[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 51 (Wednesday, April 14, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E655]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         A TRIBUTE TO CORKY ROW

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BARNEY FRANK

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, April 14, 1999

  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I recently received a letter 
from Mae Greeley of Fall River, Massachusetts, enclosing an article 
that had been written by James Holland, a former resident of the city. 
Mr. Holland's article is a warm reminiscence of what life was like in 
that neighborhood decades ago, and presents an excellent picture of 
American urban history. I agree with Mrs. Greeley that it is the kind 
of reminiscence that ought to be shared so that people get an 
understanding of the positive aspects of our urban history, and I ask 
that the article be printed here.

       First of all, it was a place with a rich ethnic heritage--
     the first American home of many immigrants from that part of 
     Ireland from which the name Corky Row derives.
       I recall at an early age being told proudly by relatives 
     and older neighbors that a certain person who became a 
     priest, or a judge, or a doctor, or other prominent member of 
     the community once lived in this tenement (they were never 
     called apartments) on Branch Street or was born in that house 
     on Third Street. Most of these successful men and women were 
     reared in large families by hard-working parents, living 
     side-by-side with others of the same cultural background 
     without the social problems prevalent today.
       Corky Row meant to me St. Mary's Cathedral, the veritable 
     soul of the neighborhood! Most of the boys and girls received 
     their early training in the parish school where the values 
     inculcated in the home were reinforced and codified by the 
     Sisters of Mercy. I recall the streams of men, women and 
     children, who literally poured out of their yards on Sunday 
     mornings to fill the church at the hourly Masses as the bells 
     from the lofty tower sent forth their familiar sounds up and 
     down the street.
       It meant going to South Park to aspire for the parish 
     baseball team in the then flourishing and highly competitive 
     Catholic League. The team was then under the dedicated 
     tutelage of the young Reverend Francis McCarthy and was made 
     up of such talented players as Billy Sullivan, Eddie Callahan 
     and Jimmy Padden.
       Or it meant practicing basketball with a peach basket 
     nailed to my Uncle Jerry's barn on Fourth Street with fellows 
     like Ted Devitt, because someday you might be asked to play 
     for St. Mary's under the hart twins just as Ray Greeley and 
     Tommy Sullivan were then doing.
       It meant spending endless hours on Saturday afternoon 
     playing ``peggy ball,'' truly a Depression game, which 
     required the lusty swing to try to drive it over the north 
     fence of the Davenport School yard.
       It also meant belonging to a ``gang,'' being accepted by 
     ``the guys'' such as Mike Kearns and Jeff O'Brien. This meant 
     being allowed to ``hang around'' the corner with them, not to 
     molest or harass others, but just to be together to enjoy the 
     banter and the camaraderie which such gatherings provided.
       I recall that a certain unwritten code of conduct prevailed 
     among the gang and you were accepted if you complied.
       Corky Row meant for me personally a very special place with 
     a peculiarly warm neighborhood feeling. The house where I 
     lived at the southeast corner of Fourth and Branch streets 
     was in a yard with two others--10 tenements in all. The door 
     to each was as open to me as my own--baked beans from Maggie 
     Sullivan every Saturday, homemade rolls from Julia Devitte, 
     rich fudge from Esther Harrington.
       I visited one of these tenements daily as a boy because 
     they always had the Boston Post which I would read, spread 
     out on the kitchen floor in front of the Glenwood coal 
     range--the front room was always closed off, of course, in 
     the winter.
       And on the first floor of our house at 486 Fourth St. lived 
     my Uncle Jerry and Aunt Be, who were like second parents to 
     me. Jerry was a familiar figure in Corky Row as he drove or 
     rode his spirited horse through this high-density 
     neighborhood.
       It meant a place of family stability. Seldom, if ever, did 
     I hear of a divorce or separation in those days. The same 
     families, it seemed, occupied the same tenements forever. 
     Even today as I ride through Fourth and Fifth streets, I can 
     recall the names of the families who lived in certain 
     tenements so many years ago.
       These lessons were translated into political action in the 
     form of youthful parades through the streets of the 
     neighborhood in behalf of Jeff O'Brien's father--
     Representative James A. O'Brien, Sr., then of Second Street.
       Corky Row meant the Davenports Schoolyard, now the Griffin 
     Playground, with its superb softball league and teams from 
     every corner of the neighborhood--Corky Rows, Davenports, 
     Mitchells, Hodnetts, Levin's pets, Trojans, etc. Nightly, 
     young and old would gather in and around the school yard to 
     watch such great players as ``Red'' McGuinness, George 
     Newberry, Johnny Cabral, Mark Bell and Tom Harrington, to 
     name but a few.
       It meant the proximity to South Park and the old Grid 
     League on Sunday afternoons, where the two keenest rivals 
     were the Royals of Mark Sullivan from the corner of Fifth and 
     Branch and the Corky Rows of Joe DePaola from Third and 
     Branch to blocks away.
       It meant playing touch football on the cinder-like surface 
     of the Davenport School yard where two complete passes in a 
     row made a first down and where players like Henry Paul and 
     George Bolger made it awfully difficult to complete one. Or, 
     it meant playing the game on Branch Street when there were 
     only two players around, with the curbs forming the sidelines 
     and the Fourth and Fifth Street intersections being the end 
     zones.
       It meant playing marbles, ``pickers,'' we called them, with 
     Eddie Myles under the street pickers--most of them formerly 
     mine.
       It meant all the kids in the neighborhood sliding down 
     Third Street in the winter when sometimes you could make it 
     from Lyon to Rodman Street if the surface was good and icy. 
     Of course, you had to get out of the way of the ``bulltops'' 
     steered by one of the big guys seated bravely on the front 
     with an ice skate for a rudder.
       I could go on and on with similar recollections of the joys 
     of growing up in Corky Row. I often ask myself what made it 
     such a happy place? The answer has to be--the people.
       There was, in a word, a neighborhood spirit evidenced by 
     pride in the achievement of friends and concern for their 
     adversity and sorrow. Remember the wakes and funerals? But 
     they are a story in themselves.
       The women standing at the gates talking or going to St. 
     Mary's on ``rosary nights'' greeted you by your first name. 
     The older men, many of who belonged to the Corky Row Club, 
     were always ready to encourage you in your athletic or 
     scholastic pursuits. It was, in a way, like belonging to a 
     very large family.
       When you returned from the show at the Capitol or Plaza 
     Theaters, or from a walk ``down street,'' as we always called 
     Main Street, and when you turned the corner of Fourth and 
     Morgan streets and saw the closely packed houses, and as you 
     hurried to get to the game whatever it might be, then going 
     on in the school yard, there was a feeling of being home and 
     with your own--you were back it Corky Row.

     

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