Run To The Store For Me, Honey

Here is a terrific old Yorkville neighborhood story written by my friend, Dennis Ferado.

Run To The Store For Me, Honey
by Dennis Ferado

September 26, 1826-- The New York Evening Post wrote of Yorkville village:

“The Third Avenue passes through the village. Twelve months ago there were not more than two or three buildings on the barren road, where there are now upwards of sixty, some of them built in good substantial manner of brick...several substantial factories, an academy, and a spacious church (going up). A newspaper is being founded, and a fire company has been formed with a very elegant engine. The Harlem Spring Company has commenced operation.”

The sailors and passengers that worked on and used the East River for their livelihood or their pleasure would bend their elbows, in comradely fashion, quenching their thirst at Hazzard House. This tavern was located at 84th Street and Third Avenue. The Danbury Post coach line also made a stop at Hazzard House. Once Third Avenue had been paved races were organized along the wide street and in the winter sleighing parties were held. With the arrival of these fun-loving people taverns began popping up along the avenue and did a spectacular business serving food and drink. Hazzard House was the most popular of these taverns and its immediate surroundings constituted the village center of Yorkville where people and things began to spread out from, and into, the surrounding areas. Growing up in the Yorkville village of 1826 must have been a demanding but intoxicating life for a kid.

Growing up in the Yorkville in 1952 could also be quite demanding and intoxicating for a kid. To begin with you had to be fleet of foot and you had to learn how to fight, just in case your feet were not so fleet. There were kids in every block and on every street corner from the East River on over to Lexington Avenue. And they were waiting there--just for YOU!

Like many youngsters when my parents spoke to me, if I was lucky, I might pick up ten percent of what they were so despairingly trying to seed into the soggy soil of my mind. How could I possibly pay attention when my attention was slave to at least a dozen other more pressing mysteries--all of the utmost urgency and requiring my immediate attention. Nevertheless, if I caught the two following words in the same sentence: ‘honey’ and ‘store‘when my mother was speaking to me, I knew I was in jeopardy. Big trouble! My chances of making it into my teenage years hinged on the location of the store. At the time we were living at 408 East 88th Street so I never minded Weiss‘Deli because it was just a button hook away. Forty yards to First Avenue and a sharp left past Hughes’ bar on the corner. No streets or avenues to cross. Still, there could be a problem hovering, lurking, about to pounce. You never knew when or where complications might arise, descend and blanket you like a fisherman’s net.

In Yorkville when a ten-year-old boy ventured too far from the stoop of his own apartment building, his ego and self-esteem tumbled into a dark labyrinth of doubt and anxiety. His entire future depended on his instinct for survival and, most importantly, on pure speed. On his way to a store he could pass several separate groups of teenagers. It was a test to equal any one of the twelve Labors of Hercules. It took more than timing, speed, ingenuity and luck; it took direct intervention from above. Those terrifying words: “Run to the store for me, honey, and pick up...”

This usually took place around dusk of nearly every evening just before dinner--mom either needed milk, potatoes, butter, bread or some other staple. She would give me a dollar and I’d go to Weiss’ and get four quarts of milk and return--If I didn’t get waylaid--with four cents change. Milk was twenty-four cents a quart and a loaf of bread was sixteen cents. I knew I might return soaking wet from a water balloon attack or come back with swollen, stinging red welts all over my upper body and peas in my hair from ‘the pea-shooters.‘ I could be cut to pieces crossing the front lines of two groups of kids on opposite sides of 88th Street having a paper-clip-fight. Paper clips shot from rubber bands move at blinding speeds and can do some awful damage. A savage game, at best.

One very cold winter day, during our lunch/recreation period on 87th Street outside Saint Joseph’s School I saw a boy lose the lower piece of an earlobe after being hit there with a paper clip. The piece of ear flew off like a broken chunk of ice, he felt no pain, didn’t even bleed. Of the incident, Paddy who was standing next to me, whispered: “It was no good to him anyway. That lobe was all stretched out from being twisted by the nuns.”

I could get mugged by a couple of twelve-year-olds and return without the groceries or my mother’s money. And would she believe me? She looked at me a bit strange after it happened the second time. So everywhere I’d go, I’d run; with curled-lip, sneering face, angry eyes and hands clenched so tightly into fists that my knuckles burned and would turn white from going bloodless. My aim being ‘the enemy’ would see a crazy guy, ready for anything and they might think twice before trying to “bully” me or something worse.


