(soft music) - [Man] The block becomes
your world in a way. - [Tim] I don't think
the block's any different than life in general. There are people that you connect with and there are people that
you don't want to connect with. - [Man] This is a unique place. - [Woman] It goes through phases. - [Man] Every block
has a little bit of different, a life of its own. - [Man] That's more than a house. We had an amazing life there. - [Man] It's a crapshoot. - [Bob] If you don't really research who your n
eighbor, it could
be a mass murderer next to you. - [Lynda] Well, how would you know? The person wouldn't say, "Oh, by the way", "I've murdered a few people." You know? (Lynda laughs) (soft music) - Well, I think we could
count on each other, which is a very important thing. That's how I feel about
living on this block. I know if I needed help with anything and I went knocking on someone's door, they'd be there for me. - Right away. I kind of feel like, well, this is really special. I almost fee
l privileged to be living here in this town, you know. - I've been around the block a lot of times and I've been around a lot of blocks. I was not born on this block. My family came here in 1965. That makes me, in a sense, a
second generation, if you will. - Every block has a
little bit of different life of its own, you know. - You know, something
that was just supposed to be like a five minute high
turned into bloody Mary's, beach chairs sitting outside and like two hours going by and we're lik
e, "Okay. The day's pretty much..." "It's almost lunch." (Luvinia laughs) - But it's like a little oasis in the middle of New York City. - Well, it was the best
kept secret in town. - I mean, a block is an
amalgamation of human beings. And anytime you throw a
bunch of human beings into a pot, you're gonna get a, you know, a unique and hopefully funny mix. - It's a crapshoot. We didn't, you know, like vet who the people were on
the block, we had no clue. - If something happened
and I needed to go
, I would not. There are a number of people, there's some people I don't know at all that I would have no qualms going into and saying, "I need help." - We found a neighborhood again, this is where our kids grew up. They were three, four and
five when they moved here. This is how they grew up. - It's home, it's our home,
everybody is so nice. - I was born in Rockaway 1957. I've lived here for about 25. - I think that's just life in general. I don't think the block's any different than life in ge
neral. There are people that you connect with and there are people that
you don't wanna connect with. - There is always gonna
be a reef in any community, any block anywhere in the world, whether it's here or around the world. - Yeah, she's very friendly with everybody. She's a very friendly, warm-hearted person. I'm not so much. So there are people on
the block I just don't talk to at all. - There's something here, you know, it's like, it takes a village. It takes a block. (soft music) - As soon
as we came down a dead end street and no cars by the curbs and basketball nets and hockey nets up by the curbs. I said, "This is a street" "like when I was a kid growing up." We had to stop and hold the game off for a
second, for the car to pass. I knew this is like, this was would've been a haven for my kids, you know? 'Cause my son was into sports. - The interesting thing I think was that we didn't meet anybody on the block right away. We met the children because we had a 2-year-old and a new
born. And there were kids on the block who were very interested in the fact, "Oh my god, they were gonna be," "you know, more kids on the block." - Oh, the new kids on the block. (Lynda laughs) - Making friends or not making friends doesn't mean that there has
to be hostility or disagreement. Whereas with other people,
without any preconceived game plan or objective, you just wind up having a more convivial relationship. - If you ask me back in 1974 how the neighborhood would be in 2022, current
ly, I would say it would change radically such a large amount of time. But the neighborhood, to my surprise and happiness is really stable and just as nice as it
was when we moved in. - Back when I was growing up out here on any given summer night, everybody was sitting
out in front of their houses on the front stoop or in a beach chair in front of the house. Or 10, 15 people would congregate in front of somebody's
house very frequently, our house. And it was a great community. Everybody on the
street knew each other. And I hope it's still that way. - Then I think back in
the seventies and sixties, people were just, they had
to depend on each other more. You think of the phones,
I remember our house, there was like four party lines where you shared the phone
with four different neighbors. Back in the 1960s. My parents shared the phone with two or three other neighbors. - I think from the get go,
we saw this as our village. This block was our village, our place to make friends, make the
best of it. And I think we've been
very, very happy here. You know, we've brought up two children, we have grandchildren. - It felt like home. Like it felt like a big family. So I always felt very safe here. - On the block everybody
knows who everybody is and they know not to
push anybody's buttons. So that's why we're all cool. Everybody know how to keep they cool. And that's the cool thing about the block. You know how to keep your cool. - The kids used to laugh. They used to tell a story tha
t like, when I was very, very little, like, I don't know how old, it's a memory that I
don't particularly have, but the kids who were older than me have is that apparently I heard
the bells of the ice cream truck and I ran out of the house naked. So I don't know if I was
three or whatever it was. - [Interviewer] That's really good. - They would tell that story like, you know, he was the kid who ran out naked, 'cause he heard the bells
