I lived my pre-teen years on the third floor of a four-story tenement, at 276 Floyd Street, in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. This was where “Forget about it” was pronounced, “Fogedabodid.” A guy usually said it while holding one hand on his crotch and running his fingers through his hair with the other. No one ever used three words when one would do, like “Wheruben?” Someone not from Brooklyn might actually say, “Where have you been?” Not us, we were too busy.
My grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins were the main occupants of this eight family brownstone. Other relatives were scattered throughout the block and when we all got together we were a large, noisy group. Most of what I tell you about my life in Brooklyn is what I remember as a boy between the ages of ten and thirteen.
Floyd Street was narrow and crowded, with a hodgepodge of buildings all abutted up against one another. To see the sky you had to stand in the middle of the street and look straight up. The city block I called home contained apartment houses of all shapes and sizes, a synagogue, a horse stable, a seltzer factory, a grocery store, a tea packing company and a candy store with a soda fountain that sold a drink made with milk, chocolate syrup, and seltzer called an Egg Cream. It cost only a nickel and single cigarettes sold for a penny. Hollywood couldn’t have built a better set.
The street was alive with the sounds and smells that made their way from the buildings, and with the parade of people going about their lives like actors on a stage. Men on their way to work would greet those who were coming home from the night shift. These were not blue collar or white-collar workers – they were men just trying to survive. They had lived through the Great Depression and were trying to provide the basic needs of food and shelter for their families. Their hands were deeply calloused from hard labor and their faces were creased and dried from exposure to the elements. Women in their floral housedresses would start early for the grocery stores and butcher shops in order to get the best pick of produce and meat for that evening’s meal.
The pool hall around the corner was filled with young tough guys from the neighborhood who would convince mama that they were out looking for a job, but would actually spend their days shooting pool, betting on the ponies, and drinking beer until mama called them home for the dinner she prepared for her “little Joey, who’s having so much trouble finding a job.” Poor Joey. There is no way to describe the relationship between an Italian mother and her sons. Insult her daughter and she will probably be angry but insult her son and you made an enemy for life.
Italians are defined by some distinct attributes. I have listed some of them here. If at least ten of them describe you, then you’re Italian. I don’t care if your name is Hymie Goldberg.
Stickball was our major summer sport. We used a pink Spaulding rubber ball and a broomstick for the bat. The length of the field was usually from one manhole cover to another (thus, the other name for stickball – “Sewer to Sewer”). The fenders of parked cars were the bases. No Little League fields back then. When it got hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk, an open fire hydrant became our swimming pool. The sounds of screeching trolleys, elevated trains, car horns and police sirens lulled me to sleep each night. My school and Church, the focal points of my life, were within a ten-block radius. Walking was the primary means of transportation. Manhattan, Ebbets Field, and Coney Island were short subway rides away.
Most tenements had a front stoop where people would gather to gossip. The stoops were to us what front porches were to those lucky people who owned their own homes. On hot summer nights the old women would chat late into the night, passing along secrets about Zia Theresa’s daughter that were, of course, not to be repeated to anyone. Everyone’s problems, real or imagined, were discussed at great length. Your business was everyone’s business and these women made the Internet look slow when it came to passing news along. If, in the course of conversation, it was determined that someone was the victim of the “mal occhia,” or evil eye, plans were made to remove it. The tools for this ritual were olive oil, garlic and other ingredients that probably would have made a great salad dressing. The women who participated in the ritual to remove the “evil eye” were religious enough and didn’t see any conflict with this practice and the teachings of their Church. They never viewed this ritual as superstition. When I visited New Orleans many years later and learned that some Catholics in that city practiced voodoo, I wasn’t surprised. It brought back memories of my Italian relatives and the “mal occhia.
