hit by a car, and was killed. It was a terrible tradgedy and the family moved away shortly after that. Mr. Fallon owned a bar up in Inwood somewhere. One night Jimmy Magner (521) and I were both home on leave from the service. We decided to go looking for his bar to find Fanny, whom we had lost track of. We never did find him but we had one heck of a night. Incidentally, Fanny's real name was Francis.
Upstairs from the Fallon's I remember the McKeon's. She was Catherine Hartney from 499 and when she got married, 509 is where she moved to.
That wraps if up for this time. Maureen and I have been down in Florida since the 18th of January and weather wise it has not been the greatest. If this was the first time we'd come to Florida it might be the last. We did have some great times though, in spite of the weather. On February 22nd we got together with a bunch of Vinegar Hillers in West Palm Beach. Bobby McKenna sent out a picture of our gathering and it is such a large file that I'll send it separately at another time. I only have dial up here and that takes forever. There was Bob McKenna and his lady, Jimmy Cavanaugh and Pat, Jimmy's sister, Betty, Artie Lamarche and Rosemary, Tom Sakel, Charlie Ortiz, Gene Feeley and his lady and Maureen and I. ( Sorry, Bob and Gene, I forgot the girls names. Great memory,ha!). Had we more time to plan we probably could have gotten more to come as there are many Vinegar Hillers here in Florida.
Walter Wheatley and his wife Margie (Maher) were down in March. The Wheatley's had come down to see their friends, the Ascerbo's. Fortunately the Ascerbo's are good friends of my wife and so we all got together at the Delray Beach St. Pat's day celebration. The following day they got to see Maureen and I doing our Irish set dancing with a group at the Irish Festival in West Palm Beach.
Next up I plan to go over to the other side of 135th Street and cover 499, 487 and 485. Don't look for those buildings on vpike.com, they are not there anymore. I hope I don't take as long to post again.
All the Best,
Tom Read
Thursday, February 4, 2010
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
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
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
502 West 135th Street
My crowd used to hang out in the hallway of 502, particularly in the cold and rainy weather. The building lobby was our "club house". We would play cards or just hang out. I don't remember if we played Whist in 502, but I do remember playing Banker Broker and Black Jack. It was only for pennies or nickels and no one ever got rich. Donald MacIver and Edie Bosser, neither of them lived in the building, would always be going upstairs to one of the landings to "make out". The people who lived in the building were very tolerant of us. They had to climb over us to get to their mail boxes or, depending what floor they were at, climb over Donald and Edie.
When I say, "my crowd" it was Donald MacIver, Hughie McVeigh, Jimmy Magner, Fanny Fallon, Philip Vicente, Walter Wheatley, Gerry Wenz, Bobby Montiel, Frankie Byrne, Danny O'Rourke, Peter Davis, Junior Rodriquez, Edgar Rodriquez, Anne Sweeney, Edie Bosser, Millie Parsons, Alice Reid, Fran Cribbons, Mary Mc Gowan, Pat Murphy, Molly Torres, Margie Moore, Theresa Quealey, Mary Purcell, Kay Kelleher, Anne O' Rourke, and I'm sure I have missed some. One poor guy who always wanted to hang out with us but just never fit in was Jimmy Saxton. His nick name was "Tin Can ". Other than the fact that he always got kicked around, I don't know where the name came from. He was a bit of a sad sack and we were very cruel to him. Now the era I'm talking about is when we were between the ages of twelve and seventeen. That would have been 1951 to 1956 which is when I went into the Air Force.
During that time I also hung out, sometime, with the guys on the other side of 135th Street where my dad had the store. I think at one time or another I hung out with everybody.
I'm going to try to tell you the families that I remember in 502. I'm not going to tell you what apartments they lived or what floor they lived on because for the most part, I don't remember.
