My friend Joel lived at 124 East 176th until he was 13. Like many others at the time, his family moved out of the Bronx when it was deteriorating. Joel recalls the neighborhood – Mike the cop, mothers sitting out in lawn chairs, kids playing in the school across the street, walking to P.S. 28, the Henning Place street steps, and the elevated on Jerome Avenue.
The ironwork fence was added after Joel’s time.
To a kid living at Morris and East 176th, anything beyond the Jerome Avenue elevated station was terra incognita.
Right across from #124, the kids played in this schoolyard, under the watchful eye of their mothers, sitting in lawn chairs on the corner.
Joel didn’t say whether hanging sneakers was a Bronx tradition back in the day.
This old place was surely there when Joel was. I’ll have to ask him if he remembers it.