A Flatbush Life And A Mystery Lane That Would Not Die
By Joe Enright
When my sister Mary died unexpectedly
just before Christmas, I searched her home in Florida looking for a
will. She lived alone and her house had become a repository for
photos, documents and memorabilia accumulated from relatives who had
pre-deceased her in North Lauderdale: another sister, a
brother-in-law, an aunt, a sister-in-law and my mother. There was a
staggering amount of paper records that had long since ceased to be
of any possible importance. It took days to go through all of it but
there was no will.
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| 2008: Mary Enright (1941-2015) With Her Grand Nephew Liam |
One was a John Hancock life insurance policy taken out by my mother
on February 18, 1959 with a face value of $500.00 and a weekly
premium of 21 cents. Adjusting for inflation, this "whole life
policy" - meaning it did not have an expiration date - would
have resulted in an inflation-adjusted $4,000 payout to the
beneficiary, my mother. The name of the insured is what really caught
my attention. It was me. I was only 11 years old at the time. I
searched for other such policies on my seven siblings. There were
none.
The other document was the deed to the house where I grew up,
on Rogers Avenue in Brooklyn, dated just a week after my birth...
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| 1947 Deed to 1329 Rogers Ave |
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| 1959 Life Insurance Policy On My Life |
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| Policy Was Whole Life |
I
was born in September of 1947, accompanied during my entry into this
world by my twin, Regina, who is now living in a long term health
care facility in Limerick, Ireland, not too far from where our mother
herself was born in 1911.
Regina
and I were the seventh and eight of nine children my mother was to
bear, and we proved to be simply too many for the ground floor of a
two family house. So within days of our birth, my mother's signature
appeared on a $5,500 deed and a $3,000 mortgage to buy one of two
identical attached brick houses which my family had been renting.
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| 1940: NYC Buildings Department Photo of 1329 Rogers Avenue-Middle House |
1329
Rogers Avenue was not very desirable: There was a gas station/garage
flush to the north side of the two row houses and on the south side
barely an inch separated us from a private wooden frame house from
which was dispatched a small fleet of trucks based in a large rear
garage. So it came as a surprise to me when the deed revealed we had
purchased the house from the estate of a well-to-do family. Mary K.
Allison, according to a 1935 auction notice in the Brooklyn
Daily Eagle, had
taken the house in a foreclosure against a woman named Carmela
Ferrante during the height of the depression.
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| 1928: My House Is Just Out of Frame, On Far Right |
Mary
and her brother Augustus inherited $150,000 from Henry Prosper Booth,
who co-founded the Ward Steamship Line in the 1850s as a young man,
providing freight and passenger service to Cuban and Mexican ports.
Booth took sole ownership in 1894 and ran it very profitably until his
death in 1909. When his widow, Angie Booth, died in 1922, she
bequeathed millions of dollars to nautical charities and her heirs,
which included the Allisons.
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| Henry Prosper Booth: Prosper He Did |
Mary
Allison rented the house after she seized it but she passed away
sometime during the War. So it was her brother, Augustus Allison of
114 Clinton Street, a fancy address in Brooklyn Heights, who, as
executor of her estate, signed over the deed on September 18, 1947 to my
mother, Hilda Enright.
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| 1969 Thanksgiving on Rogers Ave. My Sister Rita (1940-2010) and Her Daughter Mary Catherine Are Looking At Camera With My Mother Seated Behind Them on Left. |
My mother did not work and my father was employed as an investigator by the City's Welfare Department. Why my mother's name should appear on the property documents was another mystery to me. Perhaps it was to shield the property from any liability my father might incur? There were no people on either side of my family tree with any money whatsoever in 1947 so where did my parents get the $2,500 down payment ($27,500 in today's coinage)? My parents hadn't owned a car since the 1930's and with so many mouths to feed on a civil service salary, my father often worked 2nd and 3rdjobs (post office helper, evening clerical work, etc.) I suspect the money somehow came from my mother's side of the family (she had 12 siblings), and that's why she signed all the documents. That proved to be advantageous when she sold the house in 1977 following the long torturous dissolution of her marriage.
I did more research on the house and it seems to have been originally occupied by a master plumber named Thomas Joseph Flood who had a shop a block away at 1447 Flatbush Avenue. He later became an inspector for the Bureau of Fire Prevention according to the Flood family history online. In September 1914 the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported he was among six men appointed as meter inspectors by the “Deputy Commissioner of Water Supply Gas and Electricity in Brooklyn", which political foes assailed as political patronage violating civil service laws.