Our apartments on 276 Floyd Street were called railroad flats, because one room followed another like connected railroad cars. To get to my apartment I had to walk up two flights of stairs, through a narrow hallway that was lit primarily from the skylight on the top floor. Although they were dark and narrow, our halls were always clean; the bronze mail slots and doorknobs shined as bright as the fixtures in the finest Manhattan hotels. At dinnertime I would rarely make it to my apartment without stopping at my grandmother’s or aunts’ apartments to see what they were cooking. It was part of my daily routine to sit at a few dinner tables and eat a little here and a little there before finally arriving at my own apartment for the family meal. It was great being a skinny little kid and being told by all the elderly women in the building, “Eat! You too thin.” I think they liked having me join them. I talked a lot as a kid and wasn’t shy about joining in adult conversations. I usually made myself the center of attention around everyone’s table and didn’t take it personally when they told me to “shut up and eat.” It was like having five or six of the finest Italian restaurants in one building. Mrs. Pellegrino’s hot polenta with a thick tomato sauce topped with Italian sausage was, as they say, “to die for.” Grandma’s rabbit cacciatore, the signature dish of Ischia, Grandpa’s hometown in Italy, was fabulous – even if my friends made fun of me for eating rabbit. The people in this building didn’t have a lot but they were happy to share the little they had. An important lesson I’ve never forgotten from these families at 276 Floyd Street is that sharing the little you have is much more meaningful than sharing from your excess.
Everyone in the building loved parties. What else could we do? There was no television. Most of our celebrations were centered on Church holy days: Easter, Christmas, Saints’ Name Days, receiving the sacraments. Being Catholic was fun! We had lots of excuses to party. When someone made their First Holy Communion or Confirmation, we had a party. Making the sacraments was a big deal with my relatives. There was always an abundance of great food, lots of music, lots of people. All the women joined in the cooking. Caterers were unheard of in those days. Besides, who could cook better than those women? Our small apartments would be overflowing with people.
The men supplied the music. Mr. Pelligrino, our next-door neighbor, would bring his trumpet. Someone else would grab a mandolin and the Italian songs would begin. They weren’t great musicians but they definitely made a joyful noise. I never understood what they were singing but I knew they were probably love songs. Italians are always singing love songs. They’re either singing about some girl they love, a town in Italy they love or some Italian food they love. Who cared what the songs meant? Everyone was having fun. When they say Italians would rather make love then war – believe it. It was amazing the parties you could throw in such small apartments. Today we all have gigantic houses and entertaining at home seems like a lot of work.
The big Church holy days, like Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, were the best. On those days our apartments would be filled with people. Relatives would come from all over Brooklyn. Dinner for 30 in Grandma’s apartment was no big deal. When I think of the size of our apartments, I can’t imagine how everyone fit. Having expensive dinnerware wasn’t important. Getting together as a family and celebrating was. The best crystal glasses in the world wouldn’t have made Grandpa’s wine taste any better. God, it was awful! We never referred to Grandpa’s wine by the year it was made. It was more like the week. Grandpa would order his grapes from California in the early fall. When they arrived he would stack the cases of grapes inside the fence in the front of our building. Unlike commercial wineries where the time between picking the grapes and pressing them is measured in hours, Grandpa’s grapes would sometimes sit for days until he could find time to press them. Any wine aged more than a month was considered vintage. It wasn’t uncommon to drink it out of old jelly jars. Whatever wasn’t drinkable became vinegar for salad dressing. I don’t think Grandma ever had to buy a bottle of vinegar as long as Grandpa made wine. There was no dishwasher but there were enough hands to pitch in and get the dishes done. Furniture was shifted to the back room, which in winter was so cold that perishable food could be stored there for days without fear of it going bad. The women prepared the meal while the men built the “dining room” table using sawhorses and plywood. I spent the day running up and down the stairs, jumping from one apartment to the other, meeting with my cousins.
A few minutes before midnight on Christmas Eve, my mother’s uncle Frank would begin a procession throughout the building carrying a small statue of the Baby Jesus. All the kids would follow. At the end of the procession he would place the statue in the stable of the large Nativity scene he built every year before Christmas. None of us one was embarrassed to publicly display our devotion to Jesus.
Easter was also cause for celebration. I always anxiously awaited the Saturday before Easter. On that day, when the clock struck twelve noon, it meant that Lent was officially over and I could break my fast and eat chicken and ice cream, the two things I had given up for Lent and hadn’t touched since Ash Wednesday. I guess I was a weird kid. Who the hell gives up chicken for Lent? To celebrate the end of Lent, my mother would prepare different types of pizza. There were ricotta meat pies loaded with prosciutto, salami and half dozen different cheeses; spinach pies overflowing with spinach, capers and olives; and Italian cheese cake. It is still a family tradition. We still celebrate and refer to the Saturday before Easter as “Pizza Saturday.” Don’t look it up on a Church calendar; it won’t be there.