Around the age of ten or so many Yorkville boys, born anytime up to the late 1960‘s developed what some referred to as ‘The Yorkville Bounce.’ It’s was a sort of psychological defense mechanism that unknowingly became part of our make-up and warned others to beware. Stay back!

Years later (after not seeing someone for about ten-years) I was J walking at Varick and Canal Streets when I heard someone calling my name. The sound seemed to be coming from everywhere. Finally, I looked up I saw a window washer waving to me from a scaffold way up high. I waited for the caller to come down and he told me that he had recognized my walk. It was, Neely Olsen, an old friend. He said he spotted that “Yorkville Bounce.”

The worst scenario possible was that I could get ‘pantsed’ (pantsing was very popular for those under twelve). If that were to happen I would lose everything. They would take your pants off and one guy would shimmy up the nearest lamppost as high as he could and then toss them over the top. After that, they would all run away and you’d be left there alone. There you’d be in your undershorts trying to fathom a way to get your pants back and wretchedly needing someone’s help. Luckily, pantsing usually took place during the summer months. Although I’d seen it happen once on a cold night in November. I hid behind a car with a head of lettuce and a pound of crushed tomatoes in my arms, oozing through the brown paper bag, until they left the poor guy standing there shaking. Mercifully, through sheer stealth, I had never been a recipient of such cruelty. I didn’t know the poor guy and had never seen him before. It happened outside our house and I went in and told my dad. Pop came out with an extension ladder (we were superintendents) and retrieved the pants for the shivering victim. Five years after this incident I was with a friend in Carl Schurz Park, sitting on a bench behind the Mayor’s Mansion staring at the river, when a gang of about ten kids approached us. They were out searching for someone for some unexplained reason. One of them had a gun and wanted to shoot me in the face and I believed him. This kid stepped out of the crowd and spoke softly to the one with the gun. I overheard one sentence: “He’s okay, I know him.” As they started to walk away I recognized him, it was the kid who had been pantsed the night I crushed my mother’s tomatoes. All I knew of him was that he lived somewhere in the upper nineties.

One day mom sent me to Tony Moresco’s Fruit & Vegetable market for a 35 cent, five-pound bag of potatoes for dinner and I met a friend on my way to the store. We started talking and wound up down in Carl Schurz Park. My concern for the potatoes swiftly consigned to oblivion while we strolled through the park chatting away. As we approached and were about to pass under the tunnel at 87th Street we heard:“HEY!”

We looked up and standing on the wall of the tunnel’s bridge, fifteen-feet above our heads were 6 teenagers. All of them had jagged, golf-ball to baseball sized rocks in both of their hands. I did a bit of math and came to the understanding that we could die right there and then. We were about eight feet from the tunnel realizing they could clobber us before we would gain its shelter. While speaking to us their leader, in a threatening way, continued to toss a rock into the air and catch it with the same hand. He said if we moved an inch they would start flinging the rocks down at us. His five cohorts stood poised, arms cocked like Greek statues, ready to launch. They told us to stand still and look down at the ground and not up at them. We did and they proceeded to pee down on us. We were so shocked we couldn’t move a muscle but if we had they would have beaned us with those rocks. I guess it was easier for a ten-year-old just getting pissed on and arriving home embarrassed and smelling like a toilet than getting stoned to death--I’d heard about that stuff in the Bible. My friend and I swore to each other that we’d remember these guys and we certainly did. Although we never saw them again.

I was ashamed to tell my parents but what could I say? I stank! They knew what I was soaked in. When my overprotective brother heard the story he fell out of his chair and rolled around on our kitchen linoleum floor in a fit of rabid hysterics. My mother was very cool about this and didn’t say much. Afterwards when she got me alone she interrogated me for any information I could give her about the bullies. Where did they come from, did I know any of their last names, could I recognize any one of them if I saw them again? She wanted to go out on the street with her sister (my aunt Nora) along with me to point them out to her. That was an offer I vehemently refused. I could not imagine going out with my mother to hunt down some kids that peed on me. I’d be the joke of the neighborhood and besides Mom and aunt Nora might have murdered one of those kids. I remembered what they had done to the slimy Cub Scout Master; chased him up the street with mop and broom. My father let out a soft sigh and said:

“Get in the bathroom and hose down that body, boy.”

