Life in Old Canarsie

My early youth, the formative years, was experienced in what I, at the time, considered a most wonderful and exciting environment – one that Huck Finn could have thrived in, one that had a great effect on my life and I am sure laid the groundwork for its later adventures and endeavors. This environment was called Canarsie.

Canarsie is an area that roughly composes the southeastern part of King’s County, better known as Brooklyn, in the city of New York. Its boundaries are Foster Avenue to the north, 8th Street East to the west, Jamaica Bay to the south and Fresh Creek to the east. Today it is a heavily populated, mostly residential, area. In my day it was very different. But first, a bit of history leading up to my Canarsie adventure.

Following our immigration to the U.S. my parents and I, an only child, first lived in what was then called a cold water railroad flat in Brooklyn, N.Y. Unfortunately, the crash of ’29 occurred shortly thereafter and, in order to survive the effects of the depression, my parents sent me back to Germany, alone, at the age of six to live with my grandparents. In 1934, when my father finally reached the point where he had a steady job and a reasonable income he sent my mother to Germany to bring me back. In the meantime, I had completed two years of grade school while there.

When my mother and I arrived my Dad met us at the pier in NYC and, in the old car he had managed to buy, drove us to a big surprise, a house he had rented at 468 E. 103rd St in Brooklyn, in an area that we found was called Canarsie. It was one of a small section of row houses that he had rented together with his best friends at the time, Tante Lotte and Uncle Bruno Suwszinsky. It was common for German children to call their parent’s friends Aunt and Uncle and I followed that custom then and in later years

The houses, which were side by side duplexes, were called the “Spanish Homes” because they had light tan-colored stucco finishes and had been built in the architecture of a Spanish hacienda. When I first saw the house I was entranced, especially by the inside. The living room had a low, vaulted ceiling. The ceiling curved down to meet the walls and had coving in the corners that contained hidden lights. I thought it was a cave; and loved it.

I don’t remember the living arrangements with two families but the first floor had, in addition to the living room, a kitchen and a small hall and the bedrooms and bathrooms were on the second floor. There may have only been two bedrooms. The length of time we lived there has been forgotten. I think it may have been for less than a year. Some disagreement developed between my parents and Lotte and Bruno Suwszinsky . It may have been about me because they did not have children at the time and they may have decided it wasn’t fair to them for us to have three living there and they only were two. I vaguely remember one of Vati’s and Mutti’s friends making some mention of that. Both families then moved to other locations but my parents still remained friends with the Suwszinsky’s and, years later, they each bought houses in the same neighborhood in Queens.

A few things I remember of that period:

A short distance away, less than two blocks, was a raised area of flat ground on which was located a large railroad marshalling yard with dozens of tracks that could be switched in order to temporarily hold box cars and shuffle them around to make up freight trains. We neighborhood kids used to play among them – not a very smart thing to do. For one thing, railroad police patrolled the yard and they would chase you if you were seen. That, of course, was part of the fun. It is very scary when you are being chased and get away by crawling under the rows of box cars that are side-by-side on adjacent rails only to hear the clanking of the of the cars as the string you are under is starting to move. Many of the cars would be empty and we would play in them unless they were occupied by hobos who had not yet been caught by the police. Some of the older kids sometimes managed to break open a locked car, and unfortunately, then vandalize the things in it. I remember seeing a car like that full of new refrigerators that someone had scratched up. Another thing the older kids would do is climb on top of a car and then run along the string jumping from car to car. This was very dangerous because some cars were higher than others and, since there were high voltage lines running along over the cars for the electric switching engines, one might forget that fact and, when jumping from a lower to a higher car, hit the bare cables. This actually happened once to a kid who was killed and was reported in the newspapers. The yard is still there but appears to now be used for storage of subway trains.

One morning my parents came down to make breakfast and found that someone had been in the house during the night. There were orange peelings on the kitchen table and cigar ashes strewn around. A search revealed that there were some things missing but I don’t remember what they were. They called the police who quickly arrived and informed my parents and Uncle Bruno and Aunt Lotte that a gang had been operating in our neighborhood and a number of houses had been burglarized. They must have been very expert because none of the occupants in our house had heard a thing. The police also pointed out that our house did not have a chalk mark on the curb in front which was an indication to the “crew” that earlier scoped out our block and had them conclude we did not have a dog which made our house a more desirable target.

Some time after this I found a puppy wandering in the neighborhood. I brought the puppy home fully expecting my parents would see the value of having a dog in the house only to discover that no one else thought that was a good idea and they made me let the puppy go. I was devastated and to this day remember how sad I felt when I saw that puppy wander off.

The car my father owned was a Hupmobile. Those were the days when there always was something wrong with a car and, to own one, you also had to know how to fix it. In the winter, when it wouldn’t start, which was almost all the time, my father would put a shallow pan underneath the engine block, pour a little oil in it and light it with a match. If you were lucky, it would warm the oil in the block sufficiently so it could be started – or, it might set the car on fire, and, of course, every start took cranking the engine with a

hand crank. This in itself was a dangerous venture because the engine could kick back or start so suddenly that, if you didn’t let go of the crank quickly enough, you could have your arm broken.

One day we drove to the Bronx to visit Tante Liesbeth and her husband, another of their friends all of which had emigrated from our home town, Elbing, in Germany. That was quite a trip which required driving into Manhattan and then north into the Bronx, all in heavy city traffic. Compared to the rest of the city, the Bronx is very hilly. Toward the end of the trip we were driving on one of the main thoroughfares which ran under an elevated train. All this was fairly level but the crossing streets ran very steeply down to the left and up to the right. My Dad was carefully watching the street numbers because we had to turn into the one, to the right, that Tante Liesbeth lived in. We finally saw the street and it had a traffic light. My Dad stopped for the red light and carefully waited for it to turn green so he could make his turn. In those days one couldn’t turn right on a red light. There was a big, typically Irish, NYC cop standing on the corner keeping an eye on the cars going through the intersection.

