The southernmost boundary of my early life in Washington Heights, in terms of both time as well as space, was the J. Hood Wright Park, between Haven Avenue, overlooking the Hudson River, and Fort Washington Avenue. It was better known as the park. No one ever called it by its formal name. I look upon my northernmost boundary as the RKO Coliseum movie theater on Broadway at 181st Street. 1
My earliest recollections of being in the park were of Saturday afternoons, waiting for my mother while in the care of my grandmother. After working a half day, my mother would meet us a convenient distance from the downtown exit of the 175th Street A train. I can remember walking from the 176th Street ramp toward the center of the park, near the little cake house, as my grandmother would point and say, “There she is”. And there she would be; in her three quarter length woolen jacket with her multi-color paisley wool blend scarf around the collar or protruding from the pocket. Very smiley, arms outstretched. I was three years old. I ran.2
Some years later I tangled with the class terror, Joseph Finger, on a grassy park hill, and pinned him; a major and surprising triumph for me. But, as he protested, he was on roller skates. Two years later an older boy with exceptionally dark and heavy eyebrows which grew together tore my yellow pea shooter from my hand. He made a swift getaway ducking through the space between strands of double wire that connected waist high iron posts which enclosed a grassy quadrangle in the center of the park. My father was very angry with me for letting that happen, although the pea shooter was only five cents. I never forgot it. That nickel bought a lot of memories. 3
The J. Hood Wright Park across from the school, P.S.173 on Fort Washington Avenue, was an oasis. It was divided in two main parts and featured chess and checker tables at the cusp of the western end, and a sprinkler pool and playground on the eastern side. The playground boasted swings, slides, a jungle gym (which we called monkey bars), and a see-saw. Dead center of the park was an indoor recreation building, and at its northern end was a large ball field complete with horizontal and parallel bars.4
But my favorite place in the entire park was the little green, pointy topped, cake-house…although “cake” was not the sole refreshment offered there. It was run by a wonderful woman known as Mrs. Downey. Her name was considered interchangeable with Miss Downey during the chaotic and thirsty moments trying to catch her attention. She wore a white apron with green trim and a green and white smock. Her hair was an artificially curled and colored reddish brown, showing gray streaks, and she was sometimes assisted by her adult son or one of the older, far older (than us), teen-aged kids. My friend Lawrence called Mrs. Downey, "Mrs. Uppey." He thought that was extremely funny, and threw himself into spasms of laughter each time he used the name.5
Among the treats to be had at Mrs. Downey’s were Mello-Rolls, a creamy cylinder of ice cream made to pre-fit a specially shaped cone (it wasn’t conical at all), two kinds of pretzels, the round twists and the long straights which discerning customers knew tasted differently, and beyond the common colas, real kid sodas like sarsaparilla, cream soda, root beer and RC. She also sold Popsicle Pete twin ice pops that could be broken through the wrapper to share, although this left the dilemma of who got the prize-worthy bag. Or if you preferred real ice cream on the stick, Mrs. Downey sold chocolate dipped vanilla, covered with a white, blue and red paper bag. In a separate class were the Breyers Dixie cups of chocolate and vanilla whose lids could be peeled to reveal fresh, clean, blue, brown, or black and white photos of movie stars, cowboys or athletes. With any change one might have had left, two and three cent variety candy included intriguing wax bottles in various shapes, my favorite being a tiny canteen, which could be bitten into and chewed after the sweet and colored liquid was sucked out of it. One last item worth mentioning because Mrs. Downey was always sold-out of it, and because for some reason one can rarely get it anywhere today, was the frozen Milky Way…on a stick.6
In the spring, when school was out, and certainly during the summer, there was never less than a crowd of screaming kids at Mrs. Downey’s two gaping wooden windows; everyone simultaneously yelling the woman’s name, except for Lawrence. Lawrence yelled, “Mrs. Uppey, Mrs. Uppey,” sending himself into paroxysms of convulsive laughter. 7
There was something for everyone in J. Hood Wright, and there were very few days in the nice weather (after school) when the routes home, no matter how long those were, did not take us through the park. Lawrence and I did it together, dressed in our school clothes. Then he moved away. 8