of the ice cream truck. - I know if I needed help with anythi
ng and I went knocking on someone's door, they'd be there for me. Even if I'm not close with them. And that's a very important thing because I no longer have
family here in New York. So this block is like an
extended family for me. I have two cats in the house. If I wanna go somewhere, I need to depend on one
of my neighbors to help me with the cat so I can go away. And in return, I shouldn't say in return because they know I'm here. And I help everybody that approaches me also, which I don't th
ink that exists everywhere. And I think we have a very good block here because everybody is here for everyone. Even if there might be something about me that they don't like, they're still there to help me. And that's what family is. I mean, we are not happy with everything that everybody in our family does, but it's family. - I'm driving you to
Garrick's to get your car. No? So that we can drive to Brooklyn. - I'm gonna leave this car here? - In Brooklyn? - You can't jump the curb with this one
. - Gotcha. Gotcha. - So it's interesting that it becomes much more important to
you than you think it would be. And yet you don't really
research who your neighbor, it could be a mass
murderer, next door to you. - Well, how would you know? The person wouldn't say, "Oh, by the way", "I've murdered a few people." You know? (Lynda laughs) - That's a point. - People like to fence
off to show their border where they live. To me, the fence or no fence, I don't need a fence to live. 'Cause again, like
I said,
we had houses upstate. There were no fences. It was all open land. - Yesterday I made escarole and beans. So I shared it with whoever was interested in soup on a hot day. Enjoy your zucchini flowers. I got one more delivery,
I don't see her car but if she's home, she'll get 'em. - When you deal... Look, I've been around
the block a lot of times and I've been around a lot of blocks. They're like, you see this today. You know, if you're a certain culture, you're a certain color, you're a
certain religion or something, people already have some kind of notion before they even meet you, you know. So that's just a reality in life. - It's like anything else. There are some people
on the block you can talk to, some you can't. And some people I don't really know. People right next door, very nice lady, the husband say hello to him, it's like
he kind of ignores you. Okay, knock yourself out, bro. I didn't take a bite of your
sandwich, but it's okay. (Tim laughs) - Decorating the house
w
ith all these plastic flowers because I needed vivid colors. Colors make you happy, the right color in the right
place, it can do wonders. And that's what I did. So if you look at the flowers, what Dr. Tito does is affect the different reactivating systems in your brain. The colors that stimulate different areas of happiness. - So good fences I guess are important, but I think fences need
to have gates and doors to allow people to pass through. To be completely isolated does not engender a warm
spirit. Certainly does not engender
friendliness or happiness. So I think it's good to have good fences with open doors as well. - In other words, there
are certain people who just, if they see something a certain way, that's just the way it is. And it doesn't matter. Like if I came over to them and started having a conversation, started talking or wanted
to open up something new about, "Hey, what do you think about..." They're so locked in either
to their own way of thinking or how they perceiv
e you. And what I'd noticed is that there were certain people, there are people in any
community of course, but there were a lot of
people even on this block who they do what they
call chirping a little bit. There's a little bit of this
chirping and gossip and stuff. And if they have an idea, it's very hard to dispel 'em
of that notion or that idea. - I could tell you one thing. I don't care what anybody
thinks about me, you know why? I know what I know about me. Plain and simple. They're not bu
ttering my bread. Next? Who cares? - One thing everybody
knows each other's pants size. But other than that- - [Interviewer] What do you mean by that? - Well, what I mean
by that is that everybody gets involved in people's
business when they shouldn't. I believe very much about good fences. Yeah. This is my property, leave me alone. I don't wanna get
involved in your business. I wonder if they're gonna see this movie. They're gonna say, "Oh, that Dino." - Well, I think appropriate distance, psyc
hological distance is important. And particularly when
there is no physical distance. When you live near to somebody, there's a temptation, I think to mistake propinquity
for intimacy in other words. Because I live across the street of the driveway from this guy. That can be a... And I've seen this happen with people. It could be a temptation to say whatever you wanna do, whatever you want, to assume that you're
psychologically closed as well as physiologically close. - Everybody needs their own
space. You need your own space. If you wanna invite somebody
into your space, that's fine. But I don't think people should necessarily push in uninvited. So if you have a fence, they have to come around to
the gate or knock or whatever. Same with a hedge, you
know, you're not gonna jump over a hedge. There are some people you don't necessarily want all
your business known to. And that's fine. Doesn't mean you can't be
friendly and get along with them. That has nothing to do with that. - As I sa
id earlier,
people are here for you. And I mean, when we moved here, there was another family, the Raiders that had young children
and it was great having them. Playing with each other
- Yeah. Our kids grew up together. They're still friends.
