Jackson Heights Life

The original leader was a guy named Donny, and good for you for standing up to the Brigands.  Back in the 50s, "rocks" dressed the part: Engineer boots, dungarees with wide cuffs(we didn't call them "jeans"), garrison belts with buckles worn to the sides, muscle man T-shirts, and motorcycle jackets (if you could afford one).  Wrist watches, if worn, were worn below the wrist, presumably to avoid breakage during fights. Collars were flipped up and sleeves rolled up.  Some fashion plates wore color coordinated rabbit's feet to go with the lettering on their flashy gang jackets. With their fancy hairdos and cool clothes, the "rocks" looked a lot more dramatic then we straight kids with our chinos, nondescript T-shirts, and Keds. But heck, we stayed out of the Principal's office. . .and had a lot fewer black eyes. 

Hash Browns, of course!  The potatoes came in little white paper bags. They went into the pan with oil that flamed up like a 10 alarm fire. Next came a big shake of Paprika, and there it was -- the best potatoes ever for only .15.  I still try to make Hash Browns the Toddle House way, but I never get it quite right. 

Don't forget Maxl's on 74th Street near 37th avenue.  Learned to drink there at .15 per draft beer.  Even though we were just out of high school, a grand old bartender named Fred always made us feel welcome. Anyone remember the place?

The Brigands (pronounced BrigANDS) was Jackson Heights' very own gang of juvenile delinquents circa 1953.  They were closer to the kids in Grease rather than skinheads. . . and, yes, they hung out in the P.S. 69 schoolyard at all hours when school was out.  I think they were more benign than malignant, but I always gave them a wide birth.  Their jackets were very cool -- black with "Brigands" on the back in fifties hot
pink. Anybody remember this group?

When I was growing up in Montclair Gardens in the 1940s and 50s, Jackson Heights didn’t sound like it does today.  In the winter, you awoke to the jingle tire chains. . . and if it had snowed that night you knew it immediately thanks to the rhythmic scrape of shovels in the muffled air. 

Spring arrived with the racket of roller skates and cap pistols.  Coal rattled on steel coal chutes, laundry flapped on the roofs, the Good Humor man rang his bicycle bells, and street singers performed under our windows for small change wrapped in pieces of paper.  There was even an organ-grinder.

Summer days were punctuated by the bang of illegal fireworks, the clatter of cards on bicycle spokes, and the “pock” of a broomstick hitting a pink “Spauldeen.”

I am old enough to remember the clip clop of the ragman’s horse and his cry of “Buy old clothes!” A man with a portable grindstone sharpened scissors and knives with a shrill shower of sparks.  Milk men and Seltzer men clinked and rattled on their appointed rounds.

Walk down any street back then and the sound of the World Series or a political convention poured from open windows and followed you from block to block. By the late 50s, the chorus of radios and TVs had been replaced by the ubiquitous hum of the air conditioner.

I still remember the percussion of women’s high heels late at night outside my window.  It was just like I heard on The Shadow and The Green Hornet, mysterious and suspenseful, except it was real. 

And then there was the day I heard the drone of  bombers over P.S. 69.  I looked up and saw hundreds of war planes flying in formation and bound for some government junkyard far from the neighborhood.  Even on this sad last mission the planes looked mighty. They had changed the world and, as I would learn in later life, the world they changed included Jackson Heights.