In case you haven’t noticed, Brooklyn’s been having a bit of a moment for oh, about the last 15 years. Now that everyone has re-embraced the place your grandparents lived before they fled to the suburbs, PBS is collecting memories, stories and insights about growing up in and living in Brooklyn for a crowdsourced documentary called Brooklyn Best.
What have you done in Brooklyn that you couldn’t do anywhere else? What have you learned? Even if you’ve just briefly visited the borough, PBS wants to hear from you. If you can’t use your words good, they’ll also take pictures and videos, as long as they’re your own personal reflections on Brooklyn. All you need to do is upload your words, pictures or video to the website here, and then you wait to see if your memories made it into the documentary.
This is your chance to help shape the historical record when it comes to Brooklyn, so whether you want to talk about seeing the massive changes that have swept through or you want to talk about falling in lust for a day at Tiki Disco, make sure you get your story told.
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I think I was the only kid who went to the city from the country each summer. Both my parents worked in Central Jersey (Freehold) so they shipped me off to my grandmother and aunts's house on 86th St and 14th Ave, right across from Dyker Park. I spent the summers there for about 5 yrs. My aunt who was a designer in the fashion district took me everywhere. I went to Broadway shows, ate at some of the best restaurants, went to Coney Island and Radio City to see the Rockettes . This was back in the 50's and there were still a few automats in operations which to a country kids was amazing. The pizza on the corner, the candy store, the bakery, the pork store all within walking distance..I remember one Easter we went to midnight Mass at St Bernadetts and all the statues were draped in purple, the alter was surrounded with white lilies and at the stroke of midnight the drapes fell off the statues and a statue of Christ rose from the lilies..what a sight that was for a kid who was about 5 or 6 yrs old, it was breath taking. I remember one particular day I was outside sitting on the "stoop" with no one around to play with and got the bright idea that I would take the bus by myself to Coney Island I think I was about 10. When I got there I walked a short block to Nathans and bought a hot dog and a little brown bag off French fries, I then thought it would be fun to go on the big "wheel", paid the man, got into one of the cages and around we went, until it swung out over the boardwalk. I thought I was going to die. I was so glad when it stopped that I went back to where the buses were and came back to the "stoop". My poor grandmother must have been going crazy wondering where I was..that was my LAST summer in Brooklyn. but I still have the fondest memories of my Aunt and grandmother after all these (60) yrs.