- To this day they're friends. I mean, one of my children went to college with one of theirs. It's just an extension of
what would be a family. - At one point we moved out to Long Island where it was real nice. The house was huge, everything was big, but it
wasn't like a family out there. It just, you knew your
neighbor and that was it. Here people seemed to
be more family orientated with each other. - Many of American personalities are, we want control, but a part
of us doesn't want control. So in other words, at a block party, you're still under control. But if someone can
just walk into your house and sit down and say,
"I'll have a cup of tea." You're no longer in control. - [Interviewer] Right, right, right. - And then there's, there's an elem
ent of that in all of us. - You'd always have the, you
know, when we were younger, it was, "Don't go near
that house, she's mean." Or if your ball goes over that fence, like, forget it, it's gone. You know, like the old
woman that lived on the beach, her name was Mrs. Roush. But we called her Mrs. Grouch because you couldn't
do anything by her house without her coming out and yelling at you. If we weren't home, you know. Next door would take care
of the shoveling sometimes or vice versa. Like so
me of the older
people, I would try to help them. - Yeah, we own a snowblower
that we all chipped in for and somebody runs down the block with it. - I love to shovel snow. I just love it. I love to, my shovel is still out. I love to grab a shovel and come out. When my kids were little, up until even after the
eight five passes, I still... And then everyone would
say, "Don't do it. Stop." And I said, "You know
what? Maybe they're right." "Maybe I shouldn't be doing it." And my cardiologist
said,
"No, don't do it." But I still do. - We have chipped in to get a snowblower, so there are people
down the end of the block where the snowblower is that do get it done by one of the people who live on the block and they make sure that
they come down the block. I've yet to see it come
down this end of the block. But she just said that they did do us. Luckily we have grandkids and they help us. And Lynda loves to do it. - I love to shovel. - She's a big snow remover person. - That's just second nat
ure,
you know what I mean? I had the snowblow going,
we had the blizzards back. You know, we haven't
had blizzard in a while, so I didn't have to pull plow
out. But I would start here, work my way all the way down to the beach, ran across, work my way all
the way back with the snowplow. It was before Al pulled the
Bob in the bobcat, you know. And just, not everybody can plow. - It's on your neck. And I've been Jeffrey's
barber and haircutter for... How long? - Couple of decades. - A couple of de
cades. - Wow. - I get a tomato, he gets a haircut. - We figured out to how to make sun dried tomatoes in the oven. - [Interviewer] Oh, so
you're gonna give out sun-dried tomatoes? - No, no, no, no, - [Interviewer] No, no.
Stick on an in-house thing? - Yeah, it's gonna be purely in-house. We're gonna just make as many as you want and put 'em in the refrigerator
and they'll keep forever. So it's only gonna be some, almost selective. - [Interviewer] Be some
very disappointed people. - No, the peopl
e who are on the A-list will still get theirs. - [Interviewer] Yeah, but
the B-list are gonna really be- - B-list people won't have a tomato. - Just yesterday, Mike
and Julia are in Florida. I hear something running. I go in their yard, their
outside hose is blowing out. There's 600 gallons of water
in their driveway over here. So I turned the water
off. I called them, I said, "I don't know what's going on," "but I just turned your outside hose off." "Have somebody go in the
house and check the
basement," "make sure there's nothing else going on." But stuff like that. Why not? I'd want someone to do that for me. - I grew up on a driveway,
a shared driveway. Occasionally things would happen, misunderstandings would occur. And they developed very fierce disputations, some ugliness, some squirting of garden
hoses at each other by adults. I was hypersensitive to the
dangers of shared driveways. - Hey, old Jeff. - Oh, well hey. I thought you went to Vermont. - A lot of people have heard hor
ror stories about shared driveways and
the problems that they cause. We're fortunate because
not only of Jeffrey's generosity and his friendliness
and his neighborliness, but our driveway, while
it is a shared driveway, it's a two lane shared driveway. We don't have to park
front to end, front to back. We can park side by side as long as we leave room to open the doors to get out of your car. - Well, we kinda have to stagger. - We have to stagger.
- We can't park side by side or neither one of u
s will get a door open. But if we do it this way, it works. - [Interviewer] Jeffrey's
parking is amazing. The skill involved is very demanding. He gets within centimeters of distance
between his building and his car, trying not to hit the building. Sometimes it goes wrong,
but he gets an A+ for effort. The parking job is just phenomenal. - 40 years late, I carved out, I changed the configuration of my lawn. So now you could put a truck in there. The first space, there's no problem. But back and
forth over the years, passing each other and working it out required some thought
and some skill. Definitely. And in order to avoid problems, some natural generosity of spirit, which they have demonstrated unfailingly for whatever it is now, pushing 50 years. - We, in 47 years, we
have never had one word over that driveway. - Not one. - Not one. - These were conservative politically and socially
conservative people. Who it turned out were extremely considerate and even courtly, I would say. If I
were to script out who
I wanted for a neighbor, it wouldn't be them. But it should have been. - You couldn't have better
people to share a driveway with. And I think if you went
to any other two houses in this area that share a driveway, you won't have that same story. - We have the shared driveway and there's a line down the middle. It brings negative, bad
thoughts of a neighbor, when I first moved here. That line was such a
division maker of them and us. We were two opposite ends of everythin
g. Everything in general. And I did everything to get along. That's my personality.
