One Neighbor's "Ditmas Park Tales"

Neighbor Valerie Gallaher has lived in the area for most of her life, and she remembers “when there was a comic book store… when there was a video rental store, and a gigantic old-school Chinese restaurant, and a weird little dark used books store run by a weird little old man.”

She recently started sharing some of her Ditmas Park memories on her blog, and so far they’re tales about everything from childhood jealousies to a fire at that Chinese restaurant, to this one about a friend’s family:

One day my friend G. called me up and told me to meet her family at the C-Town supermarket.

There was a sale on rice there — these big sacks of rice. But it was only limited one to a customer.

So each member of G.’s family, as well as myself, stood in line with a sack of rice and paid for it separately.

I never even seen a sack of rice before. I mean, it was made out of cloth, like this tough woven material. And was the size of a two-year-old child.

So we walked, me and G.’s entire family, hauling these big sacks of rice three blocks back to their home.

They unlocked the basement entrance of their narrow 3-story building and we brought the sacks down to this large, poorly lit, cavernous space. It was filled to the ceiling with canned food, old newspapers, bikes, piles of old clothes, and sacks of rice.

G. said her parents stocked up because they remembered the War.

G. still lives there with her family to his day.

Together, Valerie’s Ditmas Park Tales help paint a picture about the neighborhood’s history, about the parts that might not be covered anywhere else. Be sure to check back for more stories in the future.

Image via Valerie Gallaher