Tags
Brooklyn, Container Diaries, Holy Name, IS 88, PS 10, PS 107, PS 154, Saint Saviour, Steve Finamore
I was born on June 7, 1964 in Methodist hospital on 7th avenue and 6th street in Brooklyn, New York.
Mom, me and the Gooch went home from the hospital in a yellow taxi cab that Gooch probably hailed on the corner. When he would try to track down a cab, he had this loud whistle which he used two fingers. I always wanted to whistle like him but he never taught me.
We lived a few blocks away in a brownstone at 665 tenth street between 8th avenue and Prospect Park West.
We had a stoop in front and our bathroom was in the hallway. There were a few trees on the block. The families were cool. I recall the Basile family living down the block closer to 8th avenue.
Prospect Park was up the block, we went there a lot. Mom let us play at the 11th street playground.
A few years later in 1970 we moved to ninth avenue and Windsor Place. (228A Prospect Park West).It was about six blocks away. The place was awful. Five-room, railroad apartment over Bob’s Hardware. In the winters we would go without heat and hot water.
When we moved my older brother was in the fourth grade at Saint Saviour on 8th avenue. Or maybe he was in the fifth? I attended Kindergarten at P.S. 107, also on 8th avenue. My brother transferred to Holy Name after we moved, I began the first grade. We lived across the street from Holy Name. For some strange reason I was always late for school. Mom believed in that catholic school education. I guess we could have attended PS 154’s, PS 10’s or I.S. 88’s? One day a teacher embarrassed the shit out of me in front of my classmates.
“You’re always late Finamore. And you live across the street.”
I’m sure that did a lot for my self-esteem.
Tenth street was a cool block. Wonder how my life would have turned out if we stayed there? I probably would have played basketball for Carl Manco.
Mom once told me we moved because Gooch left us, so we were forced to find a cheaper apartment. Mom had to go out and look for a job too.
“Where’s dad?”
“He found a new family,” she answered.
“Found a new family? Why?”
Mom ignored me.
Those were the days my friend…