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We were talking about the cost of things in old Brooklyn. The figures nationwide are interesting; let's take the year, 1958, a very meaningful year for me. The annual income then was $4,707; tuition at Harvard University then was $1,250 a year; round-trip airfare London to New York was $453; Libby's tomato juice was five 46-ounce cans for $1; Swiss steak was 75˘ a pound, Sunkist oranges was 5 pounds for 49˘, milk was 42˘ per half gallon, Kraft caramels was 37˘ per 1-pound box; gasoline was 30˘ a gallon, Nathann's hot dog was 25˘; and a first class stamp had just increased to 4˘.

Phil Glick writes to me saying, "It (Coney Island) was wonderful, raffish place to be a kid." He remembers going to Steeplechase, fishing out of Sheepshead Bay on the Glory or one of the other open party boats. He says he's fished all over the world, but most fondly remembers the Porgy, that his father helped him, a 7 year old, catch. He remembers the Half Moon Hotel on the boardwalk and his first job as a lugger of beach chairs from the rental stands under the boardwalk, and when it was time to spread one's wings, he had the Culver line subway to the city ... Manhattan was always referred to as, "the city".

And to Linda Hirsch who asks if Abe Reles enjoyed the view from the Half Moon Hotel, I say yes, it was right next to the boardwalk on West 29th Street In 1941, Abe liked the view so much that the Brooklyn Mob (Murder Inc.), threw him out the window so he could see more of the view. Sometime later, Lucky Luciano, another mobster, said the police had received $50,000 to help Abe jump. But then, can you believe a mobster? It still remains puzzle.

I remember Highland Park (just north of the East New York part of Brooklyn, and part of that terminal moraine) where we brought the cub scouts for their outings. I still have the rope we used for the tug-a-war, same rope was used earlier when camping with the family, (looking around, no one's watching? shhhh, it was the same rope I used on my boat before getting married). We all remember Loehman's on Bedford Avenue (women would go in, shop around for clothing, change at the racks with no concern as to who was looking; do females change their personalities in clothing stores?), Mahjong, Mandee's Dept. Store, Eastern Parkway, "Kitzel" Park (that's Lincoln Terrace Park on Eastern Parkway; I think "kitzel" in Yiddish means "tickle" and you can draw your own conclusions).

Benches ... now a bench could be a snow fort from which to pitch snowballs. If iced, you sleighed across them. You jumped from them and became "statues" to be guessed by your opponents. Five kids could sit across a bench and play "telephone." It became a schoolroom, a place to sit and play ball games, a safe place to park your kid brother in a baby carriage and, best of all, a place where all the mothers sat and bragged about their kids. Speaking of snow, remember when on December 26, 1947, a heavy snow blanketed the Northeast, burying NYC under 25'8" of snow in 16 hours? That same day, Los Angeles set a record high of 84F. My street was a dirt road; the city didn't have the modern machinery, and I think we had snow there through March.

We had (and still have) Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, Brooklyn Museum, Grand Army Plaza Library, Lubavitch World Headquarters (that's 770 Eastern Parkway), Prospect Park with the Goldman Band (with the cornet player who only had 3 fingers on one hand, and how exciting it was when the band played Ravel's Bolero).

We went row boating, enjoyed the parade grounds (where parades could be watched almost every Sunday of the year, and where so many major league players got their start), the zoo, the carousel, Staten Island ferry and Statue of Liberty, Radio City Music Hall, Rockaway Playland, summer concerts at Lewisohn's Stadium (part of City College), maple trees dropping the pods that could open and produced their own glue to put on your nose, pedestrian bridge at Sheepshead Bay, Phil Martin Plumbing Supplies (he was my father-in-law) on Bergen Street near Bedford Avenue, and the Lubavitcher school across Bedford on Rogers. An aside about Times Square, it’s changing now. However, James Traub (New York Times 3/14/04) writes as follows:

"Times Square is surely the most familiar and most frequently reproduced fragment of urban real estate on the planet. Even those of us who are too young to have known Times Square in its age of glory, even many people who have never been to New York, for that matter, carry in their heads a nocturnal black-and-white image of glowing signs for Camel cigarettes and Bond Clothing store, of yellow checkered taxis coursing through the X-shaped crossroads of Broadway and Seventh Avenue, of crowds of men in dark suits and fedoras gazing up at the news zipper on the Times Tower. They're nostalgia magnets, these pictures."

He continues: "We look at them and think, 'That was life' ... the hats, the crowds, the shows, the bars; yes, here was life in the center of the city that was the center of the world. And as Times Square is in so many ways the incarnation of urban life itself, so nostalgia for Times Square is nostalgia for a lost idea of urbaneness, or urbanity ... for a time, before the advent of television and the suburbs, and before riots and drug wars, when everyone knew that city life was the best life of all."

