The Bungalows of Rockaway
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
Upcoming documentary The Bungalows of Rockaway, delves into the rich history of the bungalows on the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens, NY, over the past 100 years. Co-producers Jennifer Callahan and Elizabeth Logan Harris discuss their upcoming documentary, along with Richard George of the Beachside Bungalow Preservation Association; preservationist Caroline C. Pasion, and moderator Eve M. Kahn.
Watch here:
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123 Responses to “The Bungalows of Rockaway”
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To Barbara Rosenfeld
Did your father own Peppy’s?
I was born at St Josephs Hosp the summer of 1947
I spent every summer in Maple Court with my family until 1960 and have many fond memories of those days
Jeff Good
I first lived on Beach 28th Street, a block up from Seagirt Blvd. I was born in Brooklyn in 1953, then we moved to Far Rockaway, and I started the 2nd grade thru the 6th. Then attened JHS 198 from 7th grade thru the 9th, then finished up at FarRockaway HS. We moved a block away from the bungalows on Beach 27th Street. The memories of Memorial Day thru Labor Day was when our blocks really came to life. Everthing mentioned in the above comments brought up memories that have been pushed back in my mind. One block to the beach passing the bungelows, and hearing my mother yelling to put shoes on. Never wore them in the summer. Didn’t have to. Your feet became accustomed to the pavement, boardwalk, sand and shells. Even thru all that you never hurt yourself. I remember Jerry’s kinishes, kasha, cherry cheese, potatoe. You could by a dozen and take it straight home. The wednesday night fire works were always the highlight of the summer. Watching the barge slowly crawl towards Playland, you knew at 9:00PM you would get a fantastic show. My mother who was single never worried about me becasue all the neighbors would know you when you passed their house, and when she did yell for me (and boy did she have a voice) I would be home in no time. The last place we moved to was WaveCrest Gardens on the corner of Beach 20th St and Seagirt Blvd. Our kitchen window was right behind the Wavecrest bakery, and when they were baking the cakes, cookies and espically the rye bread, the smell was to die for. When I was sent to get a rye with seeds sliced and the Sunday paper, somehow the ends of the bread never made it home. I miss Gino’s Pizza, Carvel Ice Cream, Grants, Woolworths, Neverlofts (where we would always buy our school supplies, and the Leader clothes store for the now school clothes. The beach which I think alot of people who did not live there all year round missed the very special times in winter with snow and the seagulls. Thank you for the memories and hope to hear some more.
Everyone romanticizes the Rockaways. This is not a place of hope – it’s where dreams go to die. I grew up in Far Rockaway in the 1980s and it was a terrible place. It is a crime how many high-rise projects and nursing homes were dumped on the beach. It was not safe to walk down the block – and still is not. The city government of the 1960s and 1970s should be ashamed of how they let this neighborhood go to pot.
I grew up 1/2 block from the ocean on 95th st from ‘44-63 moved to Ma in’70 great memories of the rock,little crime and hardly any drugs,innocent times
Has anyone heard of the Salvator and Sophie Gianola’s on Beach and 28th in the 1930’s on. I am doing family history on their family and would love more information on them. Their 2nd oldest son Paul is my great uncle.
the rockaways was just like any other city considered inner city, there was good time and then there were those time that some would rather forget, but it shaped and mold an whole lot of people just like any other community.
After the closing of playland, rockaway didn’t have that main hangout spot for family friends and tourist anymore, most had to travel to coney island which isn’t far by auto, but catching the subway from rockaway was a whole day affair. i hope one day that they bring something back to brighten up the pearly beach and boardwalk. hey how come they don’t talk about long beach and atlantic beach, not much difference.
I was a lifeguard in the 44th street area in the late 70s and early 80s. It was a desolate, vacant area that occasionally had a hint of a much happier time with a portion of a bungalow foundation or a faint outline of a yard. I was told that most of the Bungalows for about a 40 x 2 square block area were torn down with the goal of urban renewal. Inexplicably the beach structures were destroyed but NYC exhausted funds to rebuild. The result was an area that looked more like WWII Hiroshima than part of New York City.
