I was born and raised in a section of Brooklyn, New York, where the streets were lined with one-hundred-year-old homes and quaint mom-and-pop shops. The house that my family and I lived in was a large, two-family stucco structure, located at 190 Sheffield Avenue. Although the house was torn down years ago, I will never forget the strange and frightening things that happened to me, there.
One, in particular, comes to mind. As a very young child, I had recurrent dreams of a man, walking through our house and exiting through the wall. It was always the same dream. The atmosphere was gray and the old, disheveled man himself, looked gray and sad as he eerily paced, one, slow step at a time, through my room and out the far wall.
I’d always wake up in a cold sweat after that dream, and feelings of being so close to death, covered me. Then, for a little while, the dreams stopped and I forgot them, until the final dream happened. It was identical to the rest, but something unexplainable followed, the next day.
I was sitting outside on the stairs of our house, gazing up at a beautiful, blue sky and picturing myself in the angel costume I was going to wear that night for Halloween. Our neighborhood was usually quiet but today, something looked different. It was graveyard quiet and the beautiful blue skies had suddenly turned a depressing, marble gray. In that moment, I realized that I was all alone. I looked down the street to see if anyone else was in sight, and that’s when I saw him!
An old, shabby-looking man, dressed in dirty, gray clothes, was slowly walking towards me. He looked straight ahead as he walked, and I almost felt like he didn’t even see me. I kept watching him as he drew closer, and I remembered the dreams. I hoped that he didn’t see me and would just keep walking, the way he always did in my dreams. But this time, it would be different.
I watched him as he crept up to the gate and began to walk parallel to it. When he got to the entrance, his head turned, and our eyes locked. I wanted to run but I was paralyzed with fear. I couldn’t even think. Although it seemed like an hour, I think that only a few seconds had gone by and finally, he turned his stare away from me and he continue walking. At that point, I unfroze and ran into the house and up to the second floor, where we lived. I raced into my room, shutting the door behind me, and tried to calm down.
I never did tell this story to any family member. Maybe I was too young to be able to describe it. But years later, I did discover facts about that house that could have explained some of the strange goings on.
Apparently, the former owner had committed suicide in the back room. He had a wife and several children and, at the time of the house purchase, a pretty good job. But then, he lost his job and couldn’t make the payments. He begged his mortgage holder for more time, but with no avail. Not being able to face eviction, he decided that suicide was the only way out of his troubles.
Many other things occurred in that house, in the twelve years that we lived there, but this one stands out in my mind the most, because I actually saw the ghost and felt his presence.
There is simply no place like New York City. The noise of horns, the people on the streets and the outside vendors–all come together like a wonderful work of art. It can become a bit overwhelming at times, but you definitely get used to it after a while. After the initial phase of jaw dropping awe, you begin to appreciate it like no other place in the world and eventually, some of us are even able to call this wonderful place home.
I was amazed at the beauty of the flowers and the tons of green space available. How could something so tranquil sit amongst all of the noise of New York City? I was thrilled that I would finally have a place like this to call my own. Ever since the first day I visited the Botanic Gardens, I have been going there at least once or twice a month. It provides a sense of peace yet still had a wow factor that you can’t get anywhere out and about the city. There are all kinds of flowers, and trees planted which you could spend an entire day touring. This was such a unique experience for me because I was used to the noise of the city, and to find this place was simply awesome.
Born and raised in Manhattan near the George Washington Bridge, I had never visited Coney Island until I was a young girl. My maternal grandfather’s cousin had settled near the boardwalk there with his family after arriving from Italy in the late Nineteenth Century. He had then helped my grandfather come to America, and the bond between them remained close all their lives. One summer day, my parents and I, along with other family members, were invited to visit them and spend the day at the beach in Coney Island. I was excited and curious, as I had never been to the ocean, only to lakes in New Jersey. After meeting and greeting the family at their home, we headed to the ocean. I vividly recall getting my first whiff of the way the air smelled so cool and salty. I had never smelled salt air before and it was an invigorating experience. There s nothing quite like it to a city girl, in my opinion. I breathed deeply as I mounted the board walk steps and took in my first view of the sandy beach and the ocean. It was actually hard to see the sand because there were so many blankets and striped umbrellas spread over it and it seemed like hordes of people milling about on it. I remember carefully stepping on the few inches of sand between each sunbather s blankets to a place on the beach where we could place our own. I was in awe of the waves that appeared so gigantic compared to my small size. Every once in a while, when the breeze was in the right direction, I got a whiff of something that smelled so delicious but I could not place what it was. As we were leaving that day, I saw a stand on the boardwalk with a machine that seemed to be whirling around as a pink froth appeared from nowhere and the man wound the froth around a cardboard stick. It was cotton candy, of course, and it was my first taste of the boardwalk treat.
I was on a first date in New York City and we decided to go to a restaurant in Brooklyn so we got on the subway in Manhattan to head down to Brooklyn. We knew what stop that we needed to get off at but not how far the stop was. We sat on the subway and waited for our stop to arrive but it turns out that the stop we needed wasn’t operating that night so we decided to just ride the subway all the way to Coney Island. It was late and cold out and when we arrived at Coney Island there was nobody around. We walked around on the board walk for a while and decided to go down and walk on the sand. We stopped at a bench to take our shoes off and then ran down onto the sand to go stand by the water. The city lights across the water and the lights of the rides were beautiful reflected in the water and the sky was so pretty too. We dipped our feet in the freezing water and ran back out laughing and screaming about how cold it was. To warm up we stood there by the water and then hugged then he kissed me. It was the best first date I ever had.
Growing up in Brooklyn, New York had a lot of advantages, and going to Coney Island during the summertime was definitely at the top of my list. From our humble Flatbush neighborhood, we would get in the family car and drive down the tree-lined Ocean Parkway till the very end, where we followed local streets to that magical land of sun, surf, the boardwalk and amusement parks. It was a kid’s version of Utopia. As we got closer to the carnival-type attractions, my heart began to race wildly, as I imagined going home with larger-than-life stuffed animals that I won through the games of skill and chance.
During those hot, summer months, the beach was always packed with city folks who made their way to the ocean to escape the heat of their tiny apartments. I remember how difficult it was to find even the smallest spot on the sand on which to throw my beach towel. It was always shoulder-to-shoulder people, but even though you might not know any of them, the atmosphere was friendly and relaxed. Everyone was always so happy to be at Coney Island on a hot summer afternoon.