Our house at 50 Stockholm Street in Bushwick was a nice two-story home that mom and Hiawatha brought to raise our growing family. It's the first house to the left, the brown and white one. We moved into it during the winter of 1969. It was a five bedroom house with a nice basement that me and my brother James played endless games of Skelly in. When we moved in, we were nine siblings deep! We went from Blaine, Dino, Delores, Joanie, James and Renee, then mom and Hiawatha added Paul and Michael to the brood. The first six kids were Samuels, and the last three were Toneys. Or, so it seemed.
We had a funny introduction to Bushwick life. No. Nobody died in front of the house or in the hallway. After we moved all of our property into the house, put the place together, assigning rooms and such, we settled in. We had dinner and fell asleep, tired from all the labor. The following morning, as the snow was falling, Hiawatha went out to clean the snow off of his car. It was gone! As he stood there in shock, I came to the door and saw the tire marks in the snow. The thieves had managed to get into the car, put it in neutral, and just pushed it down the block before hot wiring it and taking off in it. It was a beautiful white and red Chevy Impala. Gone...
He just stood there shaking his head saying, 'They done took my damn car.' Things were tight after the move, and with no car Hiawatha had to commute by subway to his building cleaning job in Manhattan. Mom made arrangements to get all of us into the local schools. I winded up being a student at J.H.S. 111 called the Enrico Fermi Junior High. Enrico Fermi was, guess what? A renown scientist. What were the chances? If angels move people on Earth, was it Sally that moved me to J.H.S. 111 to plug me back into science? I wonder...
My family adjusted to the new neighborhood, and because it was the winter, we didnt immediately start meeting the people living on our block. Hiawatha went to his cleaning job, and mom landed and entry-level job as a computer programmer for IBM in Manhattan, while the rest of us went to school, execpt Blaine. He was the oldest child and he went to work. Dino was a roamer. He did odd jobs here and there and ultimately made the decision to leave home and join the Marine Corps. We worked our way through the winter hoping for Spring to finally break, bringing warmer weather. New York winters have always been and will always be brutally cold. But, there's no stopping Mother Nature. Spring in Bushwick finally came.
As the days grew warmer, the block came alive with activity. It was a classically long Brooklyn block. It took a full 10-15 minutes of walking to get from one end of the block to the other. Soon we starting meeting all of our neighbors. The block had so many nationalities. Puerto-Ricans, Dominicans, Blacks, Irish, Italians, Germans, you name it. And they all got along. Across the street from my house was an extremely Italian family. Watching them from my stoop was like watching scenes out of The God-Father. The heavy set Italian mother across the street had two sons. And just like on television, she would come to her window after making her spaghetti dinner and yell out in Itailan, 'Gasparino! Vincenzo!! Vieni Qui'!Â
I got to make so many friends, some were black, some were white but most of them were Puerto-Rican because Bushwick was a predominantly Spanish hood. It wasnt until I moved to Bushwick that I learned that I liked Spanish food and Spanish music. I picked up speaking Spanish like it was second nature. I would later start dating Spanish girls. Back then, I was mostly a sports boy. I liked playing baseball, and played for The Police Atheletic League. I played basketball with my newfound homeboys. We played stickball and handball all day long. One of my fondest Bushwick memories is whenever we played stickball games against the boys around the corner, The Stanhope Boys or the Stockholm Boys from down the block, these were bitter rivalvies! We despised each other, and the game provided a safe way for us to compete for bragging rights.
We'd challenge each other to weekend games and when game-time came around it was a huge block event. All the neighbors would sit on their stoops or hang out their windows watching the nine inning game or the double-header from up high. Because of it, the block during games felt much like freaking Yankee Stadium! And, if you hit a homerun or a base clearing grand slam homer, the whole block would erupt into screaming your name and cheered as we rounded the bases. It was glorious! I can't think of anything that made a young boy feel such joy. I learned in time that I had some homerun power, and lived to hit the long-ball. Remember this baseball story because there is a reason why baseball was my passion. Back then, I didnt know why though...
I wasnt a party boy or dancer back then. Oh, I loved music, and came from a family of music lovers and record buyers. My mother and Blaine were avid record buyers, so there was always plenty of vinyl around the house, and we kids listened to it every chance we got. But, going out to parties wasn't my cup of tea. Yet, all of that would change in time due to a decision my mother made. My older sister Delores was 18-19 years old and was starting to go out to parties and dances regurlarly in the neighborhood. I never went. She would go out, but mom made her take Joanie along, for observation and reporting. I guess Joanie's reports about Delores's party activities made mom intensify Delores's party supervision. Im sure she heard, 'They dance real close in the dark, with most of the lights out, and the people kiss alot while they dance slow.'