When we parked our cars at the lifeguard station, many of us would roll down our windows and open up our glove compartment and place the contents on the passenger seat to make it appear as if the car was already vandalized. Therefore, there was no need to break the windshead to get into the car.
It was not unusual to get a flat tire due to the large amount of broken glass on the roads.
Approximately once a season I would discover my lifeguard chair had been burned the night before to create a bonfire. It would take a week to replace the $250 chair.
Older patrons would approach me and tell me of life in Rockaway in the 40s – 50s. It was always told with a twinkle in their eye but end with a tone of sadness as we looked around the beach and the empty building lots. They would tell me of how Rockaway was a magical community within New York filled with all the wonders of beach living in the summer. Each bungalow was rented by the same family each year. As the summer began, friendships from the prior year were renewed. Old conversations continued. I felt I was standing on history. I could almost hear the kids run down the streets to the beach, people sitting on steps of their “beach castle” talking about the Dodgers or Fiorello LaGuardia and smell the hot dogs cooking on a grill.
However, I have to admit even when I was there; the place was a peaceful oasis in NYC. Regardless of what was behind me, as I looked out onto the water, felt the sun and enjoyed the occasional breeze, it was a nice place to spend my college summers.
There are many blocks that are still vacant. Should these areas be retuned to summer rentals or is that an era that cannot be returned. Should the area be turned into a park? Whatever the future, Rockaway’s past is remembered fondly by many.
Thinking back to my teen years during the 1960’s and having been so lucky to have lived in Rockaway I am overwhelmed at the wonderment of it all. Rockaway was the last place to stand before a person fell off the edge of the Earth, then was washed out to sea. It was the place that no one had heard of,yet everyone in the world eventually dropped by for a visit. It is impossible for me to explain to my children how alive and fertile this 11 mile slender slice of coastline once was. It was the planting grounds of future ambitions for us the rebellious hippie types who gathered every night on the boardwalk around Beach 32nd St., or for the gorgeous surfer boys who crowded the ocean when they got a chance to hang ten during storm surf. The beach, the ocean, the boardwalk and the rock jetties were the places where the most important events of our lives unfolded or collapsed, were celebrated or mourned.
I could go on and on. It was at one time, block by block, a most glorious place to live with the greatest sense of freedom and security.
Hi! Does anyone remember Holly (Hilda) Louise Holowchak? She grew up in Far Rockaway and went to Stella Maris High School, graduating with the Class of ‘47…..Would love for you to share your memories with me.
She is my birthmother who gave me up for adoption in 1962 @ 2 months of age.
Thanks! Martha Boyles
It was heaven. It was Ireland. It was America. It was New York. It was Catholic. It was out rooming house. It was our bungalow. It was the beach. It was Playland. It was the bells from the convent calling us to prayer. It was heaven.
[...] Watch some of the video here. [...]
Rockaway was a beautiful place to growup I have the best memories here it was not always like it is now I am sorry my children will never expierence the true Rockaway. Kmm if you read this we hung out on the beach at 44th the lifeguards then were Richie, Larry Julio and charlie do you remember them
Fckkk yo stupid ass “good-times”, we took y0 shit now eat it bitchez. one love 4 all mah banga’z out in da rock ! we took it ova from deez dum-ass cracka’s
What a joy to see this documentary. I was born in the Bronx and our family went to Rockaway every summer. When I was seven my father decided we should move to Rockaway and be there all year round. We started in Arverne on 74th street in half a house owned by an Italian family. There were goats in the yard and grapes on the vines. We later bought a house on Briar Place in Far Rockaway, later known as Wave Crest.
We would rent part of the house each summer to “the Summer People”. Times were hard and we could get a nice rental each summer.I knew the bungalows well but never lived in one.We were not happy when the summer people took over the beach and glad to have the beach back to ourselves when they went home.
I lived in that house on Briar Place till I married. I married a man from Neponsit and we continued to lived in Rockaway because the Ocean was part of our being. We raised two children there. We all went to Far Rocaway HS, home to many well known scholars including my brother Dr. Herbert Klein, latin American Historian.
When my husband died his ashes were buried in the Ocean and I moved to Brooklyn, near the Gowanus canal.
No substitute for the Ocean but the best I could do.
Thank you for the wonderful documentary.
