Tag Archives: nostalgia

Nostalgia: The Automat

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New York City / Philadelphia history. Recently, a documentary was made called, The Automat, which was available in several movie theaters scattered here and there as well as various organizations having private showings online which were not easy for everyone to access. You can now, whether you are an Amazon Prime member or not, access the movie and rent or buy it. It is well worth the few dollars. “A charming, fascinating look at one of the first and most unique restaurant chains in America with Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Colin Powell.” Link to Amazon Prime … Continue reading →

273→Husband Journey: A Revisit to “Birthing at Bocuse”

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March 2022 Introduction to an edited, earlier post. This is the cover to a tin of biscuits, purchased at Paul Bocuse’s restaurant in Lyon, à l’Auberge du Pont de Collonges Paul Bocuse. during one of two visits made in the 1980s. In our current attempt to sort through Robert’s never ending collections stashed in the basement, I almost tossed this: I was in a passionate mood to divest, of exorcism of too many possessions, and then I thought, “wait a minute!” Everything I come across is an important, muse-like stimulation, a much needed and coveted reminder of where I have been, … Continue reading →

252.→Husband Journey: Didn’t It Blow Your Mind

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Didn’t It Blow Your Mind The house has been silent for months. There would always be something playing from any and every genre. I needed to go back to the past to get out of the present. To dance like no one was watching. To get that vibe that gave me the chills and sent me flying. So, I was Grazing in the Grass with The Friends of Distinction, and for a moment I was young again. The flashback is thus: I am living on Laconia Avenue in the Bronx. It is a semi-attached house and my neighbors, Anna and … Continue reading →

244.→Husband Journey: Anniversary in a Nursing Home

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  May 30, 2021 45th Wedding Anniversary My day began with coffee and a sign I didn’t sleep well last night, my mind was racing and thinking ahead, bathed in a sea of heart palpitations and high anxiety. Why was I so uncomfortable? I had the visit well planned: I picked up cookies for the staff and cookies (bite sized) for Robert. He loves those chocolate Quadratinis. I picked up a bouquet of flowers for Robert, for next to his bed, and two more bouquets for the staff, for the reception area and for the nurse’s station. People in the … Continue reading →

Validating a Memory: The Neptune Raincoat Company

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  I was thinking about my father: he was a laborer. That’s what my mother said. I never knew what the words meant until later in my childhood, but I understood the memory of an image at a young age. I knew, for years, that my father worked on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, south of where we lived, on East Broadway and Canal Street. Somewhere, down there. I knew that he worked for The Neptune Raincoat Company. I remembered that in my early teens, while I was in Junior High School 104, that my father traveled to Elizabeth, … Continue reading →

The Green Coat

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  Shopping in 1939, before my time: Union Square, Manhattan. S. Klein’s On The Square   I mentioned in another post that I grew up on East 14th Street in Manhattan and that I am admin for a group of over 1200 nostalgic former Stuyvesant Town, Peter Cooper Village kids who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s. This blog post on shopping and the stores in our neighborhood reflects a post series I began on this area: The Automat, Union Square (restaurants and stores). S. Klein article [ And, I just realized, that the author of the article was … Continue reading →

How One Store Can Bring Back Your Childhood

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  I am the admin for a 1200+ member group on Facebook; we are a group of reminiscers of the place where we grew up. Stuyvesant Town. A development, a community, built by The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in the late 1940s, built for the WWII veterans who came home to a housing shortage. So, I am one of 1200+ kids who were lucky enough to have grown up there, despite its faults, and I could name a few, (you might just have to read my book), but for now  I will only share the magic of remembrance, the goodness … Continue reading →

A Visit to The New-York Historical Society Brings Me Back to the 1960s

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Visiting day, on the banks of The Hudson River, the early 1960s, St. George’s Camp. I am on the lower right   A visit to The New-York Historical Society brought back some very specific thoughts and memories. When I attended camp I never realized the history of the river where my camp was located. I had vague knowledge of the Indians who had lived on the shores centuries ago: I found a piece of a jaw on the shore replete with a molar. We would find fossil arrow heads. Small bones. The counselors would take them. There was life here, … Continue reading →

On David Bowie, Mercury in Retrograde, and Vertigo

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  OK, kids, life has been strangely quiet on the mother-front. I think this Mercury in Retrograde has had the opposite effect of the usual; it sometimes brings issues to a head and aids in their solving. SO FAR the only electronic issues I have had were: 1. missing a phone call—a spam call came through while the museum restaurant was calling to offer a table, causing me to miss the call from the restaurant, and 2. one of my Verizon Fi-Os set top boxes got stuck in a flashing light loop indicating it missed an update and tech support … Continue reading →

Song in my Head: Where or When?

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This morning at about 4:00 am, my witching hour, I awakened to this song in my head, my teen years, an earlier, care-free time. My auditory memory was precise, harmony and all. Lately, I’ve been drowning in nostalgia. 1959 is a reoccurring motif in my life, it even appears in my book. I have been here before; but who knows where or when? Better yet–who knows what happened to my album? Dion & The Belmonts .

