Vacation Day Camp - P.S. 169

(I sent a draft of this to my brother Michael and he added some additional notes which I will italicize and bold for the reader

Way back, way, way back, when I was in grammar school, the NYC school system instituted an institution called Vacation Day Camp. In this, public schools around the city opened their doors during the summer, offering adult supervision, with teen counselors for a recreation type experience. My brother Michael and I were dutifully packed off each day of the summer to a local public school to attend. Our mother did not choose the closest school but rather opted for a 15 minute ride to a “fancier” part of town. I suspect the feeling was that that school, PS 169 in Bay Terrace, would have better facilities.

There were maybe 120 kids registered each summer, with maybe 60 attending on any given day. The school building was open and we had access to a game room with pool, ping-pong and table game areas for board games and puzzles. There were two art classrooms too; one for the younger finger painting crowd and the other for us more advanced clay ashtray and woven pot holders makers. There was a gym for rainy days and a large concrete playground with 2 baseball fields painted on it, one for younger kick ball games and the other, a full size softball field. Out the back door in the gym was a hole in a fence that gave us access to a playground with another softball field with a huge wall in left field, and a weird fence configuration in center field, our own Fenway Park if you will. There also was a small child playground there with monkey bars and slides and sand boxes. (Mike note: This I do not remember, though I do recall the back door in the gym.)

Our mom or grandmother packed our lunch every day, mostly forgettable fare with one exception – a SunDew Orange drink. I tried to look this up and got a few references but little information. It came in a carton, 1 pint I would guess, and my family bought them by the gross and froze them. It would keep your lunch cold and still have some ice crystals by noontime. Also we would eat them at home like an Italian ice, splitting the top open and eating it with a spoon. Boy the memories that brings back! (Mike note: Occasionally we would meet our mother at the public park at the top of the hill behind the school to eat lunch. It seemed like a great escape as typically you had to stay on the school grounds for lunch.)

Our first year at camp was when I was about 12, Mike 10. We played games all day, ran around the gym, played softball and kickball. There was a usual crowd of boys that it was easy to fall in with, the everyday guys, the VDC mafia, our own Bay Terrace Posse. In those days that meant you sometimes gave some lip to the adult supervision crew but generally we just hung out together doing the camp thing or trying to get hit by lightning. (Mike had not read this account from my earlier post. His memory of this event is eerily similar, just a slightly different strike location. Notice how similar our descriptions of the event are. I don’t think we have talked about this in 25 years or more! Mike note: We came close on day while playing softball. A storm came up suddenly, and a bolt of lightning hit the basketball backboard conveniently situated behind the shortstop position. We all broke the land speed record for getting off the open softball field and into the school! We sat on the floor in the hallway not sure what had happened. After the storm passed we investigated the backboard and there was a large section of paint missing and some charred paint remains. A close call to say the least.)

I really don’t remember any of us getting in serious trouble, even when we snuck out of the school to go to the other baseball diamond or walked a couple of blocks to a deli that had cheap drinks. It was a different time then for sure.

I mean, think about it. I cannot imagine a better summer than getting taxied to place everyday where we could be hanging out with a bunch of friends, playing sports and games and learning about life. It was at camp I learned that if you wrote to MLB players, they might send you something. One summer I got an autographed baseball from Ed Charles of the NY Mets. There was a weird signature on it, from a rookie with the Mets that year, a Nolan Ryan. Now before you go getting all “that would be worth so much money now” on me remember that the balls signatures faded over time, it was not kept in any pristine environment and there was no documentation. Years later I had it appraised in its condition it was worth less than $50 so I gave it to a friend who collected baseball memorabilia. I also learned at VDC that when you hit 3 homeruns for the VDC traveling baseball team, everyone in camp knew about it when you got back. Unfortunately for me, I was too dumb to understand fully the social ramifications of this (girls). (Mike note: The traveling baseball/softball team was another way of getting off the school grounds, an “official” way of leaving you might say. I do not recall how we got to other schools, but I do recall one school where we played ball not on black top but on loose ciders. We always came back to VDC with at least one player injured, sometime pretty seriously if you slid or dove for a ball.)

I went to VDC 169 for about 4 years in a row which was interrupted after my first high school year summer when I had to go to summer school for Latin – YES LATIN! I bet you didn’t know I was fluent in dead languages huh? After that, I was too old. I don’t remember if Michael kept going and I wonder about his memories. I’ll try to get some from him and post them here too.

These are some pictures of the school from Google Earth images I captured and photoshopped. No campers were hurt in this photo manipulation…


A view from Google Maps above the school. You can see the schoolyard where the lightning hit, the school building, gym and the public park behind the gym.


A street view of the school. It does not seemed to have changed much except the baseball diamonds paint is gone, replaced by tennis courts or small soccer fields.