Life is made up of little things: a bunch of memories from childhood that made me whole. I grew up on Third Avenue in midtown Manhattan during the 1950s-60s where family life centered around old tenement buildings with clotheslines, rooftop pigeon coops and small stores. Third Avenue and its vicinity influenced how our family lived. I absorbed the street life. It gave me an education that I could not have gotten any other place. To me, it was home. 

In a recent walk around Third Avenue my eyes searched for clues of the old neighborhood. If I hadn't grown up here and someone described the area, it would be difficult to believe. It wasn't a case of a few buildings were changed--everything was changed. The transformation began in the late 1950s and 60s when corporations replaced the old neighborhood. There is a lack of character in the transformed neighborhood; nobody in New York is from New York. It's a place they've come to reinvent themselves and start a new life. My grandparents were from Sicily, but my parents and I were born in New York City.

Third Avenue and 53rd Street in New York City was my old neighborhood and it had character. It was filled with working families of Italian, German and Irish heritage. We shopped together, kids played together and we could walk to practically everything. For local culture we had the Museum of Modern Art on 53rd Street off Fifth Avenue and The Metropolitan Museum of Art was a quick ride uptown on the bus. I skated at the Wollman rink in Central Park, climbed trees, rocks and money bars. Other days were spent in the dark halls of the Museum of Natural History with my Uncle Jimmy, who explained each window exhibition. My hobbies were ballet, modern dance and rock collecting. But most of all I loved to draw and paint. 

After school, a walk up to 59th Street to the local Five and Dime Store was a daily occurrence. I bought 45 rpm records of the latest hits and played them on my victrola. Afterwards, they were placed into an alphabetized red record box. Being an only child in the household, I danced 
by myself to Rock Around the Clock and swirled around wearing a pink flannel poodle skirt. My parents were divorced, that's how I ended up living with my Aunt Helen, Uncle Jimmy and grandmother Nonnie from three years old to 16. My grandmother offered to help my mother, so the 53rd Street tenement became my permanent home. She had raised nine of her own children. My mother, Bea, lived in a studio in the neighborhood and went to work to support me. My father, Edward, remarried and lived in Queens. He took me to Central Park once a week along with his other children. I missed living with my mother and father, but that was the way it was. 

Our apartment had a fire escape that faced an old junkyard and a clothesline that went from our window to the famous El Morocco nightclub. It was a thin line that linked two different worlds: the rich and famous and my family. By today's standards life in a tenement building was not comfortable. Our apartment had no heat, hot water or radiators. Other tenements across the street had radiators. To heat hot water we had a large boiler in the kitchen where my cat, Big Eyes sat for 15 years. It was her favorite spot. To heat the apartment we used a kerosene heater. After that was banned we had an electric heater. The apartment was known as a railroad flat. It went from front to back with a middle room. I slept in the middle room with my grandmother. There were no windows in our room, so I never knew what time it was until I glanced at the illuminated clock. We lived on the first floor above a men's gay bar. The music came up through the old floors with Nina Simone's "I Loves You Porgy" all night. 

At my grandmother's house we had one telephone located in the parlor room where we sat and watched TV. Even the old telephone exchange had personality. My number was Plaza 9-8413. Other parts of the city had names for numbers beginning with Templeton, Algonquin, Chelsea and Pennsylvania. My "girlfriend' telephone calls annoyed the family. Uncle Jimmy couldn't understand and would yell, "For Christ sake, you see the girl all day what could be so important that you need to talk another hour after school?" Evenings were spent around the one Philco television set which was a large wooden box with a ten-inch screen. Howdy Doody, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, the Ed Sullivan show, wrestling and I Love Lucy seduced me. 
Television became an important part of family life, along with arranging the rabbit ears of the TV antenna. 

Uncle Jimmy, didn't like to socialize or waste time talking about unimportant things. His world revolved around books. He was an avid reader of science, history, novels and travel books. He and I would sit in his room and a serious look would come over his face, "Listen to me, books are better than friends, they will teach you more and never disappoint you." He never married, so I became like a daughter and he was like a father to me. Aunt Helen was the youngest of my aunts and she, too, never married. We 
went to the movies every week. In those days the theatres were grand places. Our neighborhood had RKO and Loews only blocks away. Loews on Lexington Avenue had a gorgeous mosaic-tiled fishpond in the lobby. While I watched the fish, Aunt Helen asked, "Hey, Di, what candy do you want? I'd respond, "Bonomo's Turkish taffy, chocolate and vanilla." I would smack the Bonomo's Turkish taffy on the tile. The small broken pieces were a favorite.

