|
|
 |
A
serialized autobiographical novel
By
Matthew Bashie |
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - JUST
A SON OF THE BEACH
Standing
all alone at the end of the world
- the ghosts of sun worshipers flitter about,
their voices, their laughter, the bright eager faces
of little children - all gone now - swept away by
the simple turn of a calendar page and the oncoming
brisk winds and colder weather.
And that is the way it always is
- at the end of the summer season! The throngs of
beach goers have deserted the sands and now it is
only the permanent seaside residents who remain
behind. We have reclaimed our beach, we have our
ocean back once again. How bleak! How frightening!
How wonderful!!
It was late September in 1953.
The day before, we had experienced a mild hurricane
which brought with it some rather high tides - water
high enough to flood the basements of the Wavecrest
apartment buildings that were closest to the shore.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the area,
Far Rockaway is the most southern section of the
NYC borough of Queens - bordered on the east by
Nassau County.
My friend and I were doing a bit
of exploring. It had been a lovely two-month school
vacation and now we had the advantage of an additional
"day off" so we decided to "take
in the sights" and see what havoc the hurricane
had delivered to the lovely resort town in which
we resided. An especially tempting "treat"
was a small temporary "lake" created by
the high tides. This small body of water was trapped
on the north side of the boardwalk and it reminded
us of shades of "Tom Sawyer" and finding
a large plank of wood provided us with a self-made
raft.
(Read
more)
Go to
Archives to read the previously published
chapters.
Rockaway
Person of the Week |
| |
| |
Ed, a 1946 graduate of FRHS, is an American born
Canadian, who now resides in Mexico with his wife
Lois Anne Greene. He is a man of many talents and
pursuits; a pharmacist by trade, a symphony violinist,
and perhaps following his greatest passion of all
that of a published author of four novels. In his
latest releases, Ed draws heavily on both his Croatian-Catholic
roots and his Rockaway upbringing to tell two great
stories; "A Candle Before Midnight" and
"The Splintered House"
Click here
to read a more detailed description of both of these
novels.
| 
|
Click
on image to enlarge |
| In
the NYT article published 3/9/10, which also
contains a link to our website, there is a video
that illustrates St. Mary's Star of the Sea
Church as it is today. The church is comprised
of parishoners who are now mostly of hispanic
origin and who are led by a charismatic and
devoted priest. The postcard displayed above
shows St. Mary's at it was around 1950. This
building was completely destroyed by fire in
1974. The new structure bears absolutely no
resemblance to this. |
|
|
Stevie S. Stevens is quoted and rockawaymemories.com
is linked in this New York Times article. |
|
Click
on the image above to read NYT Article and view
video. |
| I
Remember the Rockaways |
| |
| Beach
62nd St., Arverne, July 21, 1911(click on image
to enlarge) |
| Arverne
at the Turn of the Century |
| by:
Stevie S. Stevens |
Arverne,
Queens, in a revealing photograph taken on July 21st
of 1911. Our picture of Alexander Avenue
provides an excellent representation of just how rural
the area really was during the first twenty years
of the new century. This view (according to the photo
itself) is facing directly north on what is now known
as Beach 62nd Street. The rail road crossing
shown belonged to the Long Island line which had "taken
over" and combined ALL the railway systems which
had managed to transverse the peninsula immediately
prior to the early 1900s.
(Read
more)
| |
| Rockaway
Beach Police Dept., 1891 |
| Patrolling
the Rockaway Peninsula |
| by:
Stevie S. Stevens |
Getting
off to a good start! The Rockaway Beach Police
Department in a sepia-tone photograph reportedly dating
to 1891. Back in the "good old days" it
took only a force of eighteen men to maintain law
and order on the Rockaway peninsula. Major crime back
then was primarily prostitution, wanton gambling,
pick-pocketing, and land-grabbing - a very common
practice back before the turn of the century. Squatters
would simply move onto the island, set up camp, construct
some sort of rudimentary abode and then claim the
land as their own. Of course this was not to be the
case and as soon as the legal land owner discovered
these make-shift camps, he would engage an official
to assist him in vacating the intruders off his property.
