Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio

My father was a New York Yankee fan and, from the time he took me to see my first game at Yankee Stadium, I have been too. We walked up the Stadium ramp in the outfield into the bright sunshine. The view that greeted us is still burned into my memory.... emerald green grass, azure blue sky, and there, standing in center field shagging fly balls, was the Yankee Clipper, Joe DiMaggio. Joltin' Joe was in the twilight of his career, but he was my hero.

DiMaggio has been criticized by some as being cool and aloof...not like his more fan friendly teammates Phil Rizzuto or Yogi Berra. So what. Joe played baseball like nobody before or since. His accomplishments speak for themselves: the 56-game hitting streak, the only player in baseball history to be selected for the All-Star Game in every season he played, and his seemingly effortless ability in every aspect of the game: hitting, fielding and base running.

I think the thing that impressed me most as a kid, even more than his physical skills, was the quiet, modest way Joe went about his business. So many of today's athletes are overpaid, substance-abusing, self-promoting jerks who have a couple of good years and think they are God's gift to baseball. Their behavior is embarrassing, and in any baseball clubhouses of the fifties, would have earned them a team beating. The idea of standing at home plate admiring a home run shot would have horrified DiMaggio. Hot dogging was never his style...it was nobody's style in the fifties! Guys like Joe, Ted Williams, Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays let their deeds on the field speak for them.

According to her autobiography, Marilyn Monroe did not want to meet DiMaggio, fearing he was a stereotypical jock. Both were at different points in their lives: the just-retired Joe wanted to settle down; Marilyn's career was taking off. Their marriage in San Francisco in 1954 captivated the nation. The match ended in divorce 274 days after the wedding. I never quite understood Joe's fatal attraction to Marilyn. Her physical attributes were obvious even to my twelve-year old eyes, but they just seemed worlds apart as a couple. Poor Marilyn died tragically in 1962 after a sad life including a fling with President John F. Kennedy.

"What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson? Joltin' Joe has left and gone away?" On March 8. 1999, after a debilitating battle with lung cancer, Joe DiMaggio died. The following is taken from his obituary:

"Joe DiMaggio, the fabled slugger and center fielder of the New York Yankees whose superlative play on the baseball field enshrined him in the hearts of sports fans everywhere and made him a universal symbol of athletic grace and excellence, died today at his home in Hollywood, Fla . There was a majesty in his swing, and a self-assured confidence in style and conduct that was uniquely Joe DiMaggio's. In the eye of his public, he was more than a sports hero. He was among the most cherished icons of popular culture."

So long Joe, I feel truly privileged to have seen you play. It was worth all the taunting I got growing up a Yankee fan in Brooklyn.



(Originally published July, 2008)

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Miss Frankie

She was in her mid-thirties with powdered skin, cotton-candy blond hair worn like Barbara Stanwick's in "Double Indemnity", and pouty red lips. She wore flowered dresses, tinted eye glasses and always smelled so nice. She was Miss Frankie, our grammar school art teacher. During the 1950s at Our Lady of Lourdes school, Miss Frankie did her best to light the fire of artistic passion in a collection of rag-tag kids from the streets of Brooklyn. Each child paid the princely sum of 21 cents a week to cover the salaries of Miss Frankie, and our far less glamorous music teacher, Miss Hessian. The fee also helped pay for afternoon movies every Monday shown in the church basement...such classics as "Francis the Talking Mule" with Donald O'Connor, and the adventure serial "The Thunder Riders" with cowboy Gene Autry.

As I recall we had art class on Tuesdays. Miss Frankie would breeze in with an armful of rolled-up paper that she would tack up and proceed to show us, step-by-step, how to draw a vase full of flowers or some other innocuous still life. She would begin the drawing, and then wander around the room to see how her pupils were progressing. Miss Frankie was not overly tolerant of deviations in style or technique; she wanted you to copy what she had drawn, exactly as she had drawn it. She would correct your drawing to make it look like hers, thus stifling any ideas of artistic interpretation. Picasso or Monet would have grown up to become plumbers if they had Miss Frankie as their first art teacher.

