You are currently browsing the stories about the East New York neighborhood
Memories of an East New York Childhood
by Renee Shanker 04/18/2021Neighborhood: East New York
Boulevard Houses was built in 1950 and consists of eighteen buildings, six and fourteen stories high. Signs in grassy areas warned residents to “Keep Off.” Most people left their doors unlocked, so we could freely go from one apartment to another to chat, play games or borrow a needed item. My family did not […]
Lost in Coney Island
by Bonnie J. Glover 03/01/2020Neighborhood: Coney Island, East New York
Each summer it was a requirement that my brothers and I attend summer school. We could not be idle. We must all do something to further our education. My mother, Dot, laid down the law. She was formidable—not standing more than 5’4”, she wielded the power in our household. My father, though technically present, […]
A Trip to Aqueduct
by Bonnie J. Glover 10/21/2018Neighborhood: Aqueduct, East New York, South Ozone Park
The day after I turned ten, my mother took me to my first horse race at Aqueduct. Hitting the regular numbers didn’t pay as well as the horses, and sometimes when Mama had an itch to gamble she couldn’t wait on the numbers man, Mr. Sheyanne, to come around. Besides which, she whispered to me […]
Mother’s First Vote
by Alice Mattison 06/19/2012Neighborhood: East New York
My mother turned twenty-one, voting age, in 1932, during the worst of the Depression. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was running for president for the first time, trying to unseat Herbert Hoover. My mother had no job, but she had a cousin who was, of all things, not just a Republican but an active Republican. A Jewish […]