THE ROCKAWAY I KNEW
By Matthew Bashie

CHAPTER ONE: I MOVE IN

I grew up in Wavecrest Gardens. Luckly for me, I didn't grow old in Wavecrest Gardens. In my later life, when friends and family would ask me what was the best thing about living in that building complex on the ocean back in 1952, my answer would usually be "moving away!"

For those of you who are not familiar with the Far Rockaway area, Wavecrest Gardens is an apartment "project" comprised of fourteen six-story buildings - (still) located on the north and south sides of Crest Road (Beach 20th Street) where the avenue crosses a super highway known as Seagirt Boulevard.

This group of apartment houses was the "brain child" of then New York City Parks Commissioner/Planning Commissioner Robert Moses, who still reveling in his 1930s glory at Jones Beach, was seemingly on a one-man campaign to totally ruin the entire Rockaway peninsula with lofty notions of turning the eleven-mile barrier reef into an urban Utopia.

Wavecrest Gardens offered only seven separate apartments on each floor - running from "A" through "G" - and aside from its proximity to the Atlantic Ocean, management offered free gas and electricity as well as full-time (unmanned) elevator service. Most of the apartments on each floor were three-and-one-half room units - which included a decent-sized living room, a small eat-in kitchen, an even smaller bathroom (with limited heating capacity), and a single bedroom. The larger/largest apartments had an advantage of one additional (but smaller) bedroom. One studio apartment was also available on each floor.

My family opted for the larger apartment - so I had my own bedroom - which looked out onto a fire escape which "framed" a lovely beach view.

It was only the three of us at first. The building we moved into was brand new - but our direct next-door neighbor was an "incinerator room" - a small closet-type room where the tenants on each floor would regularly stop by to shove their bags of household garbage down a wall-mounted chute. Within the first month of our moving in, thousands of cockroaches had migrated upward from the "depository" on the basement level and by then had found all types of cracks and crevices in that trash room to lay claim as their own domains.

Shortly thereafter, those roaches, always looking for newer and more interesting and exciting "world discoveries," found that they could "sneak" under the door of the incinerator room and they were able to effectively relocate into the nearby apartments. So, well into the second month of our living in Wavecrest, we had uninvited but permanent guests. It is impossible to access the amount of time, energy, and monies that were spent to dispossess the creatures, but try as hard as we did, the bugs were determined to stay.

So, I grew up in Wavecrest Gardens! Most if not all of the stories that I will shortly relate to you will primarily take place within a setting of a few miles or so from my - at that time - home base. On the way, I will also include sagas about the many boyhood friends and relationships that I was able to develop during these, my formative years. Some of the tales I will relate will not always be pretty. I was just a child then and as such, I did the things that children did - and probably still do. However, I assure you and promise you that what I will be telling you in chapters to come will always be most truthful - perhaps even a bit too honest!

If you wish to contact me at any time, feel free to do so at: matt@rockawaymemories.com

I always love hearing from my fans and friends. M. B.