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| St. Jerome's At Nostrand And Newkirk. School on Left. |
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| St. Jerome's Spires |
When
I was about eight years old, my father and I witnessed what
ghost-hunting-adventurers are fond of calling “a full-body
apparition.” We were awakened from our sleep by the sound of loud
footsteps coming down a stairway outside the bedroom which my younger
brother Michael and I shared with my parents, thanks to a fold-out cot for me and a mattress that sat atop a pile of bricks for Michael. The noise roused my father, and he started yelling "Who is it?" which woke me up. A woman in gray hair wearing a white robe/night dress noiselessly
came through a locked door against which stood a chair piled with
spare pillows. This was of course impossible. But there she was,
standing at the foot of my father's bed. All was then quiet as I watched in awe from my cot, no more than
four feet to her right. My father shouted "Who are you, what do
you want?" The old woman raised her arm, pointing forward. Then
disappeared.
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| Could Have Used These Guys Back in Our Bedroom in 1954 |
When
my father was in a nursing home in Bayside in 1978, near the end of his life,
I would come to visit him and we would usually watch TV together. On
one particular Saturday afternoon we happened to be watching a TV
show called "One Step Beyond", which dramatized a ghostly
encounter. The memory from 1955 came flooding back. I asked my Dad
about it and he excitedly described the encounter exactly as I
outlined it above. I posited the theory that I simply
overheard him when I was a child recounting the story to someone else
and I appropriated his memory as my own. But he scoffed. “I never
told anybody about that because they'd think I was nuts!” Not even
me? “I didn't know you were awake and saw it too!”
He went on to tell me that the apparition looked like pictures of my mother's mother, who had died a couple of years before he met my mother. My father thought his mother-in-law had come to warn him to treat his wife better. Sounded like a guilty conscience to me, so I resisted saying: “It would have helped us all a lot, Dad, if you had taken that advice.” Looking back at the prior deaths in the house, the ghost could have been Dorothy Sheedy or Margaret Flood. Or perhaps it was just a spirit fed up with all the kids running around the house, asking my father to cease with the procreation already.
He went on to tell me that the apparition looked like pictures of my mother's mother, who had died a couple of years before he met my mother. My father thought his mother-in-law had come to warn him to treat his wife better. Sounded like a guilty conscience to me, so I resisted saying: “It would have helped us all a lot, Dad, if you had taken that advice.” Looking back at the prior deaths in the house, the ghost could have been Dorothy Sheedy or Margaret Flood. Or perhaps it was just a spirit fed up with all the kids running around the house, asking my father to cease with the procreation already.
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| 1947: My siblings Just Before My Birth in The Back yard of 1329 Rogers. Rita on Right (1940-2010). Behind Her Buddy (1936-1979). On Left Are Julie (1943-2012) in Front, Mary (1941-2015) Behind Her and Jerry (1938-) Rear Left |
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| 1955: Buddy (1936-1979) in Our Back Yard. He Worked For The NY Times Most of His Relatively Short Life |
I
grew up with three brothers and four sisters (another brother
pre-deceased my birth) in a four bedroom house on a noisy mixed
commercial/residential block just north of Flatbush Avenue.
Naturally, everybody called the neighborhood Flatbush but in fact we
lived in what had once been the town of Flatlands. More on that
later.
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| 1950: Southbound Trolley on Rogers Getting Ready to Turn Right Onto Flatbush Then Down Farragut Road and Left on Ocean Avenue Straight to The Sea |
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| 1920s: Farragut Road Looking East to Flatbush - The Ocean Bound Trolley Has Turned Off Rogers, Through Flatbush Ave and Is Headed For The Camera and Ocean Avenue |
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| 1950: Flatbush Avenue Trolley Nortbound Approaching Rogers and Farragut. |
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| 1950: The Trolley That Ran Past Our Door Is Shown Here Turning From Farragut Road Onto Ocean Avenue. Our Lady of Refuge Church Is Visible Behind It, Before It Was Expanded. Herman Edert and Michael Enright Both Got Married There. |
One
of my earliest memories was the electric trolley that ran past our
door. It stopped running when I was four, part of the post-war
retirement of trolley lines to make way for gas-guzzling buses. One trolley on the nearby Church Avenue line did survive
long enough for me to catch a ride when I was in 4th
grade.
That was 1956. A great year! The Dodgers won the
pennant on the last day of the season, and I was on a CYO
(Catholic Youth Organization) little league team which played only a
mile and a half away in what were then the wide open fields of
Flatlands. I loved playing baseball, maybe because it was the
only thing I seemed to be good at.
