My Many Homes & Haunts

Ex-garage

The demise of our garage   © 2004 Kimberly Stark

All the places listed here are places I have lived, worked, or otherwise frequented. Although today I do not necessarily endorse every organization listed here, in my past I have had some connection to each of them. I do, however, personally endorse every private business listed here, particularly the restaurants.

Bloomfield, New Jersey

Jersey City, New Jersey

The Bronx, New York

Inwood & Washington Heights, New York

Paramus, New Jersey

Yorkville & Upper East Side, New York

Farmingdale, New York

Levittown, New York   The epicenter of inexpensive postwar tract housing in the United States. I lived in a genuine Levitt house for ten months in 1990 and 1991. It had the original forty-year old windows, insulation, and boiler still in place. Needless to say we spent a lot on heating oil that winter.

  • Crescent Plaza shopping center
    •    I worked in this strip mall for two-and-a-half years, in a Waldenbooks & More. The building is now occupied by an Old Navy. There was nothing like it when an ice storm hit and I had to go out and chip away ice (that was inches thick) from the sidewalk and parking lot.

Hicksville, New York

Atlanta, Georgia

Acworth, Georgia

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Flemington, New Jersey

North Bellmore, New York

Lynbrook, New York

St. James, New York

Stony Brook, New York

Lake Ronkonkoma, New York

  • Lake Ronkonkoma County Park   I lived a few blocks from the lake for a while. It was pleasant to walk down to the water and listen to the tiny waves lapping on the shore.

Huntington, New York

  • Cinema Arts Centre
    •     This is one of the only places on Long Island to see non-Hollywood fare on the big screen. I have seen dozens of movies here over the years.
  • Caumsett State Park    This is one of the most glorious parks on Long Island. It is a former estate with forests and a long beachfront. I used to come here while I lived on Long Island to get away from the concrete and strip malls.

Massapequa, New York

  • Neighborhood Network    They have been lobbying for environmental protection and good government on Long Island since 1984. This organization was the brainchild of a friend of mine; I helped him found the organization. They have since moved their offices to Farmingdale, but they were in Massapequa for over twenty years.
  • Krisch's Restaurant & Ice Cream Parlour    They serve good homemade ice cream here. It is a neighborhood landmark. My friend Vinny (the mastermind behind the Neighborhood Network) used to make a hobby of flirting with the waitresses here.
  • Village of Massapequa Park government
  • Town of Oyster Bay government

Bayside, New York   One of my sisters has lived here for many years.

  • Cunningham Park    Parks were often my destinations when I went exploring the City on my bicycle as an adolescent. I used to ride here sometimes to enjoy some greenery after battling with the cars for space on the city streets.

Glendale, New York   One of my sisters lived here for several years.

  • Forest Park    As a young boy, the word "forest" conjured images of this park in my mind. It differed from most city parks in that it was completely dedicated to grass and it contained large stands of trees. The ride on Myrtle Avenue through the park still makes me feel as if I have left the city and entered the country.

Albany, New York

  • State Capitol Building
    •     I actually slept here one night during a blizzard in 1983. A friendly security guard sent myself and my friend on our way, but he gave us the key to his apartment a few blocks away, where we slept the rest of the night. When he got home in the morning he cooked us breakfast.

Oneonta, New York

  • SUNY at Oneonta
    •     I spent less than one semester here, but I met one of my best friends during that time, as well as one of my most colorful former friends.
  • Bresee's
    •     An Oneonta landmark. Independent department stores are dying breed.
  • The Daily Star

Stuyvesant Square, New York

  • Stuyvesant High School Class of 1981
    •   I spent three interesting years at Stuy. My time there was a formative experience and I will forever be grateful to my classmates and most of the teachers there for creating an environment where even a very unhappy teenager such as I was could fit in. After the brutal environment that was junior high school, Stuyvesant was a relief.
  • Stuyvesant High School
    •   They moved it away to Battery Park City, but to me Stuyvesant will always be on East 15th Street.
  • Stuyvesant High School Alumni Association
    •   They do good work keeping alumni connected to each other and to Stuy.
  • Frank McCourt  My favorite teacher at Stuyvesant. I enjoyed his class so much I would often cut my next class so I could stay for a second period of Mr. McCourt's class. In his class, we heard some of the stories he told in Angela's Ashes many years before the book came out. Mr. McCourt made us feel like respected, valued human beings, and that is part of why we loved him. I only wish that 'Tis did not rush through his years at Stuyvesant and make cheap jokes about the competition for grades at the school. The people who took Mr. McCourt's Creative Writing class were not in pursuit of a perfect GPA; we were in pursuit of wisdom. Sometimes we even found some. Some of my best times at Stuyvesant were spent in Room 206 during the sixth (and sometimes seventh and eighth) period each afternoon.
  • StuyCentennial
  • Stuyvesant High School Centennial Committee
  • Ess-a-Bagel  I would eat lunch here frequently while I attended Stuyvesant. They made a good whitefish salad.

