When Brooklyn Was the World: 1920-1957

Oh boy, what a ride. It was the cyclone at Coney Island. It was Giant Step, Giant Step. It was playing Ringo Levio at 9 pm around the corner. I have just completed my novel As Long As You Can See the Clock, You're Okay (the Williamsburgh Bank clock tower) and I can thank Elliot Willensky for bringing me "back" home. The photos are wonderful, the writing engaging. Great book.

This is a wonderful book. The only problem with it is that it's just not long enough. WHEN BROOKLYN WAS THE WORLD 1920-1957 is a history and reminiscence of life in Brooklyn, New York, during its heyday years between the completion of the Subway line to New Lots, in 1920, and the departure of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1957. Elliot Willensky is uniquely qualified to have written this book. As official Borough Historian and the co-author of the singular AIA GUIDE TO NEW YORK CITY (which lists and describes every architectural point of interest in the Five Boroughs) he is intimately aware of the streets of New York, but more so, as a Brooklyn boy, he also has the heartbeat of Brooklyn beating in his own chest. Brooklyn was its own city before Greater New York swallowed it whole in 1898 (by only a few hundred "yea" votes out of 70,000 cast). As a Borough, it was "big [and] klutzy," the unshaven bigger, younger blue-collar brother of chi-chi Beau Brummell Manhattan. Brooklyn's population has always exceeded that of any other Borough, and in its own way, Brooklyn has been far more diverse and interesting than even "the City". In the early twentieth century, Brooklyn grew at a fantastic rate as immigrants and the children of immigrants streamed, (as they still do), into its hundred square miles seeking relief from the overcrowding of Manhattan's Lower East Side. As Willensky says, this history of Brooklyn is divided, de facto, into three portions, before The War (1920-1941), During The War (1941-1945), and After The War (1945-1957). Each era is different. Brooklyn is different now. And yet . . . The immigrants developed their own patois that reflected a mixture of their varying accents newly-leavened with the day-to-day details of Brooklyn life. For example: "Oil" is a British lord. "Earl" is what you'd put in your car. A "stoop" is where you'd sit when you were "downstairs". "Tar Beach" up on the roof is where you'd spend your summers. "The Country" is where you'd go in the summer if you were lucky. Maybe you'd "get a bungalow" at "a bungalow colony" near Monticello or Loch Sheldrake or Ellenville in the Catskills, but if you "had money" you could always stay at The Homowack, The Tamarack, Brown's, Grossinger's or the Neville ("da Neva-lee"). An egg cream was (and is) a tasty drinkable concoction containing neither eggs nor cream, but containing a species of carbonated water (which no one in their right mind ever called Club Soda) that was brought to you weekly courtesy of The Seltzer Man. The Seltzer Man "worked like a horse" hefting cases of the stuff onto his shoulder in heavy blue or green or clear siphon bottles and climbing however many flights of stairs there were in order to service his customers. And why? So his kid could go to College, maybe be a doctor or a lawyer. To make an egg cream, Seltzer was mixed with Fox's U-bet chocolate syrup and milk (with unhomogenized cream on top) from Sheffield Dairy or Borden's (Borden's was the pr

What a find! I had to buy this book after browsing through it during a visit to a friend - another transplanted Brooklynite. And it was worth the price. This book transports you to a time and place when Brooklyn truly WAS the world. There are sights, sounds and smells that come alive through historical perspective and photographs. This book makes a great contribution to the collective memory of all of us who were lucky enough to have been a part of the Brooklyn that was the world.

What a wonderful little book that illustrates what so many of us already know; Brooklyn is a magical place. The writing style is particularly apt and evocative.

It has been 40 years since I have stepped foot in Brooklyn. Being a Brooklynite, who had been away all this time, when I first saw this book I had to sit down and breathedeeply. A friend had suggested this book and indeed, it was a great recomendation. There were the photographs of many of the familiar neighborhoods and places of my youth coming alive. As I read Mr. Willensky's writings suddenly the sounds and smells were coming back and I was beingtransported back to my proud Brooklyn. Again, I felt proud of being a Brooklynite and can't wait to make my first trip back after all my years away from this great place. I have no expecations on what I will find after such a long time. As the book deals with Brooklyn as it was from 1920 to 1957, I will try not to compare what I find with the way Elliot Willensky knew it and I too lived it. Excellent narrative, great photos and a must see and read for ALL former Brooklynites and anyone wanting to learn about the greatest place on earth! LONG LIVE BROOKLYN!!Richard Bender