Mom added:” Hurry up before your dinner gets cold. You’re so late I had to make rice instead.”

There was more steam coming from my mother’s ears than the rice she was steaming but she held back. I showered with my dad’s make-shift shower--a cut down garden hose with one end clamped onto the tub’s nozzle with a sprinkler head attached to the other end--and was drying off when mom spoke to me through the bathroom door, “As soon as you come out of the shower and your brother gets up off the floor, we’ll have dinner.” I came out and joined them at the table, sitting down between my grinning brother and my very concerned little sister when my mother said: “Eat.” My father added a touch of wisdom:

“Listen Johnny,” (dad called me ‘Johnny’--it’s either our middle name--or ‘son’ when he waxed profound) “I promise you you’re going to meet some people in this life who will treat you as if you were their brother.” I looked over at my brother, George, and thought, I HOPE NOT! (I have to add that my brother made an offer to help, I thanked him and answered NO!) “They’ll do things for you,” dad continued, “that you would never have imagined and you’ll wonder why? Just like you’re wondering why these guys did what they did to you today. It’s all part of the great mystery of life, son. A mystery that we will never fully understand. Now, that’s enough talking at the table. Eat your dinner.” Then, as an afterthought my mother asked: “Oh, Dennis. Did you ever pick up the potatoes?” I looked at her through dumfounded eyes and asked:

“What potatoes?”

Alfred & The Fourth Grade

My friend, Denny Ferado, wrote the rich story below. It takes place in Yorkville 1951, War, 86th RKO, 4th Grade and complex life lessons.

Alfred & the Fourth Grade

By Dennis John Ferado

Jan 4, 1951 New York Times headline: “SEOUL ABANDONED TO RED ARMIES; CITY AFIRE”

April 11, 1951 New York Times headline: “TRUMAN RELIEVES MACARTHUR OF ALL HIS POSTS”

This year would see the New York Baseball Giants sign, Willie Mays. The team would go 98-59; finish 1st in the National League and Bobby Thompson would hit “The Shot Heard Round the World.” The New York Football Giants would go 9-2-1 finishing 2nd in the NFL American Division behind the passing of Chuckin’ Charlie Conerly, the receiving of Kyle Rote and the rushing of fullback, Eddie Price, who gained 990 yards. The United Nations relocated from its first home in Flushing Meadows, Queens to the East Side of Manhattan. A ride on the subway or the 3rd Avenue El cost ten cents.

Jim Jim, Ronnie and I had gone to the movies to see The African Queen starring Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. Ronnie, Jay and I saw Detective Story, together starring Kirk Douglas. About eight of us filled an aisle to see A Streetcar Named Desire, with Brando and Vivian Leigh. A shed load of us sat together and watched The Thing in the balcony of the RKO 86th Street Theater. We munched on candy and when the door slowly opened and the creature shoved its arm out all fifteen of us screamed in unison.

Johnnie Ray brought a whole new sound to our ears with his recording of CRY which became a massive hit. Hank Williams and his Drifting Cowboys hit the Country charts thrice that year with COLD COLD HEART, HEY, GOOD LOOKIN’ and YOUR CHEATIN’ HEART. Lefty Frizzell did it with I LOVE YOU A THOUSAND WAYS. Tony Bennett sang BECAUSE OF YOU right up to #1 as did Rosemary Clooney with COME ON-A MY HOUSE. Nat King Cole hit with TOO YOUNG, Les Paul and Mary Ford’s HOW HIGH THE MOON stayed at #1 for nine weeks Meanwhile sneaking up the Rhythm & Blues charts were Billy Ward and The Domino’s, SIXTY-MINUTE MAN (stayed on the R&B charts for 14 weeks then crossed over to the pop charts) and THE GLORY OF LOVE by The Five Keys. John Lee Hooker had his first hit with I’M IN THE MOOD and Elmore James recorded DUST MY BROOM. The pieces of the puzzle that became Rock & Roll were beginning to fall into place.

On TV we watched I Love Lucy, Molly Goldberg, The Jack Benny Show, The Colgate Comedy Hour with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis and Milton Berle’s Texaco Star Theater and we watched them all on 13” screens.