The Woods were on the first floor because I remember Mrs. Woods talking to us from her front window. Her son Jackie was in my crowd until they moved to Fair Lawn, New Jersey. Jackie had an older sister Jean and an older brother Bobby. I believe Bobby married Pat McKenna who lived across the street in 501. When I say, "as I recall" or "I believe", I'm calling on my memory and I may not be 100 per cent accurate.
Mr. Woods was an electrician.
When the Woods moved to New Jersey, the Devlins moved into their apartment. There was the parents, Mary and Pete and then there was Buddy, Billy, Jimmy and Bobby and finally a girl, Mary Ellen. Bobby had a tradgic accident one day and was killed. I think Bobby wasn't even in his teens, a terrible tradgedy. They made a TV show out of it, a very sad story. The Devlin's forgave the boy that was involved. I don't think it was much longer after that when the whole family moved to California. I hadn't heard a word about them until there was a letter published in the Vinegar Hill Gazette from Odette Alfafaro three or four years ago. Odette's sister Angie married Billy Devlin and they are still in California. The Devlin's were Scotch. I remember Mrs. Devlin still had a bit of a burr in her speech. They were co-owners with the Tighes of what was originally Tony's Candy Store. Mary and Mrs. Tighe (Mildred) ran the candy store during the day and then Mr. Tighe, (Tom) and Pete Devlin ran the store in the evening. I always remember Pete Devlin having one of us, we were eleven thru fifteen years old, "run around the corner" to get him a quart of Ballantine Ale. I wonder if he is still alive and does he still drink his ale.
Across the hall from the Devlins was the Horans. They only had one son, John. John was an only child and never got to hang out with any of us. He was in our class at Annunciation . His mother was very protective of him and didn't want him hanging out with us "Holligans".
Down the hall came one of the McGowan boys from 505 and his new bride. I'm not sure if it was Tommy or Jack. When they got married that's where they moved to. I think her name was Margie. We always kinda giggled when they came in because they were the newlyweds.
As I go upstairs I'm not going to tell you who lived on what floor because I don't remember. There was the Reeds, no relation to me and we always had to explain that we had different spelling and we were not related. As I say this I don't remember if it was Reed or Reid. Alice was in our crowd and she had a sister, Clara, who passed away at a very early age. I remember talking to her and she always looked very sickly.
Big in our crown was the Wheatleys. Walter and Loretta hung out with us and then there was the oldest brother, Buddy, who was away at the seminary. He became a priest and was stationed down south somewhere. I don't recall seeing him, ever. Then there was Anna and Kathleen and Joe. It was either Anna or Kathleen, but one of them had a dog, a boxer named Tango. He was a gift from a serious suitor although I don't think he won. I hope I'm wrong. I always remember Mr. Wheatley with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and a newspaper tucked under his arm coming home from work. During the summer Mr. Wheatley and Mr. Dillon who lived upstairs would go fishing. If they got a good catch, which they often did, they would stand outside of the building passing out fish to anyone who wanted them. The trunk of Mr. Dillon's car would be loaded with fish.
The Dillon's had several daughters and Kathleen was in our crowd, a bit, as she was a year younger than us and that put her in a different crowd. I remember talking to one of Kathleen's sisters after one of the reunion masses, but I can't remember her name.
Another family was the Capria's. Ray, as we called her, was their only daughter. She was a year or two older than us and didn't always hang out with us. It was much to our regret, as she was a good looker. Her dad, Joe, was a cab driver and he was hysterical. He was one of the few Italians in the neighborhood and he and his partner owned a cab. They each worked twelve hour shifts and when he got off he would always tell us of what went on with some of his fares, some very funny stories. He had some of the greatest "dirty jokes".
The Collins were another family. I remember John who married Kay Moore from 134th Street. What I remember about John, he was five or six years older than us, was this. He could take one of those four legged, chrome, soft cushioned bar stools, lay on the ground and pick it up with one hand by one leg at the base. I hope you can picture that. Grab that stool by the base with one hand, lift it up, while you were lying down. No one else even attempted to do it the night I saw him do it.
