Jackson Heights Life

I didn't play...but knew 2 guys who did... Jimmy Hodges... and Joe Grieco... Joe is younger.

I knew Jimmy Hodges. He was probably at least five years older. I used to talk to him when we were both younger when he played with his gasoline-engined model cars. Later, when he came back form his military service, we worked on motorcycles together. I hung with him and the other bikers at a hole-in-the-wall candy store on 37th Ave. between 78th and 79th street, upstairs above the Bowling alley. While Moe and Archies candy store on the corenr of 78th street had magazines and was a lot larger, the other one had a better selection of car, bike and gun mags, so I tended to hang there.

One of my building neighbors, Johnny McLaughlin who ride a purple Triumph Bonnevile, was dating a girl I remembered from grade school, Annelise. She had been a shy, attractive girl and I was surprised to see her dating a "bad boy" biker. It was my first contact with the phenomenon.

Those were great days.

I lived at 34-41 77th Street from the late summer of 1950 until I left for the Army in '65. I moved back, briefly, while I served. My first wife lived there with my mother while I was overseas.

The park was just down the street and I played handball and used the playground equipment there and also the shallow pool with the spray when it was hot. I went to some of the live music events and rode through one of them with the guys from the Black Rebel M//C club, with whom I hung out when I took a year off from school at 15.

I was watching TV one night in the '70s and saw the surveilence film of a shooting on my block. The vehicle, driven by a Columbian drug dealer, came to rest against the back-stop of the ballfield. I called my mom and asked her why I had to learn that there were drug dealers living across the street from my old apartment building.

Reading this site for the last several hours has brought back a lot of memories. I went to PS 69, JHS 145 and then Bryant where I was in the Honors Program. When it turned out that we still had 40 kids in class, not enough desks and not enough books, I got my shrink to get me out.

I went to McBurney School, a boy's school run by the YMCA in Manhatten. I dropped out and ended up finishing at Rhodes School. I graduated, with honors, in '63.

I hung out at Moss Rexal Drugs on 37th Ave. where some of us attended Sunday Moss, having breakfast with the other kids playing hooky from church. Around noon, when Jahn's opened, we moved our base there.

I was a regular at Bud's on 37th Ave. from before I could legally drink - NY was an 18 to drink state at that time. Since I was a regular, I could get in on weekends, even when there were lines. And, we could bring girls from the line in with us, making us popular.

I have a lot of fond memories of The Heights. If anyone is interested, I will share them.