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I Remember Greenpoint - Page 1
Here you will find the memories of folks who grew up in Greenpoint, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. This page is a link from the To The Point! home page and the Dmuchowski Web If you know or remember any of these contributors, they would love to hear from you. If you come across this page and would like to share your memories, send them by email to the editor of To The Point! The email address is: fdmuchow@optonline.net. The subject line of your email should state: I Remember Greenpoint. This will help me to know where to place your submission.
Table of Contents (updated Friday, August 24, 2007)
Jeannette Watson "I was born in the Greenpoint Hospital on May 10,1927. Our family lived on Eckford Ave. at the time. I don't remember much about Greenpoint till we lived on Kingsland Ave. and I went to P.S. 110 just around the corner. The next street was Monitor and that was a play street (do driving through) so we could spend some of our day either roller skating, bicycling or just playing in the beautiful Winthrop Park."
Michelle Camacho "I lived in Greenpoint from 1974 to 2000. I lived on Graham Avenue between Driggs & Engert Street. The Bus stop was right across the street from my house. The corner store (bodega) also known as Freddy's Mini Market on the corner of Engert Street, was a bunch of us youngins hang out."
Joan Abbey (Klarberg) "I taught kindergarten at P.S. 31 on Dupont Street from 1960-1965. The school was torn down when it reached 100 years and has been replaced by senior housing apartments. Before the apartments were built, a community garden occupied the vacant lot."
Barbara Schmidt "As a youngster I lived on Kingsland Ave. between Meeker and Driggs. I remember walking over the Kosciusko Bridge to my aunts house on 58th st in Maspeth. WOW! ( no Long Is. Expressway). I also can remember when it was being built."
John Lazauskas "I may not date back quite as far as some of my fellow "Greenpointians" but I have only fond memories of growing up there. I was born there in 1967."
- Marie Carrano Catalano "From my front stoop we faced the boys entrance of St. Cecilia's school, with those huge steps that we used to play on. I attended that school and graduated in Jan. 1953. Next to the school was a candy store my grandparents owned. Next to that was what we called "the Brothers Yard." It was called this because the teaching Brothers of St. Cecilia's lived in a huge house there."
- Perl Klein Rosen "Hi my name is Pearl Klein Rosen and my first e mail did not contain my e-mail address so i am sending it again (im not to good at this) I lived in Greenpoint and went to PS34 and jhs 126 and girls commercial HS I was wondering what happened to everyone i knew in the 1930s from the neighborhood, my father had a paint store on Manhattan ave near the corner of Nassau Ave."
- Kathleen Mcallister "I remember when I was a child and we did not have much to eat you could always go to St. Anthony's and they would help anyway that they could. Most of all I remember walking on the Avenue and being greeted by everyone with a hello and a smile."
- Isobel Livingston Caroll "I was born in Greenpoint, 1923, at 92 Newell Street. Attended P.S. 110 until 1937 when we moved to North Jersey. Made many trips back to see old friends - then, as happens, moved on. When we lived on Monitor Street, the part in front of 110 and Winthrop Park was closed to traffic often and we could roller skate to our heart's content. Wheelies."
- Mary Mclee Brady-Lucas "I moved to Greenpoint in 1942 at the age of 14, went to Queens Vocational high school and graduated in January 1945. In July 1946 I married Martin Brady, and we had ten children, all born in Greenpoint hospital except for two who were born in queens.."
- George Sullivan "Manhattan Ave. was the main artery with most of the stores on either side of the street extending between Nassau Ave. and Greenpoint Ave. On the corner of Manhattan and Norman was a newsstand owned by Sam and Dave where you could buy a comic book, a candy bar, and a bottle of soda for 25 cents."
- Charlie Sladky "..I can remember Looking out the window during the "black-outs" during ww2 and watching the air raid wardens telling people to put their lights out."
- Beverly Ann Schubis "I remember when the bridge on Oakland Street was built connecting us to Long Island City. My Dad raised pigeons on our roof (I still have pictures), and I remember him going to the store on Greenpoint Avenue between Manhattan Avenue and Leonard Street to get the best seed they had."
