Growing Up in Elmont, NY
I'm doing a separate post about growing up on Long Island, NY because if I were to include it in my other post it would be too long. This also makes it easy when I want to refer back to where I grew up.
Once a year, you hear about Elmont in the news. That's when they run the Belmont Stakes at Belmont Racetrack, which was really the centerpiece to Elmont. Well, that and Beth David Cemetery. You know Andy Kaufman is buried there?
Anyway, my parents moved there in 1953, long before I was born. At the time it was being developed into housing and the house they bought was only 5 years old. My Mom would take the bus from the subway to get home after work. The first time she did, she could see her house from the bus stop but couldn't figure out how to get there. It was still mostly farmland.
I came along 13 years later. When I was about 8 years old I was so happy that another family moved in with kids. Of course, I had friends in the neighborhood, but we all went to different schools due to religious factors. There was a girl in the family just about a year older than me. I was thrilled.
Did I mention they were Haitian? Yeah, I didn't care. All I saw was the friendship. And my parents didn't care either. They became really great friends. We'd go over and socialize at night sitting around the kitchen table. It was my first taste of Caribbean flavors after the bland German food my mother cooked.
Elmont "changed" after that. There's a term for what the real estate agents did - blockbusting. I'll post links at the end of this blog for some news articles about it. They got in trouble for it, but it didn't stop the domino effect. Like I said, though, it didn't matter to me. I'm still close to some great families I got to know back then.
We also had a girl who came out to us every summer from Brooklyn as part of the Fresh Air Fund. All I could think of it as was I, an only child, had a "sister" for two weeks to a month every summer. It was great. We got along like family does, alternating between arguing and being silly the way kids are.
I was naive in those early years. It wasn't going to last. I have a vague memory of me and "my sister" going on vacation with my parents and going to a game room at the place we stayed only to be chased out by the owner. I didn't grasp what was happening. My parents just told us not to go back.
As more and more houses were sold because of "the great white flight" induced by real estate agents eager to cash in on the commissions, the neighborhood "changed". To me, it changed from a bunch of houses with old grandparents in them to houses with people more my age. I didn't get a lesson in what was really going on until I was in junior high (middle school). By then, houses on both sides of us had been sold. We had some great neighbors, though.
Back then. parents actually let their kids walk to school. Horror of horrors, I know. I was in seventh grade, just about 12 or 13, and walking a half mile a day. Sometime near the end of that year, an incident happened where I was chased home from school by a group of about 3 boys with a baseball bat. I was called "nigger lover." I didn't really understand it. These people were my friends, of course I loved them. What difference did it make?
That wasn't the end of it though. One afternoon I was hanging out with some of the kids in front of the house next to mine, which was a corner house. The elementary school had a back entrance practically right across the street from us. A group of boys came through the schoolyard and out the back entrance. Words were exchanged. I can't remember what was said, but I remember thinking these boys don't even live here and they're trying to tell us what to do. The man who lived next to me came out and said something to them. They went away, or so we thought.
As it got dark, they came back with more "kids". They were teenagers, but in their later years for the most part. They had bats and chains and other weapons. Tony, who bordered my neighbor's corner house to the back, called the police. My neighbor called the police. No police showed up. I had been inside for a while (probably watching a Mets game) so I only saw it once everything started getting rowdy and loud. I called the police. At that point, it was 40 minutes after the first call had been made. While I was on the phone with them, my next door neighbor brought out his legally-owned rifle and fired a couple shots into the ground between our houses - just to scare off the kids. The 911 operator heard that over the phone and the cops were now there within minutes.
The next day a detective from the precinct came to investigate. I can remember being brought into my neighbor's kitchen to talk about what was going on and tell them what was happening to me. While the detective was in there talking to us, the "kids" came back, loudly shouting and jeering at us in the house. My mother always told how he was more worried about them damaging his car than talking to us about what happened. At that point my parents and my neighbors got the District Attorney's office involved. Same thing, I was brought in to tell about being chased home from school and called "nigger lover." My mother had to drive me to and from school the rest of that year. Things calmed down after that, and I suspect it had to do with "kids" being arrested for burning a cross on another house in the general area. My guess is they were all part of the group that had started with us.