Back to Brooklyn now (Times Square was fun but Brooklyn was "home"); we had Dubrow's cafeteria on Eastern Parkway for a delicious cream cheese on bagel with a cup of coffee after a date (where, as Stephen Leacock, Canada's famous writer and humorist expresses it, "older men would be explaining that the country is going to absolute ruin, and the younger ones explaining that the country is forging ahead as it never did before). I think Leacock was one of the required readings in high school, along with Silas Marner and Ethan Frome (and I doubt if Leacock was ever at Dubrow's).

Jackie Mason would ask in one of his skits, "Do you remember what a cafeteria was? In poor neighborhoods all over this country, they went to a cafeteria because there were no waiters and no service. And so poor people could save money on a tip." Well, maybe yes, maybe no ... cafeterias (especially Dubrow's) were great places where you could meet, talk, hang out, and feel alive.

And diagonally across the intersection from Dubrow's was the Famous, a dairy restaurant where delicious dishes like perrogies and sour cream were served. What would today's nutritionists say about that. Better yet, what would they say about "gribbinus" (transliteration), a delicacy made from fried chicken fat.

I remember Pop Klee on East 94th Street between L and M (fishing supplies and pool playing; where we'd buy the bait before going fishing), shopping along 86th Street near 4th Avenue in Bay Ridge, sour pickles and sauerkraut from the barrel; eating chocolate pudding (sometimes with nuts in it) and saving the skin on top for the end, Stillwell Avenue Station (coming into Coney Island) with the smell of popcorn, cotton candy, jelly apples, the ocean, and people, swimming in Brooklyn's Saint George Hotel pool.

Speaking of the ocean, Professor Jerome Huyler (of Seton Hall) tells me that he remembers a trolley car going under Ocean Parkway along Church Avenue. That's something I don't remember. He says it started "dipping" a half block before the parkway, went through a tunnel, and came out a half block after the parkway. I wish I had seen that. Well, he lived a few blocks away (fancy shmancy) and I lived in Canarsie (the sticks). Late note: Thank you, Stephano, for sending me a picture of that trolley going under Ocean Parkway and to my reader; click your “Back” button to get back here.

I remember we had telephone numbers with real names (they had character like: Cloverdale 7, Coney Island 6, Esplanade 3, Nightingale 9, Beachview 4, etc., so for example, instead of what we have today, "257-5555" it was "CLoverdale 7-5555"), And then we had telephones with bells. An aside: We didn't get our own phone until I was in my middle 20's. Until then we used my aunt's phone downstairs (my cousin Sandra's apartment). There was no shame; aunt Anne used my mother's bookkeeping savvy in the running and paying bills for the house we shared at that time.

A note on bakeries; Diane living in the Marine Park section of Brooklyn calls to my attention that for those who are not familiar with the south shore of Brooklyn, when considering bakeries, no bakery in the world (slight exaggeration) could ever beat Leon's Bakery on Knapp Street just south of Avenue U (really near the intersection of Knapp and Gerritsen). People would line up around the corner, even bringing some portable chairs, to wait to enter that bakery and order a Jewish rye bread. And for parties or any special celebration, what cakes in the world could match their selections. Alas, Leon's is no more, and that is probably due to changing populations in Brooklyn. Sorry, Diane, don't know how I overlooked Leon's. I sure do miss their "black forest".

Before we continue, Dolores wrote to me giving me a bit of "you-know-what" saying "A lot of your information seems to be for a few local areas in Brooklyn, but nothing from Park Slope" ... well, that was't my part of town but here it is, her contributions and I'll take her word for it, with one exception (bridal shops). She says:

"There was a Smilen Brothers on 11th Street and 5th Avenue. Neerggards was the only all night drug store 24/7 on 5th Avenue and 9th Street. The main wedding hall was 'Prospect Hall' on Prospect Ave (above 5th Avenue) and they had the largest golden staircase for the bride & groom to make their enterance. Everyone went to the only drive-in Hamburger joint, Mitchelle's on McDonalds Ave (near the graveyard). Henretta's Bridal Store was on 9th Street and every one came from all over for their gowns there.

The movie houses were the RKO (50 cents admission) and the Avon (25 cents, not as uppity as RKO). We had 'Murray the K' who was at on Flatbush Avenue. Everyone went to the war of the bands in Prospect Park when the sneakiest thing a teen did back then was to have a can of beer (1960's+). Germaines was the biggest department store in Park Slope - especially busy at Christmas time (they had Santa Claus and kids got to take a picture with him). On a hot day, everyone walked to Sunset Pool on 7th Avenue (she thinks it was on 42 Street). And the Horn & Hardart Automat and the Cube Steak were on 9th Street below the RKO."

