... Recommend this section to a friend.

Few people can express the feeling of living and having lived in Brooklyn better than Meryl Vladimer. Note the enthusiasm in how she expresses her recollections:

My older sister and I just finished emailing each other about your great Brooklyn website (thanks, Meryl; I hardly consider it a great website but I do get some comments now and then from this Brooklyn section. Seems that all over the country, people either came from, or they know someone who came from, Brooklyn) ...fortunately or unfortunately we remember Brooklyn exactly the way you have described it...fact is we love Brooklyn, always have and always will...after living in "the city" for years I moved back to Brooklyn, or what I like to say back to sanity and clean air" like you my early years (and now my later ones) have been spent in South Brooklyn...just a few blocks from the boardwalk.

I proudly proclaim myself a true "Coney Island baby" who still remembers the Tuesday night fireworks only I never got to actually go down to the boardwalk to see them, I did get to go up to the Beach Haven roof in my pajamas to watch them with the rest of the kids and our parents though. I remember the turf wars between the kids who like good humor and the kids who liked bungalow bar (it tastes like tar, the more you eat it the sicker you are). I remember getting creamsicles and sunny dew in round containers to go with my pretzel on the beach and having to get to the beach by 9am to even get near the water.

I remember cherry cheese Knishes from Mrs. Stahl's with a lime ricky to wash them down. I remember the Brighten Beach Baths, trading comics at their flagpole, the shows at their bandshell and gramma playing mahjong by the back near the lockers. I remember when there was no Astroland but Steeplechase was still operating. I remember when Nathan's was really Nathan's and not a franchise of Kenny Rogers. I remember Dubrows and thought the Automat was the be all and end of fine dining except of course if you got to go to Lundy's (I can still taste those biscuits) to share shore dinners. My sisters and I thought it was great fun to run up and down the stairs to the "powder room" where real attendants handed out real washcloths to wipe away the butter sauce and there were real make up tables and couches -- was there anything finer then the Lundy's ladies room? I don't think so unless it was the Oceana.

I remember that "going to camp" meant going to Lafayette High School day camp and begging my father to take us for pizza at L&B Spumoni Gardens. I remember "Sing" at my high school...Lincoln...did other boroughs have Sing? I remember when we made the big move from beach haven to the brand new hi-rises built on the landfill next to Lincoln, the buildings that blocked everyone else's view of the beach. I also remember what games 'the girls' played while the boys were playing Johnny on the pony...we played hand games, those elaborate handclapping games that went with silly rhymes like Miss Mary Mack and A my name is Alice...we also spent hours and hours braiding rubber bands into Chinese jump ropes (remember those) and we made love chains out of chewing gum wrappers.

And I remember sweet sixteen parties, mine was at Ben Masiks; my sister had hers at the palm shore club. I remember going to Jahn's for a kitchen sink on my birthday and tagging along with sis for the Murray the K rock show downtown - I remember thinking A&S and Mays were about the most fancy stores you could shop and hanging out on the board walk as a teen, I was lucky because my boyfriend had the job of sitting on the top drop of the log flume so I rode it as much as I wanted to for free. I also remember when Coney had five roller coasters...the Cyclone, the Tornado, the Thunderbolt, the Bobsled and the Thompson.

Note: Thomas A. Nicchi of Shelton, CT, wrote to me saying, "The 'kitchen sink' ice cream at Jahn's was located in Queens, not in Brooklyn." ... well now, I'd say there's a topic to discuss at your next cocktail party. I do remember Jahn's in Queens but also remember rather recently a Jahn's in Brooklyn (Avenue U and Gerritson Avenue). However, which one had the "kitchen sink" ice cream escapes me after these many years. Nevetheless, digging into that "kitchen sink" certainly was a delight for all sitting at the table.

Bob DeSando who used to live in East Flatbush says that there was a Jahn's on Church Avenue near Flatbush Avenue. He says he (and I quote) "took girls there for dates during high school (graduated in 1966). And, yes, there was something on the menu called the Kitchen Sink. It had a ton of different scoops of ice cream in it. It was a fancy metal serving bowl, and the trick was to try to eat it before everything melted into one liquid mess, which no longer tasted so good. My date and I never could finish it. I know of no one who did." (close quote). I guess he remembers well and he lived in that area (wasn't as lucky as I was to live in Canarsie.

