Life on Steinway Street - 1950's (A 'True' N.Y.C. Boyhood Memory) Part #1

angryman (67)in #curie • 6 years ago (edited)

My first memory of who I was in the 1950’s and how I fit into the environment of 22-17 Steinway Street came as a true awakening. Having risen from sleep, I remember standing at the railing of my crib, listening to the distant sounds of our mother doing what mothers usually do in the kitchen.

Sunlight filtered into the bedroom through sheer curtains hanging from a window, which was unusually high and small. As I surveyed my surroundings, a single bug entranced me by ambling up the wall, high on the far side of the room. I didn’t feel threatened or afraid; it was a curiosity that captivated me. Eventually, having made some baby noises, I guess…mom appeared with a smile as I pointed to the wall, and proudly announced 'buhk' or something like that (My language skills were not very good in those early years)

Our first floor, three roomed, railroad apartment was one of six in an old, wood framed, three story apartment building on Steinway St. between Ditmars Blvd. and Twenty-third Ave. in Astoria, Queens N.Y. I remember the hallway, being long and dark, kind of spooky...

We had to pass a little alcove were the door to the cellar was located and where mom always kept the carriage, stored by the basement door. It was also the little dark corner of the hall where Rosemary and I used to hide and pull down our pants at four or five years of age. We were in the process of researching the differences between the sexes at the time. She was my first girl friend, splitting up in Kindergarten because she lied to me.

Our break-up occurred on the day of my first missed Kindergarten class, due to having a fever. In our classroom, we had a little sandbox, which was raised off the floor by thick wooden legs. Occasionally, one of the kids would try to climb inside but, the teacher would always catch us and scold whoever it was. The rule was that we stood outside the box and played with the sand… not as much fun as in the park of course or at the beach.

In the playgrounds of New York City in the fifties, children were allowed to play inside the sandboxes; it was normal and the learned thing to do. So, of course the restrictive, kindergarten rule made absolutely no sense to us at all. It became a challenge to remain outside the sandbox at school, and we all had a great desire to get inside of it to play…just like we did in the playground.

Adults were always very confusing, and hard to understand…One day, you could play in the sand…the next day, you couldn’t. They let you play in the water at the pool, but yelled if you played in the puddles on the sidewalk…Is it any wonder why so many of us grow up a little twisted?

When Rosemary came home from school that day, she told me that the teacher let all the kids climb into the sandbox, and I had missed it because she would only let us do it that one day…and never again. My heart sank like a stone. I had missed the greatest experience ever imagined at school.

Getting through the rest of the day and to sleep at night was tough. My head kept re-playing the fun my classmates must have had climbing in and out of that box. The following day at school, I learned that Rosemary had lied to me. She was jealous that I was able to stay home from school, so she fabricated the whole story. This rightly, caused our break-up…

Rosemary was one of three children in the Baldi family who lived in the apartment above us. Anne was the mother and best friend of mom at the time. She would come down to our apartment on a regular basis and just walk right in while knocking at the same time. Things were different in those days. We never locked our doors until it was time to sleep, and it seemed acceptable to just walk into someone's apartment that you knew well enough, as long as you called out when entering.

Charlie Baldi was the father. I remember him being tall; but then, everyone seems tall when you're a kid. He was missing hair on the top of his head, but that didn't seem to be the reason for his last name…no one ever scolded us for calling him that name. Mr. Baldi was a nice man who always treated us well.

Anne was a smoker and wore a lot of heavy make-up. I seem to remember her always with a cup of coffee in her hand or close by. She talked a lot about women stuff while mom was busying herself with all the chores. Mom always seemed to be cooking, washing clothes, dishes, sweeping, mopping and feeding the babies...How she ever found the time to bake us cookies and read us bedtime stories as well, is beyond my comprehension.

Gloria Baldi, was about my sister Lizbeth’s age (two and a half years older than me) and they were always together as friends. One day they caught me carrying a little pie plate out of the hall filled with pee. Rosemary and I had been showing each other how our little things worked.

