Carroll Street was always teeming, the air thick with humidity and fumes belched from the trucks thundering along Third Avenue from the 29th Street piers.
The gamblers, Jerry Pep, Freddie Fish, Muzzy, among them stood on the corner shouting, cursing scratching their balls, arguing the day’s winners at Aqueduct or Belmont. Across the street, in front of the Capri Club, Mikey Romanelli and The Goose, dressed like undertakers in dark suits, hovered, ready to collect the bets, and later, collect the losers. They stored the scribbled sheets in the steel blue U.S. Post Office mailbox next to the red fire alarm box on the corner. A safe place since no one trusted the Post Office after Americo Guzzi dropped a cherry bomb down the chute.
Next door, Chitty and Buffalo Manzo, grilled sausage on a half-steel drum filled with charcoal, served with peppers and onions on Italian bread from Gallo’s bakery, the intoxicating aroma wafting in the air On the opposite corner, Rosinna served homemade lemon ice so delicious, truckers would line up in front of her store for a nickel’s worth scooped into Dixie cup. At night she lit a naked bulb above the side door of her store and fried 10-cent calzones in a vat of dirty oil while you waited. Further along Third toward First Street, Victor the blacksmith, biceps bulging in a medieval leather vest, shoed horses belonging to Angeletti and the other fruit peddlers who sang out in Italian on their horse and wagons. ("E rook e' rob" for broccoli rab) Another smell in the air, another sound adding to the cacophony: A one-eyed rooster who’d lost track of time, crowed all day in front of Goldie’s Live Poultry market.
Singsong, the girls skipped rope, played hopscotch on boxes chalked in pastels on the dirty sidewalk. We shouted and cursed, pitched pennies in front of John Sanseverino’s candy store, played kings against the wall of the Typhoon Air Conditioning Company, and high-pressure, high-stakes stickball (The Goose would pit our team against squads bankrolled by other wise guys) on First Street, never realizing the ancient brick wall that ran from Third Avenue to Whitwell Place was an artifact of Brooklyn’s first professional baseball stadium, Washington Park.
I played outfield. A towering fly ball over your head meant you had to keep running and running--toward Prospect Park, to escape your owners' wrath. I'll take Steinbrenner any day.
(to be continued)
The gamblers, Jerry Pep, Freddie Fish, Muzzy, among them stood on the corner shouting, cursing scratching their balls, arguing the day’s winners at Aqueduct or Belmont. Across the street, in front of the Capri Club, Mikey Romanelli and The Goose, dressed like undertakers in dark suits, hovered, ready to collect the bets, and later, collect the losers. They stored the scribbled sheets in the steel blue U.S. Post Office mailbox next to the red fire alarm box on the corner. A safe place since no one trusted the Post Office after Americo Guzzi dropped a cherry bomb down the chute.
Next door, Chitty and Buffalo Manzo, grilled sausage on a half-steel drum filled with charcoal, served with peppers and onions on Italian bread from Gallo’s bakery, the intoxicating aroma wafting in the air On the opposite corner, Rosinna served homemade lemon ice so delicious, truckers would line up in front of her store for a nickel’s worth scooped into Dixie cup. At night she lit a naked bulb above the side door of her store and fried 10-cent calzones in a vat of dirty oil while you waited. Further along Third toward First Street, Victor the blacksmith, biceps bulging in a medieval leather vest, shoed horses belonging to Angeletti and the other fruit peddlers who sang out in Italian on their horse and wagons. ("E rook e' rob" for broccoli rab) Another smell in the air, another sound adding to the cacophony: A one-eyed rooster who’d lost track of time, crowed all day in front of Goldie’s Live Poultry market.
Singsong, the girls skipped rope, played hopscotch on boxes chalked in pastels on the dirty sidewalk. We shouted and cursed, pitched pennies in front of John Sanseverino’s candy store, played kings against the wall of the Typhoon Air Conditioning Company, and high-pressure, high-stakes stickball (The Goose would pit our team against squads bankrolled by other wise guys) on First Street, never realizing the ancient brick wall that ran from Third Avenue to Whitwell Place was an artifact of Brooklyn’s first professional baseball stadium, Washington Park.
I played outfield. A towering fly ball over your head meant you had to keep running and running--toward Prospect Park, to escape your owners' wrath. I'll take Steinbrenner any day.
(to be continued)
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