But
the trolley tracks were barely paved over and kept peeking through
the tar throughout my youth, reminding me of the rails that stretched
from Manhattan Beach, east of Brighton and Coney, all the way up to
Crown Heights. The hills there formed part of the glacial ridge that
separated Brooklyn's urban north from its rural south until
mechanized transport replaced inefficient horse power at the turn of
the 20th
century. As a kid, I was fascinated by history and very inquisitive
about the odd topography of my surroundings. Behind our backyard was
what I considered a Wild West stage set: a series of old battered
garages, little changed from the time only four decades earlier when
they served as stables for the horses that drew the carriages in the
age before electricity.
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| 1912: Map With Red Indicating Populated Blocks. The red solid line extending from Bay Ridge up through Greenwood Cemetery, then along Prospect Park West and thence east out to Queens, represents a natural ridge line - essentially where the glacial advance stopped - and is roughly 180 feet above sea level. The ridge boundary slowed development south of it, which had been farm and woodlands. Intersection of Rogers and Flatbush Avenue is almost dead center on the map. |
Flatbush
Avenue ran diagonally against the street grid, creating a number of
traffic triangles as it wandered through southern Brooklyn. At that
point in its 10 mile journey from the East River to Jamaica Bay, it
ran on a collision course with Rogers Avenue. Thus, toward the
southern end of our block, stores that faced on Flatbush had exits on
Rogers. There was a firehouse near the corner, just off Flatbush, and
the fire trucks there bore an insignia of "The Jolly Rogers".
The firehouse dated back to 1899, built on land deeded to the City
by the Germania Real Estate and Improvement Company.
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| 1910: Jolly Rogers Firehouse |
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| 2010: Same Firehouse, Rogers Near Flatbush |
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| 2013: Firehouse (Right), Rear of Farragut Theater (Left) |
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| 1944: Farragut Theater. Used As Induction Center In Mornings During WW II. |
Germania bought up large parcels of farm land in Flatbush and Flatlands following the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, when travel to and from Manhattan no longer depended on ferries. The land on which my house sat, a few doors down from the Jolly Rogers, was at the eastern edge of a 125 acre farm owned by the Lott family, Dutch settlers who had arrived three centuries earlier. They sold 100 acres of it in 1898 in what was then the largest realty transaction in New York history, the same year New York City had been formed by the political unification of five counties. At the turn of the 20th century, rural Brooklyn was vanishing. The Brooklyn Bridge in 1883, followed by the Williamsburg Bridge in 1903, the first subway train in 1908 and a third East River bridge - the Manhattan in 1909 - made vast expanses of sparsely populated land south of the ridge lines very attractive to developers.
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| 1890: Map of Flatbush Street Grid - Except for Parkville, Sparsely Populated. Lott Farm Is Most of Yellow Area North of "Manhattan Beach Rail Road" |
Ironically
the wooden frame house that my wife and I purchased in 1988, our
first home, also sat on the former Lott farm. It was located 14 blocks away
from Rogers Avenue in a mysterious place which as an adolescent I
called "the land of normal people". When my parents, who
separated from time to time and would die far apart from each other,
had loud shouting matches or other turmoil rocked our house, I would
set off for the footbridge that crossed over the Brighton railroad
tracks on Glenwood Road. There I might have walked past my future
house on Argyle Road as I wandered the tree-lined, quiet, orderly
streets to quell my anger and clear my mind. I later learned that my
home on Rogers Avenue and my house on Argyle Road were both built in
1905.
The most memorable building of my
youth was a movie theater on Flatbush Avenue, the rear of which
extended along Rogers Avenue for a length longer than you could hit a
spaldeen on a fly – about 150 feet. It was called The Farragut,
named for Farragut Road, which intersected the corner of Rogers and
Flatbush to form five corners. That was also the name of a bar which
had entrances on both Flatbush and Rogers. When you could walk in
The 5 Corners and order a beer without getting laughed at, you had become a
man.
Wedged between the Farragut and The 5 Corners was a bicycle shop called Cohen's. The front on Flatbush sold new and used bikes and was presided over by Mr. Cohen, who everybody hated because he treated his repair guy, a middle-aged black man named Leroy, so mean. Leroy was the one we kids dealt with all the time. He would fix our flats or sell us streamers for a nickel at the back of the shop on Rogers. Mr. Cohen would yell at him a lot, especially if he was just talking with us about baseball or some such. Leroy rode to and from work on an old English Racer and sometimes you could hear him approach because he'd be singing. We never found out where he lived but it was probably a mile away because we rarely saw any African-Americans in our neighborhood back then. Listening to all our parents discuss race it was not hard to imagine why.