Rarely did one travel north of the Coliseum. There was no need. Everything from department stores, like Wertheimers to the Horn & Hardart Automat, F.W. Woolworth and four more movie houses could be accessed by walking east for just a few blocks on 181st Street. Men’s clothing stores like Bonds, Ripley, Crawford and Howard Clothes, long gone candy and chocolate shops like Loft, Gregor and Fanny Farmer, as well as shoe stores, hat stores, haberdashery and eating establishments abounded for the shopper or for the amusement of the casual stroller and passer-by. There was the elegant St. James Restaurant and Nick’s Ice Cream parlor and Soda Fountain. But the heart of the street was the exciting RKO Coliseum, for through its doors, worlds, and travel to those worlds, were unlimited.9
Dick Tracy came alive for me in 1947 in the person of Ralph Byrd dealing with a frightening character called the Claw, and Kirk Allen to my delightful surprise appeared on the screen in a Superman serial around the same time only to give way to a “to be continued” notice after about fifteen incredible minutes. I never learned what happened. But Superman lived once upon a Saturday morning at the RKO Coliseum. 10
In 1951 there was much promotion heralding the coming of a movie called The Thing. Markings were emblazoned on curbs and in streets leading to the Coliseum, posters were hung, bills were posted. There were flyers, stills, hand bills, word of mouth.11
No one knew exactly what The Thing was. One could only speculate…and anticipate. On the exciting opening night, the theater filled with jabbering children made it difficult to discern much dialogue, but that was hardly necessary. Neither did the white-uniformed matrons shining their flashlights across aisles improve the noise levels. The giant carrot, or whatever it was, never showed itself and seemed to pose not much of a threat in the end. The real nightmare of the evening was in trying to follow or even hear the first film of the double feature that night. It was The Lavender Hill Mob with Alec Guinness and Stanley Holloway, a sophisticated British comedy, but painfully, obviously, not what the audience had come to see…or hear. The resulting din was indescribable. It rendered the film’s showing, for its eighty some odd minutes on the screen, one of movie-world history’s lost performances. And what were those little gold Eiffel Towers all about anyway?12
My mother occasionally took me to the Coliseum. One of the highlights of those days was the treat of a Nedicks hot dog for a dime and a small orange drink for a nickel. Nouvelle cuisine could not hope to compete. The snack, at the Nedicks, diagonally across the street from the movie house, usually came after the show.13
On this particular Sunday, my mother wore her multi-colored paisley wool blend scarf. Somehow she misplaced it and it was not until we were outside that the scarf was missed. We got back into the Coliseum and a superficial search was made with the aid of an usher’s light and probably in the wrong row. No one had turned it in. It was not found. When we left the theater, for the second time, I had a terrible sense of loss. I had shared the afternoon; somehow, I felt, I shared responsibility for the loss as well. My mother still took me for the frankfurter and the small orange drink. But all the way home I kept thinking of the scarf, hoping it might turn up. 14
In the mid seventies I would periodically take the number 4 Madison Avenue bus just to visit Washington Heights. The neighborhood had changed considerably. There wasn’t much to see. After walking up and down Broadway and visiting my old street, in hopes of seeing one or two familiar faces, I walked through the park to the bus stop on Fort Washington Avenue. It was getting cold and I had not seen one face I knew. Everyone, I supposed, had left the old neighborhood. It seemed clear no one of the old crowd remained in what was now a changed place.15
Then, as I waited for the bus at the entrance to the park, a young man in the company of two elderly people walked slowly onto the avenue. The three of them perhaps had just had a quiet, although chilly, stroll through the park. The younger man’s face looked ashen. I recognized him as one of the older kids who used to help out Mrs. Downey during the summers. I could recall him sipping a cream soda from within the little cake house as he waited on customers. That had impressed me then as being one of the privileged benefits of working for Mrs. Downey. He had aged. The older man and woman, evidently his parents, had a grayish cast to their appearance. Apparently they never left the Heights; never made it out; did not move forward. I boarded my bus and decided then I no longer resided in Washington Heights but lived elsewhere.16
About two decades later my wife and I were moving my mother into a senior residence in Riverdale, New York. We had occasion to drive up Broadway, through Washington Heights, and passed the corner at Broadway and 181st Street. I looked for the RKO Coliseum, but it was not there. The movie theater was not there, the building was not there, even the corner’s configuration was unrecognizable. Nedicks was not there.17
As we headed north, I wondered what ever became of the paisley scarf. It was lost, as lost as it ever was or would be. But I had the distinct feeling it was out there somewhere. Curiously, I no longer had a sense of loss, certainly less than on the day it vanished. And I felt good about that. 18
A contest entry
- Constructive Critiques by tallblondie.
