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Remember back in the day when you used to congregate on the front porch or "stoop" to shoot the breeze/"kibbitz" with your "mishpocha" (family), siblings, friends and neighbors?
Frank J. Dmchowski wrote, "On my block, most of the stoops had three to five steps leading to a platform area, roughly the size of a queen size mattress, that in turn, leads to a final step to the doorway of the house. However, there were some other stoops, magnificent mammoths, six, seven, even eight-10 steps high. We could get 10-15 kids at a time on one of those beauties."
Dmuchowski goes on: "...the Stoop offered a place of communal activity. To us kids, the Stoop was many different things at various times. Among other things, it was a nursery ("kinder-tsimer"), a game room, a school room ("klastsimer"), a fortress in King Arthur's kingdom, a mighty pirate ship, a home base, a sports center, a prison ("turme") where the cops locked up the robbers, a jail in which the Sheriff locks up the Bandits or, a space ship going to Mars in search of little green men. It is where one made friends for life, played one's first games, had one's first fight, and stole one's first kiss ("kush"). It was a place where the older kids passed on their knowledge and skills to the younger kids."
Robert Hendrickson ("New Yawk Tawk") writes that "a stoop, from the Dutch word for 'step,' is the front porch and steps on a New York house where games like stoopball are played. Stoopball, dating back to about 1940, is a game resembling baseball ("beysbol") where the "batter," the person up, throws a rubber ball hard against the steps so that it rebounds into the air. The number of bases and runs given depends on the number of bounces the ball takes before an opposing player catches it..."
Where have we heard the term "stoop"?
One hears about homeowner associations that limit how frequently a home owner can host a yard sale.
Isaac Asimov, science-fiction author,
lived in Brooklyn. He wrote, "Night was a
wonderful time in Brooklyn in the thirties,
especially in warm weather. Everyone
would be sitting on their stoops, since air
conditioning was unknown except in movie
houses, and so was television without
exception. There was nothing to keep us
in the house. Furthermore, few people
owned automobiles, so there was nothing
to carry one away That left the streets and
the stoops, which were thus full, and the
very fullness served as an inhibition to street crime."
Source: "I Remember Brooklyn"
by Ralph Monti
Actor, Eli Wallach, grew up in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. His father owned a candy store on Union Street. He writes, "The streets were always swarming with people out of doors in the summertime ("der zumer"), purchasing fruits or polishing off a charlotte russe on their front stoop." Source: "I Remember Brooklyn"
Larry King writes: "Bensonhurst was like a small village--it was Fiddler on the Roof transported to America...What helped keep the neighborhood so self-contained was that it was unnecessary to leave it for any earthly need. There was the grocery store, Langer's with its pickle barrel that we regularly dipped into, the bakery, Ebinger's, with its Charlotte Russes. When we weren't at the movies, or in the candy store, we were on the stoop. The stoop was a social mecca--at least during my early years. When we became more mature, we graduated to the corner. On the stoop we sat and talked, made up games, argued about sports. Part of my skill as a broad- caster was honed on the stoop." Source: "I Remember Brooklyn"
Dick Schaap, ABC-TV broadcaster and author, wrote, "My favorite game was stoopball. I loved playing that game. After throwing a spaldeen against a stoop, a player scored runs based on how far the ball traveled across the street If you got a "pointer" or a "Killer"--hitting the sharp edge of the stoop--the ball traveled very far, and if it hit the house across the street, it was a home run!...If there was an International Stoopball Championship, I'd have been right up there on top. Sad to say, the level of proficiency I demonstrated in other sports never quite matched my celebrated prowess in stoopball." Source "I Remember Brooklyn"
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Marjorie Wolfe asks, "Now isn't this 'a sheyn mayse'--a pretty tale?
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