Anne and Mae Sweeney used to hang out with us, too. Mae was a year or two older than Anne and she didn't hang with us as often. Mae hung out with the likes of Dinky Devlin, and Kay Kellker. I think they called themselves the Jets long before we had the Jets of football fame. Anyway, Anne was in our crowd. Mr. Sweeney was a brick layer or a mason. He always brought his tools home in a little black suitcast. I guess it was a tool case.
The Phaelans were also upstairs. They had two children, Jack (Jake) and I think it was Kay. They were older then us by a few years and didn't hang out with us in the hallway. John Scott wrote a very nice article about John in one of the issues of the Gazette. John had become very successful and it was no surprise. He was a great image to us when we were growing up, his parents as well. I always remember Mr. Phaelan looking very dapper and Mrs. Phaelan always very well dressed, on their way to church.
A few families moved away from the building before we started hanging out in their hallway. There was the Healy's and for some reason I think they were on the top floor. I think their daughters name was Margie but I'm not sure.
Then there was the Vogt's. Mrs. Vogt was a tiny lady and they had one son, Billy, who was equally as tiny. I think they moved when Billy was seven or eight.
Another family was the Sullivan's. I remember Charlie. He was our age and I still remember his great smile. He also moved when he was seven or eight.
That's it for 502. I'm sure there are some inaccuracies but that's the way I remember it.
I want to share an e-mail I got from Molly Torres after my last post. Molly is as funny now as when we were kids. Hi Tommy,
I started to send a reply the other day & my
email went down & lost it. I send condolences regarding the passing of your
friend. I grew up on 131st street between
Amsterdam & Old Broadway, 521 W. 131st
& remember a butcher on 131st & Amsterdam. I bet that is the same store my
mom went to, because sometimes she would send me with a note to give to the
butcher with the meats she wanted. This would have been around 1949?, but I remember distinctly the man behind the
counter & how he would wrap the meats up
with the butcher paper. My mom always
bought lamb chops, veal cutlets, pork chops
& other meats. For chicken she & my grandmother went to the poultry market
which was on 126 or 127th street & Amsterdam Ave. It smelled awful in there
& I hated going with them, but they dragged me in there anyway & I would gag
& carryon & they would ignore me or else
my mother would pull me to the side & tell
me to stop annoying them. Yuk! I never went inside one of those places again. Maybe that's why I'm not crazy about chicken, even though I make it at home, but never order it at a restaurant.
Must mention that my husband loved your
last email & the story of Pang's laundry & the macahoydingding part got him hysterical. So we just went on a cruise with
Holland America to KeyWest, etc and all the
crew was mixed, but mostly Indonesian & Fillipino. So everyday if we were in the cabin or dining, & he would say call "macahoy" over here & then he would
rub his teeth with his index finger. We laughed all week with that & are still laughing. Best to you and your wife.
Keep in touch,
Fondly,
Molly Torres Kafes
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Mary Corcoran 1932-2009
It is with much sadness that I report that Mary Corcoran Sheridan was buried on November 12, 2009. Mary had been in ill health for some time and had been suffering from dimentia.Mary was predeceased by her husband George. Mary is survived by her sister Cathy and brothers Billy and Jimmy and many nieces and nephews. Her Requium Mass was celebreted by her cousin Father Jerry Gallagher. Internment was at St. Mary's cemetary in Freehold, N. J.
Mary's parents operated Corcoran's Grocery and Meat Market on Amsterdam Ave.between 131st and
132nd Street on the East side of the avenue. I'm not sure of the name of the store, The Emerald also come to mind. One side of the store was the meat market operated by her father Jim and the other side of the store, the grocery, was run by her mother, Betty.