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| 1922: Postcard Showing Flatbush (Left) and Rogers Ave. Note Rear of Farragut Theater on Right With A Fire Escape We Often Climbed. |
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| 2014: Same Intersection. The Farragut Is Now a YMCA. |
Wedged between the Farragut and The 5 Corners was a bicycle shop called Cohen's. The front on Flatbush sold new and used bikes and was presided over by Mr. Cohen, who everybody hated because he treated his repair guy, a middle-aged black man named Leroy, so mean. Leroy was the one we kids dealt with all the time. He would fix our flats or sell us streamers for a nickel at the back of the shop on Rogers. Mr. Cohen would yell at him a lot, especially if he was just talking with us about baseball or some such. Leroy rode to and from work on an old English Racer and sometimes you could hear him approach because he'd be singing. We never found out where he lived but it was probably a mile away because we rarely saw any African-Americans in our neighborhood back then. Listening to all our parents discuss race it was not hard to imagine why.
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| 1960: My Sister Julie (1943-2012) In Front of 1329 Rogers Avenue With Bobby Scarpa Who The Family Tried To Adopt |
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| 1957: McNabbem Was Better Dressed Than Mr. Steele |
In the middle of the block, in an apartment house directly across the street from us, the neighborhood nut resided. He was Mr. Steele and he looked exactly like the truant officer, Mr. McNabbem, in the Little Lulu comics, complete with a Hitler-esque mustache and a bowler hat. Except, unlike McNabbem, Mr. Steele would frequently walk around bare-chested, covered only by a knotted tie. And he would often be spotted urinating against trees. It was said his father had been Ambassador to some Eastern European country who died shortly after World War II and left his son a monthly stipend in perpetuity. He was also receiving messages from space aliens and my oldest brother, Buddy, a copy boy for the New York Times, would regale us with stories of Mr. Steele showing up in the lobby of the Times building, demanding to speak to reporters about the aliens' latest transmissions.
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| 1957: Mr. Steele About To Get A Message |
The northern end of the block
wasn't nearly as interesting. There was a vacant lot on the corner
of Foster Avenue that appeared to have a dried-up brook which would
become a little lake when it rained. At times, some brave
entrepreneur would open a used car business there but they never
lasted. Last week I drove by and the lot once again had a “Used
Cars For Sale” sign.
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| 1928: Rogers Avenue Looking North From Flatbush Avenue to Foster Avenue |
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| 1928: Looking South Down Rogers Avenue Past Foster Ave To Its Termination at Flatbush |
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| 1950: Flatbush Looking East On Foster Toward Rogers. Billboard Barely Visible on Empty Lot at Corner of Rogers and Foster. |
If you stood in that lot facing west, you could see gaps between buildings extending the two blocks to Flatbush Avenue. I learned only recently that this gap was the last vestige of Paerdegat Lane, an Indian path as old as the Dutch settlements of the 17th century. The Lane formed the boundary between the towns of Flatbush and Flatlands prior to their absorption into Brooklyn during the four years preceding Brooklyn's annexation by the City in 1898. Thereafter this town demarcation line became almost insignificant. However, there were still contracts and franchises in force which followed these old boundaries and they did not expire until decades after the merger. Moreover, the political ward boundaries below Prospect Park, created after Flatbush and Flatlands were annexed, followed the old town boundary lines as well.
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| 1638: A Map Published in 1924 Showing The First Dutch Settlements. Note Paerdegat Lane Slightly Left of Center. |
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| 1873 Map of Flatlands. Paerdegat Creek Is Shaded Snake- Like Figure Extending to "J.A.Lott" Farm at Top Left. |
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| 1873: "Judge Lott" in Center of Map Appears East and West of Flatbush Ave. The Tip of The Triangle Above The Word Gravesend Is E. 17th St and Foster Ave Today. |
Paerdegat Lane was named after a
fresh-water tidal creek which flowed out of Jamaica Bay that once
ended in a marsh near Nostrand and Foster Avenues.* The Brooklyn
Water Works Company used that water and underground springs to supply Flatbush and Flatlands,
thanks to a franchise with the City of Brooklyn that the City of New
York inherited. The water they supplied eventually became so foul,
most Flatbush home owners had installed primitive filters in their
homes to clean it until the utility was finally closed down in
1947.
The Water Works' land was used to
erect the Vanderveer Housing Projects in 1953. But over time, the
water table in the area, no longer being tapped,
appreciably rose and a permanent stream started flowing briskly
through the Newkirk Avenue IRT station under Nostrand Avenue.
Visitors who first saw the noisy brook running in a trough between
the rails that extended all the way to the the next and last stop,
Flatbush Avenue, were somewhat stunned. But we took it for granted.