When the light turned green Dad made his turn and we were looking at a very steep hill that we had to go up. Halfway up to the next street the car started slowing down. It was laboring heavily and began to go slower and slower, finally coming to a stop. I’m not sure but I think at that point the engine stopped and we started slowly rolling backwards. My Dad stepped on the brakes and, to his shock, found they weren’t working either. As we began to gain speed he tried pulling on the hand brake but that too failed. We picked up more speed as my father tried to steer as best as he could going backwards as we approached the intersection. Then we saw, to our horror, that the light had turned red against us and traffic was moving through the intersection. There was only one thing my Dad could do and that was lean on the horn. That big Irish cop saw us coming and immediately figured out what was going on. Without further ado, he stepped into the intersection, loudly blew on his whistle and held up his hands to stop the traffic. I can see the disgusted look on his face as he nonchalantly waved us through and on our way, still going backwards.

It was while we were living in the Spanish Home that I started school in America at the ripe old age of eight.. The closest school was P.S.242 on Flatlands Avenue about four blocks away. For some reason that remains a mystery to me, the two years I spent in Germany before my Mother came to bring us back to the U.S. caused me to forget all of my English. My first two years of schooling in Germany at that time must have had that effect. The only English I remembered when I started at P.S. 242 was one word, “Hello”. This created a problem and, to solve it, the school moved me back two grades to first grade. The first grade teacher, whose name I’ve long forgotten, spoke a little German and that was a great help to me. On the other hand, I became a target of the other kids, especially the bullies, and was made fun of a lot. To counter that I took on the role of a fool and tried to make the other kids laugh through my antics – sometimes that backfired. I remember one occasion when I ended up getting in an argument with an older – and bigger - girl and she beat me up. Of course that made the other kids even more derisive.

Eventually, as my English improved, I began to start skipping grades until I reached the correct grade for my age; even skipping an extra grade.

P.S. 242 between E 100th and E 101st Sts. on north side of Flatlands Ave; taken in the early 30’s.

During my first year at P.S. 242 I always wore shorts because that’s what boys wore in Germany at the time, even for most of the winter unless it got really, really cold. The other boys at school wore long pants; mostly of corduroy, which were very popular at the time. Of course that added to the “ribbing” I had to endure. One late fall day the temperature suddenly dropped and it started to snow and by 11:00 AM we were in a major blizzard. The wind had risen to a howl and the snow was drifting and piling up on the streets and sidewalks. In early afternoon the Principal announced the school was closing so the kids could get home as soon as possible. By now it was bitter cold and the snow had drifted to waist height in some places. Although I didn’t have that long to walk I had some major problems – I was wearing only short pants and only a very light jacket. A group of the kids headed in my direction, including some who had been making fun of me, noticed my plight and came to help. One, Tommy, suggested they help me as far as his house that was only a short distance away right on Flatlands Avenue where we could take shelter. That’s what we did and I first met his family – Irish father and mother and a dozen kids of which Tommy was one of the oldest.

At the end of the workday, his mother called my parents who had returned from work by then and, not finding me there as expected, were in a state of panic. She told my parents that conditions were so bad along Flatland that they should not come to pick me up but insisted I stay with them overnight; and that’s what I did. Tommy became one of my best friends and we shared many adventures later on.

I don’t remember the date but it was sometime in 1935 or 36 that we moved from our “Spanish Home to a new location at 918 E. 104 th St. and my Canarsie adventure began.

By the way, the Spanish Homes are long gone and Google Earth shows me entirely different apartment houses at their former location.

The apartment we moved into was on the second floor of a duplex owned by a Jewish family, the Weisburds – wonderful landlords who lived on the first floor. The building was in an unusual location which, by itself, had a lot to do with the experiences of my youth. It still exists, together with its neighbors, but their current residents would never be able to imagine what the area around it looked like in the thirties. Based on as much research as I’ve been able to accomplish, a rough sketch of the topography of that part of Canarsie at the time looked something like the following:

The red figure shows where we lived in what one might call the 104 th St. enclave. P.S. 242 was at location 1 and the “Spanish Homes” were at 2. The only way I found to confirm this is a map dated 1913 that can be found at:

www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150156077869676&set=a.484660009675.262287.98773284675&type=1&theater

104th St. dropped down sharply from Flatlands and ended at Ave. J. It contained, I believe, six buildings on each side which had four apartments. At its head, along Flatlands Ave, there were only a few similar buildings west toward 103rd St and a few stores with apartments over them eastward toward 105th St.; across Flatlands were empty lots. Ave J had only four duplex buildings, all on the NW side. All the rest of the area delineated by the black hash marks from around E. 98th St. East to Fresh Creek and

beyond for a couple of miles to the East and to Jamaica Bay in the South was empty land, basically one big SWAMP.

Well, not all swamp. The area closest to Flatlands was just dirt and weeds from previous filling and, at a lower level, mostly spongy and peat covered with weeds but from about Ave. J south it was all marsh with reeds about six or seven feet high.

All of this was considerably lower than Flatlands Ave which had apparently been laid on fill that was at least ten feet higher. As a consequence, 104 th St. dropped in a short, steep hill if you turned into it from Flatlands. The buildings along Flatlands all had their entrances at street level while those on 104th south of Flatlands were all reached by high concrete stoops, I remember years later visiting the neighborhood while on a business trip to NYC and was surprised to see all the stoops gone because all that land had been filled in and 104th was now level with Flatlands Ave.

When I first realized what was around us I was thrilled. It felt like we lived at the edge of a wilderness of sorts. Needless to say, the kids that lived in that little enclave took full advantage of their surroundings.

We were a mixed community – a true melting pot. Greatest in number were Irish and Italian immigrants but there were also Germans and one Lithuanian. We had Jewish, Catholics and, Lutherans and probably others I didn’t know about. My group of friends was all boys ranging from 10 to 16 in age. I was the youngest at only 9. There were lots of girls too but we had nothing to do with them; that is until we reached the later years of high school. We had no blacks but our school was just a short distance west on Flatlands and there the mixture was even greater with blacks and Asians. I didn’t know what racism was until I joined the Marines when I was 18 and went to boot camp.

