Dahill Road may not sound familiar to most of you, but for me that was the name of the street I lived on in my old neighborhood. The particular part of that street where I lived was located between Church Avenue and Fort Hamilton Parkway in an area of Brooklyn called Kensington. When I was growing up and people would ask me where I lived I would always say on Dahill Road between Fort Hamilton Parkway and Church Avenue. For anyone who knew that area knew exactly what I was talking about and exactly where it was located. If I told someone who lived in a different area of Brooklyn I had to do more explaining.
For the most part my old neighborhood was quiet. It was mainly an Italian neighborhood with a couple of Irish families along with some Jewish families and one or two Chinese families. All in all we were a pretty close community. For the most part we all knew each other. When someone needed a helping hand with whatever everyone pitched in. In the Summer times we had some pretty cool block parties. I remember my dad’s parents along with his aunts and uncle would come over and enjoy those days with us. We had tables and chairs set out on the sidewalk for us to eat on. There were rides for us kids and all sorts of fun things to do. We would stay up until late at night. Which for me at that time would probably have been 10pm, but who knows it could have been later.
Some of the houses on that block were one family homes. Other’s like the ones we lived in were two family homes. The first two family house we lived in was a brick layered house. My family and I lived in the small back apartment on the second floor. Our landlord at that time was a Chinese family. They were one of the nicest families we knew. They often shared their homemade food with us and oh was it good. Sadly as my sister and I grew that apartment became to small for our family of four.
We needed to move and found a place not to far away. When I say not to far I mean that quite literally. The next house was across the street and down the block. As sad as I was to move I was thankful that we were staying in our neighborhood. I remember we were offered to buy that house which had me excited. I thought it would be cool to have a house where we could paint the rooms whatever color we wanted. A place where if we wanted to we could have a pet. A place of our own. Sadly we were advised not to buy. Instead we rented again. This time we lived in the downstairs apartment. I will admit this new place had a lot more room for us and we finally had a dining room. I still had to share a bedroom with my sister, but hey it could have been worse.
We did enjoy living in this second house for years. We eventually were allowed a pet so we got a cat. We celebrated many birthdays in this house along with my parents anniversaries. We enjoyed having friends and family over in this house. And we enjoyed Christmas as well as other holidays. I had the pleasure of spending my childhood on Dahill Road and have many fond memories.
Kathleen Smith is an author and blogger. You can read more about her family both in Brooklyn and in Upstate NY in her book – Good-bye Brooklyn Hello Upstate available on the Kindle and KindleUnlimited