Levittown and its iconic water tower still have a strong pull on early residents - Part 2

Kathy Stahlman Zinn (1963)

The water tower is a Levittown icon, not only because I could see it from my house on Butternut Lane, but because, for my family it signified the Azalea Lane pool, where we spent so many glorious childhood days.

My attachment to the nine years I lived in Levittown involves many factors: First, it was the freedom for a city child, moving out of a three-story, walk-up apartment in Queens at age seven, to the freedom of our own house and our own yard. It is the importance of those years, from seven to 16, that encompassed most of my impressionable years and early education.

And, in the last 30 years, as an adult, it has been the increasing realization that my WW II veteran father and my family were who Levittown was built for - we, and our teachers, were part of a "grand plan" to create, not only a new United States, but a new world - a little grandiose, to be sure, and we haven't quite fulfilled those dreams. But I believe that is what our parents and teachers were driven by, and what some of us, in our teens and early 20s, later rebelled against, as we saw the cracks in the dream.

There have been times when I have been embarrassed by my Levittown roots, as was my best friend, growing up. At first, this was due to all the criticism that Levittown and other developments drew of "being all made out of ticky-tacky and all looked just the same". However, I was proud of all the changes my father made to our home, and I did not think either our homes or we residents were made of "ticky tacky' nor were we all the same. But the public perception bothered me.

Later I was even more embarrassed when I learned more about the early racial biases that kept other striving, middle class veterans, albeit of a darker skin, from fulfilling their dream. Thankfully, that story changed more quickly in our Levittown than in other Levittowns. But people still confuse our Levittown with, especially the one in Pennsylvania.

I am now proud to tell people I grew up in Levittown, New York. I look back, and recognize that there was so much that was idyllic about our childhoods there. I am sure there were "behind the scenes" stories in our little Cape Cod and ranch houses. At times I secretly thought my family was one of those dysfunctional ones written about in late 1950s and early 1960s books and magazines.

Now I realize everything is relative and we were very blessed, perhaps naive, as were our parents, in the freedom and resources and lack of classism in our community. I hope some of this remains today, when people old enough to be my grandchildren are about to graduate from Division Avenue High School.

Arnie Galeota (1961)

My fondest attachments are to so many things including the North Village Green where we spent so many snowy days getting out of the harsh weather where we could still all hang together. Naturally, the owner would spot us and throw us out. I remember going to the Saturday morning football games, to an away game in a big motorcade or being at home with a big celebration that night if we won. There was also sneaking a beer at Sid's deli with a juicy kosher hotdog. Also, the excitement of the senior prom which became an expensive but fun weekend, and of course senior cut day.

The logistics of Levittown were convenient in relation to Jones Beach, also the most exciting city on earth, New York City, and Hempstead where the shopping was good.

The time was relatively stress free. We came out of a war in Korea and the economy was good. The music still lives on and drugs were not a huge problem. It would be 13 years before we got stuck in another war.

Our back yards had apple and peach trees and most of our moms were housewives creating a family atmosphere. We'd cruise Hempstead Turnpike and eat at McDonald's or Wetsons.

The water tower never played an important part in my social life. It was just a landmark to remind me what town I lived in and how happy and lucky I was.

Water tower photos were taken this week by Marilyn Monrud Frese, classs of 1963

A player's tribute to Levittown Little League coach Mickey Rutner

Mickey Rutner (back row, far right) coached this 1955 Levittown Little League team. Arnie Galeota is in the front row, far right).
click on photo to enlarge

By Arnie Galeota
Class of 1961

I had the good fortune to play on a Little League team coached by my friend Toby Rutner's dad. Mickey Rutner knew all the proper ways to approach the sport of baseball. Hitting was more than keeping your eye on the ball, there was a discipline to hitting. He tried like hell to make a hitter out of me. He said," Arnie, you're not a big kid, (I weighed about 100 pounds) so base hitting is what we'll concentrate on, rather than long ball hitting". Little did he know that base hitting was even over my head. I was very short.. He told me to swing the bat at the ball and try to hit it back to the pitcher, BUT HIT IT HARD!. The end result was a base hit up the middle.

