CT Laywer: “So sad to see what has happened to the Beautiful Bronx…”
It will probably bring tears to your eyes if you lived across from the Schiff Center which had been the center of the secular Jewish community in the East Bronx for several decades from after WWI to the 1950s. I’m not sure the Mods will allow a link (below) to a photo of the former Schiff Center today but if not, just google “Jacob Schiff Jewish Center and Bronx” and you will see the photo of a once majestic building with a big sign “El Mundo Super Discount” just below still visible carvings of the shnai luchos with the lions on either side. The paint is peeling off the facade but one can readily visualize what once was the center of secular Jewish life in the Bronx (along with at least a dozen big shuls that are now Evangelical Churches).
P.S. You probably don’t recall an ice cream place (defnitely not cholov yisroel) called Jan’s across from the Paradise Movie Theatre on the Grand Concourse where it was common back then for the MO crowd to go for “dates” on motzi shabbos. I suspect you already had moved on to New Haven by then.
