Growing Up In NYC Memories

[mack]

I saw the Jets play at the Polo Grounds - a really cold December game.

Saw many Met games there too.  Marv Thrownberry made 2 errors on the same play - a ground ball that should have been a double play - he dropped a double play throw to first and then threw the ball away - 2 unearned runs scored - and he got a standing ovation from Mets fans when he came to bat the next inning.  Mets 1962 roster:

Pitchers:
20 Craig Anderson Craig Anderson 6-02 205 Right Right 1938-07-01
26 Galen Cisco 5-11 215 Right Right 1936-03-07
38 Roger Craig 6-04 191 Right Right 1930-02-17
35 Ray Daviault 6-01 170 Right Right 1934-05-27
27 Larry Foss 6-02 187 Right Right 1936-04-18
27, 34 Dave Hillman 5-11 168 Right Right 1927-09-14
47 Jay Hook 6-02 182 Right Left 1936-11-18
29 Willard Hunter 6-02 180 Left Right 1934-03-08
15 Al Jackson 5-10 169 Left Left 1935-12-25
36 Sherman Jones 6-04 205 Right Left 1935-02-10
41 Clem Labine 6-00 180 Right Right 1926-08-06
19 Ken MacKenzie 6-00 185 Left Right 1934-03-10
36 Bob Miller 6-01 185 Left Right 1935-07-15
24 Bob Miller 6-01 182 Right Right 1939-02-18
26 Vinegar Bend Mizell 6-03? 205 Left Right 1930-08-13
26 Herb Moford 6-01 175 Right Right 1928-08-06
22 Bob Moorhead 6-01 208 Right Right 1938-01-23

Catchers:
8 Chris Cannizzaro 6-00 190 Right Right 1938-05-03
44 Harry Chiti 6-03 225 Right Right 1932-11-16
17 Choo Choo Coleman 5-09 165 Right Left 1937-08-25
12 Joe Ginsberg 5-11 180 Right Left 1926-10-11
5 Hobie Landrith 5-10 170 Right Left 1930-03-16
5 Joe Pignatano 5-10 180 Right Right 1929-08-04
16 Sammy Taylor 6-02 185 Right Left 1933-02-27

Infielders:
3, 11 Ed Bouchee 6-01 205 Left Left 1933-03-07
2, 7 Elio Chacon 5-09 160 Right Right 1936-10-26
6 Cliff Cook 6-00 188 Right Right 1936-08-20
12 Sammy Drake 5-11 175 Right Both 1934-10-07
6 Rick Herrscher 6-02? 187 Right Right 1936-11-03
14 Gil Hodges 6-01? 200 Right Right 1924-04-04
10 Rod Kanehl 6-01 180 Right Right 1934-04-01
21 Ed Kranepool 6-03 215 Left Left 1944-11-08
18 Felix Mantilla 6-00 160 Right Right 1934-07-29
6 Jim Marshall 6-01 190 Left Left 1931-05-25
4 Charlie Neal 5-10 165 Right Right 1931-01-30
2 Marv Throneberry 6-00 197 Left Left 1933-09-02
17 Don Zimmer 5-09 177 Right Right 1931-01-17

Outfielders
1 Richie Ashburn 5-10 170 Right Left 1927-03-19
3 Gus Bell 6-01 196 Right Left 1928-11-15
23 Joe Christopher 5-10 176 Right Right 1935-12-13
29 John DeMerit 6-01? 195 Right Right 1936-01-08
9 Jim Hickman 6-04 205 Right Right 1937-05-10
16 Bobby Gene Smith 5-11 185 Right Right 1934-05-28
25 Frank Thomas 6-03 205 Right Right 1929-06-11
11 Gene Woodling 5-09? 195 Right Left 1922-08-16


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4CK3hld-yg

Mets won 40 games, lost 120 games, and finished in tenth position.  Attendance 922,530.  Had .250 winning percentage in 1962 but would win World Series 7 years later against Orioles.

 

[fdce54]

First Met game I went to was in '63 at the Polo Grounds on a Friday night against the Cincinnati Reds. The Mets scored 9 runs in the bottom of the first and were in the driver's seat up 9-0. And  there we were going into the bottom of the ninth tied up at 9. But Choo Choo Coleman hit one off the right field foul pole to send us home happy! 

 

[johnd248]

Thanks, Mack.  Just as I remember it and it was long ago.

