Letter to the Editor: Anne Fredericks on Bronxville Fifty Years Ago

To the Editor:

Aug. 19, 2015:  Reading John Corry's delightful and valuable account in "Bronxville Fifty Years Ago" brought to mind several of my own remembrances of Bronxville even earlier than that, when I was a child growing up here.

In my childhood, there really was a green field at the southern end of Greenfield Avenue. It was full of wild strawberries every June and had a few apple trees that produced small, rather wormy apples every October. They were among the last vestiges of the large orchard for which Orchard Place was named.

Every Sunday, ice cream was hand-churned at home--quite a chore to turn the handle after the mixture began to thicken. We children used to squabble over who would lick the dasher when finally it was pulled out of the canister, which was then closed and put on the ice in our icebox. 

The iceman came in a large wagon pulled by a docile white horse who would allow children to pet him. The wagon contained huge blocks of ice encased in sawdust. He would check the needs of each household and shape the necessary block with a pick and hammer. He'd extract that piece with a giant pair of tongs, sling it over his shoulder onto his protective leather vest, and enter the kitchen to re-supply his customers. On hot summer days, he would allow children to take small chips of ice from the wagon to suck on. Many of us ingested as much sawdust as ice water.

The Miss Williams bookshop was next to a white picket fence on Pondfield Road, and further along, on the opposite side of the street, was the library, next to the fire station.

There was a splendid dalmatian dog on duty at the firehouse whom I regarded with apprehension. I gave him a wide berth if I were allowed, as a treat, to help meet my father's train in the evening.

The year I was thirteen and allowed to go into the city by myself, my round-trip ticket was thirty-three cents. On summer evenings when the wind was just right, we could hear the faint clickety-clack of the trains passing through and even the hoots of ocean liners as they cast off from their Hudson River piers.

Anne Fredericks