Wes K.
Yelp
Born and raised at 76 Interboro Parkway-Vermont Street (now Jackie Robinson Pkwy), 1941 to 1962, the third house from the park entrance. A wonderful place to be - playgrounds with the steel monkey bars, ball fields, bicycling and my favorite, the handball courts in the lower park below Highland Blvd. My grandparents, Charles and Elsie Kent, built a home down Vermont Street, before the curve, in 1921. Lived in the tar covered basement until the money was available to complete the building.
There was pharmacy and neighborhood grocery on Vermont St. The pharmacy closed up after WWII but the grocery stayed open until the mid 1950's. Google maps shows the building is still there. The neighborhood was a mix of many different nationalities, Scotch, Irish, German, and Itilian to name a few.. We had two black families, both MD's. Growing up in this environment, it was and is difficult to understand bigotory and intolerance. In the 1940's during the hot summer months, my mom took us to the Jamicia Avenue trolly, and on to the East New York subway station. We found refuge in the air conditioned museums in Manhattan.
Walked down the hill under the viaduct, to PS 76 on Wyona Street. Then went on to take the bus to Junior High School PS 171, up past Cyress Avenue. Commuted to Brookly Tech by subway. Walked over the parkway on Bushwick Avenue, to the Black Buick Brooklyn automobile dealership and the old Tromers brewery, to get to and from the East New York subway station. Walking was not a problem - it was just part of life back then. From the street at our house you could see the Bert and Harry advertisement on the roof of the Piel's Brewery on Pennysylvania Avenue.
Lena Horn lived in a large house on Highland Boulevard. Sunday mornings on the way to church, my brother, sister and I would walk past the garden area next to the Horn residence. On occasion we would meet and talk with her son as he was exercising the famy Great Dane. Miller Hill was agreat place to go sledding. We perfect the wipe out at the bottom of the hill to avoid the passing auto traffic on Jamacia Avenue. In my early teens I would bicycle down the side streets paralleling Pennysylvania Avenue, to get to the Canarsie pier. With a ball of string, a safety pin and a supply of bolognia we caught a mess of crabs, and brought the home to my mom's delight.
My bedroom window looked over the backyards of the neighbors on Bulwer Place. In September the Itilian families began stocking the grape boxes near the garages. They would be emptied and pressed in the basements.. My mom and her gal friend and neighbor often shared a glass of great red wine on our back porch,
Before the wet weather of winter us guys would cross the highway and climb the fence into the Cypress Hills Cemetery, returning with great quantities of unexploded fireworks.
Life in East New York was an extraordinary experience. I hope you and many others find Highland Park a great place to explore and enjoy