550 points, ends November 30, 46 entries
• next story in this contest, • Add to finalists list, or remove from contest
Comments
1 - 39 of 39
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It's very telling that this story begins with a description of boundaries. There was a lot of adventure to be found within those two limits, and somehow they didn't feel limiting at all as I read about them - well, not until I came to the last few paragraphs. This was a sweet stroll down memory lane, sometimes literally (I would love to visit Mrs. Downey's cake-house), but it had its bitter moments as well. It's strange how the memory fixes on such small things at times, little hurts or losses that it doesn't want to give up. The scarf was one of these fixations, but I was happy to hear that, at the end, the narrator had moved on. I've found that there's always a mix of love and hurt that comes from visiting old haunts after several years, but I think that's a good thing. It keeps the past from holding us back, and though we will always remember it warmly and fondly, we find new worlds to explore.
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This was very well done , very well done indeed, It brought back memories of my little city that changed so much over the years and
the images you kept so detailed in your mind is amazing , I had to take a trip down past story lane and it was neat to walk in the steps that were no longer there but I felt like I was there at the original time and place. Its sad to see things change but to reflect on where we have come since then and the journey that in itself still hold many more memories. thanks it great to see a honest look at a honest life that was not as trouble as it world we know now, and somehow adapted, your a great writer with memories that unattainable but for what you write down. thanks again for sharing this with us.
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Wonderful
All your stories are for me, full of wonder. Really like being transported in the way back machine that you have perfected in your writing. I was a bit curious that you did not point out how in this day and age a parent allowing his child to play on monkey bars would probably be charged with abuse. Two of the worst falls I ever had were bouncing off about ten metal crossbars before gratefully comining to rest on the bed of -2 x 0 crushed gravel underlying the monkeybars and the terror of every male, hitting the crossbar of my Schwinn. I have fathered three children or so my wife tells me, but the potential for self induced painful sterility was omnipresent whenever you rode a bike. Thanks for another wonderful read.
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Beautifully written. I, personally, wouldn't change a thing.
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This is wonderful! Revisiting memories when you were once a child growing up. This was a very good read. I loved it.
What is sad is when you revisit and nothing is the same. However, progress happens. At least these memories will never leave our hearts. Good memories are hard to come by these days.
I have good memories growing up in the sixties and seventies. But we all have the chance to give our children and grandchildren cherished memories.
I could imagine being in your shoes. It was just wonderful. You took me through your life and it was great. I really love to hear someone reminisce about the old times, what things were like. As kids, there wasn't any responsibilities, times might have been hard, but they were good and families were close.
Great memoirs.
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great I loved it!wonderful writing
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great job! I enjoyed the description of the park, it sounds beatiful, if its a real place, which it sounds like it may be. Was the lost scarf a hidden meaning, I wonder? Or simply a lost scarf? one would wonder.
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this was wonderful, you did an amazing job
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Good story.
beginning: 5, language: 5, plot: 5, ending: 5, dialog: 5, characters: 5.
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I love it! I love the reminisce and the nostalgia, and the pictures your story makes in my mind.
Reading about your visits to Washington Heights in the seventies, when the neighborhood had changed made me sad. I remember hearing about the neighborhood where my mom grew up and seeing a few pictures - mostly the ones in my head when my mom told us stories of her childhood. And then when I was seventeen I saw my mom's old neighborhood at last. I was so disappointed! It was not the endearing, magical neighborhood of my mom's stories. I think my mom was a little disappointed, too; to see how much it had changed.
