Bridge Views: I Grew Up (Hanging Out) In Fort Lee

What we thought would last forever lasted only for a season, or so it seems, as we gather together on Facebook to find a piece of who we used to be still beating somewhere in the pulse of collective memory.

This networked world we did not come of age in, this world many of us are still trying to come to terms with, has powerfully re-connected neighborhood and neighbor through this one site, “I Grew Up In Fort Lee.”

Where one single post can resurrect a thousand memories. Like the one about teenage hangouts. Hirams, Callahans, Bagel Nosh, Twin Gables, 9W Bowling Alley, Cherry Hill, Madonna’s schoolyard, the parks, the High School field - some places that changed with each successive generation, but many that remained the same.

In my time, in my part of town, there was the Yellow Building. The Yellow Building, just north of Washington Avenue, still holds the unique distinction of being the only office building on Lemoine Avenue in Coytesville.

The Yellow Building and the surrounding woods of upper 5^th Street led to the paper factory (home to the Champion Film Company in the early years of the last century), that led to the woods, that led to our crudely made fort, that led to the backyards of my friend’s houses on Sixth Street.

The appeal of hanging out at the Yellow Building was that there was an underground parking lot that provided year-round protection from the cold, wind, and rain. And with the exception of Roger, the building’s Caribbean-accented maintenance man who would walk through the heavy glass door to dump the garbage and his wisdom while bumming a cigarette, no one ever interfered in our sheltered underground world.  

It was here we would meet almost every day to sit out the teeming rains, the winter’s cold, the summer’s intense heat. It was here that we would arrive seeking refuge from the hormonal rages that often sent us running from the slammed doors of our parents' houses.  

It was here that we’d sit out those steaming, almost tropic, days; the little bit of underground coolness tinged with undertones of Love’s Baby Soft and urine. It was here, before us, that we’d stare through the mirage of heat past the houses that were still years away from being torn down and watch all the familiar faces of the neighborhood pass by.

The music of The Who, Yes, or E.L.O. blaring from the radio someone always carried with them as we set out for the Japanese Gardens at Prentice Hall, the cliffs of the Palisades, McFadden’s Pond, or the quarry.

The Lunch Box, its door propped open and fans whirring, secreting the fragrance of hamburgers, grilled cheese sandwiches and French fries; the idling motors of delivery trucks unloading bags of ice into Bobanell’s dual freezers that sat in the two-car parking lot; Holy Trinity’s church bells ringing at noon calling all the faithful to mid-day mass; Danny Wright’s fire boots slapping against the pavement to the beat of the siren as he ran from his house on Sixth Street through the Yellow Building parking lot to Firehouse No. 2 to catch the truck before it rolled.  

Summer evenings were when neighborhoods came alive. As adults gathered their lawn chairs in a neighbor’s yard sipping whiskey sours and gin and tonics, the children would chase each other down side streets and through backyards, while the teenagers would just drift unnoticeably away to attend to the congregation of their friends.

Summer nights were when we clutched our freedom and clasped our hands, hearts violently pounding, and ran as fast as we could across the Palisade Interstate Parkway to our spot on the edge of cliffs where we let our bare feet dangle over the rising tide below as bottles of beer passed from hand to hand.

Memories of those nights sepia tinted by the descending sun as it sliced the oncoming darkness with a kaleidoscope of colors that turned everything golden, if just for one powerful moment. Promising each other that no matter where life took us, this time, this place, would always be our home.  

To hear those voices again; to sit with those friends by the edge of the river as Manhattan taunted us with her outstretched arms; to know, as I do now, that even the dullest moment spent together was truly extraordinary: Suzanne Fallon, Mary Lutz, Wally Whitmer, Michael Stengel, John Stengel, Chip Zwernemann, Eddie Stalter, Scott and Steven Albericci, Jerry Getsos, Paul Bannon, Michael Dropps, and Taki who, one summer night long, long ago, never made it home from across the Palisade Interstate Parkway.

For all of us in Fort Lee, it doesn’t matter where we hung out; it doesn’t matter who we hung out with. It isn’t what we saw or what we did that stands out, although we all have memorable moments. It’s how we saw the world and the fact that everything of significance that we did, we did together with people destined to see us safely through those days—that’s what matters.

Never once did we consider that one day it would all be gone; that we’d go on to lesser friendships in foreign places.

And yet, at the same time that we were clinging to our short-lived past, we were also looking forward--clinging to futures we’d never recognize now.  

All the while taking for granted that the familiar landscape of our neighborhood would always be there to come home to; unaware that in 20 years, new buildings would rise and centuries-old trees would fall rendering our little piece of the world nearly unrecognizable.

Except for here, in the middle of cyberspace on the page of “I Grew Up In Fort Lee” where with the stroke of a key we can all come home again to our familiar neighborhoods. Where what was lost is found, where those who are dead still live, and where memory convinces us that we still have more tomorrows before us than behind us.