Once a year, on a Sunday in July, Our Lady of Pompeii Church, on Siegel Street, in Brooklyn, would sponsor an Italian Feast Day in honor of the Madonna Della Grazie, another name for the Blessed Mother. The feast would begin in the early afternoon with a parade through the streets of our neighborhood. The centerpiece of the parade was a statue of the Madonna, sitting atop a big wooden platform that men would take turns carrying on their shoulders. Men and women dressed in their Sunday finery would march in front of the platform, proudly displaying the banners of their Church organizations. The Altar Society, Children of Mary and The Holy Name Society were well represented. They were followed by a band of musicians dressed in their black pants, white shirts and black ties, playing Italian marching songs. Lots of young girls, in their First Holy Communion dresses, followed the statue. People from the neighborhood would line the streets and the parade would stop when someone wanted to pin a dollar bill to a ribbon around the statue. By the time the procession reached Floyd Street the Blessed Mother was pretty well covered with money. After the parade, we returned to the Church grounds, where we stuffed our faces with food prepared by the women of the neighborhood, listened to music, watched fireworks and finally went home very full and very tired.
My family was involved in this feast. For weeks before the feast my father would come home from work, eat dinner, then head down to the cellar, where he would work on the platform that would be used to carry the statue of the Blessed Mother. This platform had to be particularly attractive since it was the centerpiece of the parade. He took great pride in this work and the end result was a testament to his skill as a craftsman. My aunt and grandmother worked for days preparing the garments for the statue and the food to be consumed after the parade. Once again, the Church had provided us with another opportunity to party.
The memories of my life in the neighborhood are some of the happiest of my life. If I had to do it all over again I wouldn’t change a thing.
My grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins were the main occupants of this eight family brownstone. Other relatives were scattered throughout the block and when we all got together we were a large, noisy group. Most of what I tell you about my life in Brooklyn is what I remember as a boy between the ages of ten and thirteen.
Floyd Street was narrow and crowded, with a hodgepodge of buildings all abutted up against one another. To see the sky you had to stand in the middle of the street and look straight up. The city block I called home contained apartment houses of all shapes and sizes, a synagogue, a horse stable, a seltzer factory, a grocery store, a tea packing company and a candy store with a soda fountain that sold a drink made with milk, chocolate syrup, and seltzer called an Egg Cream. It cost only a nickel and single cigarettes sold for a penny. Hollywood couldn’t have built a better set.
The street was alive with the sounds and smells that made their way from the buildings, and with the parade of people going about their lives like actors on a stage. Men on their way to work would greet those who were coming home from the night shift. These were not blue collar or white-collar workers – they were men just trying to survive. They had lived through the Great Depression and were trying to provide the basic needs of food and shelter for their families. Their hands were deeply calloused from hard labor and their faces were creased and dried from exposure to the elements. Women in their floral housedresses would start early for the grocery stores and butcher shops in order to get the best pick of produce and meat for that evening’s meal.
The pool hall around the corner was filled with young tough guys from the neighborhood who would convince mama that they were out looking for a job, but would actually spend their days shooting pool, betting on the ponies, and drinking beer until mama called them home for the dinner she prepared for her “little Joey, who’s having so much trouble finding a job.” Poor Joey. There is no way to describe the relationship between an Italian mother and her sons. Insult her daughter and she will probably be angry but insult her son and you made an enemy for life.
Italians are defined by some distinct attributes. I have listed some of them here. If at least ten of them describe you, then you’re Italian. I don’t care if your name is Hymie Goldberg.
- You have at least one relative who wore a black dress every day for an entire year after a funeral.
- You were surprised to discover that the FDA recommends you eat three meals a day, not seven.
- You eat pasta for dinner at least three times a week, and every Sunday.
- You were as tall as your grandmother by the age of seven
- You were surprised to find out that wine was actually sold in stores.
- You thought Catholic was the only religion in the world.
- You have at least six male relatives named Tony, Frank, Joe or Louie.
- You drank wine before you were a teenager.
- Your grandparents’ furniture was as comfortable as sitting on plastic. Wait! You were sitting on plastic.
