Early jackhammers

Brr brr brr! Brr brr brr! Brrrr!

Like a freakin' nail.

Shrieking monster kids

Tear through the building courtyard.

Can't you please shut up?

Of course, long ago, I was the shrieking apartment-dwelling child, racing across the parquet dining area, making loud high-pitched yelps with my friend "Oscar" (or was it "Frankie?") My mother called us "David and Lisa."

Oscar loved "Batman" and hated all foods except hamburger. Frank and I pretended we were witch and warlock, respectively. Both of those boys took baths with me once in a while. The worst consequence was a small injury to my innocence: Around the time we turned six, Frankie stopped wanting to, and my mother had to explain why not.

I had girl friends, too: long-haired agreeable Lisa, willing to play Mommy in every game of "house." Emily, mean and a liar, who grew into a lovely woman, now a mom herself. Deanna, who demonstrated rare generosity at a young age.

We traveled freely between apartments. I remember watching Oscar's mother, Anne, make chicken cacciatore, and telling my mom I wanted to grow up to be "just like Anne, only Jewish."

Party Girl. Yours truly in our NYC apartment.

Anne had a color TV, so we watched my mother's game show appearance in her apartment. A wonderful, wacky program, sadly erased, called "Reach for the Stars." Among Mother's prizes, seahorses--Oscar turned to me and said, "Good. They can bite people we don't like!"--and a script typewriter I still own.

Our childhood world included other neighbors: My mother's kindly platonic friend Sy across the hall. The woman who came to our apartment one night and proceeded to undergo a mental breakdown. The older girl who walked me to school. Her sisters. A few years ago, we found one another again.

I felt safe in our apartment, as children do in the world; remember the black and white TV that worked only when I got up to adjust it (because, in so doing, I grounded the signal). I know I'm dating myself, but what the hell? "Gigantor," "Astro Boy and Girl," "George of the Jungle." Emily loved "The Monkees" but I was a Beatles girl, always.

Remember the little kitchen with a small table just for me, the oven and stove and those Mrs. Paul's sweet potatoes. Silverfish in the bathtub. Incinerator. Big, pretty lobby; doormen.

The roof garden

We walked to school and Brownie Scouts, played on top of the building's low walls and on "the roof garden." (It fit the definition pretty loosely.) My mom brought me to her hair salon--"East of Eden"--where a stylist named Joey played with me attentively and bought me gifts. She took me to "the employment office," which I imagined as a place with desks and swivel chairs and carpet, frosted-glass doors with names printed on them, not a big room with long lines, harsh light and rows of counters.

Remember the bank, too, with writing tables higher than my head, and attached pens. The bus's blue plastic seats, and two ads: How the English Keep Their Gin Up and Give A Damn (which I misread as "Give a demon; the words must share a root). The subway: unbearably loud, steamy; coins for the blind man's cup; running from him quickly as he thanked me (how could he know I was there?) Oh, and white gloves. Yes; for special occasions, at least (like visiting my new stepfather in the hospital after his first heart attack, age 33).

Taxis. Checker cabs with fold-out seats. Seeing "Mame" on Broadway, but mostly interested in the taxi ride!

Central Park. Once, Lisa's mother took us, and I brought a stuffed bright blue dog. I realized it looked nothing like a real one, but figured I'd try my luck fooling strange adults. "This is a real dog," I told passersby, figured I'd never put it over. To my surprise, I fooled them all! Well, so I thought.*

Random memories: a creamsickle dripping on my raincoat, somewhere near the UN, I think; fleeing the planetarium with its scary projecter that looked like the world's biggest bug, white specks on the dark sculptures at the museum. Those must be the person's feelings. My reflection in my bedroom's glass window.

That's why I didn't complain about the noisy little bastards in the courtyard.

*It was OK for kids to talk to strangers then. But before you romanticize the era, remind me to tell some time about the man in the park. Don't worry, I didn't get hurt, really.

Bathing Beauties of 19--never mind!