Johnny Pumps and Tar Beach: Summer in Old New York

Claire Brooks

So so so you have to picture this, right? It is literally 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the late 1980s, the asphalt on the street is basically melting into your sneakers, and nobody, I mean, absolutely nobody in the neighborhood has air conditioning. So what do you do?

Danfred

You find a fire hydrant, right? Er, what did you call them back then?

Claire Brooks

A Johnny pump! A Johnny pump. And you do not just turn the small valve. You take a massive pipe wrench, like a stolen plumbing tool, you pop that brass cap, and then you wedge a carved tin can right over the nozzle. It turns a regular stream into a massive 1,000 gallon per minute water blast spraying straight across the street block.

Danfred

Wait, a thousand gallons per minute? That is, that is an actual tsunami in the middle of Queens!

Claire Brooks

It was incredible. But then, of course, the NYPD patrol car pulls up, right? They had these specialized pentagonal keys to turn the valve off. They crank it shut, drive away, and literally within three minutes, three minutes max, the local teens are out there with their wrenches popping the brass caps right back off to spray the oncoming MTA city bus.

Danfred

Oh, the MTA bus drivers must have been furious! But wait, that cat and mouse energy, it sounds so much like what we were talking about last time with the milk floats on the estate in Yorkshire. Remember those low speed chases?

Claire Brooks

Oh, totally. It is the exact same DNA, just swapping out brick ginnels and milk floats for asphalt and municipal fire hydrants.

Danfred

And where did you go when the sun went down and the pavement was still radiating heat like an oven?

Claire Brooks

Tar Beach. You pack up a blanket, you climb the rusted iron fire escapes to sneak past the strict building super, and you spend the night on the black tar roof of your apartment building in Brooklyn or the Lower East Side. It was like this secret upper world above the city.

Danfred

Rooftop escapes! See, on our estate we used to hide inside the massive plastic wheelie bins, which was, looking back, absolutely disgusting compared to a skyline view.

Claire Brooks

Well, Tar Beach had its own rules, believe me. If you spilled anything or made too much noise, the super would chase you down six flights of stairs with a broom.

Claire Brooks

Now, if you were down on the street during the day, the game was stickball. You took a sawed off mop handle or a broomstick, and you bought a pink high bounce rubber ball. But you never called it a Spalding.

Danfred

Why not? What did you call it?

Claire Brooks

A spaldeen! It was just how the New York accent pronounced Spalding. You line up on the street, the pitcher bounces the spaldeen, you hit it, and a home run meant driving that little pink ball past two full sewer covers down the avenue.

Danfred

Two sewer covers? That has to be what, like two hundred feet down an open road with parked cars everywhere?

Claire Brooks

Easily! And you had to keep an eye out for cops, because if the NYPD rolled up, they would grab your broomstick and literally snap it right across their knees so you could not play anymore.

Danfred

Oh, severe penalty for street cricket! But what about the other sidewalk games? Was not there one with bottle caps?

Claire Brooks

Yes! Skelly. The strategic sliding of bottle caps across a city street known as Skelly was serious business. You drew a grid numbered one to thirteen on the pavement in chalk, weighted your metal bottle caps with melted crayon or wax or aluminum foil, and flicked them through the court.

Danfred

Ah, that sounds almost like street curling or shuffleboard, but with trash!

Claire Brooks

Exactly! And then for pure adrenaline, there was Ringoleavio. That was the ultimate neighborhood hide and seek game. It was not just one yard or one house. The heroic dodging and weaving of Ringoleavio involved entire city blocks, dark alleyways, stoops, and basement doorways as the playable territory.

Danfred

Wait, so you could be hiding inside a whole different building?

Claire Brooks

Oh, easily. Two teams, intense strategy, and if you got caught, you were put in a jail painted on the sidewalk until a teammate leaped over the line to break you out. It was epic.

Danfred

And how did you get around town to meet up with kids from other neighborhoods back then? Because nobody had MetroCards in the nineties, right?

Claire Brooks

Nope, before MetroCards, it was tokens, or, if you were a teenager, absolute gymnastics. You either perfected the two handed turnstile vault, leaping over the metal bar, or the under the bar slide. You could see kids sliding under turnstiles in subway stations from Queens to Brooklyn, dodging transit police just to ride the trains for free.

Danfred

The under the bar slide! That takes a serious level of confidence and very slippery jacket material.

Claire Brooks

And look, when you were out on the street all day, whether you were vaulting turnstiles or playing stickball, the absolute epicenter of life was the twenty four seven corner bodega.

Danfred

The bodega! I hear about these all the time. What made them so central?

Claire Brooks

It was like a neighborhood fortress. You go in with a dollar, you get a hot chopped cheese sandwich for two dollars if you had a little extra, or you buy single loosies, single cigarettes, for twenty five cents. And if you were short on cash, the owner held an informal credit tab for your whole family on a little notepad behind the counter.

Danfred

And was there always a cat? Everyone talks about the bodega cat!

Claire Brooks

Always a shop cat sleeping on top of the bread loaves or sitting on the register. The cat ruled the place. But beyond the bodega, you had stoop culture. The grandmothers and older neighbors sitting on the brownstone steps all afternoon.

Danfred

Ah, the original neighborhood watch group!

Claire Brooks

Literally! It was informal community surveillance. If you stepped out of line, threw a water balloon at a car, or tried to act tough, someone's auntie or grandmother would call you out by your full name right off the stoop long before a police precinct car ever showed up.

Danfred

You know, it is funny because when people think of eighties and nineties New York, pop culture always paints this super grim, violent picture. But hearing about the Johnny pumps, the Skelly grids, and the stoops, it sounds so full of life and community.

Claire Brooks

It really was. Working class kids everywhere, whether you are running through estate ginnels in Yorkshire or hopping turnstiles in Queens, figure out the exact same ways to build joy, look out for each other, and master street survival with a sense of humor.

Danfred

Man, that makes me want to go find a pink spaldeen ball and a mop handle right now.

Claire Brooks

Good luck finding two clear sewer covers without a delivery truck parked over them today!