Listen you GHETTO Taquan Jones, it is cause of people like you that this country and that area got ruined. You have no class, every word out of your mouth statrts with F, you people cause crime and spread STD’s, before you came that area was so nice and clean but you had to GHETTO the place and mess it up, you and your people should get an island by your self and mess it up and leave us alone, we should not be suffering because of your actions, you and your GHETTO people deal with it and and leave our area and neighborhoods alone. The program was really nice, It was so nice and innocent in the old times and people lived in peace and harmony, it is so sad that those innocent days are gone and now we have trash and people who act like that, SORRY if I am offending but I am being HONEST.
My grandparents had bungalows in Rockaway, first in Beverly Court, and later on Beach 33rd and the Boardwalk. My fondest memories was spending time there with them and with my cousins. It was truly a great place.
I LIVED ON THE CORNER OF EDGEMERE AVE. AND SEAGIRT BLVD )DUNE ST.) AND OTHER LOCATIONS IN FAR ROCKAWAY, WAVECREST,AND EDGEMERE FROM 1931 TO 1962. MOST COMMONLY KNOWQN AS, THE PLUMBER’S SON. ATTENDED PS 106 AND GRADUATED FROM FRHS IN 1949. CHASED FOOTBALLS THROWN BY HALL OF FAMER SID LUCKMAN WHO HAD A BUNGALOW ON 24TH ST. HAD BEERS WITH PETER LORRE IN NEARBY INWOOD AND WATCHED THE MC GUIRE BROTHERS PLAY BASKETBALL. PROGRAM BROUGHT BACK SUCH WONDERFUL MEMORIES. LOST TRACK OF SO MANY OLD FRIENDS WHO NO LONGER LIVED IN THE AREA UPON MY RETURN FROM THE ARMY IN 1953. I WONDER IF ANY OF THE DUX (A NEIGHBORHOOD ENSEMBLE OF FRIENDS) ARE STILL OUT THERE SOMEWHERE. MY COUSIN FEELS SURE OUR FAMILY CONSTITUTES ONE OF THE PHOTOS DEPICTED IN THE SHOW, CHEERS TO ALL!
I grew up in Far Rockaway, New Haven Ave., ( 1956 to 1970) and my grandmother owned a Pizzeria ( 1950’s & 60’s) around Beach 34th street. (Edgemere) I think her original Pizzeria was on Bch 88th Street.
I went to St Mary Star of the Sea Grammar School and Stella Maris High School (Class of 1967) I have fond memories of my bungalow home (lived there year round, my Dad converted it with heating, etc.) and can hardly imagine how My Dad, Mom, three sisters and I managed to fit in our two Bedroom, 1 bath bungalow all those years.
Unfortunately, our bungalow was burnt down around the early 1980’s and the land was donated to the church.
I would love to hear about the restoration efforts, etc. God Bless the Rockaway experience!
In answer to ETH’s comment about not romanticizing Rockaway, unfortunately she did not spend summers they in the 1940’s and 1950’s, so she couldn’ t possibly know about what a Utopia this was for inner city people coming there from the 5 Boroughs in the summer. We who actually lived it, have a different perspective. It being a slum now are not in our memories. That is what we have and they are wonderful.
Lisa Hyatt:
we first rented a bungalow on Beach 28th on the east side of the street in 1968. The bunglalows were green and were painted a fresh green every year by the owner, Mr. Schwimmer. Ours was a couple of bungalows up the street from the boardwallk ramp. Across the way there was an empty lot adjacent to the boardwalk where there appeared to have been a recent fire, This would have on the west side of the 28th street ramp. Don’t know if that’s where “Salvator and Sophie Gianola’s on Beach and 28th” would have been, but it sounds like it.
I grew up in Far Rockaway in the 60’s and 70’s. What a wonderful place for a kid! The streets were quiet and safe, the shopping area (now blighted) was beautiful, and the beach was lovely.
Many of my childhood and high school friends grew up between Beach 9th Street and Beach 70th Street.
Too bad the city, in its infinite wisdom, decided to raze all the bungalows and leave the area decimated!
Thanks for the homage to a truly unique and wonderful community. Hopefully, the responses to this documentary will move the current administration to do something to change the status quo.
