Send Me Somewhere: Yonkers, Part 2 of 2

Your Pal Glen's Neighborhood 😏

It got pretty “thinky" on me on this leg. Not like nostalgic or weepy or anything. Just weird, and cool, and pretty surreal in that while virtually everything on the face of this neighborhood is different than 50 years ago, the ‘structure’ of it was almost instinctively familiar and I walked around it knowing exactly where everything was or was supposed to be, like I was just there yesterday. Weird, but ‘fun' weird.

Walking up another damn hill 😑...

We're gonna get to her later in this tale 😉...

That's the Polish Community Center, now called something else. To the best of my knowledge, every single event for which you would require a catering hall in the entire history of the maternal side of my family, has been held there. We're not even Polish! 😆

That is 63 Maple St. The building was owned by my maternal grandmother's family, and the store at street level was owned by my maternal grandfather's family going back to the 1920's. Me and my family lived in the top floor right side apartment from 1966-1970.

Inside Grandpa's old store with "Alex", who I just met today. 😄 And I didn't just photobomb him. I told him the story and asked. 😏 Back then it was primarily a butcher shop, but with some fresh produce, canned goods, cold drinks. Now it's a seemingly very well kept bodega with a kitchen. The neighborhood was nowhere near as bad as I expected it to be, which was good to see.

If I'm standing on the corner in front of gramp's old store like I'm at home plate looking at first base, that used to be a real drug store with a soda fountain and all on the corner and a barber shop next to it. Now it's another bodega.

Second base, and I swear this is true 😆, that was a dive bar owned by a midget biker who rode a modified Harley trike. Now it's a teeny weeny 99 cent store.

Third base, that was a liquor store. And it still is. 😏 Used to have a showroom selling pinball machines, bar games, jukeboxes, etc next to it.

In that house over 100 years ago, my maternal great grandparents began raising seven daughters; Adele, Viola (my grandmother), Rose, Marie, Anita, Lucille and Louise. They're all deceased now, but a few branches of the tree still live in Yonkers.

That's Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church. My parents were married there, I was Christened there. Same deal, if the Berardi family needed a Church, it was Mt. Carmel.

They just finished a First Communion mass so there were a lot of people filing in and out...so I filed in. 😏
I waited until everyone was almost out then went up to the priest. Told him the 'story' and asked if I could take a few pics inside. He asked me the name of the priest who Christened me and I told him it was a Fr. Anthony in 1965-66 but that's all I knew. He smiled and said he knew of him, which I suppose is possible because he was there for a really long time, and why would a priest lie to me right in church? 😄 Then he said to hang on and he'd put some lights on for me. This talking to people stuff is way easier than I thought it was gonna be. 😆

Ugh…it just told me this is too long. 😣

Part 2B coming in a minute…