Martin H. Levinson lived in Brooklyn from his birth in 1946 to 1962, the height of the baby boom following World War II. He grew up two blocks from Ebbets Field, the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and attended Erasmus Hall High School, which boasts alums such as Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand, and chess-wiz Bobby Fischer. The author's personal recollections of his middle-class childhood in Brooklyn during the 1950s alternate with chapters detailing seminal cultural events of that era including the advent of television, fast-food restaurants, big cars with fins; desegregation and the white flight to the suburbs; rock and roll, beatniks, hula hoops, The Kinsey Reports, the Cold War, McCarthyism, Playboy, and much more. Part memoir, part social history, Brooklyn Boomer offers a captivating portrait of Brooklyn and America in the mid-twentieth Century.

Mid-century Brooklyn was the home of the Dodgers, stoop-ball and stick-ball, a booming Coney Island amusement scene, and some of the best high schools in America. It also had a more somber side: gangs, red-lining, and block-busting. In this spirited evocation, more than one hundred voices reflect on the three decades in the borough between World War II and the Viet Nam War. Earthy and humorous, poignant and nostalgic, this book is an album, chronicle, and celebration of the Brooklyn of legend. Illustrated with period photographs.

I could feel blood pouring from my nose and lips, my eyes opened slowly with a side long glance and a flash of my eyes I could see this burly man with this thick neck and a dark deep scared face sitting on me striking down on me with lefts and rights. I always believed by striking me he cleared the cob webs from my brain. As soon as my head cleared a little, I quickly grabbed him by his face pulling him down to me, biting him on his face. Holding him with my left banging him with short right hands, I tried to rip him off me by reaching around with my left hand and grabbing his mouth, he bit down on my fingers ripping off two finger nails. I just remember him being so heavy, I was gasping for breath I was spent I felt myself going, I could sense there was an all out war going on around me.

Bernie Sanders' tilt at the US presidency has come under fire from an establishment that derides his social democratic policies as alien to the American way. But, as Ted Hamm reveals in this engaging and concise history, the sort of socialism Bernie advocates was commonplace in the Brooklyn where he grew up in the 1940s and 50s. Policies like free college tuition, rent control, and infrastructure projects including extensive public housing, parks and swimming pools were part of the New Deal city run by a progressive Mayor, Fiorello La Guardia, and supported by FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt. While Arthur Miller, resident in Brooklyn Heights, was staging Death of a Salesman, a play with which Bernie's dad closely identified, Woody Guthrie was penning his paeans to the American worker in Coney Island and Jackie Robinson was breaking the color bar on Ebbets Field in a Dodgers team yet to be relocated in California. Drawing deeply on interviews with his brother and friends, and delving skillfully into the history of the borough, Bernie's Brooklyn shows how, far from being an anomaly in US politics, Sanders' 2020 platform is rooted firmly in the progressivism of the New Deal.

"An entertaining memoir that reads like a sitcom." "Made me laugh until tears were coming down my face." In Growing up Greenpoint, Tommy Carbone captures what it was like to be a kid during the 1970s and 80s in Brooklyn, New York. This funny, and sometimes emotional, memoir follows the years Tommy was educated not only in the classrooms of St. Stan's, but on the streets of Greenpoint. It was there, playing street games with friends, being cornered by muggers, playing kissing games with the girls, spending time with family, and constantly seeking out the best snack foods in the neighborhood, where Tommy learned a lot about life; although he may not have known it at the time. A simple conversation, years later, about the New York City Blackout of 1977 sparks Tommy to recall his youth in the city he loved. His stories will bring you into the action of what it was like to dodge cars during a ballgame, to take a hike to another borough in search of a particular burger, to the hours spent playing pinball in a corner candy store, and how special it was to build traditions with three generations of Polish and Italian relatives in Brooklyn's garden spot. The vivid descriptions of his antics of what it was like to grow up during those years will transport you to the sounds and smells of living in the city during those trying years. Reading this book, you'll be entertained, and at the same time, you may shake your head wondering how Tommy ever survived - Growing up in Greenpoint.

Did you grow up in Park Slope, Brooklyn? Do you yearn for the old days, and wish you could have a more permanent scrapbook of the toys and games and mom and pop stores from your childhood? The genesis for The Parkslopian came out of a desire to broaden the scope of the memoir genre to allow the reader to place him or herself into the story, or to use it as a tool to share his or her childhood with loved ones. The memoir genre is criticized for being narcissistic-who cares about the memories of one non-famous person? Therefore, the series of Brooklyn neighborhood coffee table books that includes The Parkslopian was developed in order to crowdsource and compile recollections of times long past using modern social media. Rather than limiting the story of Brooklyn in the 1950s through the 1980s to one person's flawed memory, The Parkslopian is a compilation of stories about the treasured and iconic things that shaped the childhoods (and parenthoods) of those who lived in Brooklyn during the most fascinating era of the twentieth century. This coffee table book is divided into entertaining and bite-sized pieces, and does not need to be read cover to cover. It allows you to share your memories of Park Slope with your friends who grew up elsewhere, and compare the iconic things that were shared throughout the nation while contrasting the special elements that made the Park Slope heritage unique. It is a smorgasbord of reminiscences to last you and your loved ones years-an infusion of the past into a lengthy future. After the 1980s came to an end, a generation of yuppies started moving into Park Slope, driving up prices and driving out longtime residents. They may call themselves "Park Slopers" and believe that they saved the neighborhood from itself, but true Parkslopians have a much longer, richer relationship with the neighborhood and its former community. Are you a Park Sloper or a Parkslopian? Either way, your connection to the neighborhood is truly your own, but this book will help you and those you love recognize the building blocks that fed every single one of those relationships and ultimately tied them together. The rich history that preceded Park Slope's current state must not be forgotten, and The Parkslopian endeavors to keep the past alive, if only on the page. The purchase of this book, and the others in the series, will allow you to witness firsthand how the revolution of social media truly keeps us all connected-first to our own roots, then to our new friends. By using a language today's kids will understand, you can better share with your children what your childhood was like before Park Slope changed forever. It may be more expensive to live there now, but Parkslopians know that Park Slope's worth has long been established-and the reasons are now in print for the very first time. Join the fun by giving this book a prized perch in your home, and visit www.parkslopian.com for more information on Brooklyn and more nostalgia.

This true crime memoir of 1950s Brooklyn shares a revealing look at life inside the Mafia at the height of its power. Frank Dimatteo was born into a family of mob hitmen. His father and godfather were shooters and bodyguards for infamous Mafia legends the Gallo brothers. His uncle was a capo in the Genovese crime family and bodyguard to Frank Costello. With family connections like those, Frank knew everybody in the neighborhood—and they knew him. After dropping out of high school, Frank lived gangster-style with the boys on President Street. In this lively memoir, Frank tells it like it really was growing up in the mob. He shares wild stories about everyone from the old-school Mafia dons and infamous “five families” to the new-breed “independents” who didn’t answer to nobody. He had a front row seat as the Gallo gang waged war against wiseguys with more power, more money, and more guns. And he reveals the shocking deathbed confessions that will blow the lid off the sordid deeds, stunning betrayals, and all-too-secret history of the American Mafia. The President Street Boys was originally self-published as Lion in the Basement.