Over one hundred voices recall, chronicle, and celebrate the Brooklyn of legend.
It Happened in Brooklyn tells the story of mid-century Brooklyn, home of the famed Brooklyn Dodgers, Nathan’s franks, stoop-ball, stickball, and some of the best high schools in America. In this spirited recollection, more than one hundred voices chronicle and celebrate, in tones both humorous and poignant, the borough as it once was: a largely working- and lower-middle-class environment bathed in the optimistic glow of the postwar years. Illustrated with period photographs.
“Throbs with life and affection.” — Publishers Weekly
“Has the genuine flavor of Brooklyn.” — Newsday
“All of us need this beautiful book.” — New York Daily News
“Despite the emphasis on good-time memories—Jackie Robinson, stickball, Coney Island amusements—accounts of red-lining and block-busting close this absorbing evocation.” — Library Journal
Myrna Katz Frommer and Harvey Frommer are the authors of many works of oral history, including It Happened in the Catskills, It Happened on Broadway, and Growing Up Jewish in America. They both teach at Dartmouth College, and they live in Lyme, New Hampshire.
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Voices
2009 Introduction
Prologue: A Future to Behold
Part I. When we were a couple of Kids
1. The Streets were our Sanctuary
2. School Days
3. Look, Ma,I’m Dancing
4. One Big Happy Family
Part II. Living Together
5. Every Customer was a Half-Hour
6. Everybody Knew Everybody Else’s Business
7. From Sweltering Stoop to Shimmering Shore
8. Coney Island
9. One Nation-Under God
10. America’s All
Part III. The Days of Our Glory
11. WhatHigh School did you go to?
12. Hanging Out and Making It
Epilogue: That World is Gone
P.S.
Acknowledgments
Picture Credits
Index