For a person who does not like change, I sure deal with a lot of changes in my own life. I tend to cling to the old days and the memories... and what I often find is that when I go back and try to experience the old days again, it is mostly cause for pain and sadness. Why is that? Talk about a sense of loss!
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Excellent
Your park is to you as my gradpas farm is to me. It was the center of my universe and the center of so many writings.Things we remember from child hood as the park is remembered will not be there for the kids of generations much younger than we are to remember. Your park was removed probably for a shopping mall, my farm is covered with water for the TVA and summer fun at the marina. I don't know what the younger generations will write about. War? We lived through wars also but they were not brought to us in our living room every night, they didn't seem so real.Good work. -
See, now I've always called them monkey bars, but that might just be because I spent so much time around my Grandpa.
Milky Way now sells ice cream bars, on a stick, which you might find at a local grocery store. Not as wonderful as Mrs. Downey's, I would imagine, but still, not bad.
Keep up the good work!
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Gary,
Another very good nostalgia piece (btw, before I forget, in Australia we call jungle gyms 'monkey bars').
I enjoyed the detail of your childhood, and then the impact of change over the years that followed. You introduce the right level of humour and interesting tidbits to punctuate each paragraph. This is your forte.
Not a criticism - but I found a fair amount of geographical data compacted heavily in the first paragraph - I suspect those who live in the Big Apple would appreciate it better than I.
Finally, you have a wonderful capacity to draw a sense of universal truth or some depth of observation in your conclusion. You often also draw the external into the internal in your closing sentence/s. You successfully did it again in this fine piece.
cheers
Gez
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Very nice trip down memory lane. Thanks for sharing this with us. And thanks for entering it into my contest. Sounds like you cared very deeply about your mother.
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Its
It's a bit ... ol -
It's a bit... ol
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Interesting story.
You write well and bring the story across so that we share some aspect of the life you had then.
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woow i loved this. The narrators memories are sweet and innocent like the child he was. Its hard to see things morph and change with time but this piece is perfect in capturing the memories of what it once was. this piece is magnificent and you deserve a lot of credit :3
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The narrator's memories come through clear and I can feel what he feels, even though my own rural childhood took place in a completely different environment. So the story touches on the things we all share as human beings, which to me is what good writing is about. The part that really got to me was the paragraph that ends: "I boarded my bus and decided then I no longer resided in Washington Heights but lived elsewhere." I won't offer any interpretation of this, because you would probably object. Certainly a range of interpretations are possible, and the nature of a good story is that it can't really be explained without losing some of the meaning. Anyway, nice work.
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wow man this is ausome and i am only a kid so this so cool i look up to you kind of in a good way not freaky way
dis is soo coo -
Wow man, this is really good dude!
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Breathtaking
This piece - like all your others - was brilliant. The view of a child is always an interesting one to take on as an author (especially if you're no longer a child). The excitement the boy got from the simplest of things made me smile. I loved the part with the pea shooter and I'm sooo happy paisley is back in style!
The title was so simple that it made the park seem all the more important. This was a very moving piece, well done.
beginning: 5, language: 5, plot: 5, ending: 5, dialog: 5, characters: 5.
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good story,but far from your best.
Hi Gary---It’s nice to hear from an old friend, after such a long period of silence. I hope your three week junket was for pleasure rather than duty.
Yes I’m Peachy, crouching here on the tundra with my Eskimo friends, awaiting the arrival of the caribou. The reason we seem to vanish is as fallows: the tundra is by nature a very flat piece of real state. There are no trees bushes or anything like that, so in order to get close enough to the caribou one must hide. It is extremely hard to find a hiding place, so we humans decided to lay flat on the tundra with old well cured hides pulled over us. The unsuspecting caribou wander right up to us, so we leap from under the robes and thrust semi sharp sticks into their craven bodies. It may seem like a cruel way for them to die, but they have been doing it for years, they’re use to it. On the other hand we humans have been lying on the frozen tundra for hours. When we throw the robes back, we are attacked by swarms of blood thirsty mosquitoes. Half frozen and suffering from significant blood loss we struggle on. It is quite amazing, the distance a caribou can travel with a spear sticking out of it side—twenty miles is not uncommon—thirty miles is not impossible. Fifteen minutes after starting on the blood trail, I found myself hoping we didn’t find any of the caribou—the hundred mile walk back to the village would be a lot easier without having to pull a dead caribou.