I could always draw pretty well, and easily reproduced the line drawing for the day in the style approved by Miss Frankie. Because of this she would usually glide by my desk and simply nod, saying: "Very good James" before moving on to the next student. When she didn't like what she saw, Miss Frankie would bend down over the drawing, her lovely scent filling the air, and proceed to modify the offending artist's rendition so it looked more like hers. I was in love with Miss Frankie, and wanted so much for her face to be near mine as she corrected my work. Because of this, I was not above setting aside my artistic integrity and intentionally tanking a drawing just to get the benefit of Miss Frankie's suggestions.

Art class was a welcome break for our regular teachers since they got a brief respite from the 45 or so kids they were charged with enlightening each day. That may sound like a lot compared to today's classes of 20-25, but remember, this was a Catholic school where discipline was king. Unruly children were never a problem for long. One trip to the Principal's office where Brother Justinian awaited (Darth Vader was modeled after him) was usually enough to take the starch out of any kid who put a toe over the line. As a result, teachers could concentrate on teaching, and the results bore out the effort required to maintain decorum in the classroom.

We all wore school uniforms so there were no fashionistas to set themselves above other kids. Your hygiene was always subject to inspection, and there was no reluctance to send notes home suggesting more frequent shampoos or finger nail cleaning. During a class, if the Principal or any other teacher entered the room, we would all stand and say in unison: "Good morning Brother Justinian." Kids so respected teachers that we stood in the rain fighting to carry a teachers books or shield them with our umbrellas. We tried hard to get picked for menial jobs like washing the blackboards or packing textbooks away at the end of the school year. Older boys were allowed to go grocery shopping in Bohack's for the food used by the brothers and nuns who lived on the church grounds.

But I digress...back to my muse, Miss Frankie. I never knew whether "Frankie" was her first or last name, but despite the rather narrow artistic boundaries she set, I owe her a debt for instilling in me an interest in art. This was nurtured by a Brooklyn Tech high school teacher, whose name is gone from my memory. This woman encouraged me to try for a career in commercial art, but unfortunately my days at Brooklyn Tech came to an end soon after some bad decisions I made caused me and the school to part company. Teaching should be one of the noblest professions anyone can choose because of the potential to influence and shape young lives. Sadly, the bureaucrats have turned teachers into civil servants, thereby severely limiting their ability to inspire. To all the teachers who rise above the system and give their all every day, we should say thank you.

"A good teacher is like a candle - it consumes itself to light the way for others."  ~Author Unknown

(Originally published 8/22/2011)

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The Stoop

Technically, a “stoop” is a set of stone or brick steps that leads to the upper entrances of the two or three storey row houses that were so typical in the Brooklyn of my youth, but it was so much more to us. It was the place where people sat on hot summer nights in the days before air-conditioning. Kids were allowed to stay out late in the summer playing great games like hide and seek, Johnny-on-the-pony, red light-green light and ring-a-levio. God help you if you didn’t come running when your mother hollered for you.

Neighborhood families gathered on their stoops to gossip about the news of the day. (I love the old joke about an Italian’s idea of a summer vacation: sitting on someone else’s stoop.) The stoop was where we played stoop ball with the versatile “Spaldeen” high-bounce ball. You could play by yourself or against other kids. The stoop was where you sat reading comics while waiting for the ice cream man…in my neighborhood it was “Bungalow Bar”. Their truck is pictured at left, and just looking at it, I still get a craving for my favorite ice cream bar.…toasted coconut.

I'm not sure if stoop-sitting was a New York City phenomenon, but I don't get a sense that people around the country did it. New York's crowded neighborhoods favored multi-storied row houses to maximize space for residential dwellings, and since people needed a way to reach apartments on upper floors, the stoop was just a natural way to do that. There were short stoops of just a few steps to reach first floor apartments, and longer versions of maybe 15 steps like ours on Somers Street. Stoops were natural perches for the many sets of eyes that watched the neighborhood. If you did something wrong in the street, the news of your indiscretion would reach home before you did.