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Song In My Head Tuesday: The Band

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I switched on PBS the other night and fell into some nostalgic reverie. After that I have been unable to get the song, “It Makes No Difference” out of my head. (see video at 10:42) Call it post-election-funk, or disbelief each time I read the newspaper at the state of this world. I do believe we are going through a strange period in history and I do believe that even knowing and understanding history is not changing anything in the present. So, I pack my mental bags and leave to my sci-fi fantasy world which includes: Westworld, Orphan Black, Game … Continue reading →

NYC Photo Journal: I Guess I’ve Been Busy: BKLYN/OHNY/Kings Theatre, East Midwood

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This is me multitasking: notice how I can take a selfie of my selfies at the same time   So, kids during my hiatus I have been caring for my mother’s issues, caring for my own issues, taking a lot of iPhone photos, doing a little playing: I’ve watched up to Season 5 of Game of Thrones, and everything but the final six or so episodes of Season 7 of Mad Men; I’ll be sorry to see these series end. As for movies; I loved Learning to Drive, I liked 99 Homes, saw a few plays at MTC (Manhattan Theater … Continue reading →

Facebook is George Costanza’s Curse: World’s Collide

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You’ve heard me talk about the Seinfeld episode where George bemoans the crashing of his worlds; how I identify with that. In fact, colliding worlds kept me up last night. Facebook offers the perfect entré to colliding worlds; all you have to do is look up people from your past. Sometimes you find them and sometimes you don’t. If you do, you might find remarkable things, or not so remarkable things. So-and-so became a __________ fill in the blank. You never expected so-and-so to become a doctor; why, he was such a slow wit! And how did SHE become a … Continue reading →

NYC Photo Journal: From 1887 to Modern Times

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Saturday, September 20, 2014   but …   eventually I was at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, for a luncheon, a celebration of alumni and tours of buildings. There had been a terrible fire in a building and the subsequent reconstruction of it was wonderful. A few photos. The fun and interesting thing about this well-renown institution of art and architecture that was founded in 1887, is that a myriad of stray cats live in the boiler room. The cats are cared for, fed, taken to the vet, and adored by students and faculty members, alike. They roam the … Continue reading →

NYC History: Avery Corman: “My Old Neighborhood”

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Author, Avery Corman’s video is a touching look at growing up in the Bronx. Although I grew up in Lower Manhattan, I did live in the Bronx for about seven years. The denizens of each borough have borough-specific memories, yet somehow, the memories are the same. The food, the smells, the buildings, the sounds all echo from place to place. They will forever be different and forever the same. I am drawn to this video even though is is “before my time” and slightly out of phase with my life, but I know the Bronx. I remember the grand movie … Continue reading →

1964, When All Was Fair

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    Welcome to the past: The fiftieth anniversary of the World’s Fair is the background for memories that I will share in a subsequent post. I was a High School student at the time, and the 1964 World’s Fair, housed in Flushing Meadows Park in Queens, was the thrill of every visitor. The fair’s theme was “Peace Through Understanding,” its icon was a 12-story steel model of the Earth called the “Unisphere,” and it ran for two six-month seasons, April 22 – October 18, 1964 and April 21 – October 17, 1965. Admission price for adults (13 and older) … Continue reading →

A Wonderful, Nostalgic New York City Video

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  My friend, K., brought this video to my attention and I sat there for almost a half hour glued to it: I had a bad case of nostalgia. I miss the old simple New York City of my childhood, the young ladies in white gloves and dresses, the young men in suits and ties, the Mamie Eisenhower outfits on mothers. This is one of the kitschiest “tours” of New York City I’ve seen. Of course the young man in the horse drawn carriage on a date was smoking–it seems so passeé. The streets that are now so impossible to … Continue reading →

Part 1: And The Band Played On … a mother’s life, a daughter’s journey

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Mom in her glory days [music will autoplay, turn down the volume if need be while your read] A mother’s life, a daughter’s journey This is my mother. This photo was taken sometime in the 1940’s when glamour was still queen and Hollywood still an influence. She was young, unmarried,  and perhaps still working at the Brooklyn Army Base on 58th St. and First Avenue where she met my father. She worked as a secretary for Colonel McCalister and Captain Price and helped figure out the pay of the soldiers. She recalls that a Private earned $19 per month. In … Continue reading →

New York City Nostalgia: Meet Miss Subways/Exhibit at the New York Transit Museum

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Miss Subways was a beauty contest that was held in New York City from 1941-1976; the winner had her photo and bio posted for a month or two, in the subways. The Miss Subway exhibit is the project of a photographer, Fiona Gardner and a writer, Amy Zimmer, who were intrigued by the photographs that once hung between ads on subway trains; they managed to collect 147 of the original 200 posters and to track down 50 former Miss Subways and interview 41. The project turned into a lesson in history and sociology, not only mapping lives but our culture … Continue reading →