I used to stay at a roomming house in Rockaway during the summer in the early ’60s. Where was Playland? I would go to sleep listening to riders scream with joy and excitment on the roller coaster!
I grew up in Far Rockaway in the 1960’s on Beach Channel Drive and I have nothing but wonderful memories of it as do my sisters and brothers!
we attend PS105 Bay School and have wonderful photos of that time there, esp. on May Day!
JERRY SPENT HIS SUMMERS IN BREFNEY COURT ON 109 ST. FROM BIRTH TO THE MID 50′S. HIS FAMILY BEGAN TO GO THERE IN THE 20′S. HIS UNCLE JERRY FORMED THE “KOO-KOO KLUB” AND PERFORMED EVERY WEEKEND ON THE BEACH AT 109 ST. SILLY GYMNASTICS. THE BOARDWALK WAS LINED WITH OBSERVERS. MY HUSBAND PLAYED SMOKEBALL WITH DICK AND AL MCGUIRE ON 109 ST PLAYGROUND. THEY BROUGHT PLAYERS FROM THE “KNICKS” TO PLAY BASKETBALL EVERY WEEKEND.. .
I am a true rockaway person lived here all my life for 53 years love it will never leave but to many homes now not as tranquil as before but things change right !!!! love it though
now i am yvonnequiles and i miss my friends from farock went to St. Marys and farockaway high school good times good memeories although my sisters hung out with amy on 87 th street the house is still there ( BRICK) but what a time of my life
We lived on 74th St. since I was born…1934. That was before the “new road” and the beach was a few houses away. There was a full flight of stairs from the boardwalk to get the the sand…last I saw the sand was up to the boardwalk. Haller’s grocery was at our corner and Mr. H. drove us all to school PS 42 Q. It was a busy place in the summer and lots of new friends that came back year after year. In the winter it was quiet, but what a great time we had on our sleds going down the ramps of the boardwalk. The train rain on the ground and at 73rd St. there was a crossing and a man in a little hut had to operate the gate whenever a train came by. I remember the big fire when the elevator trains were being built and we had to evacuate our homes late at night…our snowsuits over our pajamas, but luckily there wasn’t too much damage. Moelis & Stein Plumbing was right at that corner of 73rd St. (my uncle). We moved to Washington, DC when I was 8 yrs old but came back to 74th St every school break and every summer and stayed with relatives. I met the man I married there. We moved back permanently when I was 16, but by then 74th St. was apt. buildings and we moved to Belle Harbor. My children and I still have sand and salt water in our veins and I now am retired at the beach in S. Florida.
If you are interested, I have old home movies of 74th St. & Arverne that you may be able to use for your documentary…thanks to my Dad.
I had grandparents who had bungalows in the 60’s in arverne. with about 6 stores. I would walk to the bea ch about 2 blocks away on beach 61st street.. I remember as I walked to the beach I would pass the Hydrogenions in front of the houses along the way. They are colorful flowers. I would would walk up the red brick steps as I walked up to my left was a cute little porch where I would dance with my cousin. It really was the good old days. Also went to playland. And of course walkedon the boardwalk.
I grew up in Rockaway Beach, first 88th Street – a hardware store on the corner and we were also half a block to a train that took us to NYC. – A& P around the corner. I remember the Rag Man, the Ice Man, the Knife Sharpener and some kind of ice cream that you peeled the paper off and put in a cone. We went to the beach on 91st Street, crowded, blanket to blanket, sunburn never an issue. Later on I remember Playland, frozen custard, french fries in a cup and the Merry-Go-Round where we leaned out real far from the horse to catch the gold ring which gave us a free ride. Later moved to 84th Street – anyone familiar?
Grew up on Barbados Drive betweed 1962-1973. We had the old bay bungalows across the street. Love that place and time. We had a big picture window which looked out over the bay. We used to wait for the A-train to cross over the bay and my mom would say Dad’s coming home.