He demonstrated it to me and he took his stride and a level swing and crack...up the middle into center field. He did it maybe 8 out of 10 times. I step in and crack! a dribbler to the mound, some fouled tips and a few missed swings, I was 12 or 13 at the time. He never gave up on me, showed incredible patience and even showed a sense of humor about it. However, he was a no nonsense coach when it was time to work hard.

Now it came time for him to teach me how to play second base. He moved in front of a ground ball with the grace of a dancer. He taught me how to break for a ball as soon as it left the bat, how to turn and throw from different angles and what my responsibilities were when the ball was put into play. More than all of that he taught me how to think the way a ball player thinks. He always said to me, "Know what you will do with the ball if it's hit to you. What are your options?"

He spent a lot of time trying to teach me the pivot to make the throw to first base on a double play and how to run out into right field and be the cut off man. What a patient teacher he was. Eventually he molded me into a pretty decent fielding second baseman which I was able to maintain later in life when I played in a softball league in Smithtown...I was 40 at the time and 60 pounds heavier.

He tagged me with the nickname "hitless wonder" because of my fielding skills. He made it look so easy and he rarely showed any temper or frustration. He was a motivational kind of coach. I also remember Toby's mom Lee always being involved with the refreshments and other helpful things. He treated her with a lot of respect. She also seemed to love being around the kids as much as he did.

Mickey Rutner was a man to respect just by the way he treated everyone, the way he carried himself and boy could he play baseball!

Class of 1961's Arnie Galeota reports on his six months in Panama

By Arnie Galeota

After living in a foreign country for six months I was ready to come home. In Panama I enjoyed the different attitude people lived their daily lives with. There was less stress trying to make a lot of money. People make a lot less money there but stretch it and manage to enjoy themselves every day. The cafes are always busy at night with the local citizenry just chilling over coffee or beer. Panama consumes more beer than any other country in Central or South America except for Brazil, which is 80 times more populated.

With all that said there is still so much more to enjoy in this country of ours. All the state of the art technology, the many amusement parks, the huge following of many sports here, the beautiful national parks and various landscapes from waterways to mountains to cities to farms and so much more. The biggest cultural difference is their priorities vs. ours. Here it's to make money and use it to make more money and finally to spend it on materialistic things and vacations. Education there is a priority which they take very seriously.

The biggest culture shock to me was their sense of getting along with one another, how friendly they are to everyone and how patient with those of us who didn't speak their language very well. I never expected that. I rarely saw anyone lose their temper. I was out of my comfort zone in Panama but it became less and less after awhile. There are large numbers of foreigners living there, some retired, some opening businesses. Many are Americans.

It's great being back in Los Angeles and my improved Spanish is a plus in this city.

Part 2: Memories of Mousy, Bumpy and other Levittown hoods

Below are comments about the guys we early Levittowners referred to as "rocks".

Tom Paturzo Baker, 1960
I enjoyed knowing the rocks and was not afraid of them. I found them capable of compassion and all other decent human qualities. The leather jackets and motorcycle boots were a defense against the slings and arrows of our society. They were part of our teenage culture, a reflection of the film media, “Blackboard Jungle” and the “Wild Ones.” The movie "Grease" finally corrected the myth.

Al Smith was a friend of mine. He died at 29, and was a rock who had many excellent human qualities. I could name others who would never harm anyone and treated all with respect. Most of the rocks lived in a façade of toughness as a means of self-defense. They lived in as much fear as anyone. We all had fears and identity problems in those days.

I always liked people who were different. It would be boring if everyone were the same. They challenged our cultural mores and norms and made me think. I liked to talk to the scholars for the same reason. They were not geeks, simply people with different points of view.

Some rocks made the transition into adulthood, graduated from high school, college and a few became teachers. We should avoid stereotyping the rocks as a group. I never regretted knowing the rocks personally. Most would standup and help you if you were in trouble.

Skippy McCarthy 1962
In his "Defense of the Rocks", Tom Paturzo Baker states, "I enjoyed knowing the Rocks and was not afraid of them". Well hell, if I had Tommy's 18-plus inch biceps in 1957, I wouldn't have been so scared of them either. In 1957, you could pick me up by my hindquarters and still have a free hand for groceries. And that's no lie.

