20 Places You Once Knew as a Real New Yorker

A friend recently posted a compilation of 20 Places You Remember in NY if You're Over 40. This prompted yours truly to come up with 20 others that take anyone still alive way way back. So here goes:

Twenty things that mean you were a New Yorker from way back:

 

     1.      Stopped off to have coffee after a movie at the Tip Toe Inn on W. 86^th St

2.      Took the Third Avenue El from Chatham Square all the way up to the Bronx (Gun Hill Rd. was the last stop)

3.      Celebrated your birthday with a sundae at Jahn’s (pronounced Jan’s) at one of several locations—I remember the ones on Kingsbridge Rd., Bronx, and Springfield Blvd., Bayside, Queens

4.      Saw an opera from one of many side-view seats (at any level) of the old Metropolitan Opera House at 39^th St. & Bway which meant you only saw half the stage

5.      Recall using the coin-operated dispensing windows at one of the many Horn & Hardart Automats to get a sandwich, a piece of pie, macaroni and cheese, or baked beans

6.      Saw the Dodgers and Giants play (preferably each other) at either the Polo Grounds (Manhattan) or Ebbets Field (Bklyn)

7.      Took one of the last trolley cars that operated within city limits, either the Yonkers #1, 2, or 3, which ran from Getty Sq., Yonkers, to the subway terminal at 242^nd St., Van Cortlandt Park, or the A or B trolley from Mt. Vernon to 241^st St, White Plains Rd., Bronx

8.      Saw someone off at a bon voyage party on the United States, the Queen Mary, or the France from a North River pier

9.      Managed to catch the Lunts (Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne) the last time they appeared on a Broadway stage, in Duerrenmatt’s The Visit

10. Watched CCNY win both the NCAA and NIT in 1950 (only team ever to take both the same year—now impossible to match)

11. Rode on the Lehigh Valley’s Black Diamond to upstate N.Y., perhaps Ithaca,. leaving from grand old Penn Station

12. Enjoyed Manhattan clam chowder at Lundy’s, Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, one of two spots with the finest – the other remains the Grand Central Oyster Bar

13. Took the elevator to the top of the (still standing but hopelessly defunct) N.Y. State Pavilion at Flushing Meadow, site of the 1964-65 World’s Fair (also the 1939-40 one, but not that pavilion)

14. Dined at one of the three famed (not always worthy of any stars) eateries of the old Jewish Lower East Side—Ratner’s, Rappaport’s, or Moscowitz & Lupowitz

15. Got loaded at McSorley’s on E. 7^th St when it was N.Y.’s last men-only (but not gay) bar

16. Took the B&O Railroad’s crack train, the Royal Blue, from the Jersey Central’s Jersey City terminal—the B&O ran buses from Grand Central and Herald Sq that pulled right up onto the departure platform in Jersey City

17. Danced the night away at the glorious Rainbow Room atop NBC’s 30 Rockefeller Plaza—where the best view from the 65^th floor was from the men’s room

18. Took your date to see one of Julius Monk’s clever revues at Upstairs at the Downstairs, usually starring the great Ronnie Graham

19. Made it to a movie at the most fabulous rococo palace, the Roxy

20. Saw the Knicks play for peanuts at the old 69^th Regiment Armory—with Harry Gallatin, Sweets Clifton, Dick McGuire, and Carl Braun