I lived in Far Rockaway until I was 10 years old on Neilsen Street off of Central Avenue.In 1955 we moved to Woodmere. My fondest memories, however, were going to grandma and grandpa’s house on 68th Street in Areverne. Their house was just 4 houses away from the ramp which led onto the boardwalk. Here on the boardwalk was the penny arcade where I spent hours. With a twinkle in his eye Grandpa would slip me a nickle or maybe a dime and admonish me not to tell anyone. Off I would go holding this fortune which allowed me to collect movie star cards which I think cost one or maybe 2 cents. Or perhaps I would use the money to play skeeball and collect little tickets which could be redeemed for prizes. Next door to the penny arcade was a candy store where I could bring soda bottles that I collected on the beach and redeem a penny or two for each bottle brought in. I remember there was also a movie theater on the boardwalk, I think it was at 67th Street. On 65th Street there was a Bungalow Bar ice cream truck which backed up a ramp which allowed the truck to sell ice cream directly to the people on the board walk. On Wednesday evenings there was nothing better than eating an ice cream as you watched the fireworks! Gosh those really were some of the best times. There is no way to make your children or grandchildren understand how wonderful the Rockaways were. It is very hard to look at Rockaway today and understand how beautiful it was. Funny thing about what I say is that my mother, who graduated from PS 39 and Far Rockaway HS class of ‘42 would say to me that I could not understand how beautiful Rockaway was when she was growing up!
Moved here a year ago. I pinch myself to have a place where there is fresh air and beach and the people are amazing. I just had a horrible break up and people are such amazing people who care about there community for the elderly and children and they come together with a sense i didn’t get in another places. I LOVE IT HERE.
I grew up on 82 st Hammels and my family was there from1957thru 1972
we had great times at the beach and praying in Temple Israel then listed as the oldest synagogue on long island I remember the only kosher butcher Dave Baden and got my first job there at age 12 cleaning the barbq skewers an bicycling the friday deliveries and the cleaning store run by Jack Near and Kaycees five and ten and the small library where my baby bro went to the first Head Start program
The summers my friends and I spent at the beach will never be forgotten!
My family lived in the Ocean Promenade Apartments at Beach 129th St., Belle Harbor, for two winters, in the mid- 1950’s. My father was stationed at Floyd Bennet Field, my mother worked in the city and my sister and I attended St. Francis DeSales School up the street. In the summer we lived in Brooklyn. (Summer rents!) I loved the neighborhood, walking to school in dense ocean mist, playing after school on the beach. Such a wonderful memory!
I forgot to say that my family’s last stint in Belle Harbor was a couple of months in the mid-1950’s in a rooming house on Beach 129th until we left for my father’s next duty station in the Marshall Islands. We had two bedrooms and shared a bathroom. My mother was a saint because she persuaded my sister and me that all of this, moving twice a year, living in a summer bungalow or a rooming house, was a great adventure. And she was right. I think all of us loved being winter people at the ocean in the Rockaways.
Rockaway somewhere along Norton Ave I think was a salt water bay that flooded the nearby streets with about four feet of water in I think was 1960 aftermath of a huricane Dona? There were a gang of phone boths about six in a group on the side walk by the bay. Just up the street was a fenced yard and in it was a ice cream company trucks parked. A school was in walking distance a ten minute walk aprox. I was nine years old.near the bay where the flood was, we lived in a grayish blue bungalow house one of three. They were housing on both side of the street. We used to fish for crabs in the bay which was just up the sreet from the bungalows..After ther the storm, workers added sandbags to the bay shoreline to prevent futher flooding. If anyone knows or has any pictures of this area relating back then, I like to see them. Im trying to peace back my childhood life time in New York.I know only very little in memory about living there.
Born in 1935. used to summer on Beach 67 or 69 (not sure). One thing I do remember is that on the bay side about 59 or 60 st., there was a block long airstrip and small planes flew out of there. I also recall the searchlights playing across the skies at night during WWII and occasional anti-aircraft cannon practice.
Best of all was the boardwalk the arcades and the ski-ball games – 2 cents a game, and of course Playland,
Thanks for wonderful memories…
Rita Goldman Lederer’s comments on 74th st. My father was a dentist in Arverne – 7420 Rockaway Beach Blvd.
His office was above Mathews Beauty Parlor. I remember Dr. Sidenstein and Dr. Hoffman were the two MD’s.