When I was in the 4th grade Yorkville teemed with children and on hot summer nights stoops filled with unwinding and sharing neighbors. There was chronic pumping and fluidity of life that roared through the streets and through my veins.

By the time WW II came to an end, on through the fifties, the country was rebounding and flexing its muscles. Service men were getting married, buying homes on Long Island, building families and businesses. The mood was intensely patriotic and the attitude of the country was “We can do anything.” And we almost could.

I sat near the back of the classroom and Geraldine Kavanagh (she had beautiful, brick-red-hair worn in long pigtails) sat directly in front of me. All day long I’d be dodging and ducking Geraldine’s pigtails. She was bright and bouncy and was consistently flagging down the nun on nearly every question asked of the class. This combination would have me bobbing and weaving about most of the day in defense of catching a pig-tail across the cheek

The best happened when she would suddenly turn smartly because someone had called her name or a loud noise happened on 87th Street to make us all jump and turn our heads toward the windows, I would receive a good swipe across the mouth. It always happened when I least expected it and it used to drive me crazy. Every so often though, when I was in deep study concentration, Geraldine would be called on to stand and her braids would fly out of my hands like two butterflies fluttering off to freedom. Unconsciously, I had been gently holding on to them. To this day I don’t know if I hung onto Geraldine’s pigtails for protection against being lashed repeatedly or if I just liked the feel of them in my hands.

One remorseful day I dipped about two inches of the ends of those long lovely pigtails into the blue ink bottle on my desk. I thought it was cute and couldn’t understand why it nearly brought Geraldine, to tears--that’s how bright I was--a candle in a cavern. Her mother got very angry with me having to cut off over two inches of her daughter’s newly acquired blue hair. Mrs. Kavanagh came to school and spoke to our teacher and then crossed 87th Street to my house and spoke to my mother. I heard it from everyone. I had hurt Geraldine through sheer thoughtlessness and there was nothing I could do to make it up to her. Everyone, including myself, was disgusted with me except, Geraldine. She made it a point that we were still friends--she forgave me--and we stayed friends for years until we no longer ran into one another.

That same year a new boy, Alfred, entered our 4th grade class. He was a couple of years older than I was, spoke broken English but understood it very well and had several prominent scars on his face. Sister sat him near the front of the classroom.

For all I know it was because we had too much repressed energy when we were released from our classrooms that made us crazy. As soon as we turned the 87th Street corner on our way towards 88th street (out of sight of all nuns & priests) we’d start pushing one another around. By mid-term we were getting pretty good at it.

There was a plumbing supply company on the east side of 1st Avenue, just a few doors north of Glazer’s Bakery past Stanley’s Sea Food store and just before Weinstein’s Hardware, Tony Moresco’s Fruit & Vegetable Stand, Weiss’ Delicatessen and Hughe’s Bar on the corner of 88th and 1st Avenue.

One afternoon, Ronnie, Jim Jim, Billy Coulihan, Tommy Kilcullen and I were at it in force: banging, shoving, tripping until (by chance) three of us caught Jim Jim at the same time. He was lifted off his feet, jetted backwards, legs and arms stretched out in front of him (he had been hit in his mid-section and was losing wind via billowing cheeks) right through the giant plate glass window of the plumbing supply company. It’s hard to believe but he survived with only a few scratches, that in itself was a miracle. The plate-glass window reached down to about six inches above the sidewalk and behind the glass merchandise sold in the store was displayed. If you looked at these items you had to look down since all of them were nearly level with the sidewalk with a slight incline toward the inside of the store. There was a curled up garden hose, a bag of cement mix, a kitchen sink, several different sized flanges, a shovel, a snake for cleaning out a stuffed up toilet and a toilet bowl without a seat on it which Jim Jim landed in--rear end first. This was just as big a miracle to us. He struggled but couldn’t budge himself and began screaming:

“I’m stuck! Help me! Hurry up. GET ME OUUUUUT!” We all reached in and grabbed a piece of him and yanked him out of the bowl, then flew like bullets fired from a machine gun. We were too shocked to laugh (at first) and too scared that we were going to get caught and our parents would have to pay for the broken window. Never once did we think that Jim Jim could have been decapitated. To our shock and joy no one ever called or tried to stop us on the street or chased after us. We never heard a word about it from anyone. I don’t know why or how but, that day, we were blessed. Obviously, we used York Avenue, back and forth to school, the remainder of the school year.