- You thought that talking loud was normal.
- There was a crucifix in every room of the house.
- You dreaded taking out your lunch at school.
- Every condition, ailment, misfortune, memory loss and accident was attributed to the fact that you didn't eat something.
- You’re 45, you’re over six feet tall, weigh 250 pounds and still cry when your mother yells at you.
Stickball was our major summer sport. We used a pink Spaulding rubber ball and a broomstick for the bat. The length of the field was usually from one manhole cover to another (thus, the other name for stickball – “Sewer to Sewer”). The fenders of parked cars were the bases. No Little League fields back then. When it got hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk, an open fire hydrant became our swimming pool. The sounds of screeching trolleys, elevated trains, car horns and police sirens lulled me to sleep each night. My school and Church, the focal points of my life, were within a ten-block radius. Walking was the primary means of transportation. Manhattan, Ebbets Field, and Coney Island were short subway rides away.
Most tenements had a front stoop where people would gather to gossip. The stoops were to us what front porches were to those lucky people who owned their own homes. On hot summer nights the old women would chat late into the night, passing along secrets about Zia Theresa’s daughter that were, of course, not to be repeated to anyone. Everyone’s problems, real or imagined, were discussed at great length. Your business was everyone’s business and these women made the Internet look slow when it came to passing news along. If, in the course of conversation, it was determined that someone was the victim of the “mal occhia,” or evil eye, plans were made to remove it. The tools for this ritual were olive oil, garlic and other ingredients that probably would have made a great salad dressing. The women who participated in the ritual to remove the “evil eye” were religious enough and didn’t see any conflict with this practice and the teachings of their Church. They never viewed this ritual as superstition. When I visited New Orleans many years later and learned that some Catholics in that city practiced voodoo, I wasn’t surprised. It brought back memories of my Italian relatives and the “mal occhia.
Our apartments on 276 Floyd Street were called railroad flats, because one room followed another like connected railroad cars. To get to my apartment I had to walk up two flights of stairs, through a narrow hallway that was lit primarily from the skylight on the top floor. Although they were dark and narrow, our halls were always clean; the bronze mail slots and doorknobs shined as bright as the fixtures in the finest Manhattan hotels. At dinnertime I would rarely make it to my apartment without stopping at my grandmother’s or aunts’ apartments to see what they were cooking. It was part of my daily routine to sit at a few dinner tables and eat a little here and a little there before finally arriving at my own apartment for the family meal. It was great being a skinny little kid and being told by all the elderly women in the building, “Eat! You too thin.” I think they liked having me join them. I talked a lot as a kid and wasn’t shy about joining in adult conversations. I usually made myself the center of attention around everyone’s table and didn’t take it personally when they told me to “shut up and eat.” It was like having five or six of the finest Italian restaurants in one building. Mrs. Pellegrino’s hot polenta with a thick tomato sauce topped with Italian sausage was, as they say, “to die for.” Grandma’s rabbit cacciatore, the signature dish of Ischia, Grandpa’s hometown in Italy, was fabulous – even if my friends made fun of me for eating rabbit. The people in this building didn’t have a lot but they were happy to share the little they had. An important lesson I’ve never forgotten from these families at 276 Floyd Street is that sharing the little you have is much more meaningful than sharing from your excess.
Everyone in the building loved parties. What else could we do? There was no television. Most of our celebrations were centered on Church holy days: Easter, Christmas, Saints’ Name Days, receiving the sacraments. Being Catholic was fun! We had lots of excuses to party. When someone made their First Holy Communion or Confirmation, we had a party. Making the sacraments was a big deal with my relatives. There was always an abundance of great food, lots of music, lots of people. All the women joined in the cooking. Caterers were unheard of in those days. Besides, who could cook better than those women? Our small apartments would be overflowing with people.
The men supplied the music. Mr. Pelligrino, our next-door neighbor, would bring his trumpet. Someone else would grab a mandolin and the Italian songs would begin. They weren’t great musicians but they definitely made a joyful noise. I never understood what they were singing but I knew they were probably love songs. Italians are always singing love songs. They’re either singing about some girl they love, a town in Italy they love or some Italian food they love. Who cared what the songs meant? Everyone was having fun. When they say Italians would rather make love then war – believe it. It was amazing the parties you could throw in such small apartments. Today we all have gigantic houses and entertaining at home seems like a lot of work.
