I moved to Underwood St in 1959 when I
was 6. What a great neighborhood. I lived up on the hill between
Sanford and Stuyvesant Streets and from the time I was 8 until 13
yrs old the Ol Trunk sewer was my playground.
It was when GI Joe came out and me and my buddy Danny Cullinane
would dress up like soldiers complete with helmets and Rat Tat Tat
machine guns and venture into the sewer on our imaginary "combat
Missions". We would go down the sewer at 9 in the morning and
not emerge until dinner time and race back home wet and smelly to
our mothers wrath. As we became teenagers the sewer was a test of
our "manhood". Heading south into Irvington, if you walked
long enough, you would come to the "tunnels" under Springfield,
Lyons and Chancellor Ave. Pitch black long tunnels with 2-3 inches
of "slime water in them, tales of crazy people in them and
5 lb "sewer rats" that would attack...lol
The further you would walk in, the more "stripes" you
earned. One time a bunch of older kids dared us to go in. Once we
were in there they proceeded to throw in cherry bombs and M-80s.
The whole tunnel lit up and the noise rattled my brain. We were
trapped in there and waited like an hour hoping they thought we
ran all the way through to the other side. Once we emerged, I think
I ran the 2 miles home in world record time, but of course i was
down there again the following Saturday. lol
When we weren't in the sewer we would be building our go carts
out of milk crates and wheels we pulled out of the garbage that
were attached to old baby carriages. We would race down Lenox Ave
(the street next to Underwood) because 3/4 the way down it had a
side street (Mead) we could turn into before we hit busy Stuyvesant
Ave. There were many crashes and bruises, but boy we had a blast
!!
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