Oh my but I do get carried away. Your story is typical Gary Alexander effort and as always, well written. The life style you write about is so foreign to me, it’s like reading a fantasy story, and trying to make sense of the world the author is describing. Having said all that, it easy to pick up the excitement a child of that age can experience from such a place. That excitement is carried into adult life when a glanced back at it becomes nostalgia. Of course we remember things from our childhood, both good and bad, the good seems to be a lot better than it was before and the bad—well it doesn’t seem all that bad. Nice little story, but not even close to you best ever at least in this old puppy’s mind
Talk to you soon----ablelaz.
beginning: 1, language: 4, plot: 4, ending: 4, dialog: 4, characters: 3.
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I must confess this one took me slightly longer to get into than your previous works. Perhaps it was the opening sentence which seemed overly long somehow? Three paragraphs in however I began to settle in. Your ability to recreate a scene, the smell, the sights, even the ambience of a place an era and an unwavering capacity to personify a place; give it life and a soul is all here.
Once more I felt I had left the mundanity of my existence in this sleepy little English town and escaped into another world – albeit briefly. This is another fantastic piece, so full of life and experiences and a youthful innocence that seems no longer prevalent in a world subdued and fearful due to folk-devils and moral panics. The park you so fondly recollect would these days be empty – parents not willing to let there children out of their sight, molly-codling them to their detriment….
Once again you have improved my day and elevated my spirit – this is the power of good prose, and you my man have that power within your grasp. Nice work.
beginning: 3, language: 4, plot: 4, ending: 5, dialog: 3, characters: 4.
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But, as he protested, he was on roller skates.
^ this is definitely my favorite line. a celebration of victory tinged with the protesting honesty of childhood. or something like that.
I wonder what it'll be like when I'm a bit older and revisit all the parks of my childhood. Is it sad? Lonely? or is it just one of those things that you do when you grow up? sigh.
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Another wonderfully pleasant read. This one feels very worked through, and it really paints a picture.
If there's anything it lacks it's a red thread to follow, it does have the scarf but it's introduced quite late in the story.
Still it is quite amazing how you get me all nostalgic about a time I never saw. I guess they way you portray childhood is simply relevant to everyone. -
Good story
I love going back in time with you. It brings back memories close to my own. I recently introduced my grandkids to the wax bottles of juice and they thought I was nuts when I started chewing on the bottle.
Being the sentimentalist that I am, I was hoping you would find that scarf right to the end or at least have one more laugh with Lawrence.
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Gary, your imagery is too wonderful. I swear I could 'see' every detail that you described.You seem to have such precise memories of your childhood - I like how you used the paisley scarf of your mother's right through this poignant story. (I too, in one of my stories, if you recall, had a scarf of mother's, but mine was pure fiction and not as beautifully and emotively written as yours!
I love paragraph 5 - the description of the 'cake' house and Mrs Downey or Mrs Uppey as your friend Lawrence called her!
Reading this has made me wish I could write something like this from my own childhood memories, but who in the world would be able to relate to a little suburb on the tip of Africa? But I suppose, I could give it a try.
paragraph 12 - reminds me so much of myself and my brothers' and sisters' heading off to our local 'bioscope' on a Saturday afternoon and watching the 'magic' up on the screen!!
One teeny-weeny suggestion - paragraph 3 - 3rd sentence is a bit long. Maybe break up with commas or into sentences.
I thoroughly enjoyed the journey you took me on in the lovely story of yours
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Why GOD made editors!
Thank you, Bernice. You are absolutely CORRECT about the inordinately lengthy and rather unwieldy sentence which inexplicably appreared in P3! Thank you for catching this...I have tried to address it. Hopefully it reads better now (couldn't have made it too much worse! lol!)