When we moved in I was the new kid on the block while the others had already banded into a form of “gang”. My introduction to my neighborhood friends occurred on the day after we moved. Not having a surplus of funds, my dad had not been able to hire a regular moving company so he and my “Uncle” Ray had rented a horse and wagon. They used it to move all of our few belongings and furniture from the “Spanish” homes in a couple of trips, to our new apartment on 104th St. over the course of a weekend. I was later told that this was quite a show for the rest of the people on the block. The day after we were finally finished my mother sent me to the small grocery store around the corner on Flatlands for a gallon of milk. On the way back, walking down the hill, I was met by four of the gang members which included Tony and Eddie. They blocked my way and made some disparaging remarks about arriving by horse and wagon and I sassily gave some response which didn’t go over very well. Eddie asked, “You lookin’ for a fight?” I carefully set the gallon of milk on the sidewalk and stood up lifting my fists into what I thought resembled a fighting position and that’s all I remember. When I woke and looked up I saw Eddie looking down at me with great concern. He’d knocked me out with one punch.

As it turned out, he became one of my best friends and we remained friends until we were both working in NYC after the war when I finally lost touch with him. That was my introduction to my 104th St. neighborhood friends.

Some of the group that I remember were two Tonys, Eddie, Ray, Tommy, Sally, Joey, Vinny, Sal, and Moey. They all lived on 104th except for Tony P. who’s location I’ll describe later, Ray who lived on Ave. J, and Tommy who lived on the south side of Flatlands just around the corner from 104th.

There were a few others whose names I did not keep a record of. One was an Irish kid who lived next door to us and whose father was a cop. Another was a German immigrant who moved in across the street. Both came along later and never became as close members as the rest of us. The German boy had a very strict father who would occasionally beat him and we felt very sorry but could do nothing about it.

Of the group, Tony P. was the oldest. Primarily because of his age, he became the leader of our group. He wore the cloak of leadership very well. A combination of natural intelligence and friendly nature made him well liked and respected by all of us. However, he did not live on 104th Street! The next street west of us, where 103rd Street is now, was only a dirt road that came down from Flatlands and ran about 200 yards south where it ended at the front door of a little house that had been built by his father. I don’t remember what it was built of but it was not bricks or wood; possibly cement mixed with stones or some form of adobe. It only had a few rooms on the ground floor and a small attic which was Tony’s domain. His parents had emigrated from Lithuania and Tony and a younger sister had been born in the U.S. I don’t remember what his father did but he and his wife were always very friendly although both spoke English poorly. We spent many hours in Tony’s attic room until after the war started when he quit high school and enlisted in the navy. He served as a seaman on an aircraft carrier and I heard later that, at war’s end, he moved to upstate N.Y. and bought a small farm.

So, that was the group that determined what my life was like until we moved away when I was 16 in 1942. And what a life it was! I firmly believe that none of our parents ever really knew all the things we did, the adventures, the mischief, the dangers we faced and overcame. Although it was never sworn to or voiced in congress, we understood and abided to a code of silence.

Our world was the swamp that extended for miles on three sides of our little enclave. Aside from the time spent at P.S. 242 and that required by our parents at home, all the rest of our time was spent in the swamp. We learned every square inch of it. The land area it covered was crisscrossed with ditches which likely had been dug to provide run-off of water from the rest of the area. These ditches ran mostly east and west with some connectors running south toward Jamaica Bay. To the East they ran into Fresh Creek. Fresh Creek was the main run-off for the storm sewers in that part of Brooklyn and – unfortunately - also its sewers. They couldn’t have picked a worse name for it.

The ditches were up to five to six feet deep and varied in width. Some were wide enough to jump over but others had to be waded across. All this terrain was covered with head- high marsh reeds. Part of the land running west from Flatlands avenue was peat that had at one time been burned over. Although it was not visible, except in a few places where smoke could be seen, the peat had continued to burn under the ground. If one was not careful and their foot broke through the upper crust, they could suffer nasty burns. We all learned that lesson at one time or another.

Over time, our explorations had laid trails of trampled down reeds throughout the area, from our block south almost to Jamaica Bay, east to Fresh Creek and west to the higher ground that led to the built up areas approaching Rockaway Blvd. In summers we fished and swam in the creek and in the larger ditches.

View of Flatlands Ave at 108th St. looking East where WPA is building a bridge over Fresh Creek; taken June24, 1936.

We built hide-a-ways in which we smoked the Wings cigarettes we bought singly for 1 cent including one stick match from the candy store around the corner. In later years we invested in a small hand roller and made our own. We built a club house that we sat in and played cards when it rained. Tony built his first boat out of slats and painted canvas and, once we were a little older, we followed suit. We got our first bicycles and learned to ride them coming down the hill from Flatlands and then became expert exploring the periphery of our swamp kingdom – the swamp itself was too difficult to maneuver but the dirt roads and empty areas around it made for lots of exciting adventures. We got our first BB guns. There was the occasional BB removed from some part of the anatomy with the remaining revealing wound hidden by a Band Aid but we were unusually fortunate in suffering no more serious results. Tony got his first .22 cal. rifle.

His boat building ability had improved as time passed and one of his latest was a rather sturdier two seater. Like the ones before it, it was paddled in the same manner as a canoe and he was especially proud of it. He kept it hidden at the mouth of a ditch entering Fresh creek and camouflaged with reeds. One day he went to use it and it was gone. Off and on we’d had a few problems with a group of kids that lived further east on the other side of Flatlands Ave, and we suspected they must have run across it.

Tony was usually a calm and reserved guy but I now discovered he could get very angry and he vowed to get his boat back no matter what it took. He was given a lot of leeway by his father and could pretty much do as he wanted so he started spending every day after school going to the creek with his .22 and hiding in the reeds waiting to see someone go by in his boat. He skipped supper and brought sandwiches with him and we would take turns keeping him company as much as we could until it got dark when we all came home. One Saturday afternoon I and I believe Vinnie went to watch with him. As we were lying on the shore of the creek we heard voices and the sound of splashing paddles coming toward us. We slid back under our reed cover and watched as a boat came around the bend on our left and Tony immediately recognized it as his. He jumped up and ran to the edge of the creek yelling, “Bring that boat back you XXXXXX or I’ll shoot you.” There were two boys in the boat, one of whom we recognized as the “leader” of the group we’d had a few problems with. They quickly turned to the other shore that was about 30 or 40 yards away and paddled as hard as they could. Tony waited until they had reached land then raised his rifle and fired at them. They both ran into the reeds but the leader turned around and we saw he was also carrying a BB gun or a rifle. By then Vinnie and I had joined Tony and when we saw our “enemy” aim at us we all dropped to the ground as he fired. He had a .22 also! Although it was a scary moment neither of our marksmen had hit anyone and, in a sense, I had survived my first fire fight.

