You can never go home again.
06-23-2013, 06:52 PM
#1
Thread Starter
You can never go home again.
“You can never go home again”-Tom Wolfe
I was born in Brooklyn, and even though I spent the first 8 years of my life in Queens, I grew up in Brooklyn. My folks bought a house in South Flatbush and we moved there when I was 8 years old.
Brooklyn was the bedroom for Manhattan, and for those of us who lived there, it was the center of the universe. It’s a known fact that when the first amoeba crawled out of the ocean and evolved into human beings, it happened in Brooklyn. Scientists speculate that this happened around 1300 AD, right before Columbus got here, but that’s probably not true. It probably happened about 750 AD give or take a few hundred years. After all, it would take more than 100 years for the evolution to take place. Without question, intelligent life started in Brooklyn.
Seriously though, Brooklyn was a great place to grow up. Even though the Dodgers deserted in 1957 and broke all of our hearts (and probably started the decline of the borough). The Dodgers were to Brooklyn very much what the Red Sox are to Boston and the Cubs are to Chicago, the heart and soul of the community. I was only 7 when they left, but I remember the sadness, and the sadness when Ebbets Field was demolished.
Still, through the sixties and seventies, Brooklyn was a great place to be. The schools, the people, the excitement. Where else could you ride the world’s greatest wooden rollercoaster, drive a few miles to 3rd Avenue to watch some great illegal street drag racing, dance for a few hours and still be able to grab a late night snack at Junior's all on the same Friday or Saturday night? The next morning you could go to one of America’s premier aquariums, botanical gardens or a park that served as the model for Manhattan’s Central Park. Free concerts in Prospect Park, free movies is Marine Park and free tuition at the City University of New York if you had the grades to get in. Brooklyn was home to decent, hardworking middle class people of every race, religion and nationality and somehow, for the most part everyone managed to get along.
I lived in Brooklyn until I was 26 when I moved to Manhattan. Eighteen years later, with a family and one son about to start school we moved to New Jersey. But, like the adage goes, you can take the boy out of Brooklyn, but you can never take Brooklyn out of the boy. After 19 years in New Jersey, I still think of myself as a New Yorker and especially a Brooklynite.
I mention this because this past Saturday Liz, Adam and I had nothing to do. I suggested taking a drive into Brooklyn, and especially into Coney Island and Sheepshead Bay. Even though I never lived in either of those two communities, growing up in South Flabush meant spending a lot of time in both. Coney for the rides, amusements and beach, and Sheepshead Bay for the seafood.
As we drove to Goethals Bridge into Staten Island I wondered what we’d find. Brooklyn had long been in decline, and last year’s Hurricane Sandy did it an awful lot of damage. Still, I’d heard and read that the borough has been coming back over the last decade, and the higher real estate prices got in Manhattan, the better Brooklyn became.
Anyway, we drove through Staten Island and over the Verrazano Bridge into Brooklyn. All of a sudden I became the tour guide. Liz of course grew up in Chinatown and really didn’t know much about the borough, and Adam has spent all of his life in New Jersey. “Look to the left, that apartment complex is home to more people than our town of Randolph”, “Look over there, that used to be E.J. Korvettes, and that’s Grady Vocational High School”, “Up ahead, that’s the Parachute Jump”. This went on and on until we finally got to Coney Island.
We drove through Coney and it was every bit as good as I remembered it being. All of the rides were lit up, the original Nathan’s Famous was as busy as I had ever seen it, and the whole place was teeming with people just out on a warm summer night having a good time. This is great.
We couldn’t find parking so we decided to continue on to Sheepshead Bay, 3 or 4 miles down the road. Sheepshead Bay is a small community built around an inlet of the Atlantic. Sport fishing charter boats dock there and the main street is lined with Seafood Restaurants. Or at least it was when I was younger. In recent years, Russian immigrants have settled in neighboring Brighton Beach and now Russian restaurants share Emmons Avenue with the old seafood restaurants. F.W.I.L. Lundy Brothers, one of America’s great seafood restaurants closed in 2007 (when the last Lundy died) but the building is still there. Now it houses some smaller restaurants and shops. My old time favorite, Randazzo’s Clam Bar is still there.
Randazzo’s was established in 1932 and is still exactly the same as I remembered. A big square too crowded with tables and people. A place where the waiters shout at each other, throw the food at you and are rude in a Brooklyn kind of way. The food is great and so is the atmosphere. We waited a half hour for a table, got seated at about 9:00 pm and had dinner until about 11:00. At 11:00 people were still coming in. Randazzo’s goes until 12:30 am. What a great place, just as I remembered it. We spent the two hours eating, talking to some of the other diners, kibitzing with the waiters, laughing and having just a great time. The place is noisy, and crowded. The service is slow and the wait is long. And everything about it is perfect. Brooklyn is still Brooklyn.
