Growing up in West Hempstead, we had gangs. Los Angeles had the Crips and the Bloods. New York City had the Latin Kings. But at Marion Delaney Elementary School, we had a group so feared that boys would fake illness just to avoid encountering them. They operated in broad daylight. They took prisoners. They had a designated area behind the school where captives were brought. They were ruthless. They were organized. They were approximately nine years old. We called them The Kis

One of the things I noticed when my kids were in school was that school districts now designate themselves as “No Bully Zones.” When I was in school, it felt more like a “Full Bully Zone.” School was more dangerous to me then than it is now when I drive through Pennsylvania and see signs that say things like, “Beware of Falling Rocks.” When I was in school, one of the biggest movies was Grease. There were rumbles, car races, and we all laughed as the T-Birds picked on Eugene.

Anybody who lived in West Hempstead in the 1980s was very familiar with Nassau County’s famous flea market, Shopper’s Village. Oh sure, there was the fancy Roosevelt Field Mall a few miles away, filled with upscale stores. You could easily get there on the N15 bus that ran down Woodfield Road. But we had Shopper’s Village—the greatest place in the world. I can still smell the pickles. Yes, pickles. You could smell them in the parking lot. The aroma of all kinds of pickles per

I’m excited to start my new blog, Chris from Park Avenue. After all these years, I feel like I’ve built up enough West Hempstead street cred to tell these stories right. At the tender age of four, I moved into our new home on Park Avenue. It was a small house — two bedrooms, one bath, and the bath was off the kitchen. You could sit on the toilet and fry an egg at the same time. There’s so much about West Hempstead I can’t wait to write about: the woods across the street from