My mom and her dad in 1925 Brooklyn
I love Brooklyn. I love the brownstones and the storefronts and the tiny gardens tucked between buildings. I love eavesdropping on conversations in languages I can’t identify. I love the mix of foods – Halal food trucks next to kosher butchers and Calexico beans and yuppie bistros – cuisine from every corner of the world.
Most of all, I love Brooklyn because my grandchildren live there. Last week, Robby and I were in Brooklyn, hanging out with Josie and Abel during school vacation week. We painted pottery and played Chutes & Ladders and Zingo. We colored and drew and drove trains around the living room floor. There were Shopkins and Lincoln Logs and Legos and extraordinary combinations of all the above. There were parks and playgrounds and Transit Museum; and I can’t leave out the delightful and overpriced (everything in Brooklyn is overpriced to this Easthampton wallet) Curiosity on Court, with climbing wall and playscape and subway station.
I also love Brooklyn because of the ghosts. My family ghosts. Both my parents lived in Brooklyn; they met at Brooklyn College. In the medium days of her Alzheimer’s, my mother used to ask me if I remember the apartment she lived in on Keap Street in Williamsburg, decades before my birth. At sixteen, my dad moved from Manhattan’s lower east side to Bensonhurst with his family; I remember visiting my grandparents in that house. My grandmother was short, and I loved that the kitchen sink was built low enough for me to wash dishes. The el was close-by and the corner store sold tasty penny candies.
Those two Brooklyns – of my parents’ youth and that of my grandchildren – exist many decades apart. But walking those streets last week with Josie and Abel, I felt the company of my family ghosts.
Most of all, I love Brooklyn because my grandchildren live there. Last week, Robby and I were in Brooklyn, hanging out with Josie and Abel during school vacation week. We painted pottery and played Chutes & Ladders and Zingo. We colored and drew and drove trains around the living room floor. There were Shopkins and Lincoln Logs and Legos and extraordinary combinations of all the above. There were parks and playgrounds and Transit Museum; and I can’t leave out the delightful and overpriced (everything in Brooklyn is overpriced to this Easthampton wallet) Curiosity on Court, with climbing wall and playscape and subway station.
I also love Brooklyn because of the ghosts. My family ghosts. Both my parents lived in Brooklyn; they met at Brooklyn College. In the medium days of her Alzheimer’s, my mother used to ask me if I remember the apartment she lived in on Keap Street in Williamsburg, decades before my birth. At sixteen, my dad moved from Manhattan’s lower east side to Bensonhurst with his family; I remember visiting my grandparents in that house. My grandmother was short, and I loved that the kitchen sink was built low enough for me to wash dishes. The el was close-by and the corner store sold tasty penny candies.
Those two Brooklyns – of my parents’ youth and that of my grandchildren – exist many decades apart. But walking those streets last week with Josie and Abel, I felt the company of my family ghosts.