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Warren Bratter’s (1/60) trilogy on summers at Bradley Beach is finalized here:
Going to the Boardwalk also gave continued impetus to my fascination with the Yiddish language and the stimulus for my later adult life-long career as a foreign language university professor. My maternal grandmother, who would sometimes accompany us to Bradley, would always tell me that she was going to go shpatziren (strolling) with one of her vayblekh fraynd (female friend) from the “Ostropolier Society (a Newark club for immigrants from the same Lithuanian town). Then in the same breath lovingly, tell me that my momzer (bastards, but colloquially an affectionate term for clever or witty young man) friends should dress better when we were out together in public on the “Budwok.”
Walking the distance on the Boardwalk from Bradley to Asbury (except on Sundays when Ocean Grove closed its section of the ocean front passageway) was a rite of passage for me and my Weequahic clan. We learned how to fit in with the rougher Asbury Park/Deal crowd at the Asbury Pier. It was here, as we walked out onto the pier, where it felt as if we were in international waters and the rules on land did not apply. This meant we could listen and watch but not participate as kids from other towns mamboing to Perez Prado’s “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White” or “do the fish” while barely moving to Frankie Avalon and the Platters’ tunes. The Boardwalk gave us Weequahicers both a sense of both the familiar and the unfamiliar, allowing us to try out and import new styles of dress, dance and vocabulary to take back home after the summer ended.
However, in spite of the Hotel LaReine’s moneyed clientele, there was a kind of beach-wealth leveling mechanism that characterized Bradley Beach. No one went to the beach dressed in a manner which would separate a lower middle-class family from an upper-class family. Umbrella size didn’t matter. Beach blankets did not display designer insignias or reveal personal income. No beach chair, if you had one, suggested affluence. Even the sand encrusted, wax paper wrapped sandwiches did not announce one’s income tax bracket.
Like our Weequahic neighborhood, Bradley Beach was a small village, a place out of time a place of comfort and of growing personal freedom and selfdom. To complete that sense of neighborhood familiarity, Bradley Beach had a Syd’s. Syd Goldstein, the original owner of our Chancellor Avenue center of social gravity, sold his eponymous restaurant to my father Harry’s brother Morty in 1947. Then, the original Syd opened his summer-only version of Syd’s on Ocean Avenue between LaReine and Brinley where the Holy Trinity of a dog, fries and a Coke pulled us in to schmooze and “BS.”
Even today, almost sixty years after my last Bradley Beach summer, these memories return as gently and ceaselessly as Brinley Beach’s Ocean waves at ebb tide. I can still remember that last summer day in Bradley. Standing there at the water’s edge with some of my fellow Weequahicers, we could all feel the waves foaming up over our toes, the pull of the incoming tide reaching up to our ankles. We all knew, felt, and acknowledged another pull, the one tugging at our hearts. College and the adult world were gently pulling us away from what would probably be our last summer here together. Without saying anything, we knew how much we always looked forward to returning to Bradley Beach each summer; to this eternal world of our innocence but now our budding hoped-for adulthood was about to begin. Warren
W-memories last forever:
Alan Ginter (64/65)
Regarding Marvin Feinblatt of Indian Pizzeria fame, I was vaguely related to Marv through a cousin's marriage or something like that. It was always vague in my young mind but Marv would let me know every time we went in there that we were "cousins". My favorite Indian Pizzeria story, circa 1963, when Weequahic Principal, Benjamin Epstein, came in and told Marv that he wanted the names of any student who was smoking in or near the Indian. The story that spread was that Marv told him “NO” in no uncertain terms and threw Mr. Epstein out. I was always in trouble with Epstein, so I really wanted that story to be true. That's the one I've been using ever since and I'm sticking with it.
Margie's on Schley and Chancellor also had a book lending library in front of the phone booth. And in the very back was a rack of greeting cards. The Duncan Yo-Yo contest was held on Schley next to Margie's. We used to play Aces/Asses Up and Johnny-On-The-Pony against the wall across Schley from Margie's where the 6 Crosstown would stop. The driver would go into Margie's for a break, leaving the engine running. Because I was usually playing with my older brother, Freddy (6/61) and his friends, I was the smallest. So, when the ball would go under the bus, I was the one who had to scramble under the bus before the ball went into the sewer. It was a tough job but somebody had to do it.
The vacant lot in back of Margie's would constitute an entire story by itself. In front, on the Chancellor side of Margie's, were a large scale where you got your weight and a fortune for a penny (I think) and a pistachio nut machine. For a nickel you got a handful of red pistachio nuts that stained your hands red. Until I moved to California in 1977, I thought all pistachio nuts were red (admit it--some of you did, also). That scale was a perfect place to sit on a Friday or Saturday night to watch the cars go by, think of a Paul Anka song and wonder why I didn't have a girlfriend. Not that I would have known what to do with one if I had one.
Margie's was where my brother and I got busted for smoking. Next to the apartment house where Stewie Bitterman (1/61), Howie Ellenport, Herbie Rabinowitz and a few others lived (sorry if I forgot anyone) and across Schley from the lot was a small alleyway we used as a short cut from the courtyard to the parking lot behind Halem's. In that alley, Freddy and his friends introduced me to smoking. Being the youngest, and thereby the least suspicious, they sent me in to Margie's to buy cigarettes. This was not unusual because back then we were able to buy cigarettes for our parents regardless of our age (another "imagine that now" moment). Of course, I bought the cheapest ones. Later, when our father went in, Irv Blume asked him if he had changed brands because I had come in earlier and bought a different brand.
If you were out late enough, after cigar chomping Jack Unger closed up Margie's for the night, the bundles of morning papers would land with a thud on the sidewalk, thrown from the truck. We would pick up the bundles by the wire that bound them and move them to the front door of Margie's just to be nice. We all owe a great debt of gratitude to this newsletter playing a significant role keeping all of us and our memories together. Alan
Myron Borden (1/52)
The latest editions of the “WHS Note” included so many familiar names from the 1950s and 60s that I have to add my memories also. I remember Sammy the Bum who lived in the basement of Keil's Bakery because my mother used to send me there with some of our dinner leftovers. During the 1950's, we lived on the third floor of 343 Hawthorne Avenue above Harrison's Fishery and two doors away from the bakery. I also remember Johnny, the policeman on the motorcycle who was very friendly with everyone.
Andy Zupko and another lineman on our football team named Giordano would always be cursed by opposing lineman as “#x@*! Jews.” Of course, they weren't, but they thought that everyone at Weequahic had to be Jewish. I played in a championship basketball game at Ivy Street Playground gym in 1955 along with Arty (6/54) and Calvin Drucks, Merwin Feinsot 2/53) and the great Alvin Attles. By the way, at 6'2" and playing at forward on Weequahic's team, Alvin set a school record of 38 rebounds in one game. We were all in the car that drove him home on Bergen Street.
The basketball leagues at the Hawthorne Playground Gym, organized by Max Yaney, had a great many future basketball stars at Weequahic including Al Lubetkin (1/52) and his brother “Tudy” (Charles, 6/49) and a host of others. Al was so good that he was put on the varsity team as a freshman and while he was still at the Annex. He was a neighbor and friend of mine when we were six years old and lived on Homestead Park. We were located around the corner from the famed Cohen's Knishes and Silver's Bakery. Those names should bring out a great deal of memories to our readers. Marvin
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