And Rennie Weinstein (real name, Reynold) emails in, "Jahn's on Church Avenue, just off Flatbush, did have the Kitchen Sink. They also had a 'Tree' ... It had two big scoops of ice cream with a banana standing up between them. It was so embarrassing. That was 1963."

I say we'll have to discuss that tree thing with Dr. Freud someday; maybe when we all meet in that great big Jahn's up there (or down there; if ice cream is permitted down there). He also points out a petting zoo across from Nathan's called the Animal Nursery owned by Murray Zarat. I never knew petting went on in zoos but; guess it did. Seems Renee knows a lot more than where the kitchen sink is, and as far as that 'Tree' embarrassment, all together now, YEAH RIGHT.

A reader (name might be Stuart) reminded me of the Bobsled and the Thompson. Truth is, there were many other roller coasters in the history of Coney Island. In fact, the last owner of the Bobsled, Herman (Hy) Singer, is the one who had it demolished; he's my neighbor, a big property owner in Coney, and a leader in the local Republican Party. Did I say Republicans in Brooklyn? On the local level, Democratic candidates are without competition, regrettably. He (Stuart) also adds the following: "You also seem to have forgotten that your beloved Canarsie was also build on a landfill. I remember sitting in the back of our 1936 Chevy on the Belt Parkway and going past the dump The kids on our block had the expression 'Stinks like Canarsie.'" ... You hear what he says about Canarsie? Such readers I don't need (but I think he's right).

I remember trolleys (if you look really really hard you can still find a few of the tracks peeking out under the Stillwell Avenue train station), wicker subway seats and the Bonomo Turkish Taffy factory. I remember the wax museum and the dogs playing poker in their window, I remember the animal petting "zoo"?? Across from Nathan's, the Spookarama, the Coney pony ride, the archery area under the wonder wheel and clams at the Nathan's clam bar. I remember ski ball and reaching for the brass ring at the Coney carousel and so so so much more. Thanks for putting so many memories online for us Bklynites to see.

Now Christine Figueroa, originally from the Gravesend Projects on West 33rd Street and now living in Phoenix, AZ, writes saying (and I quote):

"Thank you for your website. I was born and raised in Coney Island for over 20 years, and you brought back so many wonderful memories (1958-1982). Some of my personal fondest memories are:

Mister Softee truck, Jane's Ice Cream Parlor, and Carvels on Stillwell Avenue ... Going to Big Daddy's on Avenue X to eat with my family ... Playing outside and hearing my father whistle from the 7th floor to come inside ... The man with the rides on his truck that would come down my street every weekend. There was the Whip and another ride, I'm not sure the name of it, but it seated 3 rows on both sides and swayed back and forth ... Swimming out to the buoy on 33rd Street beach past the rocks; giving my mother heart attacks ... Walking on the boardwalk - barefoot, and getting a splinter every now and then ... My father and my brother leaving me behind to go deep sea fishing from Sheepshead Bay at 4 a.m.

The list could go on and on... Thanks again for your articles. I'd never give up my childhood for anything. I am happy to be from such a great city ... Sincerely, Christine from Gravesend Projects - West 33rd Street" ... well, thank YOU, Christine; I guess some people do read this material I'm writing.

Henry Schulman writes in saying (quoting again), "In the 1940s and 1950s, my grandfather, Abe Seidman, sold those flat knishes (salted and wrapped in wax paper) from a little charcoal-burning cart on Pitkin Avenue across the street from the Brooklyn Union Gas Company office. He added hot sweet potatoes to the menu in the winter. I loved the food and more so, loved that little old man. He would stand there in the heat or bitter cold, always smiling, and always hoping to fill a little "kinder's" belly and get a smile in return. There was many a time when a hungry child got a free knish or sweet potato from him. He was a good soul. What a special person he was, in a special time, in a special place called Brooklyn."

