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A
serialized autobiographical novel
By
Matthew Bashie |
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: TAKE THE BUS AND
LEAVE THE
DRIVING TO RUSS
...and
the crowd ran! Streaming down Crest
Road towards the beach!! A group of over one hundred
people - mostly wearing bathing attire and carrying picnic
baskets and beach chairs. They ran faster and faster! Now
the group was breaking up. While most of crowd was concentrated
on the east side of the small private road, many were running
in the street. The goal: The 20th Street boardwalk ramp
and the entrance to the beach.
My mom was a "beach lover." Every
chance she had, she and her small group of "invited"
friends would take a blanket and a few containers of fresh
peaches, apples, pears, and plums and spend a day on the
beautiful white beach. I really don't remember my mother
going in for a swim - although her female companions often
availed themselves of the watery privilege. That was a major
advantage of living so close to the water - you could invite
family and friends over for a day of sun and surf - easy
entertainment!
Through one of her acquaintances, mother met a couple of
teenage girls who had enough free time on their hands to
be able to enjoy more than a single day at the beach and
after a month or so of seeing these kids on a regular basis,
my parent was comfortable enough with them to invite them
to use our apartment in Wavecrest Gardens, a 14-building
complex built directly facing the ocean in the lower Far
Rockaway area of Queens. This was to be a convenience where
they could use the bathroom facilities and could change
into bathing suits. After a while, these girls became (informally)
part of our family.
(Read more)
Go to
Archives to read the previously published chapters.
Hall of Fame Basketball star Dick McGuire grew up in a house
on Beach 108th Street in Rockaway Park. He played the "Rockaway
Game" .
Click on this link below to read this revealing article about
Dick McGuire by Corey Kilgannon just published in the New
York Times.
Go
to NYT Article
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Click
on image to enlarge |
| Above
is the sheet music cover to Zip Coon, a song
that Ed Berlin mentions in his article currently running
on this website. The melody to the song is the familiar
Turkey in the Straw. Along with Jim Crow, Zip
Coon was a fictional character popularized in the
late 1820s and early 1830s through minstrel shows. Zip
Coon was introduced and made famous by white minstrel
singer George Washington Dixon, and imbedded a stereotype
that would endure well into the twentieth century. |
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I
Remember the Rockaways |
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Legends
of the Rockaways |
by:
Stevie S. Stevens |
In
this fascinating article by Stevie S. Stevens we get to see
how vacationers on a limited budget at the turn of the 20th
century were able to spend their summers in the Rockaways.
William E. Auer, was an important contributor to history of
the Rockaways. He built one of the first tent colonies
in 1901. Later, he owned and managed two hotels, Kiddie Park
and other major Rockaway concessions.We are very grateful
to Dorothy and Eddie Sullivan for recently contributing a
truly historic collection of photos and materials to Rockaway
Memories. Dorothy Sullivan is the granddaughter of William
E. Auer.
Read Article
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Our
Wonderful Edgemere Bungalow |
by:
Stevie S. Stevens |
What was it like to live in an Edgemere
bungalow nearly 100 years ago? Stevie S. Stevens brilliantly
describes the care and pride of the young couple who lived
there back then. They had documented their experiences in
this newly discovered album of 27 photographs. Through the
magic of photo-editing we were able to restore much of the
detail that was seemingly lost as the images had badly faded
over time.
Go
to Story
A letter to Rockaway
Memories dated February 6, 2010:
|
Bud Wertheim
(FRHS, 1945) |
Hello Marty,
You are doing a great job with the Rockaway web site. So many
memories are distilled from the images and stories you are
reproducing. Wonderful!
I was not around to have my picture taken for the 1945 yearbook
as I ran away from home and joined the Navy in 1944. I am
including a photo of me taken at the time the yearbook photos
were taken. Perhaps you can slip it in my yearbook. It's colorized,
one I took and had tinted to send to my parents. I was in
Oahu, Hawaii at the time and it was the first my parents had
heard of me since I disappeared from home. I was signed up
for a 'minority cruise' and the signatures of my parents on
my application form were done by me. I was always good at
calligraphy and could sign their names better than they could.
The Navy didn't ask too many questions. I could breathe, jump
up and down, so passed the physical and off I went.
Keep up the great job...
