quotation-icon.jpgThe Cusacks were here a few years before me, so a tip of the hat to them. But I rememeber the protestors against The House Tours because of their gentrification and aim to bring in middle class white folk. It made me feel like I was a settler in the West bank. I was so impressed with the cost of these houses in the seventies also how nice the neighbourhood felt, except at night. There were gang wars on Wyckoff Street, every corner had a bodega with domino players outside, the corner streets were embedded with Micheloeb caps that clacked when you walked on and attracted lighting. There were sawd off bodies found in back yards, wild dogs ran free in the early morn and there was fighting on the streets from little lads to seniors. Those were the days. There were no bars or restaurants for yuppies like us, there were a couple of places on Atlantic or else it was a hike to Montague or Juniors. If I found myself on Smith Street at night I would walk down the center of the street, there were few cars. It was damm scarey with tough guy social clubs, ‘ethnic’ bars and Reagge’record stores’with bullet proof glass.It was easier to buy dope than a Big Youth LP.

— by oldtimer in A Successful Buy-and-Hold Strategy on Hoyt Street


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  1. Thanks Fexy and Noklissa although I don’t like the idea of myself as heavy on nostalgia.
    You remember the same ‘record’ shop. I was more impressed by their stock of obscure Jamaican LPs and I think that it confused their business plan when I bought out half the inventory. I liked to think that they took me for undercover and that the cover had been blown, coz they closed not long after.
    Just to give nostalgia a break………
    Back in the day it used to be a relief to return to Brooklyn from Mid Town Manhattan and all the drunken cops, firemen, and catholic school kids from Jersey who Paddys for a Day. I could stop at the bar on Bergen and Smith for a Bud and they didn’t know from Saint Patricks from San Juan Bapiste.
    Happy Saint Patricks Everone

  2. Cobblehiller – There certainly was a reggae store on Smith Street. It was called Reggae World. In the front were a few dirty reggae albums in a rack. The back wall had a little hole in it – that you would slip five dollars through for your nickel bag. You probably walked by it many times without noticing.

  3. Show some respect Xander and fsrg. I’m actually pissed off. Nobody will likely read this, but I was checking in with Brownstoner and saw that one of my favorite posters had gotten the ol’ QOTD. And I loved his musing as usual, and found it informative and heavy on nostalgia.

    But only nine, count them NINE responses. Then, when I went in to read them, two of them were rude and disrespectful. Brownstoner is becoming a freakin’ high school cafeteria.