Photo Gallery: 63rd Drive
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Probably no intersection on earth
was more central to my childhood than this one. Of course, that
status is mostly due to the presence of venerable 1928 vintage
PS 139 unseen above to the left and seen below all over. For
those of you from a British educational persuasion, the PS stands
here for public school and what you would call a state school.
The top view looks south towards Wetherole Street, named for
a man named Wetherole, possibly the only such individual in creation,
not to be confused with Pepsico's Weatherall, or CMGI's Wetherell,
or should he be? Two of my closest friends dating from the 1970's
grew up in the two apartment houses in the background. Alot of
stores in this neighborhood have changed throughout the years,
especially with the heavy Asian, mostly Chinese immigrant influx,
as exemplified by the Hantown Supermarket. Some, however, go
way back to before my own birth in 1958, albeit with a name change
here and there, like Sachal's Hardware, formerly Booth Hardware,
which sold everyone their drycell batteries, flame shaped chandelier
bulbs and handtools eons before Home Depot was even in anyone's
imagination. Other ancient store-vivors have made themselves
Y2K-brick-and-mortar style compliant with spiffy new awning-style
signs, like the eternal 63rd Gallery Frame store, which I believe
is 2nd or 3rd from the Wetherole corner. Sandwiched between Sachal
and the optical shop there used to be Tribowl Bowling Alley,
which brooded in the cellar and had stoneage wooden lanes with
a definite tilt towards the right. The Wetherole corner spot
has seen a number of businesses over the years, but the two looming
large in my memories are the Pizza Drive, which sported a Pepsi
sponsored sign and was the subject of a second grade diarama
by me, and a Falafel joint which replaced it around 1970, and
became the initiation for many of us into Israeli and Middle
Eastern fare. The officer above was probably a traffic agent or security guard; I can't remember. NYC traffic agents are usually called, not without a touch of derision, "brownies", because their uniforms and cars used to be brown. Now they are closer to normal cop blue, but the apellation persists. My first glimpse of a police action occured on this corner in 1966 when a tall blond guy with what was then long hippyish hair cut Beatles style, was arrested, for what I don't know. I remember him trying to explain something to the cop before being rather roughly shoved into a squad car. How apropo that someone at least appearing like a peace officer should be standing right on that spot as I shot these scenes in late May 2000. |
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The main building of what is now
a veritable complex making up PS 139, was one of dozens of similar
looking cookie cutter schools put up in the last years of the
roaring 20's. (For those of you accessing this 20 years from
now, that was the 1920's, not the 2020's!) Back then, all us
kids knew the school janitor from the earliest grade. Nobody
worried then about little kids interacting with the help, and
I'm happy to say, at least for me, we didn't need to, at least
not there. His name was John. I don't think any of us knew his
last name, and nobody made us call him by that. He was probably
the only adult I addressed by first name back then. We were always
running into him on the stairs. The mysterious cellar of the
school was his domain and any kid who ever got to see it would
have been envied greatly. I wonder what John would have thought
of the Forest Green paint job foisted upon 139's hapless windows
recently. The 1990's suffered from a Forest Green craze that
I blame squarely on Al Gore and his environ-mentalism. What can
I say? Even I ended up buying a Forest Green car. The two story annex up Booth Street used to be one story when I went there. The addition must have gone up in the last few years. Back then, it housed the kindergarten. I remember at age five one day going to use the toilet and seeing a paper clip in the bowl. What can I say; this is what I remember of kindergarten. I wish I forget my 1st grade memories. I will leave the less pleasant teachers unnamed, but I had an old witch who looked like Simon Bar-Sinister of Underdog. She was truly a witch, but that's witch with a W. The battleaxe across the hall was even worse; replace the W in Witch with a capital B for her! She had this humongous Marge Simpson beehive hairdo that survived well into the 1970's, and I was in 1st