Television was just getting off the ground in the 1950s, and few people in poor neighborhoods had phones. People would get messages at the corner candy store and an enterprising kid would deliver them to the house for a small tip. General news traveled from stoop to stoop...who won a hundred bucks in the Irish Sweepstakes, who was having a fling with the insurance man when he came around to collect the 25 cent premium on her husband's policy, and who had kissed who while playing spin-the-bottle at Joanne DiFazio's birthday party. Stoop sitters would greet neighbors as they walked down the street after returning from work. A few pleasantries were exchanged about Grandma's health, the changing character of the block, little Nicky's upcoming Confirmation...small stuff, but friendly.

The idea of a neighborhood has changed much from when I was a kid in Brooklyn. While it still refers to a geographical place, at also used to mean a community where people knew and looked out for each other. And the stoop was the vantage point from where we looked on the world, but knew our hearts would always belong to that special place where we grew up.

(Originally published 8/14/2008)

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Louie's Candy Store

If you grew up in the fifties, you probably spent a lot of time hanging around the local candy store. Every block or two had a candy store on the corner. Our candy store was Louie’s on Fulton Street under the el (translation: elevated train). These neighborhood institutions were places where people came in to buy candy, place a bet on the daily number with the local bookie, make a phone call (in the days when not everyone had a phone) or even buy a replacement tube for your television set, after using the tube testing machine to see which one was burned out. (Yes, I am that old.) There must have been a school of some kind where future candy store owners trained, because they all looked and acted the same...non-descript and cranky

Before refrigeration was so commonplace, candy stores kept their bottled sodas in a red ice chest like the one pictured. Soda that had been sitting in this box for a couple of days would cause an instant “brain freeze” when the first frosty gulp hit the back of your throat. I can still taste it. Besides Cokes, Pepsis and Seven-Ups there was the Mission brand line of flavors....pineapple, cream, sasparilla, lemon-lime and fruit punch. All sodas cost a dime and there were no diet sodas...not invented yet. The first one I remember is Tab.

Penny candies were kept behind a sliding glass counter and included peanut-shaped smarshmallows, wax lips, licorice pipes, Mary Janes and those colored sugar dots on the long paper strip. Before water was fluoridated, every kid had a mouth full of cavities. The better candies were kept on the counter where Louie could keep an eye on them. If we were broke, we were not above liberating a Three Musketeers, Clark Bar, Snickers or Chunky Bar. A while back I sent a friend who loves Chunkys a box of them to surprise him. They were about half the size we remembered and just didn't taste the same.

Louie also sold ice cream...either by the pint which was hand packed into a cardboard container, or such specialty items as Mello-Rolls (a cylinder-shaped ice cream you put in a specially shaped cone, and even Dixie Cups, small containers of ice cream with pictures of celebrities in the lids. We traded these among ourselves. (This was way before video games.) We all had a crush on Flo, the older woman (probably in her thirties) who worked behind the counter. Flo was always nicely dressed, wore "fallen woman" make-up, and sensing our schoolboy crushes on her, strung us along to break the monotony of making egg creams all day.

Louie's had a soda fountain where we bought ice cream sodas, lime rickeys, and of course egg creams. Interestingly, this delicious soda fountain drink contains neither egg nor cream, just Fox’s u-bet syrup, seltzer and a splash of milk. (If the candy store guy ever tries to serve it to you in one of those cone-shaped paper cups instead of a real glass, just turn around and run.) Louie's also served amazing sundaes and ice cream sodas, two scoops.
Louie and his wife slaved in the candy store day and night to put their son through medical school. After he became a doctor, the son stopped coming to the store because he felt embarrassed by his parents.