I'm not an alpha dog. I just want everybody to be pleased. I just couldn't do that for this woman. I'll say that I'm a musician
and she's a librarian. I'll say that part. Take it for what it's worth. - At the end of the day,
neighbors and neighbors we interact differently. It all depends on the type
of mindset that they're in or if they're imbibing
or something of that. And how they would act, whether they're on
or off, couple of drinks or whatever the case may be. - They called the police on me. 'cause I was playing my
acoustic guitar in the afternoon. Now I know I said I would suffice to say I didn't wanna get into the whole story, but these were some instances. And I'll go on record of
saying her name was Lenore, but I had my own name
for her and that was Ignore. It resolved itself when they moved. And maybe I was the impetus for them to put the house on the market. But I know I can attest to the fac
t that living with my other
neighbors now in total harmony, that I didn't think I was the bad impact on that former relationship. (guitar playing) ♪ Well I came from this block ♪ ♪ Not 2092 ♪ ♪ I found some family ♪ ♪ That lived there too ♪ ♪ And I can't go in love ♪ ♪ The blessing I do ♪ ♪ When I came on I was in the army ♪ ♪ Down the rabbit hole in Maine ♪ ♪ What did I tell ya ♪ ♪ Tell me something girl ♪ - Ronnie you're gonna flatten the tubes and then they're gonna
put 'em back together agai
n. Oh, your hair looks nice. - [Doug] Oh. Thank you. - Nice and long, don't cut it. She's ready for a haircut. - [Doug] That's true. That's true. - Doug. It looks so nice. - [Doug] Thanks. (ice-cream truck approaching) (upbeat music) ♪ Swing that thing baby swing it out ♪ ♪ Oh I'm gonna shuffle my way down home ♪ - I'm a bit weary, oh, it's about how I will be perceived and if I will be welcomed or kind of shunned. And on this block, it's been amazing. I just notice that people
are of varied bac
kgrounds, cultures, heritages. And I think that's beautiful. That's part of the mosaic, I
guess of any neighborhood. And adds beauty to a neighborhood because everyone's individual culture adds to the beauty and the
splendor of the neighborhood. And I have not been at all disappointed. In fact, just the opposite. I've been so surprised by
how welcome we've been. - My mother wanted to have instill in us some sort of
connection to being Jewish. So she would want us to go
to synagogue every Saturda
y. So as a child, when you went
to school Monday through Friday and Saturday was a great
day to run around on the block with the other kids on the block. They weren't going to synagogue. But then interestingly enough,
they'd have their holidays. Like I remember once one of the children was like a particular Sunday, it was Easter or whatever it was. And no, you know, he can't be around. He's not gonna be
able to play. He has to... So it's like, "Well,
what's that all about?" The main big thing I
would say, and this just came to me now and I remember this vividly, not so much today, but this was a very Christian country, I would say growing up. And you only had so
many television stations and like a holiday, like
Christmas for example, where all of the programming was people with trees and
decorated and Santa Claus. A lot of these were like cartoons that were something
you'd wanna participate in. And you know, like there could be a child who might at some point wanna deal with whether is
Santa Claus real or not? But for me it was like, "Wait a minute", "Santa Claus doesn't exist at all" "and this holiday's not our holiday." And as a child you'd be
like, "Well everyone else", "well, why don't we celebrate?" Again, this would be any child growing up in any country in the world,
where they're a different, I'm sure there are many
ethnicities, especially in this city who come from different parts of the world where they're not Christian. And at that time, you know,
you were absorbed
by it. It was all over the radio.
It was all over the TV. There was nothing to watch. And so you'd wanna know why you weren't, why that wasn't something
that you celebrated. - When I moved on this block, there were a few gentiles and most of the people were Jewish. And now there are a few Jews and it's all Gentile. That was a difference in the block. I don't think it makes a difference in how we relate to each other. Just that it was just very clear of the changes in the neighborhood. Well, I t
hink that the
generations didn't... the generation of our children who grew up on the block,
but they didn't come back. And I think many more of the kids, the Gentile kids come back more. - I mean, again, we all
bleed the same color. And to me, religion doesn't
make a really big difference as long as you're a good human being. You know, some people believe in God, some people believe
in the moon, in the stars. Everybody believes in something different. I think these days on this block, it doesn'
t really create
a layer amongst us. But everybody has their
different levels of religion. Some people are more extreme than others. Some people believe harder than others. Some people don't believe at all. - You don't want me to talk politics. - Look, everybody has the right to their opinion on anything. - [Interviewer] Right. - And yours might be
very different from mine, but why should that affect our friendship? You know, why? It shouldn't. It has nothing to do with anything. - You can be, no
matter who you are and what your background is, you are comfortable here. - You know, to what a block means. I think it's the quote from Belfast, the punchline is, "No
matter how far you go", "you never forget where you came from." And I really think that that's, I know that that's how Lynda and I, I mean really, it's like, you know, it's not like a religion
or a cult or anything. But we are like Brooklyn kids. I mean, I'm really speaking for myself. I could see that alleyway
and I know what it
was to me and how it formed me. In terms of, I'm not a tough guy, but you get to be a little bit tough. You get to learn who you could deal with. You learn that there are some
people you have to confront, again, not to fight and get
your nose broken or anything, but it just never really leaves you. It's who you are. And you bring it here. - And my family has a business on 129th. It was a Monday. It was a nice day. The crash actually woke me
up 'cause it shook the house. - [Interviewer] This hou
se?