I have wonderful memories of Rockaway and the summers. Also playing in the Haunted House across the street. I could not understand why all the vacant lots and swimming pools filled with wreckage. Now having seen puplic TV’s coverage of the Hurricane of 1938 I understand. I am now 75 and live in Hobe Sound, Florida
Crazy Eddie… is that you … I was a little girl on B 29th St and Crazy Eddie went around with this HUGE black songbook and would take requests… If it is you.. thanks for the sweet memories..oh and thanks for this documentary creators, though you SKIPPED right through the 60’s and 70’s … a fine last gasp indeed!
I have a photo from 1923 of a little girl standing in front of an arch with the name Brefney Court. The photo shows rows of identical bungalows. I also have photos of the Free Ball Room in Luna Park and some of beach scenes, all 1923. They’re from a box of photos left by my uncle. I would be happy to reproduce some for anyone interested.
I am looking for a home in far rockaway please help me.
I moved from the Bronx New York in 1975 to Beach 25th in Far Rockaway. I loved the beaches, handball courts and enjoyed visiting my friends that actually lived in the bungalows. They were very nice in side. My good memories are when my mother would wake me up a 6.00am in the morning to go to beach 17 and I use to hate going so early, but now as I grew older I felt the enjoyment she felt going to the beach, with my brother and I, plus back then the beach was packed by 9.00 am. Wow what a beautiful place. No matter how ghetto it was becomming it still left sunshine in my heart.
Our family moved to 311 beach 73 street tin 1945 +/-.My parents lived there until they passed away 1970s.I went to st marys school and then to Power Memorial. I sold Ice Cream o n the beach and cold beer on the side….Worked at St Joseph hospital and dated Bonnie from 74 Street.. Hung out with Mike PIttas and others at the jewish Commity Center….Went away to college , joined Navy at Floyd Bennet etc…..Moved from NYC to StThomas Virgin Islands Married raised a family, joined the Temple and having agreat time
it’s not crazy eddie it was “singing eddie”…..
BTW i was born and raised in Far Rockaway and find the very sight of it heat breaking…
Wow! what a great day I had at work today.I got to meet Producer Jennifer Callahan. What a great lady,she sure won me over. Jennifer you now have another Fan.
I just became aware of your project on the Bungalows of Far Rockaway. The beach streets of Rockaway are among my strongest and happiest memories. I spent every summer of my life there from birth to 16. My grandparents and their two daughters – my mother and aunt – started in their youth and spent decades going there. If the project is still ongoing, we have many pictures with the various bungalows in the background.
The summer I was born, 1948, they were ensconced in Sammy Court, bungalows built on a sand yard at Beach 49 or 50th street. But soon after, my grandparents headed for nicer digs and bought two bungalows on Beach 25th street, with a unit on the street and one on a courtyard in back.
That’s where I grew up every summer. Many of the same families came back year after year, and my parents and grandparents had long lasting friendships. The Kamei’s, the Golata’s and many of their relatives were well known to us, like distant cousins. And they were all there year after year. All of our NYC cousins, derived from the many siblings of my grandparents, came to visit regularly
At first my family* (my parents, my sister, and I) stayed in the back bungalow and my aunt and uncle and their two sons in the front with my grandparents. But my mother and aunt had “outgrown” Rockaway after a few decades of coming out there, so my grandparents rented out the back bungalow, and we took turns a month each sharing the front with my grandparents. My sister and my older cousin were somewhat less interested and the main visitors were my cousin Ritchie and I, often overlapping our stays.
The beach streets were endless, as was the boardwalk. The boardwalk began around 19th street and the bungalows at 24th. And they want on and on to somewhere in the low hundreds past Rockaway Playland on 98th street. Every Wednesday night at Playland they set off a display of fireworks that caused people to line up and ooh and ahh, along the entire length of that endless boardwalk, all summer long.
The boardwalk was a big part of life. Not only was it many mile long, but about every 20 blocks or so was another section of food, amusements, etc. Really good pizza, the famous Chinese edible “tuckee cups,” Jerry’s knishes, the likes or quality I’ve never found anything close to, games, penny arcades and places that sold and rented out chairs, umbrella’s and the like. We were all ski ball addicts, spending thousands of nickels, and later dimes, to save enough coupons to cash in at then end of the summer on one of the really big prizes for my grandmother, like a bathroom scale.