One of life's cruel ironies in the old neighborhood.

(Originally published August 25, 2008)

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Steve the Junkman

A few doors down from my house on Somers Street in Brooklyn lived Steve the Junkman. That's what everyone called him; his profession became part of his identity. In a time when people still actually fixed things instead of throwing them away, Steve collected junk and gave it new life. He was good with his hands and sold his second-hand creations at bargain prices. He would have a field day if he lived today. I see the perfectly good things that people throw away and think of Steve.

In the summer, Steve put the junk business on hold and moved into the more exotic fruit business. His horse-drawn wagon (after a good cleaning I hope) became a travelling fruit store, and he meandered around the neighborhood announcing his presence by ringing a cowbell. Steve bought his fruit from the local stores probably a day before it became inedible, and tried peddling it before it imploded. His skin was wrinkled and mahogany colored from hours of sitting in the sun making his rounds, I'm almost certain Steve had a wife, but in all the years we lived near him, I can't recall ever seeing her. Maybe he kept her in the cellar like Mrs. Bates.

Steve was a wild-looking guy with a shock of white hair and very crabby, so mostly us kids steered clear of him. He or his horse (depending on how good your aim was) were often targets of a winter snowball... maybe that's why he was nasty to us. Anyhow, as he motioned me toward him one day, you can understand my reluctance to obey. He gave me a smile (I could tell because his tooth was showing) and I slowly approached as my boyish caution turned to curiosity. He reached down and picked up a handful of oats that had spilled from his horse's feedbag. Handing them to me, he instructed me to plant them in my back yard, water them, and watch what happened.

Normally, I probably would have just taken and thrown them away when Steve wasn't looking. This day must have been an awfully slow day for be because I actually planted the oats in our back yard. Maybe I could grow a horse! Imagine my delight when a couple of weeks passed and the planted oats produced beautiful green grass. No agricultural college graduate ever felt closer to the land than I did that day. The next day I thanked Steve for my lesson in Farming 101. He gave me a wink and a toothless grin.

Steve had a married daughter living with him whose husband was away serving in Korea. On another slow day in the neighborhood, we were going through people's garbage pails. (Talk about a new low...going through a junk man's trash.) One of my friends came across a packet of love letters written to Steve's daughter by her soldier-boy husband. He must have been extremely horny over there because these letters contained the most intimate and lurid details about their love life. I realize today what a terrible thing we did, but back then, to a bunch of pre-teen boys, this was like finding gold. 

Steve's daughter was a rather plain-looking girl who would not get a second look walking down the street. After those letters made the rounds though, she never lacked for an all-too-willing kid to carry her groceries home. Wherever you are Steve's daughter, I apologize for this unbelievable intrusion into your personal life.

(Originally published 9/24/08)

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The Dream Bike

As a boy in Brooklyn, you knew you had arrived when you rode a Schwinn bike (left). In the Fifties, this was a kid's two-wheeled equivalent of a Corvette. It was red, black and gold, with tons of chrome. Kids would fasten playing cards with a clothespin to the bike's frame so that they hit the spokes as the wheels turned, making a loud noise that was supposed to sound like a motorcycle….too cool for words. We also attached streamers to the handle bars, extra lights and chrome crossbars to really pimp that ride.

Most of us couldn’t afford the dream bike. I learned to ride on an old girl’s bike handed down from my cousin Joan. Training wheels hadn’t been invented yet, and your skinned shins were the badge of honor of a kid learning to ride a two-wheeler. I can remember my father "Tony Boots" teaching me to ride...I don't think he rode himself, but we would go to the playground and he would run alongside me in his ever present suit, tie and snappy fedora, usually with a Lucky Strike in his mouth. In reality, I was happy to have any bike at all since money was tight and we could never afford anything close to the Schwinn dream bike. Then Fate intervened.

