You are currently browsing the stories about the “Boro Park” neighborhood.
In the Jewish neighborhoods he was “Morris, the Maven of Tomatoes.” The orthodox women hardly talked to him, except to call out their orders in Yiddish, enough of which he understood, or to haggle about his high prices or to complain about the accuracy of the scale that hung from the side of his wagon. Some called him Moshe and [...]
(The original title "Time is Money" was shortened in the interest of saving both time and money.) "Time is money," my ex-wife used to say. Of course she said it mostly when she wanted me to go out and get a second job, and she said it usually from a reclining position on the couch or in the hammock while [...]
1973. Marvin was the photo editor at the Brooklyn College student newspaper. I liked him a lot, and when, in 1997, after I had an op-ed piece published in the New York Times, he saw it, and trying to locate me, called my mother, he described himself as an “old friend.” Yet I recall hanging out with him only in [...]
The firemen came when I was six years old. Sirens screaming, bells clanging, the big red fire engine parked right in front of our house at 1051-46th Street in Boro Park, Brooklyn. They entered wearing their yellow rubber coats, red helmets and tall black shiny boots. So many of them in our tiny apartment. They overwhelmed me. I was a [...]
(A Memnoir) In the late 1960's, when I was a little boy, I used to go to Boro Park to visit my grandparents. I was six when they moved from there, so I don't remember too much of the neighborhood or their apartment, and to make things worse my real memories are tangled with memories of photos which I haven't [...]
As a kid growing up in Brooklyn, much of my life was based on routine. Some I couldn't avoid, some I depended on. Tuesday nights we ate veal cutlets pounded thin by my mother, then breaded, fried and served with a splash of lemon juice. Fridays we had Nona's pizza, rolled out on the flour-covered wooden board on the kitchen [...]
So such of my life then was seasonal. As kids we had yo-yos, marbles, water pistols, pea shooters and box scooters, and appeared in the street with whatever the change of weather called for. Now it was carpet gun time. I was the best carpet gun maker on the block -- in the whole neighborhood -- except maybe for Frank [...]