grade in 1964! In fact, I'm convinced that Mrs. T's beehive still survives to this day. It was the source of her evil. We used to joke that she washed it in mayonaise. It formed half her total height and at least a third of her weight. My witch yelled some, but was more biting, sarcastic, intimidating and just generally nasty and a terrible first experience in education for an average five or six year old. But Mrs. T across the hall? Well she was a trip to another universe altogether. When she screamed, and boy did she have pipes in her thin little body, I swear you could hear her in California! No, she didn't actually scream; she actually screeched! Shrieked at the top of the decibel range. Steel girders could snap from her voice. She probably even scared our old crone. Both of them were also quite free with their hands, despite an NYC Board of Ed ban on corporal punishment the year I entered the school. Back then, parents didn't rush to sue, and in fact most would have egged the teachers on, or even been as scared of them as were their kids. Not a few parents in the neighborhood had those same teachers only a couple of decades earlier and doubtless remained intimidated by them. Now, of course, a parent will sue if their kid doesn't get an A, let alone getting smacked, and if the parent doesn't, the kid will. These two ancient harpies weren't the only ones. I had an absolute doll for 2nd grade. I'll name her because she deserves the recognition; a redhead named Mrs. Thompson. She was just a plain lovely person. She could have been any of our grandmothers although she was probably still in her forties then. To a seven year old, everyone looks alot older. She was everything a teacher of very young kids should be, and more. Of course, wine must always be followed by vinegar. My third grade teacher, who was destined to have my sister at her mercilessness five years later, liked to box ears. Does anyone box ears anymore? Her hand also made occasional contact with backsides. Where oh where was the Boulevard of Death when we needed it? My fourth and sixth grade teachers were my first young chicks and both were hot, stacked and mini skirted, and the crush of fourth grade turned into the lust of sixth. Neither, however, was the nicest of human beings at times, and our wicked rumors about the fourth grade teacher going out with one of her trollish colleagues existed more out of malice than sexual curiosity. By sixth grade, at the height of VietNam, we were even more sophisticated and took to calling the sixth grade teacher a Fascist behind her back, which was always a pleasure to look at. Today, I can understand that their frequent bitchiness was probably due in large part to the female gender's monthly buddy, and to some extent by their youth. They really weren't much older than we were. At least they kept their hands to themselves...although in retrospect, those were two situations where I think at least us guys would have eagerly accepted a spanking, especially an OTK job. Drat, where's an abusive nature when you need one. Both are probably only in their early or mid fifties now. I hope both are well and if they ever recognize themselves here, to not hold it against me that I thought of them as both hot bodied and occasionally hot tempered. |
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Across 63rd Drive from 139 was perhaps
the icon of all neighborhood hangouts; Phil's Hot Corner. It
dated in that incarnation from around 1969 and survives to this
day, albeit minus most of its letters. Come on guys; buy a new
bloody sign! The luncheonette/candy store that preceded it was
run by an old guy who always reminded me of the Three Stooges'
Moe Howard, and not just because of his looks. Why is it that
old people who's very livelihood depends so heavily on kids act
the meanest towards them? Booth Street is one way for much of
its length, but that one way section used to go in the opposite
direction. Around 1970 or so, they rerouted it eastward. The
bus shelter halfway down the block was still science fiction
in the 1960's. Although known in the parlance of the region as
primarily a Candy store, every inch of Phil's available window
space is covered by cigarette ads. When the old castiron box
traffic lights were ditched in 1966 in favor of the present guy-wired
overhead jobs, only Booth Street pedestrians had the benefit
of Don't Walk signals. Not until many years later were signals
added for the 63rd Drivesters. The white clapboard church with
the pale green cupola down by Wetherole Street is from the ages.