There was an old TV show called “Junior Champions”, hosted by the great broadcaster, Marty Glickman. Glickman was a member of the 1936 U.S. Olympic team in Berlin, He and teammate Sam Stoller, two American Jews, were replaced, however, the day before they were scheduled to compete in the 4x100m relay. By Glickman’s own account, the last-minute switch was a straightforward case of anti-Semitism. Avery Brundage, chairman of the United States Olympic Committee, was an enthusiastic supporter of Hitler’s regime and denied that the Nazis followed anti-Semitic policies. Marty was justifiably bitter about missing his chance at competing.

Anyhow, I was lucky enough to be chosen to represent my day camp, PS 73, on Marty's show, and competed in a contest to see who could shoot and hit the most layups in one minute. I won, and with a hard cast on my broken left arm. (Thank you, thank you very much.) The winner's prize was a Shelby bike (above left). Now Shelby was to Schwinn what Timex was to Rolex, but what the hell, I had a brand new bike. Except for my pal Johnny, who rode a Schwinn thanks to his father who ran the local barber shop and neighborhood bookie joint, I had the best bike in the neighborhood. Sweet.

PS I now ride a new Schwinn bike, but it's like running into an old girlfriend after 50 years....just not the same. 

(Originally published on 9/23/2008)

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A Wonderful Life

I have written before about Frank Capra's movie, It's a Wonderful Life. The hero of the movie, George Bailey, just can't catch a break. George is a dreamer who longs to see the world and build grand things, but every time he thinks his dreams will come true, fate intervenes. His father dies, forcing George to postpone his college education and take over the family business; his brother Harry goes off to war leaving George stranded once again in his home town of Bedford Falls; and just as he's off to honeymoon with his new bride, there is a bank run on the Bailey Building and Loan, and George must use the honeymoon money to bail out his investors.

The final straw comes at the end of the movie on Christmas Eve when George's drunken Uncle Billy loses an envelope stuffed with cash. Uncle Billy was supposed to deposit the money in the building and loan's bank account, which is now short of funds at a time when the bank auditors are in town to check the books. George becomes so despondent over his "cursed" life that he contemplates suicide. The movie ends with George's guardian angel, Clarence, showing George how valuable his life really was...how all his sacrifices made such a difference in the lives of others. Clarence convinces George that he's had not a cursed life, but a wonderful one, and the movie ends with all the people George helped over the years repaying his kindnesses.

There are not many people like George Bailey in the world who put themselves last so that others can get come first. My mother Frances was such a person. I don't know if she had unfulfilled dreams...if she did she certainly never shared them with me. It was not her style because telling me that having to stay at home and keep house for a husband and three children kept her from doing something she really wanted to do might hurt my feelings. Mom would never do that. I'm not saying she wouldn't administer some "wooden spoon justice" when required, but she just couldn't knowingly hurt someone's feelings, especially her kids.

Like George Bailey, I saw her so many times set aside what she wanted and defer to my father or to one of us kids. Whether it was using the hard-earned, cookie jar money she was saving for something to buy me a new baseball glove, or stretching our limited family income to cover my Dad's occasional losses at the race track (which she never once mentioned to us) Mom came last on her own list of priorities. She cooked and cleaned for the family, even my father's mother, who was not the nicest person in the world, and never complained. When my grandmother, who resented my mother despite all Mom did for her, began telling lies around the family about how Mom mistreated her, that, for her, was the equivalent of Uncle Billy losing that envelope.

Mom walked out of the house one day and nobody knew where she was. The strain must have been unbearable for her to do something like this, but there it was. The woman all of us had taken for granted and thought would always be there was gone. I was maybe 12 years old when this happened and don't remember a lot of details, all I know is we were scared. Family members made telephone calls and scoured the neighborhood, but she was nowhere to be found. She stayed away overnight, and came back the next day. She never said where she was, and picked up her life where she left off. No therapy, no retribution, she was just there for us again. Maybe Mom found her own Clarence to show her what her life had meant to all of us...I was just so glad she was back.