When the other two boys disappeared, Vinnie and I swam across and retrieved the boat while Tony covered us but the other guys never reappeared.

We had more run-ins from time to time with that group and others in the neighborhood but, although there were some fist fights and a lot of yelling, this never resulted in any really dangerous confrontations. We did not consider ourselves a “gang” but rather a club to which we each swore allegiance. Of course there were real gangs in NYC at the time; one, in fact, located quite close to us in East New York and famously known as “Murder Incorporated”. But these were all grownups and really, really bad.

We kids were, for the most part, only interested in protecting our turf. And that’s what seemed to be the main object of the others around us. We all went to school together and there were instances that trouble arose there also but it was mostly when there were incursions on someone else’s territory that things could get physical. At one point there was even a period of a few days when the local police patrolled our block with their cruisers. One of them made a point of displaying his Thompson submachine gun out of window of his car so all of us living there would know they were serious.

I had difficulty accepting the position I was being put in by belonging to the club and having to consider that some day I might be called on to join in committing violence of some sort. I had to admit to myself that I was afraid of getting into fights but worse yet, was more afraid of being seen as a coward by my friends. Yet, not belonging would have made my life miserable and I looked for some way to avoid that. Finally I found a solution, I’d already become a Boy Scout (and a voracious reader as I still am) and had read a great deal about first aid procedures so I got a cigar box and outfit it with a small supply of first aid items. I made sure it was always handy and every time some one of our club members suffered a minor injury I was ready to provide help. This seemed to go over well and it soon resulted in Tony and the others expecting that from me so I became the club’s corpsman and was not asked nor expected to be involved in any of the club members’ physical confrontations, rare as they were.

Our misdemeanors were not all that bad and probably no different then what kids get into today. Shop lifting for candy and cigarettes was one behavior that some of them became quite proficient in. Their most frequent target was the candy store around the corner on Flatlands. It was owned by an elderly Jewish man who did a lot of yelling and shouting at us even though we were frequent customers for his one cent cigarettes. On one occasion a few club members made a trip to the store to buy a couple of cigarettes but also with the plan to try and steal a few candy bars. They talked me into joining them and I watched carefully as a couple kept the owner’s attention with the cigarette purchases while the others, standing by the candy bar display, slipped some into their trouser pockets. I too tried to do so but must have selected a bar that was wrapped differently because when I grabbed it, it made a loud rattling noise. I immediately dropped the bar back where it belonged and glanced up to see the old store owner looking at me. He must not have seen what happened because he turned back to serving the others. When we got outside the boys berated me for not having gotten away with even one bar. My explanations were inadequate, and they shared their booty amongst themselves without giving me even a taste.

At one time a couple of our kids got their hands on some used camera film which they took off its reel and wrapped in newspaper. Then they lit the paper with a match and when it was burning well stamped the fire out with their feet and quickly threw the resulting smoke bomb through the store’s open door and ran way. The rest of us were in the empty lot across the street lying in the weeds watching and laughing to see the old gent come running out with clouds of pungent smoke following him.

The peak of foolishness was always reached on April Fool’s night. That is when we found means to get back at some of the residents we didn’t like. One had his door bell rung on such night only to find a paper bag on fire lying at the top of his stoop. He quickly stomped it out while loudly cussing those of us who were hiding nearby. We had the last laugh when he discovered the bag had been filled with dog poop. Another was a policeman who used to yell at us. He and his family had moved in next door to our duplex in later years. His son was our age and also became a member of the club. I don’t remember much about him other than that he used to tell us how strict his father was. They had gotten a new car and made the mistake of leaving it out at night which gave us

the opportunity of “soaping” it from one end to the other. When the father discovered it in the morning he was furious and, thinking his son had been the culprit, (which he hadn’t been, we hadn’t told him) he made him try to wash it clean. It was a terrible job because dry soap is very difficult to remove and we took pity on the kid and all pitched in to help him. We spent the whole day getting the car cleaned off.

Our most successful trick that made 104th street history was thought up by Tony. Each of our units had a stoop from the sidewalk up to the front door and each set of stairs started at the street level with two square brick columns that had large, concrete flower urns on them. Every duplex had their own display of their favorite greenery and flowers. One April Fool’s night we snuck out and laboriously changed all the pots around. Working as a team and following a plan we managed to get it done quietly and without getting caught and, in the morning, the residents found their flowers were completely mixed up and moved around for the entire block. The pots were quite heavy and it took a couple of days for the men in the families to get them all sorted out and moved back. It came as something of a surprise to us when the word filtered down that, although they had grumbled at the work, they had also chuckled over what they thought was a pretty good trick.

Another event that got attention was the 4th of July. It was traditional for some of the parents to pool their resources and buy fireworks for the event. The fathers would set things up at the intersection of 104th and Ave. J and, at dusk, the residents would begin to drift out and sit on their stoops along 104th from where they could see the show. The favorite were the rockets which would be set in empty milk bottles to hold them vertical as the fuse was lit. One year one of the milk bottles fell over after the fuse had been lit and the rocket whooshed out parallel to the ground straight up the center of 104th headed toward Flatlands. For days after we laughed over having seeing the entire audience making a mad rush to get into their houses.

On many Saturday mornings we went to the movies at the Canarsie Movie Theater. We walked all the way kiddy-corner through part of the swamp and then empty lots to where the built-up areas started a block or two short of Rockaway Blvd and Avenue L. Admission was 10 cents and for that we got two full length features, a couple of shorts, usually one a comedy and the other a western, a serial, the MovieTone News and the Races. The latter were our favorite - slapstick races of all types, a different one each week – running, horses, boats, cars whatever. Your ticket had a number on it and, if the winner of the race matched your number you got a paper sack full of penny candies at the box office.

A group of us on the way to the movie one Saturday noticed a car with a man sitting behind the steering wheel parked on a dirt road underneath some trees. We didn’t think anything of it until we were headed back after the show and the car was still there. With curiosity overcoming caution we went up to it for a closer look. The fact that we’d found a man slumped over the steering wheel with a bullet through his head made for exciting conversation all the way home. I don’t know who was elected to do it (it wasn’t me) but

one of our group made an anonymous call to the police to report it. The next day we read in the newspaper the name of the gangster that had been eliminated by rivals.