We walked to the car with smiles on our face and as I opened the door another car pulled up to take the spot. Apparently another family was coming for dinner.
As we drove back to New Jersey Liz fell asleep in the back seat but Adam and I talked all the way. He couldn’t get over how great a place Brooklyn is and how lucky I’d been to grow up there. I agreed.
My point is, with all due respect to Mr. Tom Wolfe, you really can go home again.
How about you? Have you recently gone back to the place where you grew up? Was it as good as your memories? Were you able to “go home again”?
I was born in Brooklyn, and even though I spent the first 8 years of my life in Queens, I grew up in Brooklyn. My folks bought a house in South Flatbush and we moved there when I was 8 years old.
Brooklyn was the bedroom for Manhattan, and for those of us who lived there, it was the center of the universe. It’s a known fact that when the first amoeba crawled out of the ocean and evolved into human beings, it happened in Brooklyn. Scientists speculate that this happened around 1300 AD, right before Columbus got here, but that’s probably not true. It probably happened about 750 AD give or take a few hundred years. After all, it would take more than 100 years for the evolution to take place. Without question, intelligent life started in Brooklyn.
Seriously though, Brooklyn was a great place to grow up. Even though the Dodgers deserted in 1957 and broke all of our hearts (and probably started the decline of the borough). The Dodgers were to Brooklyn very much what the Red Sox are to Boston and the Cubs are to Chicago, the heart and soul of the community. I was only 7 when they left, but I remember the sadness, and the sadness when Ebbets Field was demolished.
Still, through the sixties and seventies, Brooklyn was a great place to be. The schools, the people, the excitement. Where else could you ride the world’s greatest wooden rollercoaster, drive a few miles to 3rd Avenue to watch some great illegal street drag racing, dance for a few hours and still be able to grab a late night snack at Junior's all on the same Friday or Saturday night? The next morning you could go to one of America’s premier aquariums, botanical gardens or a park that served as the model for Manhattan’s Central Park. Free concerts in Prospect Park, free movies is Marine Park and free tuition at the City University of New York if you had the grades to get in. Brooklyn was home to decent, hardworking middle class people of every race, religion and nationality and somehow, for the most part everyone managed to get along.
I lived in Brooklyn until I was 26 when I moved to Manhattan. Eighteen years later, with a family and one son about to start school we moved to New Jersey. But, like the adage goes, you can take the boy out of Brooklyn, but you can never take Brooklyn out of the boy. After 19 years in New Jersey, I still think of myself as a New Yorker and especially a Brooklynite.
I mention this because this past Saturday Liz, Adam and I had nothing to do. I suggested taking a drive into Brooklyn, and especially into Coney Island and Sheepshead Bay. Even though I never lived in either of those two communities, growing up in South Flabush meant spending a lot of time in both. Coney for the rides, amusements and beach, and Sheepshead Bay for the seafood.
As we drove to Goethals Bridge into Staten Island I wondered what we’d find. Brooklyn had long been in decline, and last year’s Hurricane Sandy did it an awful lot of damage. Still, I’d heard and read that the borough has been coming back over the last decade, and the higher real estate prices got in Manhattan, the better Brooklyn became.
Anyway, we drove through Staten Island and over the Verrazano Bridge into Brooklyn. All of a sudden I became the tour guide. Liz of course grew up in Chinatown and really didn’t know much about the borough, and Adam has spent all of his life in New Jersey. “Look to the left, that apartment complex is home to more people than our town of Randolph”, “Look over there, that used to be E.J. Korvettes, and that’s Grady Vocational High School”, “Up ahead, that’s the Parachute Jump”. This went on and on until we finally got to Coney Island.
We drove through Coney and it was every bit as good as I remembered it being. All of the rides were lit up, the original Nathan’s Famous was as busy as I had ever seen it, and the whole place was teeming with people just out on a warm summer night having a good time. This is great.
We couldn’t find parking so we decided to continue on to Sheepshead Bay, 3 or 4 miles down the road. Sheepshead Bay is a small community built around an inlet of the Atlantic. Sport fishing charter boats dock there and the main street is lined with Seafood Restaurants. Or at least it was when I was younger. In recent years, Russian immigrants have settled in neighboring Brighton Beach and now Russian restaurants share Emmons Avenue with the old seafood restaurants. F.W.I.L. Lundy Brothers, one of America’s great seafood restaurants closed in 2007 (when the last Lundy died) but the building is still there. Now it houses some smaller restaurants and shops. My old time favorite, Randazzo’s Clam Bar is still there.