In the previous blog entry, no one mentioned the toughest and probably most gracious of them all, and that was Billy Kelly. Pound for pound he was probably the toughest of that whole group. However, the wild nicknames like Bugsy, Mousy and Lucky seemed to highlight the others.

I got to know Billy, for some unknown reason, when I was at the North Village Green one day and he realized my name was McCarthy and like he, an Irishman. He obviously couldn't smell my fear as a lion could. He asked questions of me, this was in 1957, that at this moment I can't recall, and we had an amicable exchange. Over the next few years we'd see each other here and there and I would always respect his domain, and he would acknowledge and say hi. And surprisingly it would never change.

One afternoon in 1960, I'm 16 years old, and at my house on Periwinkle Road, around the block from Azalea Field, when my 10 year-old brother Jerry comes home crying about a group of guys who took his football at Azalea. My WW II generation father looks at me and says, "Skippy you need to go over there and get Jerry's ball back." No problem.

As I'm walking from our house to Azalea I ask my brother who was it that took your ball and he says "Some guys named Mousy, Lucky, Bugsy, etc." Talk about your legs starting to turn to Jell-O. So on one hand I have to face the wrath of "Joe McCarthy Sr. " or on the other the "Rock & Rollers" of Bugsy, Lucky, etc. My life, as short as it was at that time, started to pass before me.

When I arrived at Azalea my worst feelings proved accurate. There were Mousy, Lucky, Bugsy and others from their crowd. Fortunately, there also was some pretty good guys from their crowd like Ernie and Gabe Navarro and Billy Kelly. I saw Billy and approached to explain my predicament. Immediately I had the football back. He was an OK guy, in my book, and I often wonder whatever happened to him.

Yes, I was in the class of '62 at Division Avenue High School, unlike Tommy in '60. But as a younger observer at Azalea Pool and other places, we had the advantage of seeing and being there for all kinds of events. Al Smith, who was held in respect by the rocks, was a great husband and father and left this world a heck of a lot sooner than he should have. May he rest in peace.

Arnie Galeota, 1962
I would have to agree with Skippy's evaluation of the futility of trying to stand up to these guys who were street wise and street tough.

I too was slight of build with no muscles to be found. Through a lot of hard weight lifting, Tom Paturzo Baker had gotten my share of allotted muscles and some of Skippy's too. His biceps were as big as my waist at that time so naturally these "rocks" gave him his due.

I would agree with Tom that they were trying to make a statement with the attitude they carried around and by the way they dressed. Antiestablishment became fashionable with the showing of movies "Rebel Without a Cause", "The Black Board Jungle" and "The Wild Ones" and the tremendous popularity of Elvis Presley.

Being a scrawny kid who had barely experienced the world, I wasn't wise enough yet as to their motives. All I knew was that they were different from most of the people I hung with and I kept my distance as a matter of survival.

I do remember Billy Kelly well. I went to Northside School with him and we were friends, not close friends, but friends. He was always a little distant. When I was in my senior year I had heard rumors that he was seen many nights walking the streets of Levittown after he had been drinking and beating up total strangers for no apparent reason.

It was a rumor never substantiated, but he was a loner and he did seem troubled. He had done some boxing and he was tough so the rumors were believable.

Bumpy came from the other side of Levittown, the Memorial side. Al Smith was close to Bumpy, but Al didn't seem to have to prove anything. He knew he was tough and he never went around intimidating people. He was a nice guy who did have a good marriage with a nice family and was tragically taken all too soon.

Let us not forget guys like Joe Detore who had the need for attention and fulfilled that need by doing outrageous things. He was very short but compensated for that by being strong and aggressive. Sadly he too has passed on.

Michael Haag 1961
I knew Billy Kelly, but it was really my father who knew him well and liked him. Part of the connection was my mother, who was born in Dublin, maiden name Maguire. But there was also my father's upbringing. His father emigrated from Hermuthausen in Germany to London, married there and then emigrated further, to America. He died young, age thirty, of typhoid, in Hannibal, Missouri, and his widow, my grandmother, who was only twenty-five, returned to London with her three children.

That was before the First World War. Times were very hard, and she raised her children in the toughest part of London, the East End, where my father learned to stand up for himself -- which meant learning how to fight. I think he recognized something of himself in Billy Kelly, especially so when Billy took up boxing. My father always thought Billy was very bright, not to mention charming, and encouraged him to keep on with his education, to make something of himself.