My friends then told me about something that had occurred a short time before we moved there. A couple of them had been playing around in the empty lots west of us when they noticed a large, black sedan turn off Flatlands Ave and drive a short distance down a dirt road behind some bushes and trees. They had quietly snuck through the brush and saw a number of men get out and open the trunk. They lifted out a large sack and lugged it to a small open area; then took out some shovels, dug a large hole, dumped the sack into it, covered it up with dirt and left.

The kids ran home all excited because they thought they had seen the men bury treasure. They got some of the other kids to go back with them bringing shovels and all started to dig where the “treasure” had been buried. When they had gone deep enough, one brought his shovel up and noticed it was dripping with blood. Horrified and scared they all ran home and told their parents. Someone called the police and in minutes there were police all over the place – digging and interviewing. The newspapers next morning solved the mystery by a front page article announcing that the police had found the body of Willie Shapiro, one of the infamous Shapiro brothers. It was later reported that the Murder Inc. members “Bugsy” Goldstein and “Kid Twist” Reles had killed him. Reles, together with the Amber Brothers, Frank Abbandando and Harry Malone had disposed of the body in a Canarsie marsh. I’ve always wondered how the papers would get that much detailed information.

One Saturday we went to the movie and I had an additional objective in mind. For about a year I had been saving part of my weekly allowance, which I think was twenty-five cents, in order to buy a toy I had seen in the toy store that was a few doors down from the theatre. It was a little tin submarine that you could wind up and sail in the bathtub. When we got out of the show we walked down to the store and found they still had that toy available. I had just enough money to pay for it and they put the box it came in into a paper bag for me to carry home. On the way home we followed the path that cut diagonally through about a mile of unoccupied area towards Flatlands until we were suddenly stopped by three boys who stepped out of the bushes that grew on both sides together with some small trees. There were also three of us but they were older and bigger and the middle one also had a BB gun. He asked us where we were going (apparently we were on their turf although we had never met them before). Then he asked me what I was carrying in the paper bag. When I refused to tell or show him he suddenly pointed the gun at me and shot. I didn’t feel anything but it so startled us that we started to run into the bushes and managed to circle past them and got away. They must have been startled also because they didn’t try to catch us. When I got home and took my boat out of the bag I saw a hole in the bag and also the box the boat was in. That explained why I hadn’t felt being hit by the BB. On removing the boat I saw the deep dent in its side. I didn’t tell my parents what had happened but, at the first opportunity tried it out in the tub and found that my worst fear had come true – it didn’t work. Something had been broken inside and it never worked. To this day I can remember how disappointed I was.

This being in the days that people had only ice boxes instead of refrigerators, the ice had to be delivered regularly and, in our case, this was accomplished by an elderly Italian man who used a wagon pulled by a decrepit old horse. The blocks of ice were on the back of the wagon covered with straw. After finishing his delivery down 104 th St and to the few houses on the little piece of Avenue J at its end, he would return toward Flatlands but now faced the problem of getting the wagon moved up the hill back to Flatlands. The poor old horse would try mightily, very slowly and with many stops, to do so. Losing patience he would begin to whip it brutally while shouting expletives in Italian. This always greatly upset one of our gang members whose name I’ve forgotten. One day he had enough and chased the wagon up the hill. He and the wagon got there at the same time when he jumped up, grabbed the old man, pulled him off the wagon and gave him a good beating. A nearby resident called the police but, by the time they got there, our friend was gone. They spent a couple of days looking for him in the neighborhood without luck. Not even his parents knew where he was – but we did. He had run into the swamp and built a make-do shelter of reeds where he stayed for a week and we took turns going out to him after dark and bringing him whatever food we could scrounge. By the time he finally came home the whole event had been forgotten. We were pretty convinced that the police were no longer interested since, after hearing why he had done it, they didn’t seem to have much enthusiasm in conducting their search. I don’t know what punishment he got from his parents but we were sure that it was adequate for the purpose.

We suffered a number of upsetting experiences while still in grade school. Once, while spending the afternoon horsing around on the bank of Fresh Creek we found the corpse of a baby floating near shore. We pulled it back to shore with some sticks and then ran home and called the cops. On another summer day we had walked to the Canarsie pier and were jumping off the pier to swim when we noticed a dead body floating nearby. Again the cops were called from a nearby store. After they hauled a large, fully-dressed, bloated male corpse out it was evident it had been in the water for some time. Off course, we all had to circle the interesting things going on. One big cop went through the man’s pockets looking for identification. Not finding any he noticed a ring on one finger and announced it might identify him. With that he reached down (I will never forget this), grabbed the finger and, with a quick snap broke the finger off so he could slip the ring off and put both in an envelope. I’ve always wondered if he turned the ring in as evidence or kept it. He also told us that jumping off the pier was OK but that we should never dive in and that the year before a young kid had done that and caught his head in an old submerged milk can and drowned.

And then there were the moments that could have resulted in tragedies but didn’t. One summer day four of us walked through the marsh all the way to the shore of Jamaica Bay. This wasn’t the first time we had done this so we knew the terrain and were aware of the old shacks that were strung out in a line along a spit of land extending to the east and, as usual, chuckled at the sight of condoms hanging from lines drying out. Some of the residents apparently made a small business of fishing these out of Fresh Creek which had received them from the sewers emptying into it and, after washing and drying them, resold them somehow. When we arrived at the shore of the bay we stripped, left our

clothes bundled and hidden in the beach grass and walked into the water. Most of our swimming on these excursions was done in skinny dip fashion but we might have brought swimming trunks with us this time; I don’t remember. Usually we avoided using them because our mothers could discover their use. Some distance across from us, approximately a quarter of a mile, we could see a small island and it was decided that we would swim to it. When we arrived we found signs posted along the island shores warning people away and identifying the site as a bombing range. We had heard that the army air force planes stationed at Floyd Bennet field a few miles away did have a practice range in the bay where they occasional dropped small training bombs. But it was quiet that day and after a short period exploring we reentered the water and started swimming back. We were about half way across when one of the kids started having trouble and we tried taking turns helping him but, as his struggling increased and our energy drained, the situation became dangerous and I, for one, began to realize all four of us might not make it back. Just then a sizable broken off tree limb came floating along and by draping him across it and all three of us holding on and kicking we finally made it back.