As a result, yours truly became the 'designated' party eye for Delores. So, I started going to these basement and dancehall parties with her. Whenever the guy she was dancing with made his sexually charged moves while slow dancing, they called it 'Grindin,' I would step in and try to break it up as best I could. I was only fifteen. The guys were in their 20s. After the Dj switched up to the faster paced music, I listened to the grooves and breaks and it began to grow on me. I'd stand against the wall while Delores took to the floor as they rocked Earth Wind and Fire, The Jackson 5, The O'jays, all the music you've seen and heard on Soul Train back in the 70's. It all began to take root in me. It wasnt long after that I started to come off the wall to dance. it inexplicably became addicting to me. Soon, I started asking Delores on Wednesday if she was going out on Friday! It eventually became a problem which caused conflict between Hiawatha and me.Â
I started branching off from Delores, heading out to parties and 'sets' on my own thrown by Bushwick dancers who by word of mouth planned parties. There were so many hole in the wall joints blasting music in Bushwick, and they all morphed into full blown Discotheques. Soon, I took on the street name of 'Ace' and became a regular at the discos. Sure, I still played handball, stickball and basketball with all of my homeboys, but Disco became the love of my life, even to this day. I began to dress right, and go out until the break of dawn which Hiawatha hated. As I would head out the door to go party hardy, he'd be at the door saying, 'Be home by eleven.' I'd say, 'Okay,' knowing damn well I was coming back home tomorrow! It became more and more of an issue.
At around this time, Herbert moved from Sheeepehead Bay to Bedford-Stuyvesant, a mile and a half from Bushwick. I began to visit him and Odessa. Herbert became the neighborhood bootlegger, making a killing on weekends, especially on Sundays when the liquor stores where closed. He had a policy. All paper money was his, and all change was mine. So, whenever I'd come over he'd hand me a shitload of coinage which I converted to paper. I was sixteen then, and it wasnt until that summer that I was old enough to get my working papers and take a summer job. But, that changed sure helped me.
This is Annie. The first girl I ever kissed. We were the Romeo & Juliet of Bushwick at a time when racial strife was at an all-time high in the neighborhood. There was a park in Bushwick called Knickerbocker Park. The Italians back then had a strangle-hold on it. The latinos in the neighborhood wanted access to it, they wanted to come into it and play and enjoy it just like the Italians who had been doing for decades. There was an Italian gang called The Golden Guineas who would run people of color out of the park through threats of physical violence. While most street cats weren't all that intimidated by The Golden Guineas, people of color had to think twice about fighting them over the park. They had back up... Serious back up.
At that point in time, and I saw this with my own eyes, the Mafia was very present around this park. I would walk up to the park fence on a weekend as a line of black Cadillac limousines, at least 8-10 deep would pull up. They'd line up right outside the park, and the chauffers would rush out to open the car doors. Bodyguards would get out first, followed by widows dressed all in black from head to toe and as they waited on the curb, The Capos would emerge. They'd come onto the curb surrounded by their bodyguards, with their cashmere ovecoats and their Michael Corleone god-father hats and the entourage would then slowly enter the park. This was pure Mafia!
They would walk up the path to the bocce-ball courts and spend the whole afternoon playing and talking in heavy Italian. This part of Bushwick was super Italian. Sometimes I'd venture into the park for a closer look at these living breathing mobsters. I have to admit, it was beautiful. The widows would talk quietly amongst themselves in Italian, they were solemn and seldom laughed. As the Capos played, their bodyguards slowly walked around the court smoking cigarettes and they were hyper-vigilant. They had to be, a few years later Carmine Galante got wacked on Knickerbocker Avenue two blocks away along with his bodyguard and a business associate. The hit made national headlines. He was shotgun blasted and left to die with his cigar still smoking in his mouth, because he broke the 'no selling heroin' code.Â
As the desire and resentment grew over Knickerbocker Park, I met and fell in love with Annie. She was a frekled-faced redhead, who was from a very Italian family. She taught me how to French kiss, and we would go behind P.S. 123 and make out for 5-6 hours. Once it started to get late, her and her other Italian girlfriends who also were making out with all my Puerto-Rican homeboys would head home. They caught a lot of flack for associating with us, the known enemy. These girls were totally against the racial hate, in fact it only made them want to hang with us even more.Â
It finally came to a head resulting in a three-day war over the park. The latino street gangs united with other people of color cliques and battled it out with The Golden Guineas and the host of Italian-American men in the area. It was a bloody, bust your head open fight that law enforcement had to keep breaking up. The third day it was over. The park got split in half at first, but over time, the Italian community began to move out of the area. A decade or so later, a latina social activist who saw the deterioration of the park due to rampant drug use and drug gangs murdering each other for control, was murdered herself after confronting the dealers. Her name was Maria Hernandez and she was killed by an assassin who shot her through her window igniting an intense anti-drug movement in Bushwick. Because of her personal sacrifice, the park that was fought over and lost to the drug game was re-named after her. Today its called Maria Hernandez Park. Talk about a change of fortunes...
(Annie's best friend 'Judy' and my homeboy 'Willie.' This is the result of our P.S. 123 make out sessions and their response to racial hatred) Over time, we all drifted apart, the P.S. 123 gang of make out bandits. We all went in every life direction known to man. We all had different paths.