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| 1905: Bridge Over Paerdegat Creek |
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| 1916: Flatbush Water Works From Southeast Corner, Newkirk and Nostrand. |
The
Lane that was named after the Creek paralleled Foster Avenue,
anywhere from 80 to 200 feet to its south, and ended just west of
Flatbush Avenue. Before Foster was widened and paved, Paerdegat Lane
was the major east-west path joining eastern Flatlands with the towns
of Flatbush, Gravesend and New Utrecht. In fact the boundary lines
for all four towns converged at the corner of Foster Avenue and East
17th
Street.
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| 1890: The Purple Diagonal Line Left of Center Is Flatbush Ave. The Orange Line Connecting Paerdegat Creek With Flatbush Ave Is Paerdegat Lane. |
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| 1896: Flatbush Water Works Near Nostrand and Foster |
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| 1932: Flatbush Water Works, Future Home of Vanderveer Projects, Seen From Newkirk Ave, East of St. Jerome's Church on Nostrand Avenue, Visible on Far Right. |
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| 1904: Flatbush Water Works Visible Under the "O" In Volume. Paerdegat Lane Is The Dotted Line Visible in the Uppermost Left Red Quadrangle Extending From Rogers to Flatbush Avenues. |
When I put “Paerdegat Lane”
into a search engine, I found a public real estate posting in October
2014 which still referenced the long-gone path as a boundary of property
at the corner of Flatbush and Foster that was being auctioned.
Looking at aerial views of the neighborhood, it's easy to see where
Paerdegat Lane once was.
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| 2014: "Paerdegat Lane" Referenced As Property Line (Directly Under the "1-888" Phone Number) |
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| 2014: Property At Foster And Flatbush And Paerdegat Lane Described in Notice Above |
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| 2015: Remnant of Paerdegat Lane On E. 26th Street Looking West to Flatbush |
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| 2015: Remnant of Paerdegat Lane On E. 26th Street Looking East to Rogers |
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| 2016: Aerial View of Foster Avenue From Rogers Ave (Right) to Flatbush Ave (Left) Reveals Paerdegat Lane |
When I researched news stories
about the Lane, I came across some interesting anecdotes.
- In July 1895 some hoodlums were attacking a woman near the Flatbush Water Works on Nostrand Avenue and when the police responded, the criminals escaped by fleeing on foot across Paerdegat Lane into the town of Flatlands where the Flatbush police did not have the jurisdiction to continue their pursuit.
- In November 1919 the Brooklyn City Railroad Company operated a Flatbush Avenue trolley under an old franchise inherited by the City that allowed it to charge 5 cents per ride. When the City rejected its plan to increase revenue by charging an extra nickel for passengers riding beyond the old Flatbush town line into Flatlands, the railroad played hardball and hired goons to forcibly eject passengers refusing to pay the extra nickel once the southbound trollies reached Foster Avenue. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported somewhat gleefully that the trolley company was forced to admit to the Borough President that the original franchise ended at the legal boundary between Flatbush and Flatlands, which extended “200 feet south of Foster Avenue to where Paerdegat Lane intersected with Flatbush Avenue”. The headline the following day read: “2nd Fare Point Moves – 200 Feet More Ride for Nickel”.
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| 1950: Trolley Station at Corner of Flatbush and Foster. |
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| 2014: Empty Lot Indicates Where Paerdegat Lane Intersected Flatbush 200 Feet South of Foster Avenue |
Reading the second story, I
remembered conversations with my older sister Julie, who, late in her life would compile a wonderful genealogy of our family. She told me that the garage/stables behind
our home were once used by the horse-car companies since the Flatbush
Avenue line ended only a few blocks away. These coaches were the
major means of transportation from the City of Brooklyn to the Towns
of Flatbush and Flatlands until the 1860s when horse cars began to travel on
rails built along Flatbush Avenue and Coney Island Avenue (then
called “Plank Roads” since uneven wooden planks were all that stood between you and he muddy road). By 1900, all the horse cars had been
replaced by trolley cars tethered to electrical lines that ran
overhead. I always doubted Julie's claim. Why would the
Flatbush line end anywhere but at “The Junction” - the key
crossroads where Nostrand and Flatush Avenues intersected, which is
where the IRT subway also terminated. But when I later came across old
photographs and maps, I suddenly realized this would be the perfect
place for stables – just south of Foster Avenue, a few feet from
the Paerdegat Lane town line.