When I was about at age 12 most of the guys had started getting bikes and were getting pretty good at riding them. Finally I got one too but it took me quite a while to get the knack of it and I suffered considerable ribbing. I had great difficulty at first steering and turning the bike but kept practicing by pushing it to the top of the hill where 104 th met Flatlands Ave., turning it around, mounting it and coasting down continuing in wobbling fashion to Avenue J, dismounting to turn it around and then wobbling back to the base of the hill. But, finally, after a week or so, I succeeded in steering through a U-turn and also pedaling it up the hill. This led to a whole new period of adventures as we were now able to roam all over the neighborhood and its surroundings – although with some difficulties. We did not have the sleek, lightweight bikes of today. Ours had balloon tires, heavy frames, a back carrier and a large tank which contained batteries for the head and tail lights we all had. Going any distance, and especially over difficult terrain, was not easy but did result in none of us getting fat and at least developing powerful leg muscles.

One of our many adventures that I remember was our trips to Floyd Bennet Field. After the war had started, this airport was used for training of fighter pilots. I don’t remember if they were Army or Navy (we didn’t have a separate Air Force until much later). We would bike to the field after school and stand outside the fence that surrounded the field but allowed us to get pretty close to one of the runways. One day we watched a flight of Brewster Mid-Wing fighters approach the end of the runway in single file for landing. All went well until the last one in-line neared the runway when we noticed something odd – he hadn’t lowered his landing gear!

We watched in horror as the plane sank lower and lower until its belly finally settled on the concrete runway. It then slid with a horrendous screech and flying sparks in a straight line finally stopping directly in front of us about fifty yards away at which point it gently tilted to the left until its wingtip rested on the runway. For a moment there was dead silence then we heard the sirens in the distance as the airports fire engines and an ambulance accompanied by a small fleet of jeeps started for us. Then we saw the canopy

being pulled back and the pilot stepped out of the cockpit onto the wing. He stood there for a second or two, looked at us with a condescending smile, then nonchalantly took a package of cigarettes out of his flight jacket, took one out, put it between his lips, produced a lighter, clicked on a flame, and then couldn’t get the cigarette lit because his hand was trembling so much. We laughed at his sudden morphing from a staunch, fearless flying warrior to a thoroughly scared young man who wasn’t very many years older than we were.

As we had gotten older, our interest in guns increased and many of my friends graduated from BB guns to .22 cal. rifles. I never got one but one of my father’s friends that he knew from Germany gave me an old German air pistol for a birthday present. I don’t think my parents were very happy about it but I assured them I would be very careful in its use. After all, it was only an air pistol, even less powerful than a BB gun rifle and was only a single shot. It fired small pellets that you had to load, one at a time, by opening the action, seating the little pellet, closing the action and cocking the spring device that pushed a piston forward which, when the trigger was pulled, caused the pellet to be forced out through the barrel.

After I’d used it for a while, plinking at things, and showing my friends how it worked, I began to run out of the little box of pellets my father’s friend had given me and shopped around for more but couldn’t find any. All the ones I found were a little smaller and would simply fall through the barrel. The ones available were all .177 caliber and apparently my pistol needed something a little larger. It so happened that a .22 caliber bullet is a little larger so I tried sticking one into the chamber of the pistol and, by gosh, it worked – the whole cartridge of a .22 cal. short fit perfectly. But I couldn’t find pellets that large so I had to remove the slug from the cartridge. When I chambered the slug, the pistol worked perfectly. The problem was that it was expensive buying the 22 ammo, then laboriously and with some danger removing the slugs and throwing the rest away. I noticed that, when I put the entire short round into the chamber its rim rested flat against the back of the chamber something I learned in later years was technically described as being “in battery”. What, I wondered, would happen if I left the whole cartridge in the chamber, cocked the gun and let the piston head hit the back of the cartridge? The .22 is rim fired and doesn’t need a firing pin – would the piston head hit the rim hard enough to set off the primer? So, one day, I took some .22 shorts one of my friends had given me and went out into the swamp alone, far enough away so no one could hear it, pressed a cartridge into the chamber, cocked it, held it as far away as I could, closed my eyes and pulled the trigger. It worked! I had myself a .22cal. one-shot pistol which, in later years, would have been called a “zip gun.” It felt funny to be envied by my friends – I was the only one that had a real hand gun. Here is a picture of one – a German Hubertus single shot spring air pistol that came in .177 and .22 caliber made in the 1930s:

About that time we were having some trouble with some other gangs in the neighborhood; one in particular had resulted in a few fights which I had the good fortune of not getting involved in. However, we stopped going to school alone but always with one or two others. A couple of times I even carried the pistol to school but, thank God, never got caught with it. One day the pistol disappeared. I was too afraid to bring it up and my parents never told me but I’m sure they heard about how it could be used from someone and got rid of it.

To my surprise, one day my parents decided to get a pet. With no advance notice to me, my dad came home with a young German shepherd one Saturday. It was a female they named Bonnie – I fell in love with her immediately. Bonnie became my constant companion and I took her almost everywhere I went. My friends liked her too and seemed to enjoy having her with us on all of our adventures.

Once she was introduced to the swamp she couldn’t get enough of it. At first I had to keep her on a leash but then I discovered she quickly learned to stay by me and we spent all of our free time exploring. She loved the water and would jump in whenever she had the chance, whether ditch or creek. What she loved most was hunting for rats. When she found a rat hole she would first stick her nose into it as far as she could and, if that didn’t work, she’d start wildly digging with her front paws, stopping at times to stick her nose back in. Too often, however, the rat would find her first and shed let out a loud yelp and pull her head back revealing where the cornered pest had bitten her nose. Then the tempo of digging would accelerate until she finally dragged the poor thing out of its hole, swung

it around a few times and threw its carcass into the reeds. It always amazed me that the nose biting never seemed to deter her from going after the next one as soon as possible.

It so happened that the same time we got Bonnie, one of my friends on Ave. J, Ray Benno, also got a new dog. It was a white chow, also a female, and about the same age as Bonnie. For some reason the two took an immediate and total dislike to each other. Every time Ray took his dog for a walk down the block and I happened to also be out with Bonnie, as soon as the two spotted each other they started snarling, barking, and desperately pulling on their leashes. On one such day as we approached, each on the opposite side of the street, I attempted to change hands as Bonnie was pulling on her leash with all her strength, when she pulled it out of my hands and charged across the street attacking the chow, Ray could not control his dog either and, before I could get across the two dogs were in a vicious fight. I tried to grab Bonnie by the collar and pull her off but as I did so the chow tried getting Bonnie by the back of her neck and got my hand instead. I managed to get her teeth out of my hand and pulled her back and I got control of Bonnie. To this day I can point out the scar on my hand.

