Housing Projects House Future Famous Children

My mother might not like this LiamLicks. Why? She does not admit to anyone that we lived in a NYC Housing Project. She believes that all the widows in the senior residence where she lives are rich with inherited money, grew up in mansions and think of projects as drug infested, dirty, urban horrors.
I found this out one night at dinner with her Tampa friends: I mentioned that I grew up in a city housing project. I thought this to be so exotic and so different from their backgrounds that they would view me with awe. How Leo of me! I was kicked so hard under the table that my wine spurted out of its glass. I do not know which made me sadder, being kicked by my mother, or losing my Shiraz. My mother admonished me later that "it was not good for folks to know of her background, because they looked down on middle class widows." I tried to compromise by offering in the future to say that only I grew up in public housing, and that she just lived there. A slight bit of blarney. She was fully grown when we moved to Pomonok in 1952. She just resided there for 22 years, did not grow up there, she was already formed.
However, now maybe she will change her mind about this blight on her life. Seems folks are rushing to admit that they grew up in "the projects" and others who have been outed as childhood residents of public housing projects are not racing to file a lawsuit.
And why I am thinking of this now?
We have Supreme Court Judge Nominee, Sonia Sotomayor from the Bronxdale houses on Bruckner Blvd in the Bronx, one of New York City's many housing projects.

The esteemed NY Times carried an article in its Sunday edition about famous children of the projects who have made it in the world in different ways. See "Up and Out of New York's Projects" NY Times 005/31/09 edition and "The Projects Were a Launching Pad for Many Successful New Yorkers" NY Times.com.

I grew up in Pomonok Houses in Flushing, Queens, NY. The NY Times article displays a picture of Congressman Gary Ackerman as a child growing up in Pomonok Houses Today at 66, Mr. Ackerman is easily identified by wearing a white carnation boutonniere on his jacket Very classy-all male Pomonok residents must have been required to wear them. I must have missed that.

There were rules to living in the Pomonok houses; there were several thousand residents, some sort of order had to be established.

One rule: we were not permitted to play or walk on the grass. I might have been there as early as the summer of 1952, (it opened in June 1952) since one photo shows me walking and pushing a carriage and there is no grass yet

Some information about Pomonok Houses-
Pomonok is a large New York City Housing Authority Project in south Flushing in the NYC borough of Queens. The construction of Pomonok began in 1949 and was finished in June 1952.
The name Pomonok comes from a Native American word for eastern Long Island and either means "land of tribute" or "land where there is travelling by water."
Pomonok was built on a golf course; its boundaries are 65th and 71st Avenue and Parsons and Kissena Boulevards. There are 35 buildings; 3, 7, 8 stories high, on 51.98 acres with 2071 apartments and about 4ooo plus people.
we lived on 71st here on 71st is 4 year old Carol and Grandpa Mickey Coughlin, circa 1954)

More rules from my childhood in Pomonok: No dogs, no cats; only small birds, fish and turtles. Liam would not have been allowed

Pomonok and those projects like Judge Sonia Sotomayor's were not the housing projects that evoke fear today. "In the 1940's, 50's and 60's when most of the city's public housing was built, a sense of pride and community permeated well-kept corridors, apartments and grounds. Far from dangerous, the projects were viewed as nurturing." (from NY Times) Lois and Carol McNiff circa 1955 in Pomonok ( on the grass, breaking the rules)

More rules: only certain color paints were permitted for the walls of the apartments. The sanctioned colors were grey or white. This changed years later. You could use other colors if you paid a penalty when moving out.

No air conditioning.

No screens to keep out bugs.

The Times article lists many people who were launched successfully from NYC Housing projects. I have added a few more notable people whose names I have bolded.

Pomonok Houses, Queens
Gary Ackerman U.S. Congressman
Carol McNiff writer, LiamLicks blog
Joan Leichter-Dominick, known for moving into Carol's 1st apartment
Lynne Nardoza Geiman, survived a childhood of living beneath the giant Pomonok water tank
Lana Kahn, daughter of renowned Pomonok grievance counselor, Ida Zuckerman.

Elliott-Chelsea Houses, Manhattan
Caryn Johnson AKA Whoopie Goldberg
Lynne Nardoza Geiman's grandparents

Marlboro Houses, Brooklyn
John Franco, baseball player
Lana Kahn's first residence, before she went west to Pomonok.

and hundreds more.

I always dreamed of having a dog. I have Liam now I waited a long time. I did not move into a house until I was 39. At times I still miss apartment living I liked being stacked on top of others and sandwiched among four families on a floor. However, we could not have dogs. So what about this pic of the little boy Gary Ackerman with a dog? Guess that was a borrowed or visiting dog.

When I talk to my mother this week, I will ask if she has revised her thinking on NYCH projects now that a woman from the projects has been nominated for the Supreme Court.
I will also ask what year we moved to Pomonok.

And the question most bothering me after viewing Congressman Ackerman and his dog
"Was there really a rule of "no dogs?" Maybe some were hiding

On second thought (or third) -the dog thing doesn't really matter-Liam was worth the wait-maybe the answer is not worth knowing now.
My parents both worked and my sister and I were in school all day.
Who would have cared for a McNiff dog during the day? A 1950's Liam would have been lonely
not like the 2009 much cared for Liam

Woof, woof