But at some point Billy Kelly disappeared from the scene. Dropped out of school and attempted a boxing career, I think. I know nothing about him. He had the makings of success about him, did Billy Kelly, if he could have gotten out of his rut. Anyway, he did not become heavyweight champion of the world otherwise I would have noticed, nor president of the United States.

If you have memories of Levittown's rocks that you would like to share, email them to fbarning@cox.net. At least one more post about Bumpy, Mousy, Bugsy and friends will appear in Frank's blog.
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Hoods, not Levittown's rocks, were immortalized in this song from 1955. None of our rocks had motorcycles but the song does describe how they dressed and captures a long-gone era.

BLACK DENIM TROUSERS AND MOTORCYCLE BOOTS

[Words and Music by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller]

He wore black denim trousers and motorcycle boots
And a black leather jacket with an eagle on the back
He had a hopped-up 'cycle that took off like a gun
That fool was the terror of Highway 101

Well, he never washed his face and he never combed his hair
He had axle grease embedded underneath his fingernails
On the muscle of his arm was a red tattoo
A picture of a heart saying "Mother, I love you"

He had a pretty girlfriend by the name of Mary Lou
But he treated her just like he treated all the rest
And everybody pitied her 'cause everybody knew
He loved that doggone motorcycle best

He wore black denim trousers and motorcycle boots
And a black leather jacket with an eagle on the back
He had a hopped-up 'cycle that took off like a gun
That fool was the terror of Highway 101

Mary Lou, poor girl, she pleaded and she begged him not to leave
She said, I've got a feeling if you ride tonight I'll grieve
But her tears were shed in vain and her every word was lost
In the rumble of his engine and the smoke from his exhaust

Then he took off like the Devil and there was fire in his eyes
He said, I'll go a thousand miles before the sun can rise
But he hit a screamin' diesel that was California-bound
And when they cleared the wreckage, all they found

Was his black denim trousers and motorcycle boots
And a black leather jacket with an eagle on the back
But they couldn't find the 'cycle that took off like a gun
And they never found the terror of Highway 101

Some Levittown boys had a sump to explore, Arnie Galeota and friends had a vacant lot off Cornflower Road

Arnie Galeota (left) and his pal Ernie Villatore before their senior prom. Ernie married his date, Sue Rutkin.

By Arnie Galeota, 1961
Very early Levittown had unusual landscape areas like Orchid Road's sump, as Tim Lavey commented on in the previous blog entry posted here. I lived on Mistletoe Lane, off of Cornflower Road a short walk from the small cross street that intersected the Cornflower vacant lot where I used to play baseball. The name of that little road escapes me as so much does these days. I know I had to walk it to get to school.

In that lot were these sagging wires, dead power lines I think, that hung a few feet above our heads. Every once in awhile someone got the urge to find a way to bring that wire down low enough to where a guy with two hands would grab hold of it and go for an upward ride but would invariably come back down through their own body weight. I tried it a few times and it did give me a rush but it also made me think of the consequences if on the way up I suddenly lost my grip, so I became an observer after that. I had heard that someone had broken both their legs doing that.

That empty lot was the focal point of our baseball experience as young teens. Ernie Villatore, Don and Ron Albaum, Jim Heyward, the late Ralph DelPiano, and his older brother Nick plus a few other guys who were not long-term residents of Levittown made up the baseball competition. I must add that Tom Dubose was always invited but he had a paper route that he would not give up so he was too busy making money much like he's been for these past 40 years.

We played on a surface that made the New York City pot holes look like pimples. A ground ball was always an adventure and someone usually had a bad hop hit them in the face or chest. We honed our hitting skills though and our fly ball judgment skills as well.

Jim Heyward lived on Cornflower and it was at his house that we played hooky on many an occasion. Both his parents worked and they left earlier than we left for school so we would all meet at his house every morning since it was right on the path toward our destination, the high school. We would decide if we all or just some wanted to take the day off and write an excuse note. Sometimes we all would stay home, but usually that pillar of Division Avenue Ernie Villatore would go to school because he was always involved in a team sport and there was always practice.