GA
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This is a delight to read Gary. I notice you said it was just known as 'the park', so it must have been much loved by all who used it. What a wonderful oasis for children it must have been, surrounded by such joys as Nedicks and Mrs Downey's.
I enjoyed the trip with you back to a time when life was spiced with innocence and the tangible joys of childhood.
Thank you Gary for inviting me.
Lis
beginning: 5, language: 5, plot: 5, ending: 5, dialog: 5, characters: 5.
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I love this piece. I want to go to that park; it sounds amazing. Alas, it's back in time. The descriptions are thick and rich, like a hand dipped cone. Mmmm, so tasty!
I found the two last visits to the old neighborhood to be telling; you really can't go home again, not in the truest sense of the word. In the same way that you can't step in the same river twice. The flow of time is always changing things. I like thinking of the scarf out there somewhere, in its own little eddy of time, carried into a different stream.
p3 SO cute. I love this image!
p6 the hair confuses me; is it artificially colored to show brown and gray? Or just artificially curled?
The "older, far older" makes me think that you're trying to say teenagers are older than the adult son.
"one of the teen-aged kids (who were far older than we were)"
"My friend Lawrence called Mrs. Downey, Mrs. Uppey." - I think if you leave out her real name it won't sound like Lawrence calls her "Mrs Downey-Uppey"
p7 Okay, I'm drooling now.
p9 that first sentence has a lot of commas, and I'm not quite sure if it makes complete grammatical sense
I love the feeling my head gets after I read one of these pieces. You describe the past so well, I feel like I'm there.
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Thank you, V.
We all were confused by Mrs. Uppey's hair! It certainly seemed to be artificially curled...but as to who would dye hair half brown and half gray...or NOT dye either part to match the other was a mystery. I suppose she didn't have nor take the time to provide for a more elegant appearance before her little audience of screaming children. For me, though, it just makes for a better and more vivid memory.. No one I know quite looks like this today!
GA -
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Except maybe the bride of Frankenstein, in all her various iterations. But I bet SHE doesn't serve goodies!
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Unfortunately, nothing is forever and things, as well as people, change.
This is a wonderful,nostalgic trip down memory lane, giving a truly awesome insight into the life and times of bygone eras.
It is often said that people should look to the future, but I always believe that sometimes the past can teach us more than the present, therefore looking into the past can help people build a better future (if they take note of historical mistakes).
It's strange how something of no consequent value other than sentimentality, can be remembered so vividly. You now have ME wondering if the paisley scarf will ever be found.
A truly remarkeable write, detailed to perfection and in the highest of quality which can only be penned by such a wonderful writer as your good self.
As usual, you were quite correct my friend, I did indeed enjoy reading this wonderful piece of nostalgia.
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Whoa, wrestling on rollerskates!! I can't even skate on roller skates. Or WALK on roller skates I sprained my writst the one itme I tried. I loved the description, especcially when you mentioned ice cream parlors and The Soda Fountain Warm fuzzies I also loved the ending paragraph. Thanks for sharing!
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Amazing Write!!!
Wow! it was really descriptive. You should try publishing one of your stories. Its sad that nothing ever stays the same, all the places you been when you were little, might not be there when you get older. This story makes me wonder if the same will happen to me.
Great Job!!
beginning: 5, language: 4, plot: 5, ending: 5, dialog: 5, characters: 5.
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That's a really, really good story. I'm not sure I could ever write like you when I'm grown up. I'm only 12 and my writing isn't very good in my point of view.
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^_^ this was a really great story. Some parts of it made me laugh, although, it made me hink. Change can be sad, but it's a way of moving foreward and a part of life too, huh? You know, I remember my Gramme and Gamama's farm when I was little. It was pretty much a wreck, but I liked it for that, they got it to fix up, and so they did but I missed the way it was just as muh as I like the way it is. My point, I suppose is, I can kind of relate. ^_^ I really liked this story, I wish I could have seen what it all was like. Great story.
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i loved this!
usually i get bored with detail that great in length, but this was totally captivating
it kind of makes me want a paisley scarf now, though lol
amazzing job!!
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