The Sunday Memory Drawer - A Photo of the Old Neighborhood

It's amazing what you can find on Facebook.   For all the negatives it presents (largely due to the political fights it is provoking), there are some fascinating discoveries.

For instance, I belong to this group called "I Grew Up in Mount Vernon," which is my hometown in Westchester County, New York.  Now, most of the time, the group is posting one photo after another of famous Black people born in that city.  Um, there are some other notable folks who came from there as well.  But I digress...

There are some people in that group who are posting "then and now" photos of Mount Vernon when it was in its more livable days.  Frankly, the downtown area now looks like Berlin after the allies hit in 1945.   The city has been on a slippery slope decline for about thirty years now and all of it due to a series of inept and downright crooked leaders in City Hall.   

But I am welcoming these pictures of old, especially the one above because it was in my direct neighborhood.  I grew up on South Fifteenth Avenue right near the corner of First Street.   This is a photo taken from the corner of South 14th Avenue and First Street.   It looks at First Street but there's also another street in the background.  That would be Pearl Street.

Okay, let's dissect this.   Obviously, this was a trolley that ran from the downtown area of Mount Vernon (Fourth Avenue) to the Bronx Line and the 241st Street Subway station.   Look at the billboard for a Packard car.  Now that auto manufacturer went into business at the turn of the 20th century and effectively produced its last car around 1956 or 1957.  So the photo is definitely before, say, 1955.

It is hard to discern what the building is on the right, but, when I was a kid, it had a Carvel Ice Cream stand and an adjoining parking lot.  It looked a lot like this.  In fact, there is a story I will share again on another Sunday about the day "Candid Camera" came and took over the store for the day.  I digress, again.

Let's now focus on that white house in the background above.  Between that house and the structures on the right was a vacant lot.

Ah, yes, that was our lot.   It belonged to me and my childhood best buddy Leo and his brothers and all the other kids on our block.   It was our summertime home.   There were tall weeds all around it but a dirt patch in the middle that was ideal as our baseball diamond.   A huge boulder to the left of "home plate" was a place to sit while you waited your turn at bat.   If not too New York hot and humid, we played a game in the afternoon.   We'd all go home for dinner and come back around 6:30PM for a second game until it got too dark or the Good Humor truck showed up (usually at 8:45PM every night).   

It was childhood fun on steroids.   So many wonderful memories.   I used to pitch but, because I was one of the tallest kids, I ended up playing first base.  Why?  Because if a wild throw went into the weeds behind first, that particular game might be called due to a lost ball.  

We had our own ground rules in a tight space.   You were not encouraged to hit the ball into the busy traffic of First Street.   Getting it precisely on a sidewalk could get you an automatic double or home run.  There was a Firestone tire story that also provided an outfield wall.  And, of course, you had to worry about a foul line drive to the right because there was that white house.

And, yes, a window there got broken at least once.

To this day, I will never ever forget those days and early nights.  

That was then.

This is now.   Actually a photo I actually snapped a few years ago when I took a ride down the old block.   This is from the corner of South Fifteenth Street and
First Street.

The ice cream stand at the far right has been replaced by a Caribbean super market.  Firestone and its wall still exist.  The townhouse in the center?   That was the lot.   Our baseball field.   And there, on the left, is the historical marker from the photo way at the top.   The ubiquitous white house.

Things changes.  Things stay the same.  Memories never depart.

Dinner last night:  Szechwan beef and shrimp.