Yorkville Glory Days: Swinging On The Churchyard Gate

The story below was sent to me by my friend, Dennis Ferado. What I most enjoy about Denny’s tales are his detailed descriptions of Yorkville places we both love. I get to see the lay of the land through older eyes and understand how those who came before me and loved the neighborhood deeply ~ played, worked, fought and almost always made up. This story is about Denny’s experiences at Trinity Church & Rhinelander’s Children Aid Society (Settlement House). I played, lost, won trophies and caught stitches in these places, but I’ll tell my story down the road. We each have our own glory days.

Swinging on the Churchyard Gate

By Dennis Jon Ferado

One of the most soothing and beautiful sights in New York City is the Episcopal Church of the Holy Trinity located in Yorkville at 312-16 East 88th Street between First and Second Avenue. Built in 1897 by Barney & Chapman in the French Renaissance style. The complex consists of the parish house, the parsonage, the bell tower--with receding Gothic arches topped with intricate filigreed ornament--and the church which is done in stunning Roman brickwork. The entire area rests in a beautiful garden with several types of grand trees and shrubbery and is surrounded by a beautiful eight foot high ornate black-iron fence. Every year during Easter time there would be displayed scores of tulips planted in the shape of a giant crucifix. They seem to have brought that tradition to an end some time ago. Now, Trinity, is one of the few Church’s left in the city with a beautifully groomed sprawling garden.

The Rhinelander or Children’s Aid Society was a great place for kids to go to and play. It had an outdoor basketball court and inside there were all types of activities for kids to keep them occupied. Before they tore the old building down the 87th Street side had a basketball court but the 88th Street side, where the entrance stood, had a large area that was going to waste. Someone had built a small rectangular wall approximately 30 feet long, 15 feet wide and about 12 inches high around a drain. They stuck a garden hose in it and filled it with water so us kids might have something to splash around in on hot summer days. The problem being that everything was pebbled concrete and slate. Inside the little wall the ground was all chipped and cracked and the kids who didn’t have rubber limbs and knuckles had a problem. Somehow, either Jimmy Whalen or Ronnie O’Neill and Richie Curran and I wound up in the pool on the same day splashing around, we were very young, probably under ten. When the three of us vacated the place at the same time we looked as though we were going to need three transfusions. Our bodies were covered with scrapes and cuts as we limped our way back to our houses. The pool was an outstanding idea both considerate and thoughtful but the planning behind it fell a bit short. Although they had a pretty good “First Aid” program they were forever running out of band aids (which figures with all that broken concrete) so you’d get a dose of good old red Iodine poured directly onto your wound to stave off infection. That’s when the howling would ring through the building.

Richie and I were friends; he lived in 412 East 88th Street at the time I lived at 408 and we would sit on one or the other’s stoop together and talk for hours. Boy, did I miss him when he moved away the following year. But this year our parents asked us if we wanted to be Cub Scouts at the Rhinelander. The first thought to enter my head was: What will the guys think. Then some intellectual juggling from my mom convinced me that it could be very useful to acquire the knowledge of knot tying
Our Cub Scout Master was a short round guy with wet lips and slightly bucked teeth, he was overweight and a profuse sweater and somewhere in his late twenties. My first day there he asked me to step into the closet with him for a second. I said:

“What for? .” And he said:

“I won’t bite you, come on, just for a second.” I wouldn’t budge, I stood my ground, shook my head. “Then, you don’t want any of this candy.” He turned and was holding an unopened Hershey Bar in his hand, I love anything chocolate. I folded my arms across my chest and said:

“I don’t eat candy.” Displeased, he snapped

“Oh, never mind.” When I got back to my house I told my mother and my aunt Nora what had happened, they both became outraged. I couldn’t believe the change that came over them, it was like watching Lawrence Talbot turn into the wolf man. I knew they might get a little upset but I didn’t think they would go crazy. My mother grabbed the mop and my aunt Nora grabbed the broom and they stormed out of the apartment. Both disgruntled and mumbling angrily. I ran out behind them shouting:

“But he didn’t do anything,” chasing after them up to Rhinelanders. As my mother closed in on the main door the Cub Scout Master stepped out of the door and mom breezed right past him and was almost in the building when she spun around realizing that was him--in his cub scout uniform. Now he was trapped between the two armed women, my mom stood five-foot-one and my aunt, Nora, four-foot-eleven. They swung their weapons at the same instant, the victim receiving a mop to the left ear and a straw broom to the right ear. They chased him towards Second Avenue catching him with two more shots but by the time they got to the middle of Trinity Church, its main entrance, our cub scout master proved to be the swifter runner of the three and pulled away from the sisters. They were both too exhausted to continue the chase and both collapsed against the iron gate entrance of Trinity Church while continuing to shout at the fleeing cub master (who was never seen again). Letting their weapons drop from their hands, Nora jumped up and stood with both feet on the bottom bar of the gate. I watched as my mom jumped up along side her sister and they began laughing and swinging on the churchyard gate.