- This house. Shook the house. And I looked out my third floor window and I saw just a huge column of smoke. From my direction, I
thought that the school and the church were on fire. And this was now two
or three months after 911. So everybody was skittish
like, "Is it gonna happen again?" You know, "What's going on?" No one knows what's going on. - And she paged me with 911. I was, "Oh, what's this?" 'Cause she's not the kind to call, "Pick up a quarter milk on the way home." I came home an
d since
this was only a month or so after 911, they shut everything, all the bridges and everything. - I jump in the car, my sister's with me and we drive down Newport Avenue till we couldn't drive no more because the plane was
laying across Newport Avenue and several houses were on fire. I had no idea that one of the
engines had landed at the shop and caused so much damage over there. And then somebody said to me, "The gas station almost blew up" "'cause one of the engines hit it." So this was
like an
hour or so after I'd been over at the other place. And I said, "Oh my God,
I gotta run over there." And I run over there and sure enough, you know, there's all
emergency vehicles there and they have a line
ready to put the engine out if it starts going up again. But it just missed the building, skimmed the back of an oil truck. My father was walking out and it blew the plate glass windows and blew him behind his desk. So then when he came to, he realized that the oil truck was there and
he had said he had
to get that outta there. 'Cause he knew that was gonna be a problem. 'Cause the fire was so close to that, you know, he's like,
"You didn't really think," "you just tried to deal
with the situation at hand." And we didn't even know what it was. - And I walked down to the corner, the, you know, ground zero, if you will. And you see there's basically
an intact wing of the plane was, you know, across the street. The smoke was out, it was just smoking. And there was everybody in h
azmat suits climbing over the rubble like little bees, you know, looking for
either, survivors and stuff and so on and so forth. - And I didn't know about the
destruction around the corner, because I'm dealing with this. He told me, you know. And he said right away I thought it was like a terrorist thing, you know, like the thing. You know, with 911 and this
came off the plane in the air. Like it wasn't just a plane crash 'cause it would've crashed hole. - [Maureen] Yeah. - You know? (soft music
) - Prior to Hurricane Sandy
was a hurricane Irene that we were prepared. We'd batten down the hatches and so forth. And Hurricane Irene here, we ended up getting two
to three inches of water. I got to the point where we got so scared that I parked all my
cars, I have eight cars and I parked them in
Kings Plaza parking lot. And it was a big deal. After we noticed that it was nothing, my neighbor across the street, Jimmy, we ended up having a
pool party for two days celebrating that we had no pro
blems. So when Hurricane Sandy came about, we were already engraved with, "Ah, it's bullshit." "Nothing's gonna happen." - When Storm Irene came,
which was a year prior to Sandy, a year or two, I'm trying to remember, I think it was a year prior, they made so much of it. That's what made our
decision to stay here for Sandy. Because if we could get through Irene, we could get through Sandy. Well, I was proven wrong. We almost lost our lives because of Sandy. It was a stupid decision
on our part t
o stay here. - At that point, you know,
I don't like to rehash it, you know, sometimes it clicks into my head because a lot of people
have PTSD from that. And it definitely affected everybody. I don't care who you are,
you could be the wealthiest guy or the pauper on the street. Everybody was affected
because we're entirely under water. - Hurricane Sandy, my children probably to this day are still upset with me. They lived in Bay Ridge at the time and they kept saying,
"Mom, you've gotta go." "Y
ou've gotta go." And I said, "Listen, I'm in so much pain", "I can't go anywhere." I was waiting for a hip. - We were on the phone with Nora who was standing on her porch watching the waves crash
over the beach houses. And she was narrating them to us. - I stayed here. I never left. Me and one of my sons stayed here throughout the whole thing. We were all here the night of Sandy. - Well, Sandy was something
that we'll never forget for the rest of our lives. They called it the 100 year storm. And