Well, Dolores, I'm not about to get into a fight about it but I seem to recall that the for bridal shops (or any shops for formal clothing), from South Brooklyn most formal clothing was rented or bought on Stone Avenue. I mean, who in Canarsie, East New York, Brownsville, Bergen Beach (well, that place only had horse stables), knew anything about Park Slope? For anyone interested in Park Slope now, that's pretty high priced real estate; almost as high as Brighton Beach :-)

And we had more newspapers we could choose from: (the News, the Mirror, Journal-American, World Telegraph, NY Times, Tribune, Post and yes, even the Brooklyn Eagle; people just seemed to read more), and we visited Brooklyn Heights and the Promenade, we had Wonder bread in wax paper, the decimal system, drugstores where the owners were called "Doc", doctors making house calls, actually being able to eat the Halloween treats, we played King of the Mountain, and if life was treating you right, you'd wake up in the morning knowing that you really are "king of the mountain" - it was a great feeling.

And who can forget Delaney cards in the high schools (unless you went to a private one). In every subject, if the students accomplished nothing else on the first day of class, they filled out a Delaney card, an oblong card that was approximately one-by-three inches, each card listing a student's name, telephone number (I didn't have a telephone), address (that I had), and a record of the student's attendance, marks, and work, and other vital information. One thing we eventually learned, our lives depended upon those little marks the teacher put on those cards. These cards were kept in a Delaney book which had little pockets where the cards would be inserted, and which served as a seating plan and record book or marking book for each subject class. At the beginning of the term, that was the only way for a teacher to know who is who, and where who is.

In case you missed it, in "The Blackboard Jungle," Evan Hunter's classic 1953 novel of a vocational high school teacher, Delaney cards are the first trial by fire for Mr. Dadlier:

"Please fill out the cards in ink."
"I ain't got a pen," Dover said.
"Then use pencil."
"I ain't got a pencil, either."

This I don't remember (it's nice to be able to say "that was before my time") but I'm told that in gym, the girls wore ugly uniforms, and were required to embroider their whole name to that uniform (no easy task). And *their* moms had to wear similar uniform but with bloomers. What's bloomers; sounds like something I'm not supposed to see.

All your male teachers wore neckties and female teachers had their hair done every day and wore high heels? And it always puzzled me how the older female teachers got that blue in their white hair. I certainly would never ask them; teachers were thought of as different (like they would never have to go to the bathroom; they were made differently). And when being sent to the principal's office (remember that solid wooden bench outside that office?) was nothing compared to the fate that awaited the student at home. Basically we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat. But we survived because their love was greater than the threat.

The following wasn't just Brooklyn but let's remember blackjack chewing gum, blue flashbulbs, butch wax, candy cigarettes, Bonomo's Turkish Taffy, Black Crows, wax lips and candy buttons on paper tape which we liked because they lasted so long. Black Crows, by the way, had a more popular cousin called Dots. They were licorice drops, too, but in a colorful fruit array. The Black Crows are only black licorice drops. They were originally manufactured by Mason; now they are called simply "Crows" (social correctness) and made by Tootsie.

You ask, who's Mason, and why Crows? History: confectioners Ernest Von Au and Joseph Maison invented Crows in the 1890's. Originally, Crows were to be called "Black Rose", but the printer misheard the name as "Black Crows" and printed wrappers with the wrong name on them. And so the mistake becomes the reality; doesn't that often happen in life?

What else; we had carbon paper, coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes, drive-ins, forty-five rpm records, home milk delivery in glass bottles, (someone tells me that those glass bottles had cardboard stoppers). Does the person mean covers? And weren't they plastic? You mean we didn't always have plastic? No plastic? How did we live? And before "homogenized" we had to turn the bottle upside down, give a little shake (the bottle, that is), to insure consistency. If we didn't want such rich milk, that cream on top would be used to make whipped cream. Where were the nutritionists in those days?

And let's not forget Howdy Doody (he came late along with television sets), metal ice trays with levers, mimeograph paper, newsreels before the movie, P.F. flyers, party lines, peashooters, roller skate keys, S&H green stamps, soda pop machines that dispensed bottles, Studebakers, wash tub wringers, and wax coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water.

