| Date: Sun 03/4/07 11:52AM From: Sabby Bonavita Email: sabbon@optonline.net Message: Hi to all East New Yorkers, Reading several of your postings certainly brought back memories. My brother Louie, sister Mary and I were raised at 298 Essex St. Although we did live at 777 Liberty Ave. for awhile. I am surprised that no one has mentioned that great (at least I think so) punch ball team "the Skulls." We played on Shepherd Ave. between Atlantic & Liberty. You could find us there almost anytime school was out. Guys like Vinny Boccio, Chickie Casillo, JuJu Boccio, Joe D'Avino, Joey Garone, Frankie LaBoccetta, Eddie & Frankie Tammaro, Derby, Louie Soviero (I'm sorry if I fogot anyone). How many remember the lot on Shepherd Ave? St. Rita's is there now but before it was Victory Gardens where old timers grew their vegetables and fruit. We, the guys mentioned above, also had a fox hole in that lot where we retreated when we wanted to be alone. When the call was "Seven Guineas in a Hole", no matter what we were doing or where we were, we ran for that hole in the ground. Were we crazy or what? Who can forget the School Sisters of Notre Dame? Young women that sacrificed so much for us Italian kids. They were the greatest! It's hard to believe that many of them were very young when they were teaching us -- Sr. Acquin, Sr. Olga, Sr. Karina (who, by the way, is living at a retirement home in CT.). How lucky to have been born and raised in that neighborhood. Remember Zips Candy Store (many a night we hung there)Willie's Pastry and his special lemon ice, Barney's & Angelo's (Tickie Jones Sundae), Sal's Pizzeria, Biscotto's (Vinny's grocery store)on Shepherd & Liberty (used to be Duncan's), and Vinny's Dad's store on Liberty between Essex & Linwood? I could write another 100 pages but I've taken enough space. WHAT GREAT MEMORIES! Sabby p.s. My email will change on March 10th. I'll post again with the new one. |
| Date: Thu 03/1/07 10:29PM From: Judy Close Email: jclose1@nyc.rr.com Message: Thanks, Ed O'Toole, for your memories of what happened with the cowardly murder of an elderly priest, Fr. Pancratius Krieg, back 1975-1977. I can date the event because St. Michael's High School had to close a few short years after his murder. Parents lost the will to send their girls into ENY -- the murder was front-page story in the Daily News the next day. I remember seeing the headline when I went to my office bldg. lobby to buy something at the newsstand. I almost died when I read that it was old Fr. Krieg who was the victim. Almost 10 years had passed since I graduated from the high school, and in my sophomore year, Fr. Pancratius, as we knew him (he was a Capuchin and wore brown robe with a rope tied around his waist and plain sandals on his feet), was in his late 60s or so then. He was my class's spirtual adviser, and came in every Wednesday to instruct us in increasing our spirituality. The way I heard the story was that the murder took place on a Sunday night, when the 2 thieves knew there would be Sunday collection money, pulled up in front of the walled friary on the corner of Atlantic and Jerome, and just walked up the path and rang the bell. Someone in the friary on the ground floor let them in, because they said "they were down on their luck, couldn't find work, and needed some money -- could the church help?" In the middle of a Capuchin priest or a monk (both lived in the friary) going to the safe to get some cash, poor Fr. Pancratius started down the stairs when he heard the late night visitors. The 2 thieves were so surprised by his coming downstairs that they turned around and blasted a sawed-off shotgun right at him--he died instantly--didn't know what hit him. I understood that they never found the gun. I'm very happy to hear that the wonderful police/detectives of the 75th Precinct caught those two vermin. No one deserves to die like that -- and the irony is that those 2 Neanderthals were going to get some cash, just for knocking on the friary door--because that's the mission of the Capuchins, Order of St. Francis. They serve the poor. The Capuchins left St. Michael's parish for good around 2002. Now parish is served by priests from Argentina. It's a very active Spanish parish, as is St. Rita's. The greater neighborhood went down fast for the count in subsequent 1980s and 1990s. Crack hit bigtime. Drugs and guns were everywhere, cars were stolen, prostitution was out of cars, with young girls outside of bodegas, which were everywhere. Arson was commonplace. I know, I had to move back and spent 14 years of hell there at that time, in my old house on my old block, with the area so drastically changed from working class to working poor and Welfare and Section 8. People were absentee landlords of those attached frame row houses, and quite a mix of families and singles rented rooms and illegal basements in some of those row houses, sharing one bathroom, one kitchen. Can you imagine living like that? Rudy Giuliani truly calmed things down in NYC and in ENY/Cypress Hills after he was in office only a few years. I remember seeing the change unfold. Guess who I'm rooting for in 2008 for President? That guy gets things done. If he could calm the ENY I remember from 15-20 years ago, he can handle anything. |
