Blue Pants, Santa Claus And Deuce

At the risk of going all Ken Burns gooey, it is safe to say that stickball is more than just a game — it is democracy itself:

Five longtime stickball players from the Bronx joined the likes of New York City greats Joe Torre, Willie Randolph, Rusty Torres, Arturo Lopez and Joe Pepitone when they were inducted this week into the Stickball Hall of Fame.

Before the athletes named above starred on baseball fields in the big leagues, these ballplayers took to the asphalt in their youth for games like “Box Ball,” “Throw it up, one swing” and “pitch it in, one bounce.” With a Spaldeen in hand and a stickball bat (sometimes their mother’s broom handle), many other kids across the city and in the Bronx first learned the concept of baseball from its urbanized counterpart.

Martin “Marty” Rogers, Fr. Frank Skelly, Patrick “Patsy” Viverito, Paul “Pauly” Saryian and the late Felix “Lenny” Santiago are five Bronxites who spent a good part of their youths playing stickball. And this week they were inducted into the Stickball Hall of Fame during its seventh annual ceremony on Friday, July 7 at the Museum of the City of New York. Their names will now be added to a plaque in the museum.

. . .

Rogers and Skelly are two alumni from Immaculate Conception School on 150th Street. Skelly, class of 1960 and now a Catholic priest, played stickball in “the Alley” on Brook Avenue near 149th Street and has served as pastor at St. Cecilia’s Church in El Barrio and at Immaculate Conception. Today he is director of the San Alfonso Retreat House in New Jersey.

Skelly reminisced: “Our firescape was one flight up and offered grandstand seats for all the block activity. But ‘going down’ and being part of it all was always more fun. The teenagers were known as the Alley Boys and wore monikers like Joey Brooklyn, Blue Pants, Santa Claus and Deuce. They seemed to have a God given right to the use of the fields of play. Very little equipment was needed for any of these games of stickball, and so it was an equal playing field where skills was the criterion for success.”

In the early 1960s, Santiago was part of a team called the Young Neptunes, from Forest Avenue and 156th Street. Before his passing, he played in the New York Emperors Stickball League in the Bronx.

[Emph. added so lazy Ken Burns only has to skim the good parts.]

See also: streetplay.com’s Stickball pages . . . stickball events are held throughout the year (that just went on the to-do list).

Happy Birthday, Bridge!

The Triborough Bridge turns 70 today and the Times takes the opportunity to reappraise Robert Moses:

It was not just another bridge. And the man who built it was not just another power broker. The Triborough opened 70 years ago today, and the anniversary is prompting a reappraisal of Robert Moses, who, although he never learned to drive, rolled out a concrete carpet to the suburbs that changed the face of New York.

Turn On The Bright Lights!

Coney Island’s Parachute Jump has been outfitted with lights:

The 277-foot tower, shaped like a giant blossom at the end of a tapering stalk, dropped its last screaming rider in 1965 and fell silent. For years it rotted, a skeletal symbol of Coney Island’s long decline, narrowly escaping demolition.

Last night, the city turned the lights back on. As an eager crowd jammed the boardwalk, a switch was thrown and the Parachute Jump was bathed in red and purple light, as shivering patterns chased each other across its girders.

There are still no riders, and no parachutes, but the jump is back in the night sky above the boardwalk.

“Not exactly how it was when I was a kid,” said Brooklyn’s borough president, Marty Markowitz, “but it will be a beacon of light for this and future generations, harking and heralding Coney Island as a place where dreams come true.”

The reviews from those assembled were muted. Phyllis Carbo, 70, who rode on the Parachute Jump as a girl, hesitated when asked for her opinion. “I’m running for Assembly on the Republican line, so I have to be very careful,” she said. “I’m impressed.”

Even the evening’s master of ceremonies, Dick Zigun, one of Coney Island’s leading boosters, pronounced the light show “very subtle.”

Others were less restrained.

“Did they light it already? Is this it?” asked Joe Joya, 63.

His wife, Jane, 61, said, “I thought it was going to be a lot brighter. I thought that the lights were going to be more of a Vegas type of thing.”

Her husband added: “You’re not going to see that from Staten Island.”

See also: Parachute Jump.

Lee’s Tavern Founder Honored

The street outside Lee’s Tavern will be renamed to honor the founder of one of Staten Island’s top pizza places:

Twenty years after Diego (Dickie) Palemine, the former owner of Lee’s Tavern in Dongan Hills, was killed in a fire in Puerto Rico, Islanders will rename a street in his memory.

The corner of Hancock Street and Garretson Avenue, outside Lee’s Tavern, is slated to be renamed “Diego ‘Dickie’ Palemine Corner” in a ceremony [Sunday].

Councilman James Oddo (R-Mid-Island/Brooklyn), along with friends and family of Palemine, will join longtime patrons of the Dongan Hills tavern to unveil the new sign.

In December 1986, Palemine was vacationing in San Juan with his wife and children, and several friends.

A New Year’s Eve fire at the Dupont Plaza Hotel casino, attributed to arson, ripped through the building and killed 96 people, including Palemine.

His wife was plucked by helicopter from the roof of the 17-story hotel and his children were safe at an outdoor pool while the fire ravaged the building.

His widow, Cathy Palemine, said that when her children reached adulthood, they decided to petition the city to rename the street corner.

The family still operates Lee’s.

Plain Pie, Lee’s Tavern:

Lighthouse Lovers Soon Will Be Able To Crash The (Sea)Gate

The Coney Island Lighthouse in the ultra-exclusive — or at least gated — Seagate neighborhood will be opened for public tours for the first time ever:

Brooklyn’s oldest lighthouse could be opened to the public for the first time in its 116-year history, the Daily News has learned.

The Seagate Association signed a five-year lease on the 80-foot-tall lighthouse this month, ending a century-long ownership by the U.S. Coast Guard and a ban on public tours.

“There are millions of lighthouse lovers from all over the world who have heard about this lighthouse and would love to see it but have never had the chance,” said Seagate Association Treasurer Michael Breslof.

By next summer, the association could begin hosting tours of the Beach 46th St. tower and a nearby home, where light keeper Frank Schubert lived until his death in 2003.

The tours would cost about $5 and would include visits to Schubert’s home at the foot of the tower, which is known both as the Coney Island Lighthouse and Norton’s Point Lighthouse.