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| 1907: Paerdegat Lane Is The Red Line In The Middle |
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| 1916: The Two Red Squares in Dead Center Are 1327-1329 Rogers Ave. Behind Them Are Structures With Xs, Signifying Stables on E. 28th St. |
When
I was 11, a developer knocked down those garages and built four brick
row houses. The same year, the Dodgers left Brooklyn for Los Angeles,
the Farragut Theater was converted into a bowling alley (which we
couldn't afford) and my dog was put down because we had no more money
to feed him. I always thought 1958 was a terrible year. The
destruction of the garages also sealed the "secret passage"
that led from our backyard to Cathy O'Neil, who lived three houses
south of ours, in a home which faced on East 28th Street. Cathy and I
had a very cerebral friendship, given that we would write short
stories together in my back yard but as the years passed I developed
a crush on Cathy, so the fact we now had to walk around the block to
see each other (from 558 E 28th
St to 1329 Rogers Ave was only a fifth of a mile to walk but then you
had to ring the bell and announce yourself to (UGH!) adults) - a
terrible blow. That and the fact that I was a year younger than her made
everything seem suddenly hopeless.
So maybe the insurance policy was based on my being very depressed? A pre-teen suicide risk?
So maybe the insurance policy was based on my being very depressed? A pre-teen suicide risk?
I do recall around this same time
my mother started taking me to the Silver Rod drug store at Newkirk
and Nostrand Avenues to buy me a malted milk every Friday afternoon.
The guy behind the fountain would make the malted in a blender, then
pour it into a Coca-Cola glass and (be still my heart!) leave the
metal canister, which was good for two more glassfuls. My mother
said it was “to fatten me up” because I was just skin and bones. Could my health have been so bad that she took out insurance on me?
My older brother Jerry told me that he recalled the insurance
salesman would come around every week to collect the premium and that
he would help my mother scrounge for pennies to pay him. But he
thought the policy was for my father. Maybe the salesman gave her a
package deal?
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| 1959: Gil Hodges Tops Card |
Hmmmm...I remember this was after
the 1958 season, the first one the Dodgers played in L.A. And I
recall it was cold. It had to be before March, when Gil had to
report for spring training...Hmmmm...Maybe this happened in late
January- early February 1959 and threw me into such a depression that,
given my perpetual state of undernourishment, had me knocking at
death's door? But just like Paerdegat Lane, I refused to die?
The most likely explanation is that my mother used the life insurance policy as some sort of savings account, building equity that she was eventually able to withdraw at some later date to buy us food when my father stormed out without leaving us anything from his pay envelope.
The most likely explanation is that my mother used the life insurance policy as some sort of savings account, building equity that she was eventually able to withdraw at some later date to buy us food when my father stormed out without leaving us anything from his pay envelope.
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| Stillwell Ave Subway Arcade Entrance |
In
truth, however, I remember hearing more encouragement from my friends' parents
than I did from my own, particularly the Edert family. The older wooden house next to us was owned by a German immigrant named
Paul Edert, who sent his only son, Herman, off to fight the Nazis.
Herman came back with plenty of souvenirs from his Third Army tour of
hell, stockpiled in the basement under a model train set he built for
his own son, Ritchie.
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| 1984: 1331 Rogers Avenue, The Ederts' Home |
A
few years after Herman returned from the war, he married Joan Hale
who lived across the street at 1306 Rogers Avenue. They had a
marvelous marriage that produced four children and they treated me
and Michael as sons, taking us with them and Ritchie (before the
arrival of their younger offspring) on local trips in their
wood-paneled Ford station wagon. It was the first time we ever rode
in a car.
Michael and I would spend endless afternoons in
Ritchie's side yard, which was actually a driveway for Herman's
trucking business, Reliance Express. It has been noted by many
great minds throughout history that habitats of one's youth appear
incredibly smaller when re-visited after a long absence and this is
certainly true here - I remember the Ederts' driveway extending for
what seemed like the length of a football field - or at least from
home plate to center field, considering the stick ball we played
there. When I
snapped the photo below
on a frigid February afternoon in 1984, I couldn't believe how huge
the space was in my memory.
And I suddenly remembered the best times we had in that yard were during Lent when the Reliance Express trucks would off-load palm branches from Florida in burlap sacks against the walls that lined the driveway. Herman had the contract with the Diocese to distribute the palms to all the Catholic churches and so the burlap bags reached almost to the 2nd floor, laid out in a sloping fashion that almost invited intrepid exploration by young boys. King of The Hill games would inevitably result in the three of us tumbling down one by one until exhausted, we would build forts with the palms, pretending to man bunkers, waiting for the Nazis to advance, just like Humphrey Bogart in Sahara, the film we loved to watch on Million Dollar Movie, almost as much as King Kong, which was another game the palm piles inspired.