I think it was sometime after the first year with Bonnie, in the late fall, my parents did something that I never understood. Possibly it was because Bonnie had grown substantially and the war had started in the meantime. Things were getting difficult with World War II starting and, even though Vati had a good job, for a while, it was getting hard to maintain a household. They had heard from a friend that the Army was looking for dogs to be donated for their use. If of the right breed and trainable, they would join the K9 corps and become useful in the service.

They had contacted the Army and made an appointment for someone to come and check out Bonnie. One Saturday afternoon a young Army lieutenant accompanied by a lady sergeant showed up on our doorstep and asked if they could take Bonnie out and put her through some tests. I went with them and we walked out about a block away into an open area and they tried a number of things that I don’t remember but I do remember that Bonnie wasn’t fazed a bit and apparently passed them all. Finally, with the sergeant holding her on a short leash, the Lt. pulled a revolver out of his holster, pointed it at the sky and pulled the trigger twice. Bonnie stood perfectly still and looked up at the Lt. with and expression that seemed to ask, “Have you lost your marbles”. The Lt. laughed and said, “She’s something else, smart as a whip and not the least bit gun shy.” I knew from those reactions that I was going to lose my best friend. They took Bonnie with them when they left and I never saw her again.

A considerable time after the war ended, my parents received a letter from the Army telling them that Bonnie had served courageously during the landing at Anzio and had two handlers killed over her. She had been brought back to the states and was at a special camp where K9 dogs were being detrained. Their owners could have them back after the training but the Army warned that they could not guarantee they could be trusted to be harmless. In the meantime my parents had gotten another dog, a nasty little Cocker Spaniel that I never liked. Apparently the feeling was mutual because I’d been bitten numerous times. However concern over Bonnie’s possible behavior had them make the

decision not to take her back. Without anyone saying anything, I knew that the alternative would be her being put down. We also received a letter from the Army that Bonny had been a real hero. The letter enclosed an award for bravery in certificate form. I don’t know what ever happened to it.

In later years, after having finally gotten rid of the vicious Cocker Spaniel, they got a dachshund puppy and named her Valdi. She was a wonderful pet and gave my mother a lot of joy for many years.

The land to the east and west of our houses was bare covered only by weeds and scrub brush. To the east, about the distance of a block away, was a dirt road on which was a trailer. It was occupied by a young man who made neon signs by hand by heating and bending colored glass tubes. These were new and rare at that time and his business was doing quite well. Some of our guys had discovered that he was very friendly and enjoyed being visited which we did a few at a time. I don’t remember what his background had been but he regaled us with many interesting stories.

A little further east, maybe three or four blocks, there was one other structure, a very nice house, also connected to Flatlands Ave. by a dirt road. From some other material I’ve run across I am sure it was known as the Charles P. Vanderveer house that had been built around 1922.

I had already taken up the hobby of drawing pictures; mostly as pencil sketches. One sunny summer day I cajoled one of my friends to come with me while I would try to sketch that house. We walked along Flatlands and turned into the dirt road that ran down to the house which was surrounded by a number of trees. When we had gotten close enough to get good view of it we settled down on the top of a small hummock and I started drawing. I was just about finished when I saw the front door of the house open and a woman came out onto the concrete steps that led to the door. After watching us a few minutes she waved at us to come closer which we did with some reluctance after first considering running away. When we got close enough we could see she was an elderly lady, slightly stooped and dressed with a rather fancy black dress with lace around the collar. She asked us why we were watching her house from the little hill nearby and I told her that we had admired her house for a long time and had finally decided I should draw a picture of it. She replied, “Oh, isn’t that nice, can I see it?” When I showed it to her she said it looked just like her house and she really liked it. Then she asked if we’d like to see the inside and that led to a nice visit which included a tour of the house, some cookies and a long conversation in which she wanted to know all about us. When we left we gave her the picture and she seemed surprised and very happy. From then on we and some of our friends made it a point to occasionally visit with her for some time afterwards and there were always cookies.

The Vandeveer house at where 107th St. would be today, looking south; dated 1922

In our years on 104th street, the city began to fill in a lot of the low ground east of Fresh Creek. There were huge mounds of fill I think composed of mixed dirt and garbage. One of our favorite things to do was to hunker down on the low ground next to the fill at sunset when the rats would come out and walk along the edges of the fill making perfect silhouettes and, allowing us to picking them off with .22s, was just like being at a shooting gallery. Construction for buildings was also started further east where the low land had been filled in earlier. A number of large cranes would be standing quiet at night after working all day moving sand and dirt around preparing for the building of what appeared to be two story apartment dwellings. Very often they would be standing with the boom extended over a large pile of sand and, after work when all the workers had gone; we would climb up on the booms of the cranes and jump down onto the sand. We would count the steel bracings on the booms and see who could jump from the highest point. When they started building we would sneak out to them at night and climb all over the rising structures. They finally got a watchman who spent every night in a small shack ready to chase intruders away. One evening a few of us were on the second floor of a partially completed building when the watchmen got wise to our presence and got to the first floor entrance. We first became aware of him as he started yelling at us. The only way to get away was to jump out of the second floor window which did not yet have glass in it. On that side of the building they had already finished installing a wide concrete walk. Beyond the walk there was soft sand. We had jumped from higher heights so were not afraid to use this route to escape the watchman and jumped. Unfortunately, I misjudged my landing and hit the edge of the concrete then tumbling forward in the sand. I was able to get up and start running and get away from the watchman but I really hurt badly for a few days.

