The schoolyard had an open gate and two basketball hoops to keep the neighborhood kids busy after school hours.
Leely's neighborhood was typical of the late 1930's in Brooklyn, New York. There was a Chinese laundry, Italian cheese store, a Kosher butcher, and a drug store on the corner. Virtually, every street had a candy store. The storefront synagogue drew the Jewish population.
Midwood Street is where Francy Piccolo lived in a semi-attached two-family building (white door on left) as did Philly Bronson and his friends. At the south corner of Midwood and Albany Avenue, Papa had his butcher store in a market place that was also host to a grocer, fish store and green grocer. Back then, in 1937, the entrance door was centered and the corner window was unblocked and transparent, it’s where Jacob Dorman displayed his chickens and meats on trays over chopped ice.