- John McCulloch "I was born and raised in Greenpoint at 729 Manhattan Avenue in 1935, two doors down from the Meserole Theater over the optometrist and the baby cloths store. Across the street was the Lustigs (sp) fruit and vegetable store, where you could select what you wanted to buy. It wasn't prepackaged."
- Jeanine Wild Vieweg "We lived in a brownstone tenement railroad apartment on the top floor on Java Street a block from the Astral and one block from the East River. My playground was the street in front of our apartment where 8 families lived 2 of which were my grandparents. Was I a lucky kid or what?"
Mary McAuley Olsen "Hi I am Mary McAuley Olsen. I was born and raised in Greenpoint. I went to St.Anthony's school with Margaret Melia. I married Ray Olsen in 1946. "- Tom Jaworski "The 'Avenue' .. The Trolley-Busses ( B-62 Graham Avenue Bus ) ..and the old trolley barn on Manhattan Avenue near Box Street that burned in a nine alarm fire on day... and the heavy trolley's that went over the Manhattan Avenue wood draw bridge over the Newtown Creek to Long-Island-City.. That bridge creaked and groaned every time one of those trolleys would go over it."
- Leonard Suligowski "..I'm talkin about, hide & seek, sittin on the porch, hot bread and butter....the Good Humor man... Red light , Green light...Chocolate milk, lunch tickets, penny candy in a brown paper bag....playin' pinball in the corner store, Hopscotch, butterscotch doubledutch...jacks...kickball...dodgeball...stickball (wid a spaldeen)..."
- Lillian (Gill) Montee "During WW2 McCarren park had dancing every Wednesday night. Watching the teenagers dancing the Lindy made me wish I knew how to dance. Which I finally learned how to do when I was 16."
- Bruce Smith "When I was just 12 years old I developed an interest in music -specifically, I loved listening to those fabulous street corner doo-wop groups sing that sweet a cappella harmony. I was in awe of those 'older guys' (probably 15 to 18 years old) and wondered how they learned to do that."
- Larry Groff: "We emerged from the subway on Nassau Avenue and fireworks were exploding, and people were cheering. I asked my mother what this was and she told me that it was people welcoming us to Brooklyn."
- L. G. Merill "..I'd never seen anything like it. In my imagination, Greenpoint Days took on the proportions of a County Fair and a Fourth of July Parade...Finally, The Day arrived. My mom, my little sister and I walked from Eckford Street to Manhattan Avenue -- "the Avenue" (pronounced, of course, "the yavnya")."
- L. G. Merill "..You went to Dave's Variety on Nassau Avenue to get oak tag. Dave's was a miraculous place - in two dark, narrow aisles you could buy anything -- sleds, mousetraps, Tangee lipstick, washboards, kerosene lamps, LuAnn Simms dolls (she of Arthur Godfrey Show fame), mops, pajamas, pots and pans or plastic flowers...and if what you were looking for wasn't in sight, Dave would run down to the basement to get it
- Thomas V. McLoughlin ".. I was in my early teens, and I had nothing special on my mind. .. As I sat there, I was looking down the block toward Meeker Ave., walking down the block towards me was the most beautiful girl I have ever seen in all of my young life. She was wearing a red and white checkered angel blouse, a pair of white shorts, and white tiny sneakers. I couldn't believe my eyes !!!!. My heart was racing, there was a stirring inside me that I have never felt before, ( and I have never felt again ). I was frozen, sitting there, watching her get closer and closer. Somehow I remember that I had to keep staring because I thought, it must be a dream, and it's all going to disappear in a puff of smoke, or a flash of light somehow!!!!!"
- Janet Rosholdt Davis "The smell from the glue factory near the LI City bridge over Newtown Creek, referred to by everyone as Lavender Lake, was awful. The old trolley car barn was at the end of the tracks that ran from there all along Manhattan Ave. McCaren Park had a beautiful pool; outside were umbrella shaded stands selling 2 cent ice cream and soda."