My mom would take in any kid she discovered was living on the street which was not unheard of back then. She could not tolerate it if a child had no one to confide in or nowhere to sleep. Anyone of my friends who might need a shoulder, a hot meal or a bed to sleep in, mom would be there for them. She’d say:

“Don’t worry honey; you can sleep in Dennis’ bed for a few nights.” Whenever I came home I could never imagine who might be sleeping in my bed. There was always someone staying at our place for a spell. I might find Jim Jim, Paddy, or Jackie. (If it happened to be one of my friends staying over I’d make them sleep on the floor.) If it was a strange kid, a lost soul, mom had stumbled upon who needed some kindness and someone to talk to, well. She’d tell me their sad story and what could I say but:

“Okay mom, let ‘um sleep.”

Ronnie and I spent many years of our youth in collaboration with each other as good friends. We never fought with one another and shared many of life’s experiences.

I was never closer to anyone through those years than the guys I grew up with. We were friends who shared everything and tried everything at least once. Ronnie and Jay, the brothers, were always more levelheaded than most of us. Sometimes a bit too reserved but always leery and very quick on the uptake.

Ronnie always knew exactly what was happening; and he and Jay had more independence in their characters than all of us put together. If it wasn’t for Ronnie and Jay Jay we, as a crowd, would have got ourselves into more trouble than we had. Not that they ever preached, they’d just say, I’m out.” If Ronnie was “out” we’d usually take time to think it over and try to talk him into it--sometimes it worked. If Jay was out we generally wouldn’t do the deed. Jay was the oldest and traditionally the wisest. However, when I was with Paddy or Jim Jim I never knew what was going to happen. They habitually didn’t think about consequences they just did what they wanted to do, no warning. Before I could blink I was in the center of a happening. Still, there were times and certain incidents that will always bind Ronnie and myself.

To get back to, Alfred, the new kid in class my mom had met his aunt through Saint Joseph’s Church. Alfred was a boy who had recently come to the US from Malta to live with his aunt and uncle. He loved this country, loved our neighborhood and loved being in the 4th grade with Ronnie and myself. He lived with his relatives in the red brick building on Second Avenue at the northwest corner of 88th Street above AMATO’S ICE CO.

Alfred had a heart as big as Central Park and a smile that made you inquisitive. But that sincere and beautiful heart had already failed him several times. My mom had given Ronnie and me specific instructions to be nice to him, befriend him and not to let anyone bully or take advantage of him. This proved to be quite easy since Alfred was a happy guy and liked everyone; he hit it off with all the kids in our class. With his choppy English and his remarkable sense of humor and understanding of American jokes he was more intelligent in the ways of life than any of us at that time. Alfred and his family had been in the midst of the bombing of Malta by the Germans during WW II, hence the scars that covered his entire body. He was the only member of his immediate family to survive. His brothers, sisters and parents were all killed around him when a bomb fell on their home.

It was only a few months before Alfred was in Lenox Hill Hospital with heart problems. One sunny autumn Sunday Ronnie and I got all gussied up and took a nice walk over to Lenox Hill Hospital to visit our buddy. We discovered, quickly, how painful it was to see him in his weakened condition. Although lying in his hospital bed joking about school and other trivia--to keep his visitors’ minds off the obvious--there was an undeniable sense of foreboding in his character. All of his natural joy was gone and in place of it there was a little old man who had given up on life. I know that Ronnie felt the same way I did when we walked out of the hospital that Sunday. There wasn’t much to say to one another and we didn’t, barely a word for an hour or so. We walked around Yorkville trying to out distance hospital sounds and cleanse our lungs of hospital odors.

Who do I pity after all these years? I pity myself. I do. Alfred had wise eyes and I never got to see them sparkle again or listen to his stories about his home in Malta. I don’t know if visiting our friend had anything to do with it but after that day and all through our youth, I can’t recall Ronnie ever going into another hospital to see anyone again--he just would not do it. After he married and had a family all that, most likely, changed. After all these years, Ronnie and I have rarely spoken about it but, I know, neither of us will ever forget Alfred.

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.

