Jackson Heights "Landmarks" Lost and Found

Dear Mom:

I tried to call you last week, but I guess you and Dad were out. Even if you hadn’t swapped the apartment in Greenwich Village for a cottage in that retirement community in North Carolina nearly a decade ago, I doubt you would have wanted to accompany Daphne, her husband, Etan, and me to Jackson Heights. Fortunately they were game to see where I’d lived from birth through age five, and then from age six through eight.

You’d probably prefer that I remember the years in Forest Hills, after Grandma and Grandpa helped you and Dad buy a house in a neighborhood with better schools. Not the cramped apartment we had at 77-10 34th Avenue or the even more cramped apartment we had on 81st Street.

I called you because I wanted to get the address for the place on 81st Street. I peered into many buildings, all of which had fire escapes out front and looked pretty run down. But I couldn’t identify the one that was ours. All I remember is that it was on the same street as the public library, and that while it was being built I would look at the construction pit and ask if Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel were doing the work.

In any event, I thought I’d give you a report on three Jackson Heights “landmarks” that still exist:

1) Public library on 81st Street. There you introduced me to a Swedish author, Maj Lindman, whose books I loved listening to you read aloud. The characters in the two different series -- Snipp Snapp and Snurr (triplet boys) and Flicka Ricka and Dicka (triplet girls) -- seemed to have it all. Blond and Nordic, and wearing identical outfits, they were living the good life: swimming, ice-skating, sledding, or baking cakes.

2) Buster Brown Shoe Store. It’s now called Casa De Buster Brown in recognition of the large Hispanic population. That’s where Dad got me dark red shoes called “sandals.” It now seems weird to call a closed toe shoe a sandal just because it’s got a few perforations and a T-strap. The store also sold elegant looking Capezio pumps with paper thin soles that I would have preferred. On the other hand, the “sandals” were preferable to shoes with laces.

3) P.S. 69Q. The school now has a security guard stationed in the lobby. Still in a lot of ways, the place looks more vibrant than when I was there for grades 1 through 3. I saw mothers carrying sheet cakes into the building, probably for the last day of school, and I also saw safety warnings in lots of different languages, along with posters for different types of dance classes. Yes, I understand that Dr. Jaffe, the principal, was in poor health during my years there, and that monitoring of non-performing teachers was non-existent. It doesn't matter that he was the father of Rona Jaffe, the best-selling author of trashy novels.

In the interest of symmetry, I’ll also point out three “landmarks” that are gone forever:

1) Dragonseed Chinese restaurant on 37th Avenue and 74th Street. One day when school got out at 12 Noon for a “clerical holiday,” you took Arthur and me out to lunch. Always a timid eater, I wasn’t sure I’d like something so exotic. You started me with wonton soup, spare ribs, and almond cookies, and I was hooked.

2) The Toddle House. It’s only recently that I learned that Toddle House was a chain of restaurants with a shameful segregation era past including a separate chain for Blacks. Once in a while you took me there for a hamburger and French fries. Selman, my Turkish classmate whose father worked at the U.N., ate there more often. The times you went to see your Viennese analyst in “the city” and gave me money for lunch, I told you I’d go there. The truth is that after buying a slice of pizza in a store that’s now a cappuccino bar, I spent the rest of the money on candy and sugary mentholated cough drops.

3) Woolworth’s. When I wanted a dog you took me there to buy a turtle. I was actually quite pleased with the plastic turtle bowl, which had a ramp, a fake palm tree, and colorful gravel. Arthur and I bought you our first joint Hanukkah gift at this five and dime store. I think you were so pleased that your son and his little sister were able to agree on anything that you actually wore the green plastic beads with matching necklace.