Learning to Drive in Inwood

By Raanan Geberer

I never lived in Inwood, the northernmost neighborhood in Manhattan. But we lived in Marble Hill, just over the bridge on the Bronx mainland, and most of my learning-to-drive experiences took place in Inwood. And what experiences they were – painful at the time, but sometimes humorous in retrospect.

During senior year at Bronx Science, everyone was learning to drive. Because Science didn’t have its own driver’s ed program, you could take driver’s ed at any nearby high school and Science would give you credit. The closest school to me that offered driver’s ed was the Academy of the Sacred Heart of Mary, a Catholic girls’ school in Inwood. I was a little nervous about going there, thinking I would be out of place, but I needn’t have been. The class was co-ed, and there were several other non-Catholics. I was one of three Jewish kids in the group – the other two were Jewish greasers from George Washington High School who wore black leather jackets and looked like something out of “Da Fonz.”

We first went out in the car in the “industrial area of Inwood” east of Broadway, north of 207^th Street. The neighborhood was dominated by the subway yards, warehouses, garages and a pet cemetery. There were few people on the streets and there was plenty of room to practice. As we became more comfortable behind the wheel, the teacher, whose name I don’t remember, took us into the nearby Bronx. We went to Jerome Avenue, as far as Bronx Science itself. He also took us up and down the steep Kingsbridge Road hill, which in retrospect was a foolish choice when dealing with inexperienced drivers. 

It soon became apparent that I was as klutzy as a driver as I had been in sports. Making fun of the way I frequently took my foot off the gas pedal, braked and then put it on the pedal again, the teacher invented a name for me: “Herky-Jerky.”  Once, when he criticized me and I began a sentence with “I have,” he yelled, “Here’s what you don’t have! You don’t have control of the car, you don’t have awareness of the other cars, you don’t know how to turn…” When it finally came time to take the road test, I went up onto the curb and failed.

“Okay,” my father said, “from now on, I’d better start giving you some lessons myself.” Once again, I found myself in the industrial area of Inwood, but this time with my father as the teacher. My father had just bought a used ’64 Lincoln Continental. When this model car first came out, it had been my favorite, but now it was 1971, seven years later. Dad had bought the car for a ridiculously low price, but with gas prices going sky-high, it still cost him more than it was worth. To top it off, the car was so big, it was difficult to park.

When I was younger, Dad, who had once been sergeant in the Military Police, had taught me how to play the piano. Now, behind the wheel, I found that his teaching methods hadn’t changed: “You idiot! You’re going to back right up into the curb! What? Don’t you signal before you turn? You drive like a lunatic! There’s a car right in front of you—you want to get yourself killed? What’s the hell’s the matter with you!....”  In August, I took the test a second time, and just like the time before, I failed.

My father apparently realized that a kinder, gentler approach was called for.  The next year, I was up at the State University at Binghamton as a freshman, but in June he took me over to a driving school, again in Inwood, owned by an acquaintance of his, Jerry Kristol. I’m not sure how he knew Jerry – it may have been through his job or at the synagogue – but Jerry was a good teacher. The fact that the driving school was on 207^th Street, next to Francesca’s Ice Cream Parlor, didn’t hurt. After each lesson, I had a cherry lime rickey at Francesca’s. The next time I took the test, I failed again, but only by a few points. 

My father, undaunted, sent me for more lessons with Jerry Kristol during the winter and spring breaks. To augment these lessons, he gave me a few lessons of his own, and actually let me drive part of the way to and from Binghamton on Route 17 a few times. By the summer, our family had moved to Co-op City, but I still took the long ride on the 12 bus to the driving school on 207^th Street. In July, I was ready. I took the test again in the all-too-familiar industrial area of Inwood, and this time I passed. Within a few months, I was the owner of a 10-year-old clunker, a Pontiac Tempest. And that was how I learned to drive in Inwood.

The Observer Tackles Brooklyn

From Brooklyn daily eagle
 
The New York Observer has focused its latest issue on Brooklyn. Its front page carries the New York Observer logo, but the words “New York” are crossed out and “Brooklyn” is written above it. The bottom of the page reads, “Heading for Brooklyn: 128 important, influential and interesting people to know now.”
In the spirit of the late Eagle columnist Dennis Holt, who critiqued every Manhattan-based publication when it focused on Brooklyn, I will do the same for this issue of the Observer.
“In many parts of the world,” the main article reads, “Brooklyn is shorthand for ‘cool,’ but shaggy beards aren’t the borough’s only exports. Its talent is all over TV, its tastemakers are dressing Hollywood, and its tech visionaries are redefining social media.”
The Observer is accurate in that its list of 128 influential Brooklynites represent the Brooklyn of today. You won’t find Barbra Streisand or even Jay-Z on that list. No mention of egg creams will be found.
Many of those on the list are people whom I heartily agree should be there. Among these are Steve Hindy and Garrett Oliver of the Brooklyn Brewery; Karen Brooks Hopkins of the Brooklyn Academy of Music; Andrew Kimball, former president of the Brooklyn Navy Yard; Dr. K.R. Sreenivasan of NYU Polytechnic; director Spike Lee; Brooklyn Bridge Park planner Regina Myer; and former Prospect Park Administrator Tupper Thomas.
These are all people who have solid accomplishments. The paper also has a section on politicians, headed by Mayor Bill de Blasio, although that doesn’t stop the Observer from bashing him in several editorials for being too pro-tenant.
The article begins to lose me when it starts talking about restaurants, culture and real estate. Two restaurateurs, Frank Castronovo and Frank Falcinelli, are praised for updating the old “retro red-sauce joints.” Traditional Italian restaurants of the type the Observer means are hardly dead—they’re alive and well in places like Bensonhurst and Bay Ridge. However, the Observer barely acknowledges that such neighborhoods exist.
Garth Risk Hallberg, a writer who sold a book to Knopf for $2 million last year, is profiled, but what about other authors, such as Paul Auster, who have been writing books for years? Jake Dobkin, the founder of the news blog Gothamist (of which I am a fan) is profiled, but why not local bloggers? There are any number of blogs, such as Pardon Me for Asking, Brokelyn and Sheepshead Bites, that have been doing consistently good work. 
The writers also seem to have little appreciation of the type of quirky charm that marks the borough’s traditional neighborhoods. At one point, the Observer writes of a zoning change that helped transform Greenpoint from a neighborhood dominated by “the Polish National Home and 99-cent stores.” I’ve been to Greenpoint, and to me, thrift stores and Polish bakeries are what make the neighborhood interesting.
Try as it might, the Observer, in its Brooklyn edition, can’t shake its bias favoring wealth, glitz, glamour and big-time success. A friend of mine says there are actually four Brooklyns: Trendy Brooklyn (stretching roughly from Williamsburg to Prospect Park), Immigrant Brooklyn (Sunset Park, much of Bensonhurst, Brighton Beach, etc.), African-American Brooklyn (Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights, most of Flatbush, etc.) and Traditional Brooklyn (Midwood, Bay Ridge, Marine Park, etc.). To the Observer, only the first Brooklyn seems to be real.