Beginning at the northwest corner and preceding south -- in the first brick house, a family of notably obese immigrant Syrian women who spoke no English; there were no children that I know of and no interactions with other neighbors. The house itself was not unusual but it was fronted by a wrought iron fence and a row of ancient stubbed catalpas which we called "umbrella trees." Next was the house belonging to Dr. Jerry Yurkovsky, our M.D. In retrospect, he was a kind man but a badly-trained, out-of-touch physician. He was also an immigrant -- from Poland, I believe. My father, who rarely spoke badly of anyone, thought that he was OK but that Mrs. Yurkovsky was "a real pill." I only remember her irridescent dyed red hair. Then came the Lampsons, Hubert and Dorothy. He was never seen in daylight but was rumored to own a "yacht"; she was the neighborhood grouch, known to slice in half any errant red "spaldeens" that that might be punched (kids played "punchball" in the street) over her tall privet hedge and into her front yard. While I never questioned this neighborhood orthodoxy, I never saw a sliced spaldeen either. Then came the large Victorian house belonging until about 1950 to the Heidtmanns and then to another family whose name I can't remember but who had a impaired daughter who screamed and screamed at maximum volume at all hours day and night. Next came our immediate neighbors on the south, Mr. and Mrs. Pynn, who lived in a small old wood-shingled structure. The Pynns (did they have given names?) were extremely old, in their 90s I would guess. He was a retired Cornish seaman, believe it or not; she cultivated colorful gladioli in her small backyard garden. Their upstairs tenants were the Rhodins, Thor and Pearl. He was a tall gaunt ancient austere Norwegian whose only known activity was writing letters to local newspapers; she was almost as tall but Jewish and "went to business." They had three children but they were out of the house and too old for me to know them: Thor, jr, Yammie (Hjalmar), and Margeret. Thor was a physicist at Cornell rumored to have worked on the "bomb." I have written about the Rhodins elsewhere. Then came our house, a three-story 1912 Victorian which our family of five occupied the top two floors. The first floor tenants were the Burnets (formerly Bernsteins), Albert and Bessie. He was musician who had retreated to accountancy. There were two sons, the older, Leonard, was troubled, and I now realize, probably gay; he played the sax; the younger son, Henry, had a cleft palate, later corrected by surgery, I believe, and banged on his drums incessantly. To our north were the Carps, who owned a brickyard or building supply business somewhere not in the neighborhood. They were a gloomy Dickensian family. Both of the daughters were nuns who came visiting once a year in their long black robes; the son, hang-dog Eddie, had the demeanor of a jaded funeral attendant. The Carps first act on moving into the house was to erect a tall forbidding chain link fence around the perimeter of their property which annoyed my father no end. Proceeding south, the next house was occupied by the Spollens, an immigrant Irish family who seemed to produce a new child every year. My memory is hazy about the south end of the street, under grand old elms until they fell victim to the Dutch blight, except that in one of the houses dwelt two tired bony sisters, perhaps twins, who every Sunday, trudged down 9th Street and past 18th Avenue to one of our neighborhood's numerous under-attended Protestant churches. They had a splendid garden of hollyhocks. Also at that end of the street lived, Mr. Mennino, who shared his personal variety of cucumber seeds with my father. At the very end of the block lived the dog-faced man..
On the other side of the street was an Italian family named Cocito, pronounced American'ly, ko-see-to. When Junior Cocito (perhaps he had a name, but everyone called him Junior) grew up and married, he bought the house next door to his father's. Then next, coming closer to us, were the Cunninghams. Mr. Cunningham was a large imposing firefighter; there was at least one daughter and two sons, Jimmy and Billy. Billy was our only celebrity; he became rich and famous as the "Kangaroo Kid"; he also played first base on my younger brother's baseball team. After the Cunninghams was another house of semi-mystery, occupied by an unfriendly family whose last name was Harris. I believe my mother told me that Mr. Harris was a school principal. There was a shapely daughter a year or so older than I whom I admired from a distance. She (Betty) married at 16 or 17 ("shotgun," I was told), and disappeared -- as did the family. Then came the Burkes, directly across the street from us. There were two sons, Charley, a genuine dolt and high school dropout who became an armed guard for Wells Fargo, and lanky John, who was studying for the priesthood. There was also an uncle or cousin who lived with them and who spent every weekend waxing and noisily buffing his big new DeSoto. Then came the house occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Taranto along with their ancient father who spent all day every day watching the traffic from the oversize glider on the porch. There was an older daughter, Madeleine, whom I didn't know, and a son, Frankie, a bachelor, a contemporary of my older brother Eugene, who later found work in the U.S. post office and who, when I investigated a few years ago, still -- eighty years later -- lived in his childhood home. I once heard a rumor that Frankie visited the Oak Hotel (our neighborhood brothel) every Friday. A true rumor? Dunno. Upstairs from the Tarantos dwelt the Meinekes, Charlie and Tessie. He was a butcher; she was "at home." There was a rather sad ungainly but harmless daughter just my age, Charlotte, who dropped out of school early. I hope she a good life but I wonder. Next northward was another mystery house, probably a rental; for a year it was occupied by the Tebbets family. There was an attractive mid-twenties daughter whom my older brother and his peers admired no end, and a son, Lee, whom twenty years later I encountered in Vermont where he gave me an envelope of blue corn seeds (which I never planted). And then came the Constantino household. The father was a shoemaker, I believe. There were three children, Frankie, a terrific athlete; Regina, a beauty, and Carly, who dyed his hair henna and moved to Greenwich Village. There were two or three more houses at that end of the street, but I'm vague about them. Sorry, don't remember; too far away. The name Ortner comes to mind. Mystery houses.
Even though I lived on the street for my entire childhood until I left for college, I never entered a single house, nor did any of the neighbors ever enter ours. It wasn't that kind of neighborhood. Or perhaps we weren't that sort of people.
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