The big Church holy days, like Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, were the best. On those days our apartments would be filled with people. Relatives would come from all over Brooklyn. Dinner for 30 in Grandma’s apartment was no big deal. When I think of the size of our apartments, I can’t imagine how everyone fit. Having expensive dinnerware wasn’t important. Getting together as a family and celebrating was. The best crystal glasses in the world wouldn’t have made Grandpa’s wine taste any better. God, it was awful! We never referred to Grandpa’s wine by the year it was made. It was more like the week. Grandpa would order his grapes from California in the early fall. When they arrived he would stack the cases of grapes inside the fence in the front of our building. Unlike commercial wineries where the time between picking the grapes and pressing them is measured in hours, Grandpa’s grapes would sometimes sit for days until he could find time to press them. Any wine aged more than a month was considered vintage. It wasn’t uncommon to drink it out of old jelly jars. Whatever wasn’t drinkable became vinegar for salad dressing. I don’t think Grandma ever had to buy a bottle of vinegar as long as Grandpa made wine. There was no dishwasher but there were enough hands to pitch in and get the dishes done. Furniture was shifted to the back room, which in winter was so cold that perishable food could be stored there for days without fear of it going bad. The women prepared the meal while the men built the “dining room” table using sawhorses and plywood. I spent the day running up and down the stairs, jumping from one apartment to the other, meeting with my cousins.
A few minutes before midnight on Christmas Eve, my mother’s uncle Frank would begin a procession throughout the building carrying a small statue of the Baby Jesus. All the kids would follow. At the end of the procession he would place the statue in the stable of the large Nativity scene he built every year before Christmas. None of us one was embarrassed to publicly display our devotion to Jesus.
Easter was also cause for celebration. I always anxiously awaited the Saturday before Easter. On that day, when the clock struck twelve noon, it meant that Lent was officially over and I could break my fast and eat chicken and ice cream, the two things I had given up for Lent and hadn’t touched since Ash Wednesday. I guess I was a weird kid. Who the hell gives up chicken for Lent? To celebrate the end of Lent, my mother would prepare different types of pizza. There were ricotta meat pies loaded with prosciutto, salami and half dozen different cheeses; spinach pies overflowing with spinach, capers and olives; and Italian cheese cake. It is still a family tradition. We still celebrate and refer to the Saturday before Easter as “Pizza Saturday.” Don’t look it up on a Church calendar; it won’t be there.
Once a year, on a Sunday in July, Our Lady of Pompeii Church, on Siegel Street, in Brooklyn, would sponsor an Italian Feast Day in honor of the Madonna Della Grazie, another name for the Blessed Mother. The feast would begin in the early afternoon with a parade through the streets of our neighborhood. The centerpiece of the parade was a statue of the Madonna, sitting atop a big wooden platform that men would take turns carrying on their shoulders. Men and women dressed in their Sunday finery would march in front of the platform, proudly displaying the banners of their Church organizations. The Altar Society, Children of Mary and The Holy Name Society were well represented. They were followed by a band of musicians dressed in their black pants, white shirts and black ties, playing Italian marching songs. Lots of young girls, in their First Holy Communion dresses, followed the statue. People from the neighborhood would line the streets and the parade would stop when someone wanted to pin a dollar bill to a ribbon around the statue. By the time the procession reached Floyd Street the Blessed Mother was pretty well covered with money. After the parade, we returned to the Church grounds, where we stuffed our faces with food prepared by the women of the neighborhood, listened to music, watched fireworks and finally went home very full and very tired.
My family was involved in this feast. For weeks before the feast my father would come home from work, eat dinner, then head down to the cellar, where he would work on the platform that would be used to carry the statue of the Blessed Mother. This platform had to be particularly attractive since it was the centerpiece of the parade. He took great pride in this work and the end result was a testament to his skill as a craftsman. My aunt and grandmother worked for days preparing the garments for the statue and the food to be consumed after the parade. Once again, the Church had provided us with another opportunity to party.
The memories of my life in the neighborhood are some of the happiest of my life. If I had to do it all over again I wouldn’t change a thing.
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