- Tom Reiss "I remember crossing the Penny Bridge when I was young (I don't remember whether I had to pay a penny)..."
- Pat Logan "Recall Saturday's at the American Movie House on Manhattan Ave. between Greenpoint Ave. and Kent St......12 cents got you in and you could stay until they showed the last show at about 11PM."
- Michael Barton "My family first moved to Greenpoint in 1853. They had previously lived in the lower eastside of Manhattan at 15 Goerck street. The patriarch of the family was 'Richard Barton.' I have a few family papers that perhaps may be of interest to others who were searching for their family ties to Greenpoint."
- Peter Prunka "We lived right next door to the St. Alphonsus convent ("Hey, Sistah. coudja trow the ball, back?" "What?" "Oh, yeah, I'm sorry - coudja pleeeeez throw it back?"). As was true of many 'Point People, my family fled to the suburbs of Long Island as soon as we could "escape" the city, but I did attend kindergarten at PS34 ..."
- Eddie Mills "I miss the GREENPOINT of my youth. A place of absolute logic, absolute civility. Everyone knew the Bad Eggs everyone knew the way to LIVE in harmony."
- Diane Dray "When I remember Greenpoint to others, and tell them of the wonderful “time warp” in which Greenpoint existed, I often feel that I’m not believed. After all, how many people my age can remember the “ice man”, the lady upstairs did not have a refrigerator and still had ice delivered; the “rag man”, he actually came with a horse and wagon; the “cake and pie man”, he came on Saturday, rang his bell, and sold cakes and pies to the block..."
- Bea Tortorici Sheftel. "We also walked what seemed a long way (now I drive everywhere) to Our Lady of Mount Carmel festival. My dad even was one of the men holding up the large statue one year while we followed with candles protected by cardboard cones."
- Jo Ann Roslan Aragona "Running to St. Stan's through Winthrop Park with Barbara Bleja pretending we were riding horses to school."
- Jim Corless "..young Willie (the son) would dash about the store plucking things from the shelves with this device ...Then (and this was even more amazing) he would add up the total on the brown paper bag with such speed and accuracy that I thought the man must be a mathematical genius."
- Dave Chocko "..playing ball in McCarren Park-Going down the round slide in Winthrop Park-Attending kindergarten at Stanislaus Kostka- Watching my grandfather play shuffleboard at the PLAV. Polish Legion of American War Veterans- Flying the pigeons on the roof- Going to see my first movie " Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid " at the Meserole Theatre on Manhattan Ave.-Listening to my Great Grandmother describe how a plane crashed into the Empire State Building where she worked... "
- Patricia Dietz "I was born on Java Street in 1939 St. Patrick's Day Always thought all the fanfare was for my birthday, so my sisters told me. After they tore our building down for a highway we moved to 31 Diamond Street. My father had a pigeon store on Greenpoint Ave. He would never let us have a baby chick on Easter. Fred Dietz was his name."
- Jim Tuite "To paraphrase Stengel, "Can't anybody remember back to the 1920's and 1930's?" I was thinking especially of Winthrop Park when it was the social center of Greenpoint, especially in the summer. There was a distinct class system..."
- Billy Fox "One of the things I remember the most and enjoyed the most was Xmas eve, going to all of our friends house eating drinking and just loving each other. This is something I have never found again. When you think back on when you think back, this was what life was all about."
- Agnes (Jozwicki) Willams "Pulling a wagon made of a wooden box with wheels from an old carriage to collect old soda bottles to get 2 cent deposit so you would at least come up with a dime to enter McCarren's Pool..."
- John Zach
"Boy! Do I remember Greenpoint! I've spent most of my life living and working in Greenpoint. Perhaps you remember Zach Bros. Meat Markets? We were probably among the longest family owned business in Greenpoint."
- Bea Tortorici Sheftel. "This contest was run every year in the heyday of the Meserole theater during the 1950's to the early 1960's. It was a very popular event and most of the kids in the neighborhood participated. You see, in Greenpoint, we didn't go trick or treating on Halloween. In fact, we had never heard of such a thing..."
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