Sunday Journal: A dead end on memory lane

By John M. Angelini, Special to the Times
Published November 4, 2007

Years after my return from the Pacific theater during World War II, I developed a nostalgic feeling about my younger days growing up in the Bronx during the Depression.

I wanted to walk past the Catholic Youth Organization building where young kids were able to play indoor games; to visit the sparkling-clean ice cream parlor with its wall-to-wall mirrors that reflected smooth marble counters and tables surrounded by wire-backed chairs.

I wanted to stand in front of the small A&P grocery store where I found a shiny dime that enabled me to buy and contribute an ornament to our class Christmas tree - the very tree I won in a raffle, later carrying the decorated prize home that blustery day, stubbornly refusing help.

I wanted to touch the rough concrete wall where neighborhood kids chose sides and played Johnny-on-the-Pony, to walk the familiar streets where stick ball, box ball, kick-the-can, ring-o-leaveo and other games were played.

I wanted to look down my street where itinerant merchants navigated their horse-drawn wagon trains that clippity-clopped down cobblestone streets. The sound of steel against a foot-pedaled grinding wheel heralded the cutlery honing wagon. Knives, scissors and axes were guided across the spinning stone, producing a shower of sparks like a Fourth of July fireworks display.

Another merchant stood tall in his wagon with his arms outstretched, belting out a phrase like a baritone from an Italian opera. His booming voice echoed up and down the street: "Beya la trippa, beya la trippa!" is how it sounded. He was selling tripe, a staple in an Italian household. Almost in tandem the clothing, shoe, fruit and vegetable wagons were welcomed by plump, aproned Italian women dressed mostly in black, who knew to negotiate a lower price out of necessity.

There followed the street cleaner with his large metal garbage can on wheels and his wide-bristle push broom, who chatted with neighbors between sweeps, every 20 to 30 feet or so.

My favorite was Nick, all 5 feet of him, who refilled ice boxes when tenement dwellers displayed a white card in their windows to signal that ice was needed on the upper floors. His horse-drawn wagon was loaded with huge blocks of ice covered with old rugs and blankets, protection from the summer sun. When Nick lifted a block of ice on his padded shoulder and disappeared into the dark tenement hallway, it was time to hop aboard the wagon's back step and pick off a chunk of ice to quench my thirst and rub my wet hands across my hot face. Nick looked the other way.

And I could never forget Orazio's barbershop, owned by a family friend, where I stopped in to warm up on cold winter days.

I wanted to recapture those innocent moments of childhood, to walk familiar streets and places and to meet friends from the past.

I stood at what was once a familiar corner and scanned my old neighborhood in disbelief. My heart pounded like a sledgehammer.

"No, no, no!" I yelled at no one in this vast and empty space, blurred by tears. I felt cheated by demolition in the name of progress, but it could not erase memorable images that still linger within me.

I never went back.

John M. Angelini, 85, is a painter and writer living in Hudson.

[Last modified November 2, 2007, 18:38:24]