That little street that intersected the area was owned by the Long Island Rail Road and all of those streets that ran parallel all the way up the length of Levittown were always closed down one day every year for legal reasons to protect LIRR ownership. It was an inconvenience to be sure, but it made it's point.

I would love to have a Mistletoe Lane reunion. We had some honorary members like Sue Chasin Ross, and Bill Stanley. Seems like Stanley was everywhere you looked in those days...he got around. Jim McGrath spent more time there as well but as an older teen with a car.

Back then, Levittown was like one big playground. I was fortunate to have had a lot of kids my age to share that portion of our lives.

Instant culture shock shook 13 Levittown guys who went to college in Nebraska

A recent photo of beautiful downtown Wayne

Wayne State College is 1,500 miles from Levittown and is in the middle of a cornfield. It was instant culture shock for the group of Division Avenue guys went off to the small college in Nebraska in the early 1960s. The Levittown contingent included Ron Albaum, Toby Rutner, Jim McGrath, John Tanner, Warren Zaretsky, Mike Caldararo, Arnie Katz, Bill Stanley, Bill Whalen, the late Bobby Burner, Jim Judson, John Sullivan and Arnie Galeota. Some were in Division’s class of 1960 and others graduated in 1961.
On paper, it did not seem like a match made in heaven, and for some it wasn’t. McGrath and Caldararo have lived there for more than 45 years, so for them it was a fortuitous move. Both are retired teachers. Galeota, class of 1961, was among those who headed west and the following are some of his thoughts of “those wonderful Nebraska days,” as he calls them.