At 3, I started my bike explorations. My mother and the police found me on my trike a few blocks down Seagirt Ave one day. My mom tied my bike up with a rope after that. From 6 or 7 on, the boardwalk was freedom. I could safely take my bike on it, go out in the morning and just keep going and going…until I ran out of time..and nerve. I never quite reached the end, it was mythic, and I think getting there might have removed some of its magic. ..”wow, I rode all the way to…81st street today…there were like whole other sets of amusement stores I’d never seen…I’m sure I was almost at the end..”
I hated school, I was just not made for 6 hours in a chair. and the open classroom hadn’t been invented yet, at least not in public schools (nor had Ritalin). But in Rockaway, I was always a little more important, there was always a crowd of friends, and life was always busy and happy. .
Life on the beach streets, as would only be fitting, revolved around the beach, the ocean and the boardwalk. We weren’t allowed outside before 9, I was very noisy even when alone, and we all knew the Golata’s slept until 10am and it just wasn’t right to wake them up before 9. I’d go out and ride my bike, play stoop ball or push around a balsa wood glider that would be good for 15 or 20 flights before it couldn’t be put back together again. Purchased from the hobby shop on Seagirt where the nice man who owned it always answered my price queries with a wink and a “for you…..
Not all the merchants were so nice on Seagirt. The man who owned the little supermarket was so nasty, that he once told a woman he was glad her husband had dropped dead. She went ahead and for a few years opened her own little supermarket just to give him competition. And then there was Harry and Pearl’s. The luncheonette and candy store, common to NYC and nowhere else, where I bought all my comic books (the first Marvel comics), ice cream soda’s and egg cream’s. Both Harry, his wife Pearl, and Pearl’s sister, the only people who ever worked in this good sized establishment, were short, and scary looking. Their repertoire of facial expressions did not include a smile, least not that I ever saw. And most questions were answered with an attitude that I had a lot of nerve for asking.
Every morning my grandmother marched us out at around 10 or 11 to the beach for the required “morning dip.” Then home for lunch, and..by 1pm you were wasting the day if you were not back on the beach. She would get genuinely irked if you were not prompt about getting to the beach for the afternoon, though the morning dip was always optional. She was certain that your mental and physical well being were greatly enhanced by being on the sand and in the salt water. And back then, ultra violet radiation hadn’t been invented. The only acceptable excuse for not being on the beach were rain or a ball game, usually the ones I played in but also on occasion, especially during the great home run race between my hero the Mick and Roger Maris, to watch the Yankees.
All May and June, the butterflies would start to get active in my stomach at just thinking about the fact..that soon I’d be out in Rockaway. And September was always a come down, life just had less spark.
At 16 I started taking drivers ed, working a summer job and so Rockaway came to end. My grandparents were getting old, but still out there. My grandmother was still going for her morning dip every day, coming home and then heading down the short walk to the beach to spend the afternoon. Life was OK, I could drive, go after girls and get ready for college, which may have even turned out to be as much fun as Rockaway. It was the 60’s. When my grandmother died of cancer at age 77, my grandfather sold the two bungalows…for the same $12,500 he had paid for them two decades earlier. And so ended my family’s fifty year affair with Rockaway.
*My parents were Rita and Lester Shaikun, my sister Robin, I am Glenn Shaikun. My Grandparents were Max (Poppy) and Jenny (Nanny) Yustein. My aunt and uncle were Stell and Lou Kendall, their sons Ross and Ritchie.
Ross, Ritchie and I are still alive to remember what Rockaway at times meant to our family, the rest are gone.
I just read a letter that mentioned crazy eddie and his song book – I remember him well.
hope you got the last comment
To Jeff Good….Yes my dad owned the Peppy Trio Food Market (Peppy’s). I would love to get in touch with you and talk about those Rockaway days. Maple Court was, to me, the place where the rich people vacationed. We lived in rooming houses and my dad worked all the time. Remember the fruit stand across from my dad’s grocery…owned by the the Moskowitz family? It was a great place to spend summers. My email is grandmabarbara@comcast.net.