Street Talk

On East 9th Street, and probably in other parts of Brooklyn, a manhole cover was called a "sewer." I don't know why. Ignorance, perhaps. As far as I know, manhole covers provided entrance to electrical work and other utilities, not to watercourses. Openings to the sewers that were located along the channel next to the curb were also called sewers. A sewer was also a unit of distance. "He can hit a spaldeen three sewers." It was not a scientifically accurate form of measurement.  

A "gutter" is in most parts of the country a channel for water. On East 9th Street, the word "gutter" referred to the street's entire asphalted area, not just the area near the curb. "Hey, kids, keep out of the gutter. You'll get hurt."

"Stoop" referred to the stairs leading up to the porch. In "stoop ball," you throw your spaldeen at the stoop and catch it on the rebound.  Five points for a grounder, ten points for a fly ball, twenty points for a "pointer."

I don't think there was a specific name for what is here called the "park front area"-- the space between the sidewalk and the curb.  Nor a word for "curb cut." which was considered, linguistically, as a section of a driveway.

East 9th Street had a wonderful tree canopy. In retrospect, I can identify and recall a very large sycamore and a series of Norway maples, but the only trees that had names were a trio of huge old elms which were called "Mickey's trees." I have no idea why they were so called nor do I know who was this Mickey of famous memory. The elms were cut down in the late 40s (Dutch elm disease) --  a tremendous loss to East 9th Street. 

Comments

[Don Z. Block]

Yes, manhole covers were called sewers, and we measured stickball and punchball prowess by the number of sewers the ball covered. Our big games of punchball were played on East 9th Street and Avenue H. It was an avenue that Mrs. Ennis lived on, and some of us dreamed of hitting her with a spauldeen as she walked home. Another famous educator who took that route home was the immortal foreign language teacher in Midwood, Mr. Friedland, who had the build of a sumo wrestler with no neck. He was not someone you would want to assault with a spauldeen. Home plate was a sewer at the halfway point on 9th between the railroad tracks and Avenue H.The next sewer was in the middle of the four-way intersection of H and 9th. The longest shot I ever hit in punchball was past the H sewer out to right field 4 1/2 stories up the apartment house known as 901 Avenue H on the other side of the street. The longest shot I have ever seen was hit by Monte Spellman, who played running back for Midwood. He hit the sixth floor. Like Mantle's shot that almost left the old Yankee Stadium, Monte's appeared to be heading for the roof. It didn't quite make it. Punchball was a great game. Those pink spauldeens were alive and wonderful. Oh the catches we made. Oh the windows we broke.