There was only one way to describe Brownsville Brooklyn in the 1960's and 1970's.
It was a shithole.
There were some good people living there for sure. Hard working church goers. But there was a lot of shit too. Junkies. Flunkies. Criminals. They pushed the hardworking people out. Often the slumlords would put junkies in a building to force the legitimate tenants out of their rent controlled apartments. Or they would burn them out.
Anyway you want to slice it the interaction between the fireman and the residents of the shithole were destined to be a huge culture shock. You had the sons of recent immigrants from Ireland and Italy who were solidly middle class with families in the white neighborhoods interacting with drug addled criminals. So hilarity ensued.
One time 283 was called to a tenement fire on Utica Avenue. It was a big apartment building and they had to go from door to door to make sure everyone left before the fire got too hot for them to exit via the stairwell. You didn't want to take dozens of people out on ladders. That was very dangerous for both the tenants and the fireman. Really left as a last resort.
Dad pounds on the door and this bleary eyed brother opens the door in his skivvies. Dad says "Let's go Willie the house is on fire and you got to get your ass out of here." He notices that there is a crib in the room with an infant in it. No woman so who knows what the story is there. Anyway the dude goes "Shit I got to get my shit."
He walks over and starts to unplug his big ass stereo out of the wall. Ignoring the baby squalling in the crib. After he finish unplugging it he picks it up off the dresser.
Dad goes "Here let me help you with that." The guy is pissing his pants because now he can take the speakers.
Dad takes the stereo.
He throws it out the window.
Then he picks up the baby and leaves.
Willie was damn lucky that he didn't follow the Pioneer Stereo out the fuckin' window."
You can't judge. But a scorpion is a scorpion.
4 comments:
Back then, good chance the guys name was Willie. Now, there are no Willie's, just Deion and Trayvon, DeMarcus, etc.
Willie was what all the guys called the native back in the day. They had their own lingo
Like when they were describing someone and they didn't want to be specific because the wives or kids might be listening they used code words. Canadians. Weasels.Or better yet they would put there palm at the top of their head and would bring it down over their face. Like a shade.
You can figure that one out.
Something hit me as I read the post. I remember Flatbush in the mid-50s from several Dodger games my father took me to.
I just wonder how much of the decay (I know, the New Dealers and the social engineers, etc.) can be laid at the feet of one Walter O'Malley.
Just sayin'.
(I heard that someplace)
The thing that's so sad is that before the schvartzes destroyed it Pitkin Avenue (Brownsville's main drag) was like the Broadway of Brooklyn. Well, one of the Broadways. The restaurant I was taken to as a a kid was called Jack Fisher's Little Oriental and it was on Pitkin Avenue. The Oriental part was a reference to Rumania, not the far east. The place never changed. That was the whole draw. You knew exactly what you were going to be served before you walked in. They always destroyed the chicken. Boiled it till it was tasteless.
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