You might say that I'm looking back in my rose-colored rear view mirror and remembering Mom as a son wants to remember his mother rather than how she really was. I can assure you this is not the case. Anyone who knew my Mom spoke highly of her. (One reason I married my wife is that she reminded me so much of my mother.) I know she's with me today, gently nudging me back on to the right track like she did when I was a kid. It's a sad thing when we realize we never told people who mattered so much to us how we felt about them when we had the chance. Frances toiled, she sacrificed, she loved her family and did everything she could to make us happy. I know that when she met her maker, the Lord smiled at her and said: "Frances, you have led a wonderful life, welcome home my child."

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At the "Liberry"

I was a secret reader as a kid. Starting probably around fourth grade, I began a lifelong love of books. Histories, biographies, fiction…anything I could get my hands on helped me experience the world in my little corner of Brooklyn. I say "secret reader" because in my old neighborhood, we didn't sit around on the stoop discussing the latest books we had read. Your standing on the block was not at all improved if you were considered a "bookworm". In spite of my suspicious trips to the Saratoga Avenue branch "liberry" as we called it, I passed street muster because I was good at sports, street games, and almost never turned down a "double-dog dare".

There was constant jockeying for respect on the block. Older kids were moving on to high school and new kids were moving into the neighborhood. The pecking order was fluid, and you had to keep proving yourself to stay on top. The yardsticks for success were unique, for example, smoking and fluent cursing rated high on the list of "qualities to be admired". Luckily for me drugs were not yet in play, and underage drinking was just becoming popular. My first encounter with booze nearly killed me. My father had put some shellac in an old Fleishman's whiskey bottle. I took a swig one day to see what all the fuss was about. After confessing to my mother what I had done, all I remember is her shoving slices of white bread down my throat with one hand as she beat me with the other.
Anyhow, back to the "liberry". The interior was dark and dusty, and the place smelled of books, a wonderful smell by the way. It was filled with tables where kids could read or do homework. It was also a place where old folks could come in from the cold and warm up for a bit. The walls were covered with card catalog files where the titles, authors and shelf locations were methodically listed, thanks to the wonder of the Dewey Decimal System. When you borrowed a book, the librarian rubber-stamped the due date for its return on a card in the back of the book. Every kid my age knew where all the forbidden books were like "Peyton Place" and "Lady Chatterley's Lover" ; if you held them in your hand, they practically fell open to the well-thumbed pages with the "hot" parts!

In the fifties, librarians were a strict lot. They were expert "shushers" and tolerated little guff from kids. This was way back when children still had some respect for authority figures, so we actually obeyed them! They could also be helpful and even solicitous when they found a little barbarian among us who shared their love of books. The lady shown in the 1960 photo at left is Eleanor T. Smith, a real librarian in the Brooklyn system; she looks like all librarians did then. Our librarian at the Saratoga branch would set aside books she thought you would like, and slip them to you rather than put them back into general circulation. Thanks to that kind lady, I got to read some good books I probably would not have picked myself. Yes it's true, I was a twelve-year old library gigolo.
Things have changed since I was a kid. Although "bookworms" are still not high up on the kiddy pecking order, they are better tolerated and less likely to be beat up. Reading materials are more available than they used to be, what with books being electronically down loadable from the library, books on audio CDs, and more branch libraries in existence than ever before. Ironically, computers have also created the greatest competition to reading as a pastime, with the rise of the hated video games to which kids are so addicted. Parents listen up, don't deprive your children of the gift of reading. Switch off the damn X-box and give them some reading time; they will thank you for it down the road.

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Growing Up Italian

I have been posting on a number of Italian-American pages on Facebook such as Proud to Be Italian-American and You Know You're Italian American When. These are fun sites because many of the people share my memories of childhood growing up in an Italian-American household. The people who post there come from all over the world, not just the United States. They are very friendly and supportive; it's like having 10,000 cousins. The age range of the posters surprises me, they are not all old timers, but many young people who seem to want to read about how their grandparents grew up. One young lady said she was waging a personal struggle in her family to keep the old Italian-American holiday traditions alive, but she was fighting an uphill battle.