The Corcoran's lived at 128 Convent Ave. Mrs. Corcoran's sister, I forget her name but, of course, we called her Mrs. Gallager Her husband and their two children, Jerry and Mary Elizabeth, lived with them. They were the Gallagher's. Mr. Gallagher worked for the Fifth Ave. Coach Co. Mrs. Gallagher ran the household. The Gallagher's and the Corcoran's shared the one apartment, all ten of them. On top of that they had one of the first televisions in the neighborhood and Jimmy always invited Jackie Hayes, Junior McGoldrick, Jimmy Bradley, Vinnie Nyholm and my brother and me to the house to watch the TV. Many times there were many more guys there. I think the TV was a ten inch De Walt. It had a magnifier in front of the tube to make the picture look bigger.
We were always very welcome, very well fed and ,with the TV, very well entertained. Mary, Cathy,Billy and Jimmy treated all of us as if we were part of the family. Even Jimmy's dog Fuzzy was very welcoming. The Corcoran's also had a summer home in Edgewater, NJ. It was in a place called "The Colony" . It was right on the river. Of course we were always welcome there as well. We all swam in the Hudson and there was actually a little beach there.
The Corcoran family was another one of the families that made Vinegar Hill the great neighborhood that it was. Mr. Corcoran was one of the oldest original residents of the area. I believe he was born somewhere around 131st Street. He was in the neighborhood until the sixties, when the family moved to Fort Lee, NJ. The Gallagher's moved with them, to a two family house.
Mary's parents operated Corcoran's Grocery and Meat Market on Amsterdam Ave.between 131st and
132nd Street on the East side of the avenue. I'm not sure of the name of the store, The Emerald also come to mind. One side of the store was the meat market operated by her father Jim and the other side of the store, the grocery, was run by her mother, Betty.
The Corcoran's lived at 128 Convent Ave. Mrs. Corcoran's sister, I forget her name but, of course, we called her Mrs. Gallager Her husband and their two children, Jerry and Mary Elizabeth, lived with them. They were the Gallagher's. Mr. Gallagher worked for the Fifth Ave. Coach Co. Mrs. Gallagher ran the household. The Gallagher's and the Corcoran's shared the one apartment, all ten of them. On top of that they had one of the first televisions in the neighborhood and Jimmy always invited Jackie Hayes, Junior McGoldrick, Jimmy Bradley, Vinnie Nyholm and my brother and me to the house to watch the TV. Many times there were many more guys there. I think the TV was a ten inch De Walt. It had a magnifier in front of the tube to make the picture look bigger.
We were always very welcome, very well fed and ,with the TV, very well entertained. Mary, Cathy,Billy and Jimmy treated all of us as if we were part of the family. Even Jimmy's dog Fuzzy was very welcoming. The Corcoran's also had a summer home in Edgewater, NJ. It was in a place called "The Colony" . It was right on the river. Of course we were always welcome there as well. We all swam in the Hudson and there was actually a little beach there.
The Corcoran family was another one of the families that made Vinegar Hill the great neighborhood that it was. Mr. Corcoran was one of the oldest original residents of the area. I believe he was born somewhere around 131st Street. He was in the neighborhood until the sixties, when the family moved to Fort Lee, NJ. The Gallagher's moved with them, to a two family house.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
500 W. 135th Street
I think I'm around 5 or 6 in this picture. I had ring worm and when my hair grew back in it was very curly. I hated it but Mom loved it. Behind me is 499 to the left and 487 to the right. The store front straight ahead was a student co op from either CCNY or Music and Art. To the left of that was the Chinese laundry. Remember Pang and machahow ding ding. Pang was the boss of the laundry and machahow, if that's how you spell it, was supposed to be a Chinese curse word. After you said it you were supposed to rub your teeth with your right index finger.
500 was a typical building in the neighborhood. It was 5 stories and was a walk up. If you lived in an elevator building you were rich. If you went up to the roof you could connect to the buildings on Amsterdam Ave. all the way to 134Th St. That would have been 1512 Amsterdam, 1508 and then 501 on 134Th St. Through the back alleys is wasn't as easy because, if I remember correctly, there was about an 8 to 10 foot jump from the alleys on 135Th St. to the alleys on 134Th St. If you ran the alleys at night ,playing hide and seek, there was always a good chance that you would get clothes lined by one of the supers wash lines.
