Celebrating Community
On a cloudy November afternoon, a small crowd gathered at the southeast corner of 7th Avenue and 3rd Street in Park Slope for a street naming event. It was the kind of ceremony I suspect Joe Ferris would have liked. Just family members, close friends and political allies. No press, no podium, no seats, no blocked traffic. Bobby Carroll kicked […]
In 1901 the wealthy John J. Snyder Jr., age 38, wed the wealthy Lillian Emma Rich, age 26, daughter of Theodore Washington Rich, the wealthy former trustee of Bixby & Co, a nationally famous shoe polish firm that became insolvent in 1895. Rich was also an officer of the Flatbush Press Co, which soon became insolvent. But Rich remained rich. […]
When we last left the Dukes, patriarch John Jacob Snyder straddled a hardware empire in a once sleepy Flatbush that was now busting its britches. All thanks to technology. Since 1878 the Brighton railroad, created by Flatbush Dutch potentates to feed northern Brooklyn vacationers from Prospect Park southward to the Dutch Masters’ hotel in Brighton Beach, had been chugging into […]
George was surfing the Internet again. Uh oh. “Enright, I’m sick of your memories, I need some Brooklyn history…Wait, here’s something! It says in this 1946 Times obit that John Jacob Snyder was buried in Green-Wood as the ‘Mayor of Flatbush’ but I never heard of him. See what you can dig up!” “George, if you want some grave-digging, that’ll […]
I first met Roberto “Robby” Jimenez (not his real name) in 1994 when he was a Detective who needed some intel on a sensitive target. Since I knew Brooklyn much better than Robby, a proud son of Union City, New Jersey, he persuaded me to accompany him on some night-time reconnaissance work. Parked in a car for hours on darkened […]
“Enright, I need you to cover the Hamill unveiling!” It was George again. I could almost smell his cheap cigar seeping through my cell phone as I helped a friend scale a striped bass on Canarsie Pier. “Huh?” I replied in my usual sophisticated way. “Pete Hamill, you twit! You wrote a memorial to him back in August!” “Right, I […]
In 1965 I graduated from St. Augustine High School, on Park Place in the Slope, an all-boys slaughter mill run by the Catholic Diocese. There were only 157 “Lancers” in my class and a few years later, the school closed down. We called ourselves Lancers because the school emblem was a knight with a huge lance. I always imagined it […]
As the aircraft eased away from the gate, the dinky panel on the back of the seat in front of me screamed “Tenet!” Last year one of our greatest living directors, Christopher Nolan (a blond Brit of Irish descent and I am a BIG fan), advised his millions of worshipers that they should never see his latest film Tenet unless […]
“Yo, Enright! Wake up! I need a Patty’s Day story.” It was George again. “But, boss, I’m working on this important piece about the new fish section at Food Bazaar!” “Look, your mother was born in Limerick and your twin sister lives there, so toss the fish and get busy.” Damn. As a very dedicated and accomplished consumer of adult […]
Looking back a year ago, most Brooklynites continued to be astonished by Trump’s megalomaniacal corruption. Yet we were grateful the country had avoided a grave crisis because everyone knew our golf-happy President could never manage one. If we could just make it to November and elect “any functioning adult” we told ourselves, everything would be OK. And then it all […]