As I tried a slow and careful walk out the door in order not to spill the yellow liquid, Liz and Gloria came down the steps. I tried to convince them that it was orange juice, but refused to drink it when they told me to. What an embarrassment…I ran out the doorway to the street and dumped it as quickly as I could.

Experimenting, and learning about important things in those years, was a strong interest of mine. I remember licking the cream and crumbs from a discarded 'Devil Dog' wrapper that I found in the street by the curb one day.

On a dare by Rosemarie and some other neighborhood girls, I ate the waxed wrapping too. They laughed and pointed with disgust… it was a proud moment for me to have grossed them out. They were so amazed at my eating skill, that they went on a hunt for other discarded things I could eat from the gutter.

Anthony was the youngest of the Baldi's. I think that he was the same age as my little sister Janet. One day, I heard his mother scream in terror, followed by Anthony screaming in agony. A pot of boiling water had fallen from the stove and splashed on his neck and shoulder. I remember what the burns looked like after he came home from the hospital. Many years later, as an adult, I met Anthony at an After Hours club he managed. He couldn’t remember the incident, and claimed not to have any scars as a result.

Mr. Mann was our landlord. Once a month he would come around to collect the rent of thirty-five dollars. Mom would invite him in for coffee and sometimes he would stay for awhile. He had an easy smile and gentle way about him. I thought it strange that we addressed him by the sex he was (man) rather than by a name… Mom eventually explained the double 'N' spelling, and I guess that satisfied me.

Dad was the Superintendent of the building. He did the repairs, while mom cleaned the hall and stairs. Our apartment backed Dad’s store, which had an office in front, and a workshop in the rear. I can remember dad selling Christmas Trees from the store one year and having a painting contracting service there as well.

At one time, dad drove a taxi for a living, but that ended sometime after a strike. He passed the picket lines to drive because our growing family needed the money. Somewhere, a bunch of Union goons jumped him and beat him for being a strikebreaker. The story ran in the papers with a picture of him in a hospital bed. Mom, my sisters Lizbeth and Martha were at his side… I must have been at the bar having a drink with Rosemary because I was not in the picture.

The workshop in back of the store, eventually became the place where I slept. As the family grew, we needed to spread out. My bunk was moved into the shop, along with whatever toys I had. I liked all the tools, work bench and wood around me. At night, I could see the passing cars out on Steinway St. through the glass door of the store. It also made me feel special to have what I considered my own room, away from the girls.

It was in that shop where I developed an affection for banging nails into all kinds of wooden objects and sawing things in half whether they needed it or not…but that stopped soon after dads jaw dropped at the sight of about a hundred nails banged into his workbench, the walls, door and lumber...I was only trying to fix things…

On the top floor of our building, there was a steel ladder which rose straight up, through an opening, bordered by shelves. The ladder led to an access hatch to the roof. Resting on the shelves, were two large buckets of paint or tar. Part of the rounded bottoms protruded past the edge of the shelving, and I was curious about what they were. (Not knowing at the time) Dad told me they were the shoes of a giant who lived on the roof, and never to go up there, or the giant might get me.

Every time I looked up at the tips of the giants shoes, I would get scared. I'd think of Jack and the Beanstalk, and how the giant would want to drink my blood and grind my bones to make his bread. "Fee-fie-foe-fum… I smell the blood of an English man…Be he live or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread."

Sometimes my sisters and I would go up to the third floor on purpose to taunt the giant into coming down and chase us… but I always hoped deep down inside, that he wouldn't. A few years later, when I had backup from some male friends, I summoned enough courage to climb up there with my cap gun at the ready, and discovered the giant shoes were really just large cans.

It was then that I learned of the first ‘lie’ parents tell their kids, with many more to come on the road to adulthood…Learning that the Easter Bunny, Santa and the Tooth Fairy was a lie, proved the most devastating…