My entire childhood happened while I lived at 37 Conselyea Street. I lived there from the age of four until I was fifteen.  The picture on the left below was taken many years later when my daughter, Kimberli, and I took a trip to New York. She wanted to see where I grew up and so did I. We took this picture, but the owners over the decades had changed the house considerably. The picture on the right shows the old stoop and my big baby doll.

Our concrete stoop where the folks sat outside on humid summer nights was gone.
There was nothing growing inside the wrought iron fence where Grandma once had beautiful red-flowering bushes that  bees could not resist. I loved to catch the bees in jars, but always let them go.

Even the house next door where Rosalie Greco lived was gone. It had the definitive stoop for playing stoop ball.  All the kids we hung out with could fit on those steps at one time: Anita Spinelli, Helene Ryan, Rosalie Greco, Johnny Martin, Rocky Tricarico, Ralphie Nunziata; and the ones whose last names have slipped away with the years:  Eddie and Carmela and Cookie.

37 Conselyea Street - I always wondered about the  unusual name. Alan Eckert sent the history of Conselyea.  This photo  was taken years after we moved. The concrete stoop is gone. The Greco house to the right is gone, too. Where do today's kids play stoop ball now? Click here for Pictures from 2014	Grandpa Michael Normandy, me (Priscilla) and my doll on the stoop at 37 Conselyea.
The famous stoop at the Greco house next door. This had the very  best steps for playing stoop ball. We played it by throwing a ball hard, trying to hit the edge of a step so it would bounce high in the air, too far for  your opponent  to catch it without a bounce. That was a run (think home run). If it bounced one or more times before it was caught, that was only a hit.	Crisci's was on the corner of Conselyea  and Lorimer Streets. I saw television for the first time here. After Dad's wake at Orlando Funeral Parlor, the family ate here. In the old days, we would have gone to a relative's house afterward  but everyone had moved from the old neighborhood by then, so we ate at Crisci's. I thought it was a fitting tribute.

The Sidewalks of New York

East Side, West Side, all around the town
The tots play Ring-around-Rosie
London Bridge is Falling Down!

Boys and girls together
Me and Mamie O'Rourke
We tripped the light fantastic on
The sidewalks of New York
 

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