Randazzo’s was established in 1932 and is still exactly the same as I remembered. A big square too crowded with tables and people. A place where the waiters shout at each other, throw the food at you and are rude in a Brooklyn kind of way. The food is great and so is the atmosphere. We waited a half hour for a table, got seated at about 9:00 pm and had dinner until about 11:00. At 11:00 people were still coming in. Randazzo’s goes until 12:30 am. What a great place, just as I remembered it. We spent the two hours eating, talking to some of the other diners, kibitzing with the waiters, laughing and having just a great time. The place is noisy, and crowded. The service is slow and the wait is long. And everything about it is perfect. Brooklyn is still Brooklyn.
We walked to the car with smiles on our face and as I opened the door another car pulled up to take the spot. Apparently another family was coming for dinner.
As we drove back to New Jersey Liz fell asleep in the back seat but Adam and I talked all the way. He couldn’t get over how great a place Brooklyn is and how lucky I’d been to grow up there. I agreed.
My point is, with all due respect to Mr. Tom Wolfe, you really can go home again.
How about you? Have you recently gone back to the place where you grew up? Was it as good as your memories? Were you able to “go home again”?
06-23-2013, 10:03 PM
#2
I don't want to ever live where I grew up. The house my dad built, that I lived in for about 20 years, is still there, although remodeled by the couple who bought it after he died in 2007. It was a quiet street in North Hollywood, when I grew up, which is nothing like Hollywood. Now, it's just another suburb in the densely populated, noisy, San Fernando Valley, in Los Angeles County. Yuck. Too much asphalt and too many cars and people.
06-24-2013, 01:47 AM
#3
I stayed in my hometown until a few years ago when we decided to move to a warmer climate. It was a rural small southern town and absolutely nothing like NY. I've been back to the playground where I used to play many times, but do not want to live there anymore. It is not what it used to be.
PS: Thank you for sharing this. It is lovely!
PS: Thank you for sharing this. It is lovely!
06-24-2013, 02:19 AM
#4
Registered User
ironically I woke to Paul Simon's still crazy after all these years this morning.
06-24-2013, 02:21 AM
#5
Nice, Rob...I didn't grow up in one place since my dad was in the Marine Corps. But the place I had the most attachment to was Kinston, NC where Auntie lived. Spent many good times there and at Camp Bryan in Havelock. Unfortunately, the neighborhood where the house was deteriorated over time, but she and my uncle didn't move. I brought her up here to live and rented the house. It really went downhill after that. I sold it before she died. I went by once a few years ago and it looked run down and not good. Haven't gone back since. I have gone back to Camp Bryan but it has changed over the years, too. Gone much more upscale with big houses. You don't see the kids out on the lakes fishing anymore - they just ride around on their four wheelers. Sad, IMO. But I have wonderful memories. Can't take those away! 
06-24-2013, 07:59 AM
#6
Registered User
I lived in the town I was born in for 18 years, went off to college for a couple of years, then moved to Central Ohio 40 years ago. I can't "go home" because I am home.
06-24-2013, 09:33 AM
#7
Rob...
Nice story... Glad to hear you enjoyed reliving some childhood memories. My Mom tells me stories when the whole family piled into the back of my Zayde's seltzer truck to go to Coney Island. A treat among treats on a hot day.
For me, not quite the same... I too was born in Brooklyn. Lived all of 10 months in the Midwood area (Kings Highway, near Avenue N or thereabouts) before moving to NJ. Growing up, both sides of the family were predominantly in Brooklyn, so we spent a lot of time driving from Old Bridge back and forth to see everyone, and of course, stopping for fresh bagels, bialies and a pletzel board on the way home.
My memories aren't of the city or the neighborhoods, but of family and the drive. Unfortunately, I had to do the drive on Sunday. From where I am now, picked up Mom in Monroe, then the Goethals to the Belt to the Southern State out to Merrick LI. Back to Elmont, Queens and then the Belt back to the Goethals and home in reverse. We had an unveiling for my Aunt - my Mother's oldest sibling. My Mother is the only one left, and the rest of the family has all moved out of Brooklyn except for a cousin or two. So, visiting family isn't quite the same, and the drive, well, it's horrible, let alone the $15 for the Verrazano now and $13 for the Goethals or Outerbridge!
I sometimes wonder if the Belt will ever be construction free or why traffic backs up until Pennsylvania Ave, then magically disappears! It really is a trip worth avoiding for me at this point.