We had a great apartment, 3A. It was in the front of the building and we had windows not only on 135Th St. but also Amsterdam Ave. It was six rooms, as the real estate ads would say 3BR, LR, DR, EIK. In the bath there was a tub, toilet and sink but no shower. The thought of sitting in that tub grosses me out. After all, up until I went to high school, we only took a bath once a week, Saturday night. You can just imagine the black ring around the tub when I got out. We always had mice and so we always had a cat. Pepsi is the one I remember the most. It was the funniest thing to see that cat come running down the hall and it loved to leap into the tub when it got into the bathroom. What a surprise it would get when the tub was full. The highest rent I recall being paid and this was in the early 60's was like $60 a month + gas and electric. Mom lived in the apartment until around 1970 when she was burned out by an accidental fire from the apartment below her. The night of the fire I gathered up what was left of her possessions and locked them in the one bedroom that wasn't touched. I went to the hardware store and got a big lock and hasp to secure the bedroom door. When we came back the next afternoon the junkies had broken in and what little was left had been thoroughly ransacked looking for valuables. All of her pictures were strewn all over the room and we only managed to salvage a few of them. The neighbor hood had radically changed from when we had moved in but even after the fire Mom wanted to move back there. She just couldn't.
We always had a superintendent, better known as the super and some of them that I remember were the Sanchez's. They had a son named Mario. He was a midget and I when they moved out I lost track of him. Then there was the Feeley's. That was Genie Feeley's family. His grandpa was the super and I think Gene had just been born. I believe Dan was the grandpa's name, and I think it was him who had a fondness for the drink and when the fondness got the best of him we had no heat. Banging on the pipes didn't mean a thing. Knock three times and you got nothing but a noisy radiator. Then came the Murry's and we had all the heat we wanted. Ann and Mike had 4 boys and they all got a turn to take care of the furnace which in those days meant they had to shovel the coal in and collect the ashes and then bring up the ashes from the basement to the street. Those cans were very heavy. Mike Jr. was the oldest and he lived in England before coming to join his Mom and Dad and brothers. He went to Fordham and majored in Russian. He went into the Air Force from the ROTC and of course became an interpreter. I don't think I ever saw him after he went on active duty and he made a career out of the Air Force. Eddie was the next oldest and I believe that he is out on Long Island. I haven't seen him in years. Vinny was very active in coming to all of the V.H. reunions but I understand that he has moved to someplace near Valley Forge in Pa. Tommy, may God rest his soul, passed a few years ago at a much too early of an age. I can always picture Tommy and Artie LaMarch playing the bagpipes when we had a reunion in Van Saun Park in Paramus, NJ.
The Murry's quit being the supers and moved up stairs to the apartment next to us. Mr. Murry passed away and left Tommy,Vinny and Eddie and their Mother, Anne. I don't remember any of the supers after the Murry's left the job.
The super always lived on the second floor. I think it was 2B. In 2A , directly under us was originally the Coynes and after them came the family that owned the beauty parlor in the building, the Diaz's. Of course they were Spanish and because of the language we didn't talk that much with them. Across from them in 2C was the Wenz's. I only remember old Mrs. Wenz and her daughter May, the dancer. I think Mrs. Wenz had 2 son's who lived in he neighborhood, George and Dick. I'll talk about them later. Old Mrs. Wenz would get mad at the guys who hung out in the candy store and when they would get too loud she would pour hot water out the window onto them. Sometimes there would be a customer coming out of the candy store and they would also get doused.