I feel for that young girl because she only wants for her kids the wonderful memories of growing up Italian-American that she treasures. I wish her luck, but I fear time is slowly erasing the things I hold dear from my childhood. There are a number of reasons for this. First, families are not located in one big neighborhood the way they used to be. This close physical proximity made these gatherings much easier than today when families are more scattered. We took turns hosting holiday gatherings at different houses, and everybody came because they could practically walk. The tables and chairs were mismatched, and so was the dinnerware. Some of us used old jelly jars for glasses; the good china, silverware and stemware were "for company". There was, however, no shortage of laughter. 

Another reason for some of these traditions dying out is that they are a lot of work. Young people grow up so differently, and even with all the labor saving machines and gadgets in the kitchen our mothers never had, they don't want to spend their holiday time shopping, cooking and cleaning. They have learned to enjoy these holidays so much because mom and grandma always did the work. They may not enjoy making seven fish dinners on Christmas Eve, or homemade pasta, lasagna, Easter pies, cookies and all the traditional dishes we love so much. I can't say I blame them...if it was up to Italian men to carry on the tradition, we might be in trouble. It has also become expensive, which you know if you've made pignoli cookies lately. 

The thing that surprised me most is the number of shared experiences people on these sites post about. It seems that whether you grew up in New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, California, even Italy and Australia, the memories are the same. They remember the food, the family gatherings, the neighborhoods, the crazy relatives, the struggles and especially the love. I feel so privileged to have grown up the way I did, surrounded by family and neighbors who cared about one another and who, without hesitation or fuss, were there to help in any way they could. We wanted our kids to have a better time of it than we did, but to also appreciate the value that Italian-Americans cherish most...family.

And so, as long as we're able, our generation will keep doing the shopping, cooking and cleaning, not just for our own pleasure, but so maybe our kids might be inspired one day to pick up the baton and keep these traditions alive for their families.  

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Those Who Came Before

My grandparents came to America as immigrants, as did my father when he was only two years old. They came, not expecting help from the government, but just a chance to make a life for their families. Pictured are my mother's parents, Pasquale and Caterina Camardi who came in 1912 from a little town called Grassano in Italy. Pasquale opened a store on Rockaway Avenue where he cleaned and blocked men's hats (in the snazzy fedora days) and also had a few shoeshine stalls. Grandpa Camardi ruled over that establishment in his grey cardigan sweater and DiNoboli cigar. He worked hard and after a time was able to purchase a house on Hull Street in Brooklyn where our family spent many happy holidays.

We recently visited Ellis Island, where so many immigrants passed through in the late 1800s and early 1900s. If you have not yet been there, especially if you had ancestors who passed through that gateway, you need to go. I was able to research the Ellis Island data base and found immigration records of my family's arrival in this country. The records tell on what ship they arrived (my grandparents came on the Brasile out of Naples) and allow you to view the ship's manifest pages to learn when and from where they departed, with whom they travelled , and what they had in their possession.

While on a walking tour of Ellis Island, we wandered into a room that displayed posters of some of the great ships that travelled in and out of that island. One poster stopped me in my tracks...it was an image of the ship "Brasile", (see photo left) the very same boat that brought my grandparents to America! I felt chills all over, as if Grandpa and Grandma were sending me a little message from beyond.

It was an emotional experience for me walking those corridors and later watching a film on what the immigrant experience was like. I am so proud of my grandparents for having the courage to leave behind all that was familiar to them, and trying to create a better future for their families. I want my children to know of the sacrifices that were made by their immigrant ancestors so that they could have the privilege of living in America. The values that make them who they are were handed down by those who came before.