 

[raybrag]

Yeah, the Mets were OK . . . but if you REALLY wanted to see some baseball, you went out to Ebbets Field in the 1950's to see the best team of Bums ever.  While you listened to Gladys Gooding on the organ, or to the squeaks & groans of the Dodger Sym-Phony playing along the 1st base line, you could see the likes of Gil Hodges, Jackie Robinson (later Junior Gilliam), Pee Wee Reese, Billy Cox (later Don Zimmer), Duke Snyder, Carl Furillo, Sandy Amoros, Roy Campanella, Don Newcome, Carl Erskine, Preacher Roe, Sandy Koufax, Roger Craig, Clem Labine, etc.    Now THAT was baseball.

http://www.ballparksofbaseball.com/past/EbbetsField.htm

 

[johnd248]

Don't forget Happy Felton's Knot Hole Gang.  I spent a lot of time in the 40s-50s at Ebbetts Field.  Now a huge 25 story OMD with several addresses on four streets.

 

[memory master]

Raybrag, did you forget Carl Furillo?    A little trivia tidbit, during the 60's Furillo had a deli/meat shop with a guy named Toto. The store was on the north side of 32nd Ave. just east of Linden Place in Flushing. As you were riding on the "orange bus" (Queens Transit Q25/34) you could see the awning "Furillo & Toto" as the bus crossed 32nd on Linden.  Too top it off no one on the bus, subways or sidewalks had a cell phone stuck in their ear. Yes, the good days.

 

[3511]

Mack,

I'm assuming you have an official source for your 62 Mets roster,  as you always do...BUT...seems to me there were a few other members of that other NY team (it's name seems lost to this forum) in addition to Marvelous Marv, Al Jackson, and Gene Woodling. Jesse Gonder and Tom Sturdivant come immediately to mind.

Not to mention "The Old Perfesser"and George Weiss.

As the "TOP" used to say, "you could look it up".

Just a memory from the mainland, the borough of all those World Championships.

 

[raybrag]

1. The Whats? against the Who's?

2. Memory Master: No, he's there . . . right between Duke Snyder and Sandy Amoros. I have never, before or since, seen anybody with an arm like Furillo. He could be in deep right field and throw a strike to Roy Campanella at the plate and make it look like the easiest thing anyone ever did.

3. Finally: Walter O'Malley: may you rot in hell forever. The Dodgers BELONG in Brooklyn.

 

[68jk09]

Joe Pepitone's Brother Bill was OTJ & appointed to 108.

 

[mack]

Joe Pepitone also had a brother on NYPD.

Joe replaced Moose Skowron at 1st base for the Yankees.

 

[lad72der]

Joe Pep was half a wiseguy too. Spent a lot of time in the old social clubs that no longer exist. Another part of the old neighborhoods that are gone

 

[wolff]

How about the Broadway Central Hotel, I lived around the corner and snuck in and explored the site many times when it was being torn down

 

[mack]

We used to go food shopping at Bohacks.

https://placesnomore.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/bohack/

 

[mack]

The butcher shops had sawdust on the floors.  You got a slide of baloney if you were a kid.  There were pickle barrels to pick out your own pickle.  I would get a note and a buck, and walk down the block to the butcher, come back with cold cuts for lunch. 

Trunz Pork Stores were all over.

   

Delis with pastrami, corned beef, Reubens, knishes, matzo ball soup, Dr Browns soda.

The smells when you went into the Italian food stores made your mouth water.  My father used to size up a shop quickly and say the first line stretched in would protect the meats and cheeses hanging from the ceiling.

Five and dimes had food counters to eat at.  Grilled cheese, hot dogs, fries, a Coke mixed with syrup and seltzer served in a paper cone cup and metal cup holder.  Egg creams, malts and ice cream sodas.

Pizza places on every block.  The guys making pizza wore white tee shirt, tossed the dough in the air, cut the cheese and pepperoni by hand, added real olive oil.  Nothing gourmet - just great pizza.  Cheese pizza usually for Friday nights, better than fish sticks.

Pay phones on walls and telephone booths for a nickel or a dime call.

Newspapers - maybe a nickel - you could get a copy of the Mirror, the Herald Tribune, the Journal American, the Sun, the Daily News - everyone had a newspaper riding the subway or bus - you always read the back page first, the sports section, checked out the box scores (there was no ESPN).  You used the newspapers to look for sales in stores and movie times.  NYC had many morning and evening edition papers, smaller newspapers in different boros, different languages, etc.  There were newspaper stands on streets.