Next to Mrs. Wenz was the Sullivan's. I don't remember a Mr. Sullivan but there was 2 sons. Jimmy was the oldest and after WW2 Jimmy had an affinity for the bottle. He was getting a check from the government and that kept him viable. So many guys came back from the military after the war with that affliction. Dennis was my brother Harry's age. He and Dennis were both avid comic book collectors and a least once a week they would get together and trade
comics. Harry said, one time, that if he had kept his comic book collection he would be a millionaire today. They would also go down to the candy store and you could trade comics with them but I think there was a small fee. I think Dennis fell into the hands of the junkies but the last time I saw him he was living with his cousin Sheila Sweeney out in Rockaway. It had been a number of years since I had seen him and he had a terrible accident while working for the post office. He was delivering something to a hangar out at JFK and when he went into the hangar he walked right into a rotating propeller on an aircraft. He was seriously hurt but survived. Mrs. Sullivan was a corpulent women but she always had this little bitty dog. Was it Princess? Anyway, she had this squeaky little voice and between her and the size of the dog it was a comical sight.
Up to the third floor now. Before the Murry's moved up, next door to us was the Redmond
family, a mother and father and 2 sons. I remember Hal. He was older than us and he had a car.
Mr. Redmond worked for the Fifth Ave. Coach Co. where many of the fathers in the neighborhood worked. The bus garage was on 132Nd St. off Broadway so it was just a short walk to work. Across the hall from us in 3C was the Amezaga's. He was from Spain and she was from Czechoslovakia. They had one son, Danny. My memory goes back to when he was married and I think Mrs. Amezaga never liked her daughter in law. Mrs. Amezaga, Lucy; Mrs. Murry, Anne; and my mother, Renee always got together and Lucy was always complaining about the daughter in law. Lucy was a phenomenal cook and she did quite a bit of catering. I can still remember all the fancy stuff she made for my eighth grade graduation, all kinds of fancy salads and beautiful cuts of meat. My mouth is watering. Next to the Amezaga's in 3D was the Mac Alindons. Mrs. Mac Alindon passed away when her only daughter, Mary, was still in high school.
Mr. Mac continued in the apartment until he passed away many years later. Mary married Jim Costello and is living in Rockland County. Sadly she is suffering from Alzheimers. What a beautiful girl. I think she was only a year or two older than my brother and I but on occaision she would babysit for us. I met her and Jimmy a few years ago and introduced her to my friends as my former baby sitter. We had a good laugh.
On the fourth floor, in 4A was a fellow named Jimmy Cinque. He was there for at least 20 years and the few things I remember about Jimmy are that he was very quiet, we never heard a noise from upstairs. He never had a room mate or a girl friend and all we ever did was exchange hellos.
Next to Jimmy was the Dunican family. Mr. and Mrs. and John, Brendan, Pat and Mary. Mr. Dunican worked for the Third Ave. Transit down on 126Th Street. He was a trolly driver and then when they came in, he was a bus driver. Mrs. Dunican was a homemaker as were almost all the Moms in our generation. She was a wonderful lady, always had a smile on her face. In the summer time she would take me along with all of her family to Rockaway. She always went with Mrs. Barry and her family, Leo and Mary.They were from 134Th Street. All of us would troop off to the subway and then to the Long Island Railroad on the train to Rockaway. What great times we had. When I got a little older Pat and Brendan would go with me to Palisades Amusement Park. We'd take the 125Th Street ferry over to Edgewater. When we got down to the ferry we always asked the guys driving their cars on to the ferry if we could ride with them to get on the ferry to avoid paying the fair. Once we got on the ferry we would ask the driver if he was going "up the hill" past the park entrance. Most of them were and we'd save the fare money to play some of the games at the park. The salt water pool at Palisades was the greatest. On the way home most of the guys would ride the water pipe that went down the side of the hill down to the ferry terminal. I was always a wimp and too fat so I chickened out and walked down the hill. I usually got home thirty minutes later than everyone else.