Way back when, it was a Lutheran congregation. Now, it serves
more varied congregations from more parts of the Christian realm,
than Queens has neighborhoods. Many churches in changing neighborhoods
have had to become like Multiplex houses of worship in order
to survive...and why not? There's a service available there for
just about anybody I suppose, and in a neighborhood not graced
with many churches, I'm sure this house of worship thrives, as
do its parishioners. Golden Star Realty has to be the most bizarre of all Rego Park businesses. The Golden Star, which sounds like a million Chinese restaurants, actually began life as a most un-Chinese average white-person greasy spoon hamburger joint. It opened in two storefronts when I was in 2nd grade and its 55 cent hamburgers were a truly extravagant expense for someone on my meager allowance then. It was located unseen on the block from where I shot this. It was never known as a palace of culinary delight and by the time I moved away in 1980, it had been reduced to a single storefront, and looked far grimier than ever. THEN CAME THE CHINESE. The business changed hands and before long was the centerpiece of a real estate empire. Today, the greasy spoon is history, but Golden Star lives on and on and on as a realty firm. I guess they liked the name. What can I say; it sounds like something a Chinese person would name a business. |
| Diagonally across from the Hot Corner, we face north, with Death Blvd, the Sears Mall and Park City Apartment Towers in the background. Met Foodmarkets used to just be known at Met Foods. I don't know if they named themselves after the Mets baseball team, or vise versa. Met was the Grover Cleveland of 63rd Drive, giving up this spot for many years to a C-Town, only to eventually take it back. Before the both of them, it was a Bohacks supermarket, and my mom always shopped there, whatever it was called. Though not a poor neighborhood, Rego Park has had alot of 99 cent stores. The food store at the corner betrays a Middle Eastern slant. Among the still considerable Jewish presence here, many hail from not only Russia, but the Muslim Asian areas of the former Soviet Union, and also from Iran. There are also many Hindu Indians and Muslim Pakistanis here. PS 139 used to host Indian movies every Saturday in the auditorium. I'd also mention the Korean element, but they're not known to be bazaar oriented. Anyway, the food store used to be the sporting goods store where many of us got our...well...sporting gear. I also got my first leather bomber jacket there. Remember the bomber jacket craze of the mid 1970's? Next to it used to be a camera store, where I bought a Kodak 110 Instamatic that took some of the oldest shots on my sites. Today, cameras are sold in electronics stores more than camera stores and most camera stores ARE electronics stores if they expect to survive. Hey, I work for one; I ought to know. The other alternative to electronics was specializing in quicky development, and damn if that old camera store still isn't trucking along as a one-hour photo lab, doubtless also selling today's cheapy successors to the Instamatic on the side! Hey, it ain't nowhere the stretch that Golden Star took from restaurant to realty! The next corner north is Saunders Street. No, it is not named after the man who presided over the bankruptcy of Penn Central. I don't know who it was named for, nor do I care! The dark storefront across that corner housed First Federal Savings way back when. I had my 2nd bank account there and got a Wilson basketball for my trouble. It was a lemon; had a perpetual leak and was always dead. Not only couldn't I ever play sports, even my balls couldn't play the damn game! My 1st bank account was directly across the street, with Williamsburgh Savings. We opened accounts there in 2nd grade. Every Tuesday we were supposed to being our deposits to school, but I rarely put anything in to it. Today, they have kids opening brokerage accounts and trading stocks. The most frightening thing is that many do far better than their adult competition. |
| We cross the street again, directly across from both the Hot Corner unseen to the left, and the food bazaar. The Family Fruit Farm was called The Greenery when I was a kid and I went to school with the son of the owner. As you can see, that particular storefront was built around an ancient dutch colonial house that must have once been a farm house way before Rego Park the neighborhood existed. 1920's vintage wood frame houses lined much of Booth Street in back of that until a developer recently started putting up a multistory/family building behind the store. It is clear that the Fruit Farm caters to many nationalities judging from the flurry of fluttering flags lining its roof. Almost every car seen these days is a compact, and its no wonder that they should especially proliferate in Rego Park. The neighborhood was a horror to find a parking spot in, even in the early 60's, let alone today. |
| One last look at this sector, facing north on telephoto. Just past the Fruit Farm on the left was the former home of the infamous Golden Star Restaurant. The store with the fancy yellow, brown and white awning has always been a variety type store. Was called Jalar all the years I was growing up. Still somewhat the era of specialty stores, that was where you bought your aluminum foil pans, window cleaner, mops, big plastic balls and Rubbermaid type stuff. The storefront across Saunders with the big black maw was Williamsburgh Savings. Just past it used to be a McCrory's, which was kind of like the Woolworths which was directly across the Drive. In latter years it has been a Lechters; housewares - not Hannibals! |