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| 1984: 1327, 1329, 1331 Rogers Avenue |
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| 1984: The Ederts Driveway (Reliance Express) |
And I suddenly remembered the best times we had in that yard were during Lent when the Reliance Express trucks would off-load palm branches from Florida in burlap sacks against the walls that lined the driveway. Herman had the contract with the Diocese to distribute the palms to all the Catholic churches and so the burlap bags reached almost to the 2nd floor, laid out in a sloping fashion that almost invited intrepid exploration by young boys. King of The Hill games would inevitably result in the three of us tumbling down one by one until exhausted, we would build forts with the palms, pretending to man bunkers, waiting for the Nazis to advance, just like Humphrey Bogart in Sahara, the film we loved to watch on Million Dollar Movie, almost as much as King Kong, which was another game the palm piles inspired.
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| 1971: Mike and Karen, Ritchie and Me |
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| 1984: The Author In Front of 1329 Rogers Avenue |
In
June of 1977 my mother sold 1329 Rogers Avenue for $20,000 to a
realtor. A year later that realtor sold the house to a Haitian family
for $34,000. The same pattern was observed for other houses on the
block – for instance in 1976 the brick twin at 1327 Rogers Avenue
was sold by Helen Krausner, who had lived there for 40 years, to a
holding company for $15,000 and six months later the holding company
sold it to a Haitian family for $32,000. In fact, my mother, living
alone in an empty nest, was the last old time resident of the block
to sell. Since then that slice of Flatlandia has become a killing zone, thanks to The Bloods, The Crips and The What Have Yous...
In the end, I fear these memories don't capture the real bleakness of our childhood landscape. The emotional cost of a household with isolated, overwhelmed parents took its toll on all of us...
1958
 |
| 2015: "Death Map" of Flatbush Indicates Flatbush and Rogers (Dead Center) is Ground Zero With Vanderveer Projects A Close Second. Each Skull Represents a Killing or Auto Fatality, 2008-2015, per NY Daily News based on NYPD Stats. Nothing Stays The Same, Huh? |
In the end, I fear these memories don't capture the real bleakness of our childhood landscape. The emotional cost of a household with isolated, overwhelmed parents took its toll on all of us...
1958
A cold wind was blowing when I got home from school and it was just as cold inside the house. My mother was sitting at the kitchen table and her eyes were red so I knew she must have been crying again.
"Where's your sister?" she asked.
"Jeannie is with her friend Linda down the block." I didn't say that Jeannie didn't want to come home because it was warmer in Linda's house and Linda's mom usually had after-school snacks.
My mother's lower lip was trembling as she attempted a smile.
"There's not enough money for bread," she said but before that could sink in, she hurriedly added: "So we're gonna look for change, OK?"
"Sure, I know the best places to look," and in a flash I was on my knees in the hallway, my fingers groping under the edge of the linoleum.
If there was a way to ease my mother's sadness, I was going to do my best for her. As my fingers accumulated dust, I noticed rips in the linoleum from the last time we looked for money. I decided to break new ground and ran to Jerry's room.
One of my two older teenage brothers, Jerry had been drinking a lot lately and when he came home he sometimes just passed out on his bed. So I figured change might have fallen out of his pockets. Skinny as I was, I crawled underneath his bed easily, even with its sagging mattress.
It was 1958, the worst year that ever existed. First, we didn't have any money to pay for a uniform, so I couldn't stay on my little league team. Then we didn't have enough money for dog food, so one day I came home from school to find my younger brother crying. He said Lance, our Spitz Spaniel, had been hit by a car while we were at school and was dead.
"Mommy took him to the hospital to bury him," Michael sobbed.
My older sister Julie then took me by the arm to show me where it happened but as soon as we got out of Michael's sight, she whispered "We had to give Lance to the ASPCA because we don't have any money to buy his food."
I brightened, thinking that Lance was still alive. "So can we visit him until we get some food?" I asked Julie.
Julie's eyes brimmed with tears. Lance was her dog. More than anyone else, she cared for him, walking him, feeding him...She was the 6th of 9 kids and although she was only three years older than me and Jeannie and six years older than Michael, it was her job to take care of us when our mother wasn't around. And right then I guess she wished someone could take care of her.
"No, Joey. The ASPCA had to put Lance to sleep."
"That's OK," I said. "We can go tomorrow when he wakes up!"
And with that, Julie started sobbing. I realized then that Lance was never going to wake up...
Jackpot! I found two quarters and a penny under some old tissues under Jerry's bed. I crawled back out and ran to the kitchen. My mother was on her knees her fingers feeling under the linoleum.