One night Tommy, who was our chief trouble maker, found a gasoline can next to one of the cranes. He told us he had a good idea for a neat trick and we watched as he snuck up to the watchman’s shack and quietly began pouring the gasoline in a long trail as he walked back to us about fifty yards away. Then he let out a few loud yells and the watchman came running out of the shack toward us. At the same time Tommy lit a match and dropped it into the gas which immediately flared up with the flames rushing toward the watchman, who, apparently horrified, turned and ran as back as fast as he could. We, of course, were all practically rolling on the ground with laughter. When WW II started the empty area south of Flatlands Ave became a Mecca for Victory gardens. I don’t remember how it was organized or who made all the arrangements but a large number of plots mere marked and began being used by the families in the neighborhood. One of the largest was situated between where 102 and 103rd streets would have been and had its northern border along Flatlands. The elderly man who kept it up had built a small wood shack at one end and would spend many of his evenings sitting in the doorway admiring his garden. There were street lights along Flatlands spaced rather far apart which gave a minimum of light to the gardens at night.

Much of his crop consisted of tomatoes – those small yellow ones we called “Italian” tomatoes. One of our gang had snuck into the garden one evening and found that the tomato crop was ready for harvest, tasted delicious, and the plants were high enough that one could crawl down the rows between them and not be seen. Well! That was too great a temptation for a bunch of kids; so plans mere made. One evening, after it had become sufficiently dark, a small herd of kids crawled into the garden from its far end, away from the shack and stayed as low as possible between the rows of potato plants, everybody picking the ripe, yellow tomatoes and eating them with relish. As we got closer to the shack the man must have heard us and came running out shouting loudly. A couple of the gang yelled back with some unrepeatable remarks. Suddenly we heard a loud “BOOM” – “O’my God! The old guy had a shotgun”. We all took off like rabbits. Before we reached the end of the garden we heard a second boom followed immediately by a loud yelp. When we all reached the end of the garden, we ran into the reeds that marked its perimeter and then headed back to 104th St. On the way we realized one of our group was having trouble. Apparently some of the buckshot must have reached him. Since I was our gang’s corpsman they looked to me to take care of him. We helped him into the basement of his house, got most of his clothes off him and stretched him out on an old kitchen table. Sure enough – a couple of the shot pellets had hit him – in the buttocks. They hadn’t penetrated very deeply and it was not hard to squeeze them out with a pair of tweezers. A good dollop of an iodine and a couple of band aids that I had in my “kit” and he was good to go. His parents never knew about it.

One summer, with school out, our gang decided to build a clubhouse in the swamp. A couple of weeks of scrounging for materials gave us enough to build, albeit crudely, a small shack with a flat roof and a door but no windows.

It was around this time that we began to smoke seriously. A penny got you a single cigarette together with a kitchen match sold by the candy store on the corner of 104th and Flatlands Ave. I think I was about 14 at the time. Little hand making cigarette devices for rolling one’s own were now available and we pooled our money to buy one. Since I was already the maintainer of one cigar box for our first aid supplies I somehow got stuck with the cigar box with the cigarette maker and our stash of tobacco and paper. We spent many hours after school sitting in our “clubhouse” or elsewhere in the reeds rolling and smoking cigarettes. We also started using pipes. Not being able to afford regular pipes we bought a couple of cheap ones, used to blow soap bubbles, at a toy store. They seemed adequate for us but I’m sure a regular pipe smoker would have thought them horrible. The only one of our gang I remember being caught smoking by his parents was “Sallie”. His father was so angry he made the poor kid eat a complete package of cigarettes. He was sick for a week and I would guess he had a touch of tobacco poisoning. Another time, one of our gang old us he’d been told by an older brother that coffee could be smoked also. There was plenty of that lying around and we could easily get it from our kitchen cabinets if we were careful; and it wouldn’t cost us anything. The first time we tried it we all got violently sick. It took a couple of days to get over it and our parents never did find out what had happened. The guy who gave us the idea took a long time to live it down.

We only kept the clubhouse a couple of months and then decided to get rid of it by burning it down with all of us gathered around when it was set on fire. I remember my friend “Tommy” jumping up and down on the roof while the flames were flaring up the walls around him. We were yelling at him to jump down and he finally did at the very last second before the roof collapsed. That was my first indication that there was something wrong with him; something that was not quite normal – a realization that was, unfortunately, proven to be right much later. In the meantime, the war continued and the patriotism fervor increased. Kids couldn’t wait to reach draft age. Some tried to enlist earlier but needed to get their parents approval to do so. The first one to go was Tony P. I think he was only seventeen when his parents signed their approval and he enlisted in the Navy. For some time we managed to keep in touch with him but eventually we lost contact. At one time we heard that he’d been assigned to an aircraft carrier after finishing his boot camp. Many years later I heard from one of the guys who I’d run across and he told me Tony had made it through the war and, after discharge, had bought a small farm in upstate N.Y.

In 1942 my parents bought a small house in Bellerose, Queens. Dad had done well during the war as a machinist working for the Norden Bombsight Co. Since I had two more years to go at Brooklyn Tech, I had to get special permission to continue with them although my commute would be quite long – about 1 ½ hours each way by subway and bus. But it turned out to be worthwhile since completing the courses I was in would help me greatly later on. But it meant I had to leave all my friends behind. It wasn’t much in actual distance but, in terms of social activity, Brooklyn was miles away from Queens.I tried to keep in touch with some of the gang for a while but that didn’t last long. I did run into one of them, Eddy, who eventually became a fire safety engineer at one of the

large property insurance companies in NYC. In one of our later conversations we came to the surprising conclusion that, with only one exception, every one of our old friends had grown up to be a good citizen with a fine family and commendable employment. One even became a Captain on the NYC police department. The exception was my good friend Tommy. For unknown reasons, he somehow missed the draft, and, toward the end of the war started trying to sell cigarettes in New Jersey that had been purchased (or possibly stolen) in NYC where the taxes were lower. He attempted to sell a trunkful of cigarettes to a tobacco store in Newark but the storeowner snitched to the local gendarmes and poor Tommy ended up in a N.J. jail for a short period. Sometime later, after the war, the story goes that he and two friends, all armed with short pieces of lead pipe, tried to mug a man walking along Flatlands Avenue late one night. Unfortunately, they couldn’t have selected a worse target because the man allegedly held a black belt in Karate and the police report supposedly stated that he wiped the street off with all three of them. This resulted in a couple of years of incarceration in the State prison at Ossining, N.Y. That is the last I heard of him.

So, after we got settled in Bellerose, it didn’t take long to develop a new bunch of friends and my connection with the gang in Canarsie was severed - but I will never forget my wonderful years in good, old Canarsie.

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