I was born an "outsider", Margaret
Hague Hospital, Jersey City, February 1956. After the first 2 years
as an outsider, my parents moved to 27 Darcy Street, Down Neck (Darcy
Street begins at Wilson Ave and ends at Magazine Street). Our next
"big move" was from 27 Darcy (owned by the Keifer family,
to 29 Darcy St. then owned by John and Evelyn (nee Volk) Watts).
Now if ever there was a neighborhood to speak proudly of, it was
the Darcy Street neighborhood. Yards had gates between each other
to allow easy access to the adults and kids for the weekend parties
. There was a refrigerator outside the Keifer house, in the backyard,
customized for a beer keg, the spigot of the keg accessible from
the outside of the fridge. Kids had a ball going yard to yard without
parents worrying about us wandering out on the sidewalk.
Family names that come to mind on Darcy Street: Rogers, Cortes,
Mack, Eberly, Margulski, Jarocki, Schneider, Bienkowski, Keifer,
Yorkanis, Watts, Buccini, Lewandowski, Loeffler, Adams, Senatore,
Fisher, Ihling, and Ciezak. Neighbors on Alyea Street were the Gills,
Fuchs, and Raitt. We lived on Darcy Street until 1974, then we moved
to my Father's cousins' house, Jack, Tom , and Marge Olohan at 102
Brill St.
I attended St. Benedict's Grammar School on Niagara & Barbara
Streets, graduating in 1969, then attended Essex Catholic High School
on Broadway in North Newark, graduating in 1973. I lived on Brill
Street until 1979, married and moved to a 3rd floor apartment on
Adams Street, right across from Duffy Fuel Oil, remained until 1985,
when my wife (a Lawrence of Roseville, then Vailsburg and a graduate
of St. Vincent Academy) and 2 young children moved to North Arlington
where we reside today.
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