I could never have expressed it that well. That was a grandfather who knew how to be a grandfather. Another reader, Stan Zinn, formally from Eastern Parkway and Albany Avenue adds:

"Remember the man with the cart (with an orange crate fire inside) who waited in the school yard to sell sweet potatoes and knishes. We had movies in Crown Heights - the Carrol, Congress, Cameo, Savoy, and the Utica (called The Itch). The Cameo had an open-air roof garden where you see the movie in the summer, after it got dark. And we had "appetizing stores" with nuts, candies and all types of smoked fish. We had the smell in kosher butcher shops when they singed the chickens after plucking them to get the pinfeathers. Remember the roller skates in "Union Hardware," and the old men arguing strategy outside Dubrows every evening during the war. I'm sure there there's a lot more we can remember, but nostalgia isn't what it used to be."

Mr. Sir Zinn, as of June 4, 2005, is now in Rochester, NY, with his cronies reminiscing about good ol' Brooklyn. Serves him right; why would anyone want to move from Brooklyn to Rochester (the big joke there is what happened to Kodak, a company that didn't have enough foresight to see digital cameras in the future.

Here's a reader who calls herself a "Bay" girl who is living in the Pacific North West, of course, from Brooklyn. She remembers "pizza and spumoni at L & B Spumoni Gardens on 86th Street in Bensonhurst, Joe's of Avenue U for all of us Sicilians, and last but not least, Sonny's hero's on Foster Avenue in Canarsie" ... hey Bay girl (whatever your name is), come back to Brooklyn. That's just what we need here, more Sicilians.

I just heard that someone named Joseph Sitt, a 1982 graduate of Flatbush Yeshiva, (that's on Avenue J and East 16th Street), is investing multi millions in Coney Island; seems he thinks that just like the big past, there's also going to be a big future here. I'm even delighted with the big present here in Brooklyn; but then maybe I've been very fortunate.

Anyway, this fellow might know something we don't know. A classmate of his told me that while all the kids were doing their schoolwork, he was reading the Wall Street Journal. He made a fortune investing in what we call the "inner-cities" all around the country, where he built malls where "chubby" African American women (I suppose white women too) can buy high-level clothes that are not available at the Gap; in other words, "fat clothes for fat women" ... another example of Brooklyn ingenuity.

By the way, "Bay" girl actually says: "I may not live there any more but my heart belongs to Brooklyn." Now that really warms my heart; in fact, I'm going around the corner to Papa Leone's, and ordering one large pizza with mushrooms. You'll never get such pizzas as these up there in the Pacific Northwest. Once, when touring in that area, I went into a Chinese restaurant, and they put rolls and butter on the table. Now where in Brooklyn would you ever see that, where would you ever see chow mein served with rolls and butter!!! (three exclamations)

Neal Bravin (or is it Braver) in New Jersey (for those out west, that’s a state that leads in and out of New York), writes with some authority about Boro Park; that wasn’t my area (as you know, I’m from the Canarsie sticks). I can tell he writes with enthusiasm and Boro Park expertise, and as he says, from a generation after mine. So he writes as follows (and now brings this section to three pages).

”As a baby boomer [that’s what they call us] born near the end of 1949, I and my friends may have been the last generation to grow up in that special place that was Brooklyn before all the sh*t hit the proverbial fan (which, by the way I personally date to the assassination of JFK). I always felt that that one event changed the whole psychology of America, and everything that would follow.

It was 1963- Murray the K was still doing shows at the Brooklyn Paramount (which I think later became the home on LIU’s Brooklyn campus – correct me please, it may have been another theatre downtown.) The Beatles, Timothy Leary, Drugs , sex and rock and roll, Charlie Manson, the Stones, Vietnam and all the wonderful and terrifying and world-changing events were still in the future that we thought would be so damned all wonderful. GM was building Cheverolet’s that Dinah Shore sang about seeing the USA in. OK, I think you get my point I hope, this isn’t meant to be political.

So there I was growing up in the 50’s and early 60’s in Borough Park, which there was nary a mention of in all the pages of your website, except maybe for Miller’s Appetizing store on 13th Avenue. And what about Ebbinger’s? The blackout cake was the only cake I would ever eat, until long after I grew up and left Brooklyn. There were plenty of appetizing stores, but the one on Ft Hamilton and 45 St was the absolute best. It was so good, that when my son was born in 1982, we had the Bris catered from there.

