I grew up in East New York, very cloe to Brownsville. I davened either at the Williams Avenue Shul (Rabbi Lowy’s shul), sitting quietly next to my Dad O”H until I was a “big girl” and needed to go upstairs to the Ezras Nashim, or later on at the Pennsylvania Avenue Shul, because they had Shabbos groups.
We lived around the corner from Baum’s grocery (his son Abe opened his own branch in Queens, many years later, I think), and around the corner from Red’s toy Store and the local ice cream place. There was a barber shop on the corner down the block and across the street, and we had to wait near it for our school bus to Crown Heights Yeshivah.
We used to walk to Fortunoff’s and Blake Avenue. Wow, I am really getting flooded with memories right now. Life was SO good.