Voorhies Avenue itself always felt alive to me. In the late 1970s, Sheepshead Bay still carried the feeling of old Brooklyn, the kind of neighborhood where life revolved around family-owned shops, crowded sidewalks, corner bakeries, pizza shops, and familiar faces that became woven quietly into the fabric of everyday life. The neighborhood had its own rhythm, its own soundtrack, and as a child, it felt like the whole world existed within those few familiar blocks.
The block seemed to hum from morning until long after the streetlights came on. Jewish and Italian families sat outside on stoops talking for hours while apartment windows stayed open to catch whatever breeze drifted in from the bay. Somewhere, a radio was always playing. Car horns echoed from farther down Sheepshead Bay Road while distant laughter carried through the neighborhood late into the evening. Even at night, the block never seemed completely quiet.
People seemed more connected then, and it felt like everyone knew each other somehow. Folding chairs lined the sidewalks while the sounds of conversations, televisions, and radios drifted through open apartment windows late into the evening. Women stopped outside the small but busy delicatessen to talk while neighborhood kids rode their bikes up and down the block. Next door to the delicatessen was the small dance school where my grandmother paid for me to take ballet, tap, and jazz lessons. At the time, those little neighborhood places felt ordinary to me. Looking back now, I realize they became part of the fabric and the magic of my childhood.
Around the corner from my home were some of the places I remember most clearly from my childhood: Delmar Pizzeria, Weisner’s Bakery, Grand Variety Five & Dime, the little record store along the strip, and Roll-A-Palace across the street. I can still picture the worn linoleum floors inside Grand Variety and the candy displays lining the aisles. To me, it felt endless, like there would always be some small treasure waiting there. It was where my brother and I picked out our Halloween costumes every year, holding up plastic masks and cheap accessories while deciding who we wanted to be that Halloween.
The smell of fresh bakery bread drifted down the block from Weisner’s while Delmar Pizzeria glowed warmly at night, especially in winter when the windows fogged from the heat inside. Every time the door opened, the smell of pizza spilled out onto Sheepshead Bay Road.
I still remember walking to Weisner’s Bakery with my grandmother and coming home with Chocolate Bells, checkerboard cake, warm handmade bread, and white boxes filled with Italian cookies tied up in string. Sometimes we would stop at the neighboring deli for pastrami before heading home to make hot sandwiches on the fresh bread from the bakery.
And then there was Roll-A-Palace, one of the most iconic places in Sheepshead Bay at the time. It was located diagonally across the street from our apartment. If you stood out on our balony, you could see the huge lettering on that huge, brick building.
My grandfather used to take my brother and me there, and those nights remain some of the happiest memories of my childhood. I still remember the lights, the music, the smell of popcorn, and the scrape of wheels across polished floors. It was there that I first skated to ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ by Queen, circling the rink in my white-and-red roller skates my grandmother bought for me. I can still remember sitting on the bench lacing them up, impatient to get back out onto the floor.
Even now, when I think about Brooklyn in those years, I don’t just remember the apartment itself. I remember the rhythm of the neighborhood around it. The sound of screen doors slamming. The smell of bakery bread drifting through the summer air. Pizza shops glowing at dusk. The warmth rising from the pavement after rain. The feeling that the neighborhood itself had a heartbeat.
So much of that world is gone now, but somehow those memories still remain untouched in my heart and mind. At 56 years old, they are some of the memories that still keep my heart happy and young.
