Our thanks to the Hunters Point residents who shared their memories of the neighborhood.
Mary Torraca says that she still prefers to use the old street names, as they were simple. ³They changed the street signs over 50 years ago from an orderly system of numbers to 48th Avenue, 48th Road, which still confuses everyone.²
³This was quite the business district,² said Ms. Torraca, ³Horse drawn wagons carried sheets and pillowcases throughout the area.² A few women, remarking their fine quality, still own a few of the prized sets.
While parents shopped, children played ³kick the can² in the street and swam in the East River.
After houses and businesses were torn down for the Midtown Tunnel, residents planted gardens on unused plots. On the tunnel¹s completion in 1939, Ms. Torraca and her family strolled through it to Manhattan.
The Vernon Boulevard trolley travelled to Queensboro Plaza and continued into Manhattan. An enjoyable detour was to exit the trolley halfway across the Queensboro Bridge and ride the tower elevator down to Roosevelt Island, then called Welfare Island.
Hunters Point resident Emily Foschino remembers when ³people would gather wood for a month, and on election night they¹d set a big bonfire in the middle of the street.² As the fire department put one fire out, the crowd would be building another one somewhere else.
Ms. Foschino described life in Hunters Point during harder times, ³Coal heavers, young boys who would go over to the railroad cars and pick a bag of coal... they¹d sell a big bag for maybe 10 or 25 cents, and that¹s how they helped support their families.²
Ms. Foschino said she was ²very disappointed that the construction will be obstructing our view that we had for so many years, but when they decided what would be done, we were nothing to them.²
Like Joseph Savino, many residents were born in Italy. Mr. Savino has lived in Hunters Point since the late 1940's where he married his wife, who grew up in Hunters Point.
Mr. Savino said, ²people use to walk across a wooden bridge, over the Newtown Creek, that once connected Vernon Boulevard and Manhattan Avenue (Greenpoint, Brooklyn).² The police station once kept their horses on the Hunters Point side of the bridge.
Mr. Savino thinks the Queens West project will hurt the neighborhood, ²The rents will be astronomical, and the first building, 43-stories! How will this area absorb all those people? I do not oppose development, but there needs to be much more consideration for this neighborhood.²
But for now, Mr. Savino looks forward to waking up at his usual time, 5:00 am, and strolling through the neighborhood. When asked if the neighborhood was awake at this hour, he laughed and said, ²No, but the birds are. They nest in John Andrews Park. They chatter, especially before it rains. It is nice, calm and serene.²
To contact the Hunters Point Community Coalition
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Hunters Point Community Coalition