JEWELS OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD

We can all agree that our neighborhood was filled with colorful characters. That’s one of the things that makes Windsor Terrace so unique. It seemed like they were all over the place. Each block had one. Or, they hung out in the schoolyards; Holy Name, P.S. 154, P.S. 107, P.S. 10, and even Bishop Ford’s schoolyard (remember the wooden track in Ford’s yard?).

Today, we have a guest blogger who we’ll call, ‘The Elusive G’. The Elusive G will give us his recollection of one of my all-time favorites. This guy loved basketball. He was a huge fan of the half-court game. I don’t think I ever saw this guy play full-court in my life.

My first encounter with Frankie Coles was when I was a freshman in high school. A lot of us would play hoops in PS 154 schoolyard after school. One day this odd looking bald man comes into the schoolyard with a bag that looked like an old Holy Name schoolbag filled with all sorts of balls) Spaldings, etc.)

He looked like Frank Gorshen who played “The Riddler” from the old Batman series. We started to play one on one each day in March in the PS 154 schoolyard for my high school basketball season was over and the weather was heating up and playing outdoors was tolerable.

I would walk home from school at around 2:35 pm and I would hear this whistle from down the street. It was Frankie Coles outside the schoolyard on Sherman St. standing on his tippy toes with his fists clenched over his head (like Rocky on the steps in Philly). I would get dressed and get set to go one on one with “The Ace”. We would play one on one up to 21 points straight. Frankie would do peculiar things such as cut out the tongues of his sneakers. He said that the tongues bothered him. He was a lefty that could not go to his right. His favorite move was the reverse lay-up around the pole. I would have the lead up until the end. Frankie would get so upset that he would scream “f***” and throw the ball against the fence each time something went wrong in the game for him. I was afraid that this guy was going to snap one day so I would hold back and let him win at the end sometimes. If he won then he was fine and he calmed down.

He got the name “The Ace” from Frankie Pusiglia. The Ace loved Chuck Berry and would do the Chuck Berry strut for us. His favorite player was Jerry West. We would all pick another guard like Oscar Robertson, Walt Frazier, Pistol Pete Maravich, and Earl the Pearl and say they were better than West and tease him and shout him down when he disagreed. It was all orchestrated just before Frankie walked into the yard. This would infuriate Frankie to no end! He would push us around but never hit us for he was in his thirties and we were sixteen.

My mother could never get his name right. She used to call him “The Chief”. One day after playing against Frankie in the schoolyard I came home for dinner and my mother noticed that I had blue stains all over my shirt and shorts. I later found out that Frankie used to put shoe polish in his hair to hide his bald spot on his head. It was even more difficult to guard him on the hot days when the temperatures were high for he sweated even more. I started to look like The Blue Man Group.

Basketball was not his only sport. He loved stickball especially “swift”. (That is pitching in to the strike box on the wall should any yuppies be reading this!) He carried the balls and the bat. We played this once in awhile. He carried a Manhattan Special black and white notebook that kept track of his home runs. He would have a competition against the MLB players such as Bench and Yaz. We would ask him and he would tell you something like he had 35 hrs and was two ahead of Stargell and one behind McCovey. His home field was the parking lot at Bishop Ford. Lord knows how many windows he put out in the Chapel!

Frankie would call me “Blondie” and would imitate Eli Wallach in those Clint Eastwood movies. Although he was an odd fellow he had a heart of gold and always looked out for the younger kids in the neighborhood. There’s a story that Holy Name once had a game out in Bay Ridge at O.L.A. The story goes that there was a huge crowd waiting outside for the HN team right after the game for a potential fight was brewing. The Ace was there and came out of no where and chased the crowd down the street and around Bay Ridge. Those people are probably still traumatized to this day seeing this guy chasing after them!!

In the future I will write about Frankie’s jumping abilities. He would read books on “jumping” over at the library at Grand Army Plaza. Neighborhood guys would raise money and dare him to jump off of things. He would jump off of the The Alamo (which is the area on 19th street that has the card tables and sandbox) down on to the Prospect Expressway. Guys like John Corrar would gather up $$ and dare him to do it and Frankie never disappointed! One night he even rang the bell at 1 AM of the house adjacent to the Windsor Lot and asked the owner if he could jump off his roof. I could imagine the expression of this person’s face when asked that question by “The Ace” in the middle of the night!

Frankie passed away in the early 80’s after suffering a blow to the head as a result from a fight. I miss those days playing against him and laughing with my friends in the school yard when life was less complicated. May God rest Frankie Coles’ soul.

The Ace was one of a kind. I had many games against him. He never took it easy on me. As I got older though, I was able to have more success against him. I recall beating him for the first time and after I hit the game winning shot, he argued that I had a travelled.

Ace hated to lose…