Brooklyn, New York

Middle Village, New York

Ridgewood, New York

  • Ridgewood Savings Bank  My second bank account was opened here while I was in the fourth grade. I don't know if banks still sponser programs such as the ones I enjoyed at Maspeth Federal and Ridgewood Savings (where students bring money to deposit into class each week with their bank book), but I believe they were a good idea. I got into the habit of saving early. Coincidentally, I found myself with an account at Ridgewood Savings again in 1992 when they bought Beacon Federal Savings, where I had an account while I lived in Hicksville.
  • Myrtle Avenue El  Sometimes I would take the M train to school while I was in high school. The LL train was closer and a shorter ride, but teenagers will go out of their way to avoid boredom. The presence of the el was to me a sign of truly urban neighborhood.
  • Oasis Theatre  This was the movie theatre closest to our house. It became a roller rink in the late 1970s, but before then it was a place where I saw many movies.
  • Madison Theatre  Another local movie palace. And this was much more of a palace than the Oasis.

Elmhurst, New York

  • Elmwood Theatre  My junior high school graduation ceremony was held here. It was also a favored destination for seeing movies while I was an adolescent. I remember seeing such classics as American Hot Wax and Grease here. We stayed to see Grease twice because we thought it was so good. This incident is a fine example of why fourteen-year-olds should not be given the right to vote.
  • Queens Center Mall  Like the good postwar American family we were, my family made a point of patronizing this mall when it opened. It was the 1970s and the decline of downtown shopping districts had yet to become much of a cause. Of course we still shopped at malls even after it became a cause. This was the convenience of suburbia only three miles away! Even today I still occasionally shop at a mall, despite my support for Main Streets. The Brentano's in this mall was the first bookstore where I spent much time or money. I remember it fondly.

Maspeth, New York

  • Maspeth Federal Savings & Loan Association
    •   My first bank account was opened here while I was in the first grade. Visiting the bank was always fun because they a kid-sized scale replica of a trolley in the bank. My cousin Florence Kuczmarski worked here for many years.
  • I.S. 73 (formerly William Cowper J.H.S. 73).
    •    I can't say that I actually enjoyed much of the time I spent at 73. It was a rather brutal environment, particularly during lunch, gym, and any other time large numbers of students mixed. I did, however, have some good teachers while I was there, such as Mr. Michaels for English, Mr. Mifsud for Earth Science, Mr. Birnbaum for Social Studies, and Mrs. Lovari for English. Mrs. Bonano was also a good advisor to us while I was in the 9th grade.
  • P.S. 153 (Maspeth Elementary School)
    •   Here is where my formal education began. I attended kindergarten at 153 and later came back for the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades. I remember it as being a relatively pleasant environment, certainly more pleasant than either St. Stan's or 73. I had an excellent teacher in the fourth grade: Miss Doman. While I was in her class I was featured in the role of Halbert Stein Stein (the mad scientist) in our class's production of The Lady Who Put Salt in Her Coffee. During the fifth grade Miss Doman recruited me to be the co-host of the school talent show. My career in show business peaked there.
  • St. Stanislaus Kostka School
    •    I attended this school from the first through third grades, and we attended St. Stanislaus Kostka Church until I was about ten years old. Father Daly, one of the priests at St. Stan's, was a close friend of our family.
  • Transfiguration Church
    •    We attended this church later in my childhood, after I stopped attending St. Stan's grammar school. It is a church rooted in the Lithuanian community of Maspeth. As I recall it was a more pleasant church to attend than St. Stan's was.
  • Maspeth Town Hall Community Center
    •    This used to be the precinct house for the NYPD's 104th Precinct. Now it is a community center that hosts arts and cultural programs.
  • Grand Bicycle Center
    •    I rode three different bicycles purchased here. For my ninth birthday I received a gold banana-seat bike from here that was promptly stolen from me by a gang of kids a few days later while I was riding it two blocks from my house. I started saving money for a replacement immediately thereafter and several weeks of cadging pocket change from the adults in my family resulted in me purchasing the same model with coffee can full of coins and bills (my parents and grandparents sped the process of saving along) amounting to approximately fifty dollars. A few years later when I outgrew the old banana-seat bicycle I purchased a nice red Schwinn ten-speed here. It was stolen a few months later, but at least I wasn't riding it at the time.
  • The Maspeth Holders (a.k.a. The Greenpoint Gas Tanks)    Gone, but not forgotten. Strictly speaking these gas tanks were not in Maspeth; they were on Maspeth Avenue in East Williamsburgh, but they were a dominant feature of the skyline in Lower Maspeth.
  • Manhattan Door Corporation   I played handball, tennis, and baseball against the walls of this company's building on 54th Street throughout my youth. Who knows how many of my Spaldeens, tennis balls, baseballs, and softballs ended up on their roof. And by the way, they do make good doors.
  • Swersey's Chocolates   Swersey's building, containing both a factory and a retail store, is on Grand Street (we always called it that despite the fact that in Queens it is called Grand Avenue; my family's Brooklyn roots often showed in such ways) at the foot of 54th Street. A visit to their store was always a pleasure when I was a child.

to be continued...

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© 2004, 2005, 2006 Richard Stark