Stoops - people sat out on their stoops - no one had air conditioning - everyone knew their neighbors - there were block parties - girls jumped rope - boys pitched pennies, played stoop ball and stick ball - flipped baseball cards.

Everyone knew which local bar neighbors drank at.  Irish bars, lots of Irish bars.  If someone didn't come home, you knew where to look for them.

No cell phones, home computers, iPads, plasma TVs, cable TV.  We had a black phone with a cord and a phone number that had a prefix word:

   

 

[raybrag]

Mack, I too remember the sawdust on the butcher's area floors and the pickle barrels at the Bohack's in Lynbrook, on Sunrise Highway right under the LIRR tracks to Long Beach.

For a while in hgh school, I went with a girl whose father was the head butcher at a Bohack's, too.

What I wouldn't give for a decent Jewish bakery here in SE Virginia (of course, if there was one, I'd probably be 100 lbs heavier than I am).

 

[68jk09]

I do not remember a Pizza place on every block back then (1950's) however i do remember a bar on almost every corner & sometimes one mid block also......as a young kid my Father who was OTJ & Pro Union would send me for a loaf of rye bread from a particular bakery a few blocks up Third Ave (when the EL was still up)......i never asked him why use that bakery bypassing two closer ones....one day it was raining & i thought well i'll just go to the closest one & did......when i got home he looked in the bag & said which bakery did this come from....i told the truth & said the closest one......he said i won't make you take it back in the rain but always go to the bakery i tell you to....i said why & how did you know...he explained to me that the two closer bakeries were non Union & he knew where i went because the loaf did not have the postage stamp size Union Label on the crust by the heel ....... after moving to QNS the bars were still on every corner & mid block but the only place for Pizza on Jamaica Av was "Connies" an Italian Restaurant quite a distance away..... i would walk there then take the bus back ( to get it home at least warm) w/a whole pie which was all they sold ...no slices.....Connie (who is a guy) is still alive & is now the Father in law of a friend of mine who is an FDNY CPT......... a few years later somewhat closer on Jamaica Av an actual Pizza place was opened w/15 cent slices & nickel sodas.....the owner was a FF from ENG*91.....after awhile other similar by the slice pizza shops started surfacing.......the other establishments that were plentiful back then were newspaper/candy stores & fancier ice cream parlors. .....Fridays were "no meat" & there was a line at the fish market or the few & far between Chinese Restaurant's (which was an actual Restaurant not the present day take out's all over ).......i would give up all the modern day conveniences  to go back to those simpler times & start again. 

 

[mack]

Chief - you are right about the pizza places on every block.  There were pizza places but not as many as years to come.  A pizza was $1.25. 

No Mexican restaurants.  No sushi places.  No Applebees.  No Olive Gardens.  No McDonalds (sorry Willy D).  Local places, run by families.  Hamburger places with juke boxes and cigarette machines.

I remember sneaking into my first bar when I was in high school.  I think I was more afraid of getting caught by my father than tossed out by the bartender.  It was a rite of passage as a teenager - your first bar. 



 

 

[guitarman314]

  I  remember walking with my father to an Irish bakery on Willis Ave. & 141st St. to get Irish Soda Bread and a loaf of unsliced white bread. My mother would walk up to Morris Ave. & 152nd St. to get fresh killed chickens from the live poultry store.

 

[raybrag]

And those chickens still had the heads and feet where my mother got them.

 

[Disp51]

There was a Jewish butcher on Jerome Avenue, between 170th Street and Elliot Place that had the pickles in wooden barrels (5 cents each) and rows of chickens, freshly killed, hanging to be picked out by the customers. Once a week or so they would grind fresh horseradish, and with the doors open in the warm weather, you got a blast of "tear gas" as you walked by. Also, they, like the other butchers in the neighborhood had their knives  sharpened on a grinding wheel set up on the sidewalk outside by a tradesman who came by on a regular schedule. The actual wooden butcher block would have the top inch or so cut down when it became concave and couldn't be properly cleaned. Also done outside, the front of the store.
Many of the food stores were supplied with blocks of ice, some of them coming from a plant off Jerome, about 169th Street. And beer was delivered in wooden kegs which were slid down wooden rails into the basement, their fall being stopped by woven rope mats.