BTW- My sister teaches Culinary Arts at Grady.
Nice story... Glad to hear you enjoyed reliving some childhood memories. My Mom tells me stories when the whole family piled into the back of my Zayde's seltzer truck to go to Coney Island. A treat among treats on a hot day.
For me, not quite the same... I too was born in Brooklyn. Lived all of 10 months in the Midwood area (Kings Highway, near Avenue N or thereabouts) before moving to NJ. Growing up, both sides of the family were predominantly in Brooklyn, so we spent a lot of time driving from Old Bridge back and forth to see everyone, and of course, stopping for fresh bagels, bialies and a pletzel board on the way home.
My memories aren't of the city or the neighborhoods, but of family and the drive. Unfortunately, I had to do the drive on Sunday. From where I am now, picked up Mom in Monroe, then the Goethals to the Belt to the Southern State out to Merrick LI. Back to Elmont, Queens and then the Belt back to the Goethals and home in reverse. We had an unveiling for my Aunt - my Mother's oldest sibling. My Mother is the only one left, and the rest of the family has all moved out of Brooklyn except for a cousin or two. So, visiting family isn't quite the same, and the drive, well, it's horrible, let alone the $15 for the Verrazano now and $13 for the Goethals or Outerbridge!
I sometimes wonder if the Belt will ever be construction free or why traffic backs up until Pennsylvania Ave, then magically disappears! It really is a trip worth avoiding for me at this point.
BTW- My sister teaches Culinary Arts at Grady.
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06-24-2013, 11:06 AM
#8
If any of you ever went to Palisades Park be sure to read the book of the same name that just came out. The +1 is reading it - he worked there for years with his grandfather and father. It was a very sad day when it closed. His father actually went into a depression over it, so not all good memories.
06-24-2013, 04:56 PM
#10
Rob,
Nice to know that some things in your old neighborhood are still the same.
On the other hand, if you were to go to the Queens neighborhood that we both used to live in you would not recognize anything along Liberty Ave except for the "El" (Elevated Train for you non-New Yorkers) that is the southern end of the line for the famed "A Train".
A few weeks ago, my Mother, who has been living in Riverhead Long Island since 1987 was lamenting (as she often does) about how much she misses the neighborhood that she called home for forty-nine years. I sarcastically suggested that we drive into Richmond Hill to have lunch and suggested that we go to the following places to eat:
Jahn's (since 1897) Hillside & Myrtle Avenues: GONE
Sorrento's Italian Restaurant (two doors from Jahn's: GONE
Levinson's Deli (117 ST & Liberty Ave) GONE
Schaffer's Ice Cream Parlor (Lefferts Blvd & Liberty Ave) GONE
Carlo's Pizzeria (Lefferts & Liberty) GONE
The Habrau House (Jamaica Ave & Mytrle Ave) GONE
The Mohawk (121 St & Jamaica Ave) GONE
Schlosser's Deli (114 ST & Jamaica Ave) GONE
Russo's Restaurant (101 Ave & Lefferts Blvd) GONE
I could go on, but I think that you and others get the picture.
If one goes to our old neighborhood in Queens it will serve one well if one can read either Hindi or Parsi if you wish to know what the signs state or what kind of business is there now.
Nice to know that some things in your old neighborhood are still the same.
On the other hand, if you were to go to the Queens neighborhood that we both used to live in you would not recognize anything along Liberty Ave except for the "El" (Elevated Train for you non-New Yorkers) that is the southern end of the line for the famed "A Train".
A few weeks ago, my Mother, who has been living in Riverhead Long Island since 1987 was lamenting (as she often does) about how much she misses the neighborhood that she called home for forty-nine years. I sarcastically suggested that we drive into Richmond Hill to have lunch and suggested that we go to the following places to eat:
Jahn's (since 1897) Hillside & Myrtle Avenues: GONE
Sorrento's Italian Restaurant (two doors from Jahn's: GONE
Levinson's Deli (117 ST & Liberty Ave) GONE
Schaffer's Ice Cream Parlor (Lefferts Blvd & Liberty Ave) GONE
Carlo's Pizzeria (Lefferts & Liberty) GONE
The Habrau House (Jamaica Ave & Mytrle Ave) GONE
The Mohawk (121 St & Jamaica Ave) GONE
Schlosser's Deli (114 ST & Jamaica Ave) GONE
Russo's Restaurant (101 Ave & Lefferts Blvd) GONE
I could go on, but I think that you and others get the picture.
If one goes to our old neighborhood in Queens it will serve one well if one can read either Hindi or Parsi if you wish to know what the signs state or what kind of business is there now.