"We just need a quarter, Joey, to get a loaf of bread," she reminded me.
"Where's your sister?" she asked.
"Jeannie is with her friend Linda down the block." I didn't say that Jeannie didn't want to come home because it was warmer in Linda's house and Linda's mom usually had after-school snacks.
My mother's lower lip was trembling as she attempted a smile.
"There's not enough money for bread," she said but before that could sink in, she hurriedly added: "So we're gonna look for change, OK?"
"Sure, I know the best places to look," and in a flash I was on my knees in the hallway, my fingers groping under the edge of the linoleum.
If there was a way to ease my mother's sadness, I was going to do my best for her. As my fingers accumulated dust, I noticed rips in the linoleum from the last time we looked for money. I decided to break new ground and ran to Jerry's room.
One of my two older teenage brothers, Jerry had been drinking a lot lately and when he came home he sometimes just passed out on his bed. So I figured change might have fallen out of his pockets. Skinny as I was, I crawled underneath his bed easily, even with its sagging mattress.
It was 1958, the worst year that ever existed. First, we didn't have any money to pay for a uniform, so I couldn't stay on my little league team. Then we didn't have enough money for dog food, so one day I came home from school to find my younger brother crying. He said Lance, our Spitz Spaniel, had been hit by a car while we were at school and was dead.
"Mommy took him to the hospital to bury him," Michael sobbed.
My older sister Julie then took me by the arm to show me where it happened but as soon as we got out of Michael's sight, she whispered "We had to give Lance to the ASPCA because we don't have any money to buy his food."
I brightened, thinking that Lance was still alive. "So can we visit him until we get some food?" I asked Julie.
Julie's eyes brimmed with tears. Lance was her dog. More than anyone else, she cared for him, walking him, feeding him...She was the 6th of 9 kids and although she was only three years older than me and Jeannie and six years older than Michael, it was her job to take care of us when our mother wasn't around. And right then I guess she wished someone could take care of her.
"No, Joey. The ASPCA had to put Lance to sleep."
"That's OK," I said. "We can go tomorrow when he wakes up!"
And with that, Julie started sobbing. I realized then that Lance was never going to wake up...
Jackpot! I found two quarters and a penny under some old tissues under Jerry's bed. I crawled back out and ran to the kitchen. My mother was on her knees her fingers feeling under the linoleum.
"We just need a quarter, Joey, to get a loaf of bread," she reminded me.
I nudged her. She looked up and saw the coins in my open hand.
"All right," she said, returning to full Mom mode, "give me that and start on your homework."
My childhood as I remembered it wasn't always gloomy, but when it was bad, it was really awful. Hey, we survived. Bruised, tattered, sure, but most of us bulled our way through and made better lives for ourselves and our new families. Sometimes though I wonder whether the ghosts of 1329 Rogers Avenue have stirred at all since the Enrights departed.
As for communications from my own deceased family members, whose growing ranks I shall join sooner rather than later, I did get a very upbeat message from my brother, Buddy. He died in my arms in 1979 as I was helping him to his bed, his body wracked with cancer. A couple of months later, I was in a motel out in the Hamptons and I dreamed that Buddy was waving to me from a UFO. He and I both shared an interest in the subject, prompted in part by Buddy's being dispatched to the lobby of the Times on many an occasion to placate the folks, like Mr. Steele, who were getting radio beams directed to the wire coat hangers they had wrapped around their foreheads. Despite all the nuts, it seemed to us there had been many unexplained sightings and we wondered if indeed Earth was being visited or monitored. But more than anything else, we savored the bizarre tales told by the "contactees" getting phone calls from outer space because they took us far, far away from Rogers Avenue.
In my dream, Buddy was very happy, telling me that our spirits did survive death and that the universe was wonderful and we would see each other again. It was a very vivid dream and it ended with his telling me to go to the balcony of my motel room. I woke up and walked to the balcony and slid open the glass door. It was a beautiful, clear night. I looked up, and there, streaking across the sky, was a shooting star.
______
* Per Wikipedia: “The [Paerdegat] waterway was
an important part of a failed plan to transform Jamaica Bay into an
alternative port to New York Harbor. In January 1931, the New York
City Board of Estimate approved a plan to build railroads on both
sides of Paerdegat Basin, connecting the Long Island Rail Road to
Canarsie Pier to the east and to Floyd Bennett Field to the west.
Paerdegat Basin was dredged to a depth of 16 feet, but was abandoned
soon thereafter..." Apparently Paerdegat is an old Dutch word
that has something to do with a horse gate. A biblical reference apparently. For more on Paerdegat Basin, see my later post here.