There were also isolated instances of petty thievery
- vagrants ram sacking the remains of burned out homes
and hotels - a practice common to frosty months when
most of the inhabitants of the island were ensconced
in their winter homes back in the city proper.
(Read
more)
A letter to Stevie
S. Stevens dated February 27, 2010:
Hi,
I was born in 1937 and I lived on
Beach 72 street a few houses from the RR. I remember
as a very young boy the Construction of the El. I
remember a friend who lived upstairs from me getting
burned by the 3rd rail while playing on the tracks.
I remember talking to the Telephone operator to make
a phone call. I think the exchange was Bell Harbor
5.
I moved to Beach 67th street in the
early 1940. I remember the troops camped on the beach
during the war. Arverne came to life during the summer,
in the winter it was a very quiet place. I went to
PS 42 on Beach 66 street. I lived in Arverne up until
1966. I have a lot of good memories growing up in
Arverne.
Al Simons
Stevie S.
Stevens reply to Al Simons dated February 28, 2010:
Hello Al,
You lived in Arverne during a very
exciting time! I consider the period from about 1930
- 1945 to be the "period of true transition"
-- the time in which the area saw the great shift
from being a vacation resort to becoming primarily
all-year-round residential.
Of course you were just a child,
having been born in 1937, so you probably didn't realize
those major changes in the nature of the population
that were taking place during your early youth. By
the end of the war -- the time you were eight -- Arverne
was no longer a summer resort in any true sense of
the meaning.
(Read
More)
|
|
| The
Rockaway Fire of 1892 |
| |
| THE
ROCKAWAY FIRE: RUINS OF THE MUSEUM, WHERE
THE FIRE STARTED |
| ((Click
on image to enlarge) |
A
couple of weeks ago, in response to our February
newsletter, I received an email from Ed Gloeggler,
who I had never met before. Ed grew up in Wavecrest
and graduated FRHS (Class of 1975). He has been
collecting Rockaway postcards, photos, maps and
memorabilia since the age of 15. He has worked for
the Wave and for the Rockaway Journal where he wrote
a weekly history column. Ed's first love is with
the Rockaway railroads and Ocean Electric trolleys
- He spent thirty years as an LIRR trainmaster.
Ed has offered to share his incredible collection
with Rockaway Memories.
The illustrated article about "The
Rockaway Fire" is the first of what I hope
will be many more fascinating contributions from
Ed's amazing collection. Welcome aboard Ed. We are
thrilled to have you! MN
Read
Article
Thanks
to famed musicologist Ed Berlin (FRHS, 1954), we
are delighted to bring to you his article about
"Three Rockaway Songs", which include
musical accompaniment, written especially for rockawaymemories.com.
Read
Article
FRHS
ALUMNI PHOTOS |
| |
|
|
| Class
of June, 1940, Senior Officers |
Thanks to the contributions of Florence
Mass Rand and Marcia Robinson we have just added the
Dolphin Yearbook photos for the FRHS classes of June,
1940 and January, 1952. We have now posted photos
of over 23,000 FRHS graduates, spanning 6 decades.
Come search for your photo and those of your relatives
and friends.
Go to FRHS
Alumni Page
Photos
From Our Readers |
|
FRHS
Prom, December 29, 1946, Photo Courtesy of
Ed Vlahov (Click on image to enlarge) |
|
FRHS, 1968 Swimming
Team, NYC Champs, Photo Courtesy of Joe
Salpeter (Click on image to enlarge)
To
view additional FRHS Photos click
here
|
Click here
to view Vivian Mintz Karow's latest photo of Far
Rockaway friends at their Florida Luncheon Reunion,
February, 2010.
©2010, rockawaymemories.com
This work is licensed
under a Creative
Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing
with attribution.
|