We had mimeograph paper (real messy), cork pop guns, drive-ins, the Lone Ranger, and The Shadow Knows, the Fuller Brush Man (speaking as a guy, what's this man doing visiting all these homes while the husband is out working?). We had reel-to-reel tape recorders (I still have one and don't know what to do with it; even tapes are going out of style). We had tinkertoys, erector sets, Lincoln logs, and the 15-cent McDonald hamburgers. Here goes; I remember before McDonalds; all we had was White Castles; very good hamburger and delicious orange juice.

We went to dances and did our best with the Lindy Hop, the Rumba, Tango, some waltzing and polka (those were really for the older folks), and the Foxtrot where we'd hold our partners close; it was romantic. We knew music, knew some of the popular songs from the Broadway shows, and saw Frank Sinatra and the Paramount Theater. For those interested in the classical music, we invaded Sam Goody's in Manhattan. I remember leaving college for a while and worked in his store stocking it with all those "long playing records."

Jill and Arne wrote to me (Arne used to live on East 2nd Street, between Avenues S and T) adding the following:

There was a carousel at the McDonald Avenue trolley terminal in Coney Island, the Hippodrome where seven day bike races were held, and the freight terminal on McDonald Avenue between Avenues T and U where the Italian community had their grape shipments shipped to make their own wine. She mentions the bicycle path and horseback riding path on Ocean Parkway that ran from Brighton Beach to Prospect Park (5 miles), the black and white horse stables with additional stables just off Ocean Parkway at the Prospect Park entrance. She also reminds me of the roller skating rink where many kids attended on their dates.

Jill also reminds me that the Marine Park along Avenue U that was and still is used as a ball field and model airplane flying field (Jill, it still is, and the perimeter is a popular jogging path) and she adds that once the property on south side of Avenue U opposite the park was to be dredged for a boat basin (that never happened; it is now part of Gateway National Park; the basin runs along the most southern end of Gerritson Avenue). And Jill says there was Brennan's roast beef restaurant on Avenue U near Nostrand Avenue that had the best beef on spit in town. There were also the speed boat races in Beach Channel where Guy Lombardo, the bandleader, and his "Tempo V" made speed records.

Dan Potter (that's a Canarsie name if I ever heard one) writes, saying, "Marine Park was built on landfill in the 1930's. Before this happened, Avenue U was carried on a wooden causeway over a basin of water formed by a dam south of Avenue U dating back to colonial times. This dam contained a mill that provided waterpower when the tide went out. The structure was destroyed by fire in the early 1930's. The whole area was greatly changed by the late 1930's and a municipal dump along the extension of Flatbush Avenue south of Avenue U made a landfill, which connected, to Barren Island (Floyd Bennett Field now). The Belt Parkway was constructed with fill and dredged sand in this area." Now how's that for a mouthful of Brooklyn.

Arne adds that the aquarium in Coney Island was built there after being displaced from Manhattan to make way for the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel entrance. This new aquarium was to have a tunnel of glass extend into the ocean several hundred feet; apparently the architects and engineers couldn't solve some problems and it never became reality. Take a trip to Atlantis in the Bahamas to see what its like. At Avenue M and East 16th Street (by the Brighton Line Station) was the famous Cookies Restaurant on the south side of the avenue, on Kings Highway and East 16th was the famous Dubrow's Cafeteria.

The Culver Line ran over McDonald Ave (it was elevated) from Coney Island to Prospect Street station and then turned and went underground. After the snowfall of December 1947 Arnee and his brother built a 6'8" high igloo from compacted snow made into blocks that lasted until after Easter. He mentions the other nightclub on Ocean Parkway near Avenue M that was called Club Elegante.

Editor's note ... New York City didn't have the machinery for snow removal that it has today. That 1947 snowfall actually stopped this city in its tracks for many days. Bus lines came to a halt and I also remember walking with a "date" from the Utica Avenue IRT station down Utica then down Remsen Avenues to Canarsie. Imagine, 1 o'clock in the morning walking the entire length of Remsen Avenue with a girl and with no fear of being "mugged" (by a stranger or even by the girl you are walking with). "Mugging" was a word that didn't mean what it means today.

Arne continues ... The Church Avenue trolley was made to pass under Ocean Parkway. Charles Lindberg had made a landing at Floyd Bennett Naval Air Station and was whisked away past reporters and others through an underground hanger and tunnel that emerged north of the Belt Parkway.

He remembers when at age 9, he walked from Coney Island to Avenue S along McDonald Avenue that had dumping grounds on the east side and train yards on the west side from Avenue Z south to the Belt Parkway. Just south of the parkway was a waterway used by ships bringing material to the Brooklyn Union Gas facility along the south shore The waterway ended at McDonald Avenue.

I take their word for it as at that time I must have been busy playing ring-a-levio in Canarsie. Anyway, thank you, Jill and Arne.