By Arnie Galeota
Wayne State was in a town of about 3 to 4,000 people with a campus population of less than 2,000 students. Most of the students were from small towns in Nebraska and Iowa. There were 11 from Hawaii and four from Michigan who we used to play in touch football.
Why did we pick this college? Well, there is a story to that. Albaum's parents spent the money to have a profile done to see what school would be a good fit for their son. The profile turned up Wayne.
Albaum did a year and talked Caldararo and myself into giving it a try. The word got around among others in Levittown. The cost of going was very inexpensive, which was a factor for a few of us. We all got together and discussed the kind of adventure it might be for all of us to go far away and try to get a college education.
I had all good intensions but became easily side tracked with my new found freedom from a strict father, so I went nuts. Toby, Jimmy, Mike, Bill, John and Warren, all managed to stick it out and graduate. I lasted a year and a half until the Dean of Men informed me that I was out.
When our crew from Levittown and three from New York City first arrived, the word had leaked out that the "the Yorkies” had hit Wayne. It was Sept. 1961 and the weather was dreary. It was cold and our trunks of bedding and clothes hadn't arrived and the heat hadn't been turned on in the dorms. In order to keep warm, when we went to bed we slept between the mattress and the box spring. The mattress substituted as a blanket for me.
After a few weeks some of us had made a few local friends, drinking buddies if you will. We got the inside scoop. The parents of the high school girls, especially the seniors, were given orders not to fraternize with those gangsters from New York. We might rape them and kill them. Now you have to remember the mentality of the farmers of America's heartland. They only know what they've been taught about people from the big city. Even some of the college coeds kept their distance from us.
Some of us felt isolated from the general population so we decided to form our own fraternity. We called it "The Ugly Club" and ironically I was made president for life. Caldararo was vice president. We had one of the guys draw cartoon characters on our sweatshirts with a heading of "The Ugly Club" and your rank or position in the club. He was a cartoonist and from Nebraska. The sweatshirts were all exactly alike except for the character painted on it.
We would sit in the cafeteria together and attract a lot of attention with our outlandish behavior. We were loud and a bit obnoxious, but entertaining. After dinner, the club would gather in the student union and have a meeting where we would go over the business of the day. We would start planning our weekend drinking binge except for Caldararo. He wasn't into that. He hooked up with a Nebraska farmer's daughter rather quickly. Her name is Janet, they have been married for 46 years and she is a terrific person.
One midweek afternoon Jim McGrath, Arnie Katz and I went and bought a cheap car, and I mean cheap. It was an old black early 1950s Chevy. It had a column standard shift and it just ran. It cost about $200 and four of us chipped in. Ron Albaum was the 4th party. The day we picked up the car, Ron had a class so we registered it in his name, with no insurance of course.
That first weekend we had the car the four of us took a trip to a slightly larger town called Freemont 30 miles away. We rode around that town for a while until we found a large pizza place where there was some co-ed dancing going on. McGrath and I managed to get two of the girls interested in us so we took Katz and Albaum to a hotel so they could sit in the lobby until Jim and I completed our getting acquainted time period. We took the girls back after an hour, went and picked up the guys and went back to the campus.
The following weekend McGrath and I had a prearranged date with the girls and we took Katz along, Albaum declined. We entered the same pizza parlor where we were warned by the girls that some of the guys were pissed off about us moving in on their girls.
All of a sudden a group of guys started gathering. The three of us put our backs together so we could protect each other but I wasn't much of a fighter, but McGrath was ready and so was Katz. I wisely suggested we get out the back door since we were outnumbered. Fortunately they agreed so we managed to get out with little time to spare.
The next weekend just McGrath and I made the trip, no Katz. But this time we met the girls away from that pizza joint. We wound up sleeping in the car on the side of the road and the girls stayed with us but no sex, just some making out. We never saw them again.
A few weeks later Albaum's parents happened to drop in at Wayne, 1500 miles from where they lived in Levittown. His father was an executive in a button company and he traveled a lot, so his parents made a side trip to see us. I came home from a class, one of the very few I attended, and in Albaum's room I see McGrath, Katz and Ron and his father and mother. I had grown up with the Albaums (the twins, Ron and Don), we lived on the same block so I knew his parents well. His father was furious. He was madder at Ron than he was at us for the car being put in his name and therefore they'd be liable in the event of an accident. He sold the car since it was his to sell and never gave us our money back. He was mad at us too and he got even.
Bill Whalen was a muscular, tough guy who was our protector. He wrestled and played football for Division. He dated the late Chris Wilkens for a while. Legend has it that after he made his presence felt by making the varsity football team at Wayne, he went to a bar one night where all the players hung out. He made a public statement that it was hands off the guys from Long Island or they'd answer to him. Now that may be an exaggeration of the truth, but no one ever hassled any of us. We became friends with a lot of those guys.
Whalen used to room with McGrath, who was a fantastic light-weight wrestler in high school and coached the sport for many decades in Nebraska. Whalen knew we were all afraid of him, not terrified but respectful of his ability to hurt people. He used to come in on weekends in the middle of the night and Jimmy would be sound asleep. Bill didn't care, he would put on all the lights, make all the noise he wanted and when he finally decided to go to bed he would throw a shoe at Jimmy and tell him to turn out the lights. Jimmy was more fearless than I was so I was glad he was rooming with Whalen instead of me, but he got up and turned out the lights. Whalen never put a hand on any of us. He didn't have to.
Whalen was dating a girl named Laveryl Nelson. She had a striking resemblance to Chris Wilkens who Bill had been going out with, but it was over with them. Someone made the stupid remark that he was interested in Laveryl because she looked like Chris and he was pining over their breakup.
Well, it got back to him that I made the statement, which wasn't true. I was warned that he was waiting for me at the cafeteria where he was going to tear my head off. Needless to say, I was terrified but I thought to myself, I better face him and get it over with since I couldn't avoid him on campus for too long.
I remember walking into the cafeteria, seeing Bill and several of the guys sitting at a table with a look on their faces that could only mean a funeral was a strong possibility. I walked right up to him short of breadth, they had no Depends in those days, so I was on my own. I said, "Before you kill me, I had nothing to do with it.” He saw the look of terror in my face and busted out laughing. What I didn't know was that he had found out who the guilty party was. Well, I cleaned out my shorts and got my lunch.
I will tell you that going to school in Nebraska grew on most of us and we learned how to deal with the culture shock. Some of us learned how to use squirrel guns and me personally, I learned how to drink beer. I thought I knew how from Sid's deli in Levittown, but I realized I was a novice when I got to Wayne State.

Happy Birthday to Arnie Galeota, class of 1961

Today is Arnie's 67th birthday and he is celebrating it in his new home town, Panama City, Panama. The guy still knows how to party and his plans are exciting. The photo was taken in 1969 with his son Tony.