| Date: Thu 03/1/07 7:09PM From: jack Drucker Email: otb1961@yahoo.com Message: Are there anyone out there with any photos of the Cypress Hills Projects from Fountain and Sutter. I am a graduate of JHS 64 class of 1961. This site is great. |
| Date: Thu 03/1/07 5:50PM From: Joe De stio Email: stio616@aol.com Message: I Lived at 315 Jerome St., and hung-out in Brandts. I was in the Ice cream parlor the day Kennedy was killed; I was drinking a chocolate soda when the news came over the radio. I will always remember that awful day. Other times I hung out with Fudgie, Benny Catapano, Fat Albie, Jimmy Calahan and we had some great times singing doo-wops in the subway and playing punch-ball on Warwick Street. Those were really great times!! |
| Date: Thu 03/1/07 1:08PM From: Lou Schreiner "Lucky" Email: abn504tpr@aol.com Message: Brandt's Ice Cream Parlor was always a must stop after taking your girl to either Loew's Premeir or Loew's Gates. These two theaters were understood by the girls that they were special dates. Many a couples initials were carved into the wood while sipping cokes or eating their tasty ice creams. |
| Date: Wed 02/28/07 2:41PM From: nancy Email: mangeo@optonline.net Message: Oops, meant to say Tommy Twist (to Eddie) |
| Date: Wed 02/28/07 2:39PM From: nancyM Email: mangeo@optonline.net Message: Eddie, Knew all the guys you mentioned. Did you know my brother "tonny Twist"? he stood with Paulie as well.. |
| Date: Wed 02/28/07 1:45PM From: Phyllis Esposito (nee Annunziata) Email: pae445@comcast.net Message: Although I lived on Liberty Ave, on Essex St or Glenmore Ave for most of my childhood, and graduated from St. Rita's, my grandmother(on my mother's side) lived on VanSicklen Ave between Glenmore and Pitkin and I would spend lots of time there. I was just wondering if anyone out there remembers Brandt's Ice Cream Parlor, or Johnny Mann's Candy Store or Lillie & Jack's. They were all on Pitkin Ave and VanSicklen. I'll always remember Brandt's ice cream. They made it themselves, and they should have packaged it. There is nothing like it today - not even Haagen Daz. Does anyone remember Frosteds? Brandts made the best Frosteds. They would put the ice cream into the malted machine and mix it until it was soft - but only soft enough so that you could eat it with a spoon. Then they would pour it into a ice cream soda glass. Delicious! Anyone out there remember that? And their ice cream sandwiches had ice cream between two crispy wafers. Not like the wafers they have today. They were not sweet, just crispy and just right! I would get a cherry malted at Lillie & Jack's and I can still see myself sitting at the counter on a stool. At Johnny Mann's I would have a chocolate egg cream and pretzel. I don't know why I remember each one of these place for these individual items. I know I could have gotten any one of them at each place....except for the Frosteds! |
| Date: Tue 02/27/07 5:42PM From: Edward Schubert Email: tcbeddie@netzero.net Message: I grew up on lincoln ave in cypress hills. and one know my family |
| Date: Tue 02/27/07 5:12PM From: Eddie O'Toole Email: edward.o\'toole@us.hsbc.com Message: Jim/ Nancy, Know the car service very well, my family didn't own a car and my Dad used Hamburg all the time for our trips to our old neighborhood to see family in Red Hook/ South Bklyn (pre-Carroll Gardens). We moved from "the Hook" to Cypress Hills in '52. We thought it was like the country with the tree lined streets, Highland and Forest Parks etc. I also remember the Garden Apartments between Liberty and Atlantic across from White Castle and not far from ENY Vocational HS. When I was hooked up with a group from Fountain and Pitkin, Paulie Gazzara/ Donnie LaRuffa era, we also had plenty of interesting battles in ENY HS park, Liberty Park, Highland Park and White Castle before and after St. Michael's Friday night dances. It was a wild, tough but great neighborhood and I was proud to grow up there. |