I hope we never see another one. - We have things that we do consciously. So you can say, we keep our space or whatever. But there's also the
subliminal aspect to it that when under duress and Sandy certainly was duress, at high magnitude. I think people's better natures really were demonstrated. - Then I started seeing
like kitchen appliances come down the street. And I said, "What is that?" - Oh, and the kayak. - A kayak. - A kayak ended up
right on the front steps. - I ran out, I grabbed the
kayak and I tied it to the rail. I said, "Well, if we have to go", "this will be our way out." You know? - [Maureen] Yeah. - The door led to the beach. When the door broke from the wall, everything started
crashing in on the first floor. And I couldn't hold the water back. As I left the front door of
the house on the second floor, a wave hit me and it knocked
me against my banister, which thank God it held me. My glasses fell off, which I lost. I walked down the stairs. As soon as I got to the
street, which was waist deep, a wave took me underneath the water, and they pulled me out of the water on front of George and Vivian's. The people there pulled me out. By that time, I thought when
the wave took me down below, there was so much debris in the water. The dune fences, the concrete
from the wall was hitting me. So when I get out, I was bleeding. When I was underneath the water, I said, "Oh, I bought it tonight." Meaning that I wasn't gonna make it. But thank God. That was a wake up c
all
that nothing is more important than your life. - My basement had seven feet of water. So I had to dive into seven feet of water, swim and try to pry this drain open so the water could start draining. And I managed to do that. But it couldn't drain fast enough because what happened was from the wind, the back door got ripped
open, it actually cracked. - Terrible. I never know that. So scared. Lot of damage in the basement. - [Interviewer] Are you afraid
that it might happen again? - Of course
. (Chan laughs) So scared. - [Interviewer] Really? - Yeah. - There was a man across
the street that had a generator. You know, it was a sort of sort. And I know my phone was dying, that was like a lifeline, your phone. And I asked him if I
could charge it, and he did. The interesting thing is, the next day there was water
still rushing down the street. And in the stream was a bottle of a Aqvavitae or one of these fancy bottles of whiskey. And I just picked it
up and I gave it to him. You know, i
t was that kind of thing. It wasn't like, "Oh, I'm gonna drink this." Just the kindness of others
came through, you know? - I know I could have
walked off my front step into the water. - [Maureen] Yeah. - You know, as I got off the doorstep, the first step was ankle deep. I could've dove and had
no problem, you know? 'Cause when I waited out
to the bottom of the steps, I was chest deep. - And water was squirting through the gaps as the door was - [Cora] The basement door in the alley. - The door
in the alley. And we wanted to jam something, wedge something in the
way so it didn't blow open. But in the confusion and commotion to push the door closed, my daughter put her hand on the glass, it's an original glass, like an eighth of an inch thick. - Like four panes of glass divided. - Went through it and
sliced open her forearm. It's like- - That was it after that. - [Bob] Oh crap. What are you gonna do?
- Everybody upstairs. - You can't go anywhere. Well- - [Cora] I had a firstaid kit. -
You a know, we just wrapped
it in gauze and everything. And then the thing is,
whatever you believe in. God, fate, karma, not your time, whatever, by the grace of God, if you will, didn't cut any man cables. - Yep. - She has a nice, which
is kind of faded now, like two and a half inch, three inch scar on the inside of a thing
which doesn't bother. I used to joke, "Oh, you
could get a tattoo of a hurricane" "or something on it." You know, like that. But it's gone away. And as you, may realize
bei
ng from the neighborhood, the kicker, the punchline, shall we say, is the same thing happened to a lady that lived on 124th Street. Except she did hit main cables and bled out in front of her family. So for us, that's a by a quarter inch, where our lives saved versus ruined. - Yeah. - Do we always second
guess our self for staying? You know, there's no way of telling. And that's one reason we never complain about what happened to us. We lost the basement,
we lost a lot of stuff around. We lost a
car, so on and so forth. - That's right.