There were other incidents after that in school, but you get the picture. A white girl out with anyone who was male and black always got stared at - I was very conscious of that. My parents had clued me in this time when one neighbor had taken me to the beach with his younger daughters and noticed how he was being looked at having this teenage white girl with him. I hadn't thought a thing about it - it was just a day at the beach. I had the luxury, but I learned too.
When I was in my early twenties, I was coming home from a night out. I'd dropped a friend of mine off at his house and then was driving to my own home. It was about 3AM. Three blocks from my house, I got pulled over. The officer said I didn't stop at a stop sign. I beg to differ to this day. In any case, he asked me for my license, insurance, and registration which I produced, no issue. While he was holding my driver's license, with my address on it that showed I lived 3 blocks from where he stopped me, he asked me what I was doing here because I "didn't belong here." I argued I was on my way home and I lived 3 blocks away. I most certainly did "belong here" and besides it's a free country. After about 10 minutes he let me go with a "warning." I'm pretty sure he followed me home, but I can't recall anymore.
That one incident stayed with me and those feelings are as fresh as if it happened yesterday. Multiply that over and over again, and you have what my African-American friends go through all the time. A white girl in what was then pretty much a predominantly minority community must be looking for drugs at 3AM, right?
When I see some of the things happening, I see the faces of the people I grew up with. The people I did and still do call my friends (and in some cases family).
Some links about Elmont, NY:
probably the "kids" involved in our incident:
http://www.nytimes.com/1979/09/11/archives/cross-is-burned-in-elmont-police-charge-8-teenagers-no-interracial.html?_r=0
blockbusting fallout against real estate agents:
http://www.nytimes.com/1985/06/30/nyregion/anti-bias-rules-aimed-t-elmont-home-sales.html
A rather sugar-coated article. I know some of the people they talked to:
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/elmont-where-minorities-have-become-the-majority-1.1417497
Once a year, you hear about Elmont in the news. That's when they run the Belmont Stakes at Belmont Racetrack, which was really the centerpiece to Elmont. Well, that and Beth David Cemetery. You know Andy Kaufman is buried there?
Anyway, my parents moved there in 1953, long before I was born. At the time it was being developed into housing and the house they bought was only 5 years old. My Mom would take the bus from the subway to get home after work. The first time she did, she could see her house from the bus stop but couldn't figure out how to get there. It was still mostly farmland.
I came along 13 years later. When I was about 8 years old I was so happy that another family moved in with kids. Of course, I had friends in the neighborhood, but we all went to different schools due to religious factors. There was a girl in the family just about a year older than me. I was thrilled.
Did I mention they were Haitian? Yeah, I didn't care. All I saw was the friendship. And my parents didn't care either. They became really great friends. We'd go over and socialize at night sitting around the kitchen table. It was my first taste of Caribbean flavors after the bland German food my mother cooked.
Elmont "changed" after that. There's a term for what the real estate agents did - blockbusting. I'll post links at the end of this blog for some news articles about it. They got in trouble for it, but it didn't stop the domino effect. Like I said, though, it didn't matter to me. I'm still close to some great families I got to know back then.
We also had a girl who came out to us every summer from Brooklyn as part of the Fresh Air Fund. All I could think of it as was I, an only child, had a "sister" for two weeks to a month every summer. It was great. We got along like family does, alternating between arguing and being silly the way kids are.
I was naive in those early years. It wasn't going to last. I have a vague memory of me and "my sister" going on vacation with my parents and going to a game room at the place we stayed only to be chased out by the owner. I didn't grasp what was happening. My parents just told us not to go back.
As more and more houses were sold because of "the great white flight" induced by real estate agents eager to cash in on the commissions, the neighborhood "changed". To me, it changed from a bunch of houses with old grandparents in them to houses with people more my age. I didn't get a lesson in what was really going on until I was in junior high (middle school). By then, houses on both sides of us had been sold. We had some great neighbors, though.
