” Wow, Oomis, you just gave me chills. I don’t know if we were there at the same time, but my family also davened at the Williams Avenue shul and we lived right near Red’s. The barber shop was one off the corner on New Lots Avenue and the bakery was on the corner next to it. There was also a butcher across from Red’s. Yes we also walked to Fortunoffs. Do you remember the New Lots library? Abe Baum did open a store in Queens and I was very good friends with one of his daughters. Yes, I agree, life was SO good there. Ah very sweet memories. “
Fast Forward, we moved out of the neighborhood in December of 1962, so if you were there prior to that, we must have known each other. My dad O”H often davened for the omud, and when I was very little, I sat with him at his table (the first one on the left side, as we came into the Shul.
The butcher shop would be Lehrman’s. We bought from him for all the years we lived on Hinsdale Street. I recall so vividly the night we got the terrible news that his daughter Paula O”H had perished as a result of an electric fire in their home over Shabbos. It was my very first shiva visit to someone, and I was devastated, because Paula was my good friend from Shul, and her last Friday on this earth was especially sad to her, because someone had stolen her brand new wallet. As a child it hurt me that she had cried all day the day before she was nifteres.
They were very fine people.
I frequently went to the library and it was safe for young children to go there by themselves. I was no more than 9 years old at the time.
Did you know Abe Baum’s daughter Henia? If memory serves, we were friends (mostly she and my sister, but I was always included). I cannot for certain recall Abe’s wife’s name,though Rita comes to mind, so maybe that was it.
Rabby Lowy’s children were also my good friends, and often came to my house to play. The only one whose name I recall was Pinchas Elya (as a child I thought it was one long name, “Pinchasellya”). We lived in a home that had a long enclosed, gated alley between my house and the next door neighbors. As a result, we could play outdoors every single day of the year rain or shine, snowy or clear, because the alley ran the entire length of the house. We played handball against that wall all the time, or roller skated down the alley in the dead of winter. As you can imagine, our house was THE meeting house for the entire block of children. And in those days, everyone played together,frum, not frum. They all knew that they could eat in my home, but I would not even take a drink of water in theirs, so it was just best if they played by me. We also had a nice big backyard with a swingset, and lots of room to run around. We had fig trees and a green grape vine, but somehow the grapes never tasted too good to me. I so miss that life.