Easter on the Gowanus Canal 1960

My brothers and I would get new suits my mother Gloria would purchase "on time" at the Mays' Department Store on Fulton Street. Abraham & Strauss was far beyond her reach.  On the corner of Third Avenue and Carroll Street, hundreds of lilies and  and beribboned potted plants would magically appear for sale, for our moms and equally important, our grandparents in Holy Cross cemetery. We'd visit them after church in my dad's 1956 green on green Coupe de Ville, as if they were still part of the family.
The same bookies and loan sharks--Jerry Lang, the Goose, Michael  Romanelli--who would bleed the neighborhood during the week, now sold us bright flowers on Easter.
My father, the bull-necked longshoreman, would hand each of his four sons chocolate bunnies and Easter eggs, then retreat to our tiny kitchen with my mom to prepare the afternoon feast. They'd create magnificent seven-course meals with one decent knife and a few pots and pan. Strangely enough, my father was the more delicate cook, lavishing endless time stuffing a mushroom, an artichoke, on sprinkling just the right amount of oregano on a baked clam. His antipasto was a work of art, so good, most people forgot there were six more courses ahead..
My brother Thomas, the animal lover, would invariably show up with a duckling or rabbit. He set up food and water and straw bedding for his pets. In a day or two, the "water rats" that surged from the canal would slaughter the hapless creatures, often without a trace.
Relatives would show up all morning carrying string-tied boxes of pastries from Cioffi's on Union near Columbia Street. The lines would be out the door. Smart folks would go while mass was in session to beat most of the crowds. A canolli cost 20 cents. Cioffi's was rumored to be the place that Sinatra ordered his pastry when he was in NYC...I thought that was pretty cool. Now I suspect Arthur Avenue, Little Italy and Bensonhurst all boasted Sinatra's favorite pastry store.
After dinner, I'd watch traffic on Third Avenue, making for Atlantic Avenue and the Brooklyn Bridge. Manhattan might have been another world....