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Let Them Eat Cake

Of course Marie Antoinette wasn't talking about Brooklyn bakeries when she made her famous remark: "Let them eat cake", but she could have been. Being a haven for immigrants, Brooklyn had more than its share of folks who knew how to bake. Germans, Italians, Jews and so many other ethnic groups took their delicious recipes with them when they emigrated to America in the "great wave" of humanity that landed on our shores around the turn of the 20th century. Every neighborhood had its specialties, and in the days before cholesterol counts, their clientele was most faithful. Cake and pastry prices had not yet been driven up to ridiculous heights, and most bakeries would have been happy to sell you half a cake if money was an issue. Here are some of the Brooklyn bakeries that put smiles on faces back in the day.

One of the most famous was Ebinger's, founded in 1898 by George and Catherine Ebinger. Famous for their cakes and pies, and especially their Blackout Cake, they closed in bankruptcy on August 26, 1972. Other Ebinger favorites were a butter cream cake decorated with three small pistachio nuts in the center of the top and Chocolate hard-icing cake with a hard, bittersweet chocolate icing. Supposedly the Ebinger family has all their original recipes under lock and key and is uninterested in releasing them. Another Brooklyn institution is Entenmann’s Bakery, founded by William Entenmann who came to Brooklyn from Germany in 1898. Today, the Entenmann’s brand is on over 100 different kinds of baked goods, and available in many supermarkets. (Info courtesy of "Fading Ad Blog", Frank H. Jump & friends.)

Leske's Bakery opened in 1961 in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn—at the time, an enclave of the Scandinavian community in New York City. Leske's appealed to the broad demographic of Brooklyn by offering the old-world favorites that reflected the tastes of the bakery’s Italian, Irish and Norwegian neighbors: Irish soda bread, hot cross buns, jelly doughnuts, Napoleons, Danishes, éclairs, tarts, and more. In addition, Leske's became known for its iconically Brooklyn fare—black & white cookies, Brooklyn blackout cake, and New York—style cheesecake, to name a few. (Info from Leske's website). Although the bakery changed hands in 1987, and has since closed and reopened, I'm happy to report that it is still thriving on Fifth Avenue in Bay Ridge.

One of the few bakeries that sold off a truck was Dugan Brothers. David Dugan first sold baked goods off a pushcart in 1878. Joined by his brother Edward, they opened their first store a year later. The original delivery routes were done by horse and cart; it was said the horses were so well trained that the driver could work out of the back of the wagon with the horse making all appointed stops without guidance. Trucks soon replaced horses as Dugan Brothers delivered throughout New York, Long Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Massachusetts. They delivered to private homes and stores, many of whom extended credit for groceries until payday. (Source: New York Times article). 

As a kid, my local favorite was Ariola's on Rockaway Avenue, just across from my grandfather's hat blocking shop. There were three things you can count on in life... death, taxes, and a long line in front of Ariola's on Sunday morning. Pretty much everything they made was good, but they specialized in Italian pastries and cookies. Their sfogliatelle-pastry was to die for, and I don't think in all my years on this earth, I've had a better pignoli cookie. They could have charged people just to walk in and smell the place. Established in 1923, they moved to Queens and eventually expanded to Farmingdale, Long Island as Ariola Foods in 2008. Their main competitor, Roma Pastry, around the corner on Fulton Street, was good too, but not quite up to Ariola's standard. Roma did excel in making Italian ices, however, a noble achievement in itself.

When we moved from Somers to Vermont Street in Brooklyn, our bakery of choice became Mrs. Maxwell's. I wouldn't put them in the same league as some of the more famous Brooklyn bakeries, but their cakes were good and they were located right on our corner. Their original store was relatively small, but the big attraction was that we could look through the big plate glass window and watch the baker icing the cakes. (This was before television really took off.) The bakery changed hands and undertook a major expansion. They are still on Atlantic Avenue turning out birthday and wedding cakes, and it is not uncommon for old residents who have moved from the neighborhood to come back to Mrs. Maxwell's for their cakes. 

Is there any more of that fig cake left?

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