And wasn’t there a Famous on 13th Avenue, where you could only get dairy? And what about Waldbaums? And Fairmont(?) on 13th and 47th. And there was the hole in the wall dairy appetizing store where we got butter in slabs? I wish I could remember the names of these. I think the appetizer on Ft Hamilton was White Mountain? 13th Avenue was a world full of stores and people, and everyone knew everyone.

Speaking of which, there was Rhinegold’s Delicatessen which either was or became Adelman’s, and absolutely fantastic under both names. (Note: Someone reading this emailed me saying the Rhinegold's Deli and Adelman's always had two different owners. And he adds, of course it's his opinion, that Adelman's always had the better food). Neal continues: "If I were hungry, I could get a sandwich and they would write it down and my parents would pay next time they came in, which was at least once a week. Try doing that today! George Klein had a little candy store on 46th across the street from where I lived, but Silver’s was on 48th and when you became a teenager, that was where you hung out. I think there is a web site devoted to Silver’s.

Not to be confused with Silver Rod Drug store, but that one like Mickey the shoe repair, the little store where we bought those little loaves of Wonderbread and so many others are just a footnote on a website from people like us who are hungry for memories of a past that was clean and innocent and fearless. There once was a place called Brooklyn, where I grew up, but like "Next Stop Willoughby" in the Twilight Zone, it simply doesn’t exist anymore.

The movie theaters were the Loews 46 St and the RKO on 50th and New Utrecht, which I used to take my younger cousins to. I lived on 13th and 46 and they lived on 12th Ave and I would pick them up and take them to the matinee. I remember the Culver line because it crossed 13th Ave down near 40th or 39th street where the chickens were slaughtered. And there was a Culver Movie theater where we saw Sal Mineo in Fortune in Men’s eyes. The 46 St Loews later became a rock palace before it became a furniture store. I saw the grateful dead there once.

There were 2 Jahn’s, a Junior’s and a Senior’s. One Jahn’s on Flatbush and Church, and across the street from that there was a much bigger and better automat (Garfield’s) than the one on Kings highway. (Dubrow’s) The other was on 86th Street and Bay Parkway, under the elevated train. It’s where we went after High School Sing and other events and yes they had a Kitchen Sink and I don’t know of anyone who ever finished one, but a few people came close and yes they gave you whatever on your birthday for free.

And it’s not like we didn’t go to Coney Island. Hop on the B train (used to also have T or TT for local) which went up New Utrecht Avenue past New Utrecht High School (where we graduated from and was also the site of Welcome Back Kotter) and then along 86st where the stores had tables outside and we dropped water balloons on them from the end of the train. If you knew which button to press under the last seat you could hang out on the back of the train.

We had a season pass one year to Washington Baths and went to the shvitz with the old men and thought it was cool. (We, is me and one friend who I will not mention by name) and we also worked at that concession bringing umbrella’s and chairs out to the beach for dimes and sometimes a good tip would be a quarter, and no tip would be a hot shlep in the burning sand with those heavy wooden chairs and umbrellas for nada.

But you could also bike ride anywhere, from just going to the park on 18th Avenue, all the way to Prospect Park, which had the Botanical Gardens the Library, the Museum, The Zoo and the lake, another whole world and all of it just another neighborhood inside the City of Brooklyn, 3rd largest city in the United States. We had Chinese around the corner between 45 and 46st. But for Italian you went to Gragnano's on McDonald and 18th Ave.

I should probably write a book or start my own website, there is so much more about Brooklyn in those days that was so great. Not just playing stoop ball and all the other games you mention, and not just being able to leave your doors open, or being able to just walk into a friends house (ring the bell, is so-and-so home? Can I come in and play) Now that was a play date, not something you had to book 3 weeks in advance.

And I’m sure this holds true not just for Brooklyn but for so much of America and maybe even The Bronx and Queens too. I know for sure my son and his whole generation have nothing on us. From having to use imagination because we had no computer games, we had friends who we went outside and played with, just be sure to come home for dinner or else. We had to learn responsibility, and not just how to win but how to lose sometimes, with grace. But so much has been written on that subject too."

Thank you, Neal. I’m sure the readers of these pages will agree that you are a "mavin" of the 60’s Boro Park. I was living out in Seaford-Wantagh area of "the Island" and then in 1968 moved back to Canarsie (all while working in East New York).