Back then. parents actually let their kids walk to school. Horror of horrors, I know. I was in seventh grade, just about 12 or 13, and walking a half mile a day. Sometime near the end of that year, an incident happened where I was chased home from school by a group of about 3 boys with a baseball bat. I was called "nigger lover." I didn't really understand it. These people were my friends, of course I loved them. What difference did it make?
That wasn't the end of it though. One afternoon I was hanging out with some of the kids in front of the house next to mine, which was a corner house. The elementary school had a back entrance practically right across the street from us. A group of boys came through the schoolyard and out the back entrance. Words were exchanged. I can't remember what was said, but I remember thinking these boys don't even live here and they're trying to tell us what to do. The man who lived next to me came out and said something to them. They went away, or so we thought.
As it got dark, they came back with more "kids". They were teenagers, but in their later years for the most part. They had bats and chains and other weapons. Tony, who bordered my neighbor's corner house to the back, called the police. My neighbor called the police. No police showed up. I had been inside for a while (probably watching a Mets game) so I only saw it once everything started getting rowdy and loud. I called the police. At that point, it was 40 minutes after the first call had been made. While I was on the phone with them, my next door neighbor brought out his legally-owned rifle and fired a couple shots into the ground between our houses - just to scare off the kids. The 911 operator heard that over the phone and the cops were now there within minutes.
The next day a detective from the precinct came to investigate. I can remember being brought into my neighbor's kitchen to talk about what was going on and tell them what was happening to me. While the detective was in there talking to us, the "kids" came back, loudly shouting and jeering at us in the house. My mother always told how he was more worried about them damaging his car than talking to us about what happened. At that point my parents and my neighbors got the District Attorney's office involved. Same thing, I was brought in to tell about being chased home from school and called "nigger lover." My mother had to drive me to and from school the rest of that year. Things calmed down after that, and I suspect it had to do with "kids" being arrested for burning a cross on another house in the general area. My guess is they were all part of the group that had started with us.
There were other incidents after that in school, but you get the picture. A white girl out with anyone who was male and black always got stared at - I was very conscious of that. My parents had clued me in this time when one neighbor had taken me to the beach with his younger daughters and noticed how he was being looked at having this teenage white girl with him. I hadn't thought a thing about it - it was just a day at the beach. I had the luxury, but I learned too.
When I was in my early twenties, I was coming home from a night out. I'd dropped a friend of mine off at his house and then was driving to my own home. It was about 3AM. Three blocks from my house, I got pulled over. The officer said I didn't stop at a stop sign. I beg to differ to this day. In any case, he asked me for my license, insurance, and registration which I produced, no issue. While he was holding my driver's license, with my address on it that showed I lived 3 blocks from where he stopped me, he asked me what I was doing here because I "didn't belong here." I argued I was on my way home and I lived 3 blocks away. I most certainly did "belong here" and besides it's a free country. After about 10 minutes he let me go with a "warning." I'm pretty sure he followed me home, but I can't recall anymore.
That one incident stayed with me and those feelings are as fresh as if it happened yesterday. Multiply that over and over again, and you have what my African-American friends go through all the time. A white girl in what was then pretty much a predominantly minority community must be looking for drugs at 3AM, right?
When I see some of the things happening, I see the faces of the people I grew up with. The people I did and still do call my friends (and in some cases family).
Some links about Elmont, NY:
probably the "kids" involved in our incident:
http://www.nytimes.com/1979/09/11/archives/cross-is-burned-in-elmont-police-charge-8-teenagers-no-interracial.html?_r=0
blockbusting fallout against real estate agents:
http://www.nytimes.com/1985/06/30/nyregion/anti-bias-rules-aimed-t-elmont-home-sales.html
A rather sugar-coated article. I know some of the people they talked to:
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/elmont-where-minorities-have-become-the-majority-1.1417497
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