- We didn't lose my daughter. We know people, as you know, that literally swam out
of their burning houses and were left with nothing but
a brick porch and a chimney. It was all they had left. So as far as far as things go and the great balance, you know, the scales we don't pitch. - During Sandy, we
were all in this together and everybody gave to
what we could to one another. If it was a generator, I
could get you a generator or I could get you a hot wa
ter heater. Everybody needed something. And so whatever we could
give to one another, we did. - Now, once you were done with something, you let whoever used it, it was like feast of famine, you know. - Everybody needed a lot of help and everybody just
stuck together and helped. Like, even across the street,
Jimmy Quigley came out. He was like the block leader. He was the go-to guy. You needed anything, he
calmed your nerves down. I thought like the end was just, I thought everything was gone and
I thought it was all gonna be gone. But he just reinforced it's gonna be okay. And he really just stepped
up to the plate, you know. - After Sandy, they developed
a kind of a disaster tourism, people walking up and down the beach looking at the damage. - The day after Sandy,
the day of I was here. I stayed the night would've
come about 7:30 PM. My wife and kids went to Bay
Ridge where they would be safe, my son had an apartment there. I stayed the night,
waking up the next morning after feeling
the house
shake through the entire night. Waking up the next
morning and seeing rooftops outside on my lawn
and things of that nature. I walked out that morning and I walked the neighborhood. I walked to 129th street, which was still burning embers and people on the street
crying and holding each other. I walked to the beach where I saw every first
house along the beach front. Looked like a doll house
where you have the open front and you can put the pieces of furniture in the way you wanna dec
orate it. - After Sandy, there was countless stories of people helping. You know, I remember
like Lori and Jimmy Quigley, I didn't really know them too well. 'Cause my parents were still living here. But, you know, the block was a mess. And all we were trying to do
was get the gas turned back on so we could have hot water. And we know like heat
wasn't really gonna happen. But we at least we could
run the hot water heaters to take a hot shower. And the guy said, "The
two houses at the beach" "are
destroyed, we have
to cap those gas lines," "but we also have to go into every house" "and make sure that the gas is shut off." So I was like, "Oh man." I was like, "What are we gonna do?" And I was like, "Well, I
know most of the people" "I could call 'em, if
they'll give me permission" "to go in the house, I'll shut the gas off" "to all the houses." In the fire department,
you do that regularly when there's a gas leak. She was like, "I'll get on," Lori said, "I'll get on my phone too." And me
and her, as her husband was calling, we went into the houses and we just shut the main gas to like
six houses on this block, whoever wasn't home and
like four houses on that side. And it got done that day by everybody, doing what they could to do it. - I drove up and I remember
seeing everybody on the block. Everybody was trying to dig out and try to get some type of, you know, figure out what they're doing and try to get some sanity
of what happened to them. And everyone's just trying
to dig o
ut everywhere. Who's helping this one? Who's helping that one? And I'm saying to myself,
everyone's working so hard, I'm like, "There's no food." There's no nothing to
get for them to drink or eat. So I said to myself, "Okay." Got back in my truck,
drove all the way to Brooklyn, called ahead. I went to a deli and I ordered like about 20 something heroes, just piled everything back in my truck. And then just said, "Let me
come here, feed the neighborhood" "while we're all working,
trying to dig o
urselves out" "and try to get back to find some normalcy" "of what happened to us." So. And that was it. - I had one very vivid experience, the electricity and the heat was off. So I found when I walk through the house, I had this intuition that it was dead. The next time I came and the heat was on and the electricity was on, it felt to me like it had come alive. It was a very kind of a visceral sensation. It wasn't a, you know, an intellectual formulation or anything. - There's one family on th
is block that really came to my rescue. The Raiders. The Raiders immensely helped me get my important stuff out of the home. Not even my family helped me. I don't know how to say this, but it's remarkable what a
wonderful human being Tommy is. How much it did for us. He pulled some of my wife's medical records and many other things. You know, some of my clothes. - You know, and even after the storm, whatever, I was helping Dino out. But they had nothing, you know, they lost totally everything. W
ell a lot of us lost a lot, but not compared to what had they had lost. Actually one of the beams from his house is what went through my basement window. And that's where my house filled up. - [Interviewer] Jesus, the
beams beam from his house? - From his house went
flying down the block. - A neighbor Jimmy, south of me here that owned a plumbing supply company. He had one of his trucks
come down here that day after when everybody still had
water in their basements and all. And he was handing ou
t the bilge pumps, the hoses. He had generators to
run so people can plug in from one neighbor to the next. - Coming back here to try to clean up the hard mess that we left.
- Yeah. Just about every day we were back. - After one month, I smelt like chlorine with trying to just mop and clean and very, very slowly it came back with the help of New York
City's Department of Sanitation and neighbors again, helping one another. - The block was sad though. It was very sad to come down the block. Thoug
h everyone kind of was, I think helped each other a lot more. - [Jeffrey] Yeah. - I think they made everyone maybe superficially closer, I don't know. Where it became more of a community. You were really more,
that's what it seemed like. - And some people were
hurt financially, I think. And at least one guy I
know got knocked down trying to run down the block with the ocean surging behind him. - And sometimes tragedy brings strength. It strengthens bonds and makes neighbors better and stronger n
eighbors. - Actually, Sandy's brought
us so much closer together and just, it makes you
realize what's important. - The expression is you grow
up with sand between your toes and what you're referring
to in terms of the trade off of being here and there
being an element of fear or mother nature getting the best of us. I think we've gotten
to be a little tough here. 'Cause the year before
Sandy, there was a hurricane. And then Sandy came and as
bad as it was, and it was bad, you know, we survived
it. And now I think we've mitigated it, in terms of our own houses, we've done things that,
"Oh if this happens again," "now I got shutters." Or, "Now I've graded my cement." "I've made a dry well in the backyard." So we feel, and maybe falsely so that we have found a way
to combat the next one. Plus the fact we have to
say that the government, you know, Corps of Army Engineers has now built jetties and they're gonna build dunes and they have built walls. So we feel, and again, I hope we're not
wrong, but we feel that much
attention is being paid. - What I find out about my neighbors, it seems in times of tremendous, I mean questioning what people are made of. I found out that next day. - Honestly if the ocean, in my opinion, decides to rebel, - [Tova] There's no stopping it. - I don't think man can stop it. - [Tova] Well, we do what we can do. - Right. - It's a nice happy environment here we go out of our way for each other. But people are people. It's human nature to be
kind when the
re's a tragedy and then it goes back to the same old, what we went through, we're back to normal. Like, "Ah, don't do this or do this." Or, you know, back to
the same old stupid stuff. Say hello, don't say hello unless somebody's paying my mortgage, I'll worry about what they think of me. If you're not paying my mortgage, no, no worries. No big deal. - Well, moving from this block was the saddest day of
our lives, I have to tell you. 'Cause I think my kids still till today talk about this block.