Saturday Movie Marathon - Yorkville 1952

I was talking with my friend, Denny Ferado, about our childhood Yorkville movie going experiences. Mine in the 1960s, his in the 1950s. My favorite memories took place at RKO throwing ourselves down the giant horseshoe staircase, playing hide and go seek in RKO's cave like basement ( the Men's room urinals were so large you could hide in them) and buying 5 cent candy including Pom Poms, Milk Duds & Root Beer Barrels.

Denny's favorite memory was Saturday marathons at the Gracie Square Theatre with fine home cooking. Here's Denny's story:

Designed by the same man who designed the Gallo Opera House (later became Studio 54) and which was built during the same time as the original Park Lane theater that stood on the northeast corner of 89th Street and First Avenue in the Yorkville section of Manhattan. It was a bigger version of his Italian Renaissance Opera House. His name was Eugene DeRosa and It was the largest theater ever built east of Third Avenueon Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

The Park Lane first opened its doors on February 17, 1927 with the comedy “Lunatic at Large,” starring Leon Errol and Dorothy Mackaill with a self-produced revue with dancers, singers and a symphony-sized orchestra conducted by Julius Meyer. There were also recitals by the Park Lane’s Wurlitzer organist. It was purchased by the Brandt family in 1938 and around 1946/1947 underwent a name change to The Gracie Square Theater.Because it was too close to the 86th Street theaters, it did not qualify for first-run movies so the Gracie Square began to show double bills of second-run foreign anddomestic movies. Along with a double bill you’d get news reels, sports, shorts, a few serials and, what seemed to me at the time, a hundred cartoons.

Once you were inside you were there for the entire day. It was, at least, a five or six-hour day, and, you could come out of there with a new wardrobe. All you had to do was tell the usher that you left your gloves, hat or coat on your seat the previous Saturday. He’d say “Follow me” and he’d take you behind the scenes to the lost clothing room where you could look through three gigantic boxes of jackets, sweaters, hats, gloves scarves and goulashes. All items left behind on the seats. Whenever I went into that room with the hope of finding something new, it was always a madhouse. On any Saturday you might find 5 to 10 kids flying around back there, rummaging through the boxes and yanking articles away from one another as we argued over the better finds. Since the boxes were taller than most of us they were usually lying on their sides with the spoils spilled out all over the floor. If you were fast enough you could walk out of there looking like a kid from Park Avenue. So what if you weren’t color-coordinated, you could pick up a hat or a pair of gloves that your family could never afford to buy you. The Gracie Square Theater was kid-friendly.

During viewing there might be a baby or two crying, a peashooter fight taking place in the upper balcony, a wrestling match going on in the center isle mezzanine, a group of guys ten rows above a group of girls and throwing pieces of candy at their heads and the girls shouting out warnings for them to stop. All of this activity happening at the same time. Like a spirited horse revels in freedom these young mares and colts reveled in their Saturday afternoons at the movie house.

We were all young (mostly ten and eleven) and loud in 1952 and 1953 during those summers when my parents would take us, usually seven or eight, on Saturdays, to the Gracie Square Theater for a days outing. My lucky friends who spent those long Saturday afternoons with my parents were: Paddy Dougherty, Ronnie and Jay O’Neill, Tommy Dowd, Jimmy Whalen, Billy Auger and Kenny Loonan. The big payoff came when we reached the halfway point after we had been building up an appetite for a couple of hours. Mom and dad would start to unload the beach bags we had all helped carry along with us. She’d lift out her big pot of spaghetti, take the lid off and the entire 2,012 seat theater would fill up with the smell of meatballs.

My father would hold out the ‘unbreakable’ Melmac plates, one at a time and mom would fill them with food. The first one got passed down along the line to the last kid until we all had a plate of spaghetti, a giant meatball and a fork. Dad would take the lid off our Coca Cola cooler filled with sodas and start sending them down the line. Then, you could hear us, 8 kids slurping up spaghetti through our lips and teeth with lots of “Ahhhs” and “Mmmms” and “Thanks Mom” being whispered along the line. This made mom and dad very happy because we were all getting a good meal and not just “filling your stomachs up with junk!” After dinner everything was passed back the other way and repacked to be returned home and washed by my mother. Then pop would pull out his thermos and he and mom would slide off their shoes, relax and have their coffee. Then I’d hear her whisper to my father:

“Dominick, did they all eat?”

“Yes, Marg, They all ate.” The next quiet moment on the screen I’d hear Mom gently snoring.

story by Dennis Ferado