During summer vacation, my activities where outside. The heat in the apartment was unbearable. I played on the street, skated to Central Park or had a swim at the local YWCA, which is one thing still standing. I sat on the stoop with friends and watched the action on Third Avenue. When the iceman climbed the tenement stairs and came down covered in sweat, I yelled, "Hey, thank God you have ice in the truck, at least you can cool off." He would put a handkerchief on the large block of ice and then place it on his face. Sometimes I slept on the fire escape with my two dogs as protection. I couldn't imagine doing that today even with a S.W.A.T. team. It was a different time, different lifestyle. 

Nonnie made Sicilian pizza pies for us about once a month. I watched her mix the dough, then place them on the bed covered up. She would tell me, "Diane, don't touch them, they're resting." She always made extra for close neighbors. The smell of pizzas filled the house and neighborhood. When one of the pies came out on a large hot black metal tray, she wrapped it in wax paper for me to deliver. As I entered the local deli, Herbie, the owner would look up over the counter with a smile, shaking his head, "Jeez, I could smell the baking pizzas all day." In return he would give me a dark chocolate angel cake ice cream log. As he got the log out of the freezer I looked at the Miss Rheingold contest on the counter and played with the cat. 

The Third Avenue El dominated everyone's life. The iron structure went up in 1878 and in 1955 had its last run. The El's Bronx portion ran through 1973. Crossing Third Avenue on skates was not easy, but I learned to have quick reflexes and balance. It had two-way traffic divided by iron pillars and a cobblestone street. When the express and local trains roared up those tracks at the same time it was deafening. Much of the daylight underneath was blocked out. Light came in patches through the rails and made a pattern on the street. My favorite time was late at night because I had two windows from which to watch the street life and dream. 

On weekends, I would sneak into my uncle's front room that faced Third Avenue. He worked nights on a newspaper truck. At the window I melted into the darkness. As trains passed at eye level an eerie shower of sparks silently fell onto the street below. Gay men hung out on parked cars, kissed and carried on until 4:00am. People walked their dogs and sat on the stoop. Others stood with cigarettes in dark hallways. The all night news stand across Third Avenue was always busy. That's the place were you could pick up your Daily News, Herald Tribune, New York Times or Journal American. The other window, which faced the yard in the back room, became a dream place. The General Electric building on 51st Street and Lexington Avenue was designed in a brilliant yellow deco style. It looked like a palace and to me it was another world. I imagined people living up there and wondered how I could get up there. At midnight, the light would go out and the building became just another skyscraper.

Demolition of the Third Avenue El began in 1956. The great trains that carried me up to the Bronx  Zoo and down to the 14th Street pushcarts would be gone. Once the tracks were pulled down the pillars stood alone like Greek columns, naked in the sky. Then, in the early 1960s, the tenements were pulled down. Families were forced to move out, the small stores went out of business and the old neighborhood was changed forever. 

While I watched my environment change forever, I felt sad and mumbled to myself, "I hate the way this looks; it's not the same anymore." My family had to move to Queens. We could no longer afford to live in New York City. I moved in with my mother at 17 years old. She was remarried and lived in New Jersey. I hated it because it wasn't New York; I wasn't used to living with my mother and a new father. It was time to be on my own. At eighteen, I got my own apartment, began work in the music industry, and went to art school. Within a few years I also moved to Queens because New York City was too expensive. 

Today, I can't visit the place I grew up and see stores, family or friends. The transformation of Third Avenue took away my childhood neighborhood. Growing up with my grandmother, uncle and aunt gave me a family, along with my mother and father outside of the house. The neighborhood taught me street smarts, and I learned to live around people unlike myself. I enjoyed the simple things in life and made the best of the situation. My grandmother, aunt, uncle and my father are no longer alive, but those wonderful memories of living in New York City in the old tenement will always remain with me. 

New York was a helluva place to grow up in. The old television program, The Naked City, shot in black and white captures my nostalgia best. Just like the show said, "The Naked City has 8 million stories, and this is just one of them."

Author's Biography

Diane Leon is a painter, writer and adjunct assistant professor of arts at SCPS, New York University. 

Born in New York City, she also has a home base in Alicante, Spain. She lives in Elmhurst, New York, with her artist husband, John Ferdico. 

Artwork: www.ManhattanArts.com 

E-mail Diane.

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