And I kid you not, they keep saying, "Ma I really wanna go
back to the house on 138." "The red house." They call it the red house. - I hope they do
something wonderful with it. It's a great house but we
couldn't put the work into it. We didn't have the energy,
the resources, the time. I really wish, I do wish that
it comes out to be beautiful. We have four little girls. It's like, it's such a
way to revitalize life. It's such a great thing to go from, you know, flip generations. It's just a hou
se. It's more than a house. - A house keeps the rain out and the snow and the winds and a home keeps the love in. - See the goosebumps here. There is no negativity. The reality at the end of the world is if negative expands tenfold, but positive takes its time. If you keep everything
positively, you know, you can kill, everything's gonna be fine. Kumbaya, oh, whatever you want. Harmonious cohabitation on the block. - This is a unique place. You have a major metropolitan area that's a subway ride
or
now even a ferry ride away. And yet you can come here and it's gone. I mean, you're by the beach, you're by the ocean. It's quiet. - You know, now it goes through phases, you know, the kids grow up, people sell their homes and then another batch of kids come and you see it's like a revolving door. So the houses here
turn over basically white because people are
getting too old to keep them. And they turn them over
to either their children or, you know, they just sell
them and go to live in co
ndos or nursing homes or
wherever life takes them. - [Interviewer] Whatever next step is. - Yeah, wherever the next step is. But hopefully not for me. But you know. - You never lose that, the way you grew up. But there's a very strong kinship between the people that grew up here. - No matter where we come from, it should always be like that. Every neighborhood should be like that. Rich, poor and different. You know, everyone
should be pulling together to help each other. - So I just think it's a
microcosm of the world. And if you go further, you can go into nature. And there are ant colonies
and termite colonies and I think we all need one another. You can't, you know, no
man is an island or woman. No man or woman is an island. And you just have to
learn that it's important that this crapshoot, you know, doesn't end up with snake eyes. You know, you just have to make sure you know that you're at the table and you're - I like that. - And you're winning. - I like that. - And you win ever
y day.
- You all win. You all win. - So you let things go. I've found in my time, when you deal with people, neighbors, friends, family, otherwise you can't hold on to
the negativity in the past. 'Cause if you live your life in the past, your futures history for any growth that you could have with anybody. - And the amount of change over the years, how people move out and move in. And some of the people
who moved in have moved out and newer people move in. So it will be nice reflection of how th
e block has
changed over the years. - It's almost like a newspaper. You know, you find out every day how this one's doing, how that one's doing. There have been births, there have been deaths. It's, you know, there's a
play called "Our Town." It's sort of that. It's just this constant, like the waves. It's the constant ebb and flow of life, of the block. (soft music) (crowd chattering) - [Ronnie] Everybody needs their own space. - [Dino] One thing, everybody
knows each other's pants size. But ot
her than that. (audience laughs) (soft music) ♪ Streets all the buzz ♪ ♪ It's seven in the morning ♪ ♪ The mockingbird marks the oceans roar ♪ ♪ The kids back to school ♪ ♪ In uniforms ♪ ♪ Bathing suits ♪ ♪ And flip flops ♪ ♪ Is there norm ♪ ♪ Doors open and close ♪ ♪ To just so concise ♪ ♪ The postman comes ♪ ♪ He always ♪ (audience applauds) ♪ Burrowing deep ♪ ♪ Sand between our toes ♪ ♪ That Halloween Sandy ♪ ♪ She raged into town ♪ ♪ Her viscous brooms ♪ ♪ Were all round and round ♪ ♪ Wailin
g and flailing ♪ ♪ Like a tumble and gator ♪ ♪ We traded hot dogs for generators ♪ ♪ Man the fudge ♪ ♪ Pierced through plated shades ♪ ♪ No new masks up as Covid faith ♪ ♪ Back in the day ♪ ♪ We share party lines ♪ ♪ A block whom share ♪ ♪ Has become the blind ♪ ♪ Share Driveways ♪ ♪ They taunt the rule ♪ ♪ Over Broadway Rockways Bridge ♪ ♪ The messiah school ♪ ♪ Our neighbors took on the full shock ♪ ♪ But we came together ♪ ♪ To build back our block ♪ ♪ We came back together ♪ ♪ To build back
our block ♪ (soft music)
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