Happy Independence Day.
Effective immediately, View from 103 will be folded into Bay Ridge Blog. This will remain a Bay Ridge/Brooklyn-centric blog, with the occasional comment on other subjects.
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Bay Ridge, and much of the rest of New York City, once would be ablaze in fireworks every July 4, and the days leading up to it. This was the case all through the 1960s , the 1970s, and the 1980s...up until the administration of Mayor Guiliani.
He put a stop to that. It was the right move, as fireworks are dangerous things. Kids used to get hurt every year.. An errant bottle rocket caused a house to burn down some blocks from here years back. But I truly loved fireworks when I was a kid. The bigger and the d the louder and more dangerous they were, the more I loved them. We used to ride our bikes up to Bath Avenue to buy them from a a local car service, behind which a garage was filled to the roof with fireworks of every description.
We'd set trash bins afire and throw mats of 1600 fircrackers into them. We'd set off cherry bombs, ash cans and M-80s all over the neighborhood, including in the subway exits, where they would make an unbelievable echo. Then it was down to the 69th Street Pier to set off more big and small fireworks, the bombs and the rockets. Whistling Jupiters, ***chasers, "Jap Rockets". It could be dangerous to walk down Shore Road or any street in the neighborhood. It's a miracle that juvenile delinquints like me and the rest never blew our hands off. It was another time. And good God it was fun!
Happy July 4, one and all.
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