Across the hall on the fourth floor in 4C was the Cassidy family. Mr. and Mrs. and Mike, Ann, Peggy and John. Mr. Cassidy was a bus driver for the Fifth Ave. Coach Co. down on 132nd Street. Lots of Sundays they would invite me up for Sunday dinner. Being a chubby kid I never refused and after dinner with the Cassidy's, I'd go downstairs and have dinner with my family.
I alway remember that Mike and his dad had made a shoeshine box and Mike would shine shoes down on Broadway near Bickford's by the subway station. I wasn't allowed to shine shoes so I'd go as Mike's salesman. I'd try to get the people to come over to Mike to get their shoes shined. I think Mike got ten cents a shine. I don't recall if I ever got a "commission". Who cared, we were having fun. The Cassidy's had a dog, Lady. When Lady had a litter of pups I begged my parents to let me have one of the pups. They finally relented and I had my puppy, for one night. The puppy was so unhappy away from its mother that it cried all night. Nothing would stop it. In the morning I took the puppy down to walk it. Mrs. Cassidy stuck her head out the window and hollered down to me, "How was he last night?" I told her I slept all night but the puppy and my father never slept. I had to return the puppy. Good thing I did as I understand that he grew up to be the size of a German Shepherd, a big dog. Mr. Cassidy and my dad were for a long time the only car owners in the building. I remember the Cassidy's always went down to Freehold, NJ and I think Mr. Cassidy eventually built a house down there.
Next to the Cassidy's was Mrs. Kaplan, a Jewish lady. I didn't know too much about her, she had no family and she had a dog. I think it was a Pomeranian. She was always giving advice. I don't remember if she worked.
On the fifth floor in 5A was the Walsh's. It was old Mrs. Walsh and her daughter Helen. Helen never married and worked and took care of her mother. Some time after the war Helen's brothers children Dickie and his sister, I can't remember her name, came to live with them. Dickie was a good athlete and his sister was very pretty. They were a bit older than me and I never hung out with them.
On the fifth floor in 5A was the Walsh's. It was old Mrs. Walsh and her daughter Helen. Helen never married and worked and took care of her mother. Some time after the war Helen's brothers children Dickie and his sister, I can't remember her name, came to live with them. Dickie was a good athlete and his sister was very pretty. They were a bit older than me and I never hung out with them.
I think that next to them was the Hanson's Peggy and Tommy. I don't remember anything about their parents. Peggy used to babysit for me and my brother and I know I had a crush on her. I was six and she was thirteen. What a chance I had.
In 5C was the Milton's. I remember Mrs. Milton, she was a very sickly woman and she always wore black. I'm not sure if she was a widow but I don't remember a husband. Her daughter Jeanne was much older that us and after her Mom passed she moved away. Would you believe, I forget who was in 5D.
I'm a little hazy about the sixth floor but I do remember that Dennis Hurlihy's sister Theresa married Tom Lovett and they lived on the sixth floor. Theresa had two children and I recall her wheezing as she climbed the stairs with the two kids and the groceries. Some times she sounded like she was gasping for air. I understand that she did have a bad heart and I believe she did pass.
After the Milton's moved out the Tully family moved in. They were from Ireland and I recall two children. Their daughter was beautiful and I think she did some modeling. I do remember some unhappiness and I don't know what ever happened to them. At one time there was also the Garvey family. I remember Mary with the beautiful red hair. I think they were also on the fifth floor.
Most of the families moved out of 500 by the early sixties but Mom, Mrs. Murry and Mrs. Amezaga remained for awhile longer. They were the greatest of friends and looked after one another. Mrs. Amezaga passed away and Mrs. Murry moved to Astoria. Mom remained until she had the fire.
I drove by the building after our reunion this October and I was thinking of all the stories that one building could tell. We had moved in , 1942 and the building was old then. Sixty seven years later the building still stands and I'd say it doesn't look too bad. There are still twenty families living there but I don't think they will ever be as close as we were.
I plan to work my way down the block and I'll continue next with 502.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