Earl "Bud" Wertheim, class of '45, now Professor
Emeritus (in art)
email: bud@budsyard.com
website: http://www.budsyard.com/
A letter to Rockaway
Memories dated February 6, 2010:
I just viewed your website and I think it's
marvelous! I was born in St. Joseph's hospital in 1953. My parents moved to 1215 Neilson
St. (at the corner of Central Ave) in 1943. They came to the
Rockaways during the summers of their childhoods to escape
the heat of the Bronx. I have vivid memories of Roches Beach
Club and, when it closed, the subsequent Spartan Day Camp,
owned by Edith Kruvand, where I spent the summers of my childhood.
Spartan eventually moved to Atlantic Beach, where Edith ran
it along with her son, Mike.
I remember the Pix, the Strand and the Columbia
theaters, the King
George, the Sugar Bowl, Father's, Victoria Bakery, Ginos,
Elfenbein's Bakery, Mortons Army Navy store. I remember my
brother taking me to one of the theaters to see Jerry Lewis
LIVE. I was about 5 yrs old and I was so excited I couldn't
stop giggling.
I remember PS 39 and being in the first wave
students at the brand new PS 197. Our apartment building was
the 2nd one built in the Rockaways and it was over "Doc"
Schwartz's Drug Store, across from the Shaaray Tefila synogogue
and Hebrew school.
I lived in Far Rockaway for the first 36
years of my life and still maintain friendships with several
of the people I grew up with.
My husband, an East Side kid, can't understand
the strong bond of
love we Rockaway Rats have for our home town. To me, it was
like
spending summers in Malibu lying on the beach, listening to
the Beach
Boys. How lucky we were to be able to spend hot summer nights
playing at the concessions on the boardwalk and eating Jerry's
knishes!! How great was it to have Playland so close!
Thank you so much for this wonderful gift
and the time and effort you
have put in to this fabulous website.
Elissa (Morgenstern) Dellosso (FRHS, 1971)
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A couple
of weeks ago I received several emails from fellow
FRHS grad, Ed Berlin, class of 1954. Along with
some rare Rockaway postcards, Ed also attached the
sheet music for three songs, each with "Rockaway"
in its title. One song dated back to 1840. The other
two were published in 1871 and 1915. I was now obsessively
intrigued as to as to what these songs sounded like.
However, my piano and sight reading skills were
certainly not up to the task of playing them from
the sheet music. A frustrating internet search did
not turn up any existing recordings. Somehow, I
had the notion that there was a program out there
that could scan sheet music and turn it into a computer
file that could actually play the music. Eureka!
I found such a program (Smartscore) and was able
to download it to my computer at a reasonable cost
of $50.
In the interim, Ed and I had been exchanging emails.
I soon discovered that Ed is a musicologist and
one of the formost experts in his specialty, Ragtime.
With all the chutzpah I could muster, I asked Ed
if he would write an article for the website about
these Rockaway songs. Without reluctance he agreed.
Unfortunately for Ed, he did not know then that
this task would now subject him to listening and
correcting countless versions of these songs, which
were riddled with errors, that I subsequently emailed
him. The computer program did not accurately reproduce
the music from the scan. And, I was still feverishly
trying to figure out how to edit out all the mistakes.
Thanks both to Ed's patience and scholarship, we
are now pleased to present this history and musical
interlude from Rockaway's past. M.N.
Read
Article
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| Rockaway
Postcards |
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(View
Dean Georges Postcard Collection)
We have just added the Dolphin Yearbook photos
for the Class of 1982.
A
special plea to anyone who has a 1983 Dolphin. Please contact
us immediately so we can scan the photos and post them on
line. We will return it promptly and pay all mailing costs
Go to FRHS Alumni
Page
Photos
From Our Readers |
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Looking south at Mott
and Central. The "King George" was
a coffee house which replaced Cushman's Bakery
in the Smith Building. Across the street,
the "John's Bargain Store" is now
in the first floor storefront of what was
Neve Furniture. This photo was taken around
1970. |
Thanks to
Michelle Jaeger (FRHS, 1988) for allowing us to
post this great snapshot of this famous intersection
of Mott and Central Avenues. To see an enlarged
version of the above along with additional photos
from Michelle's collection of Far Rockaway during
the 1970s click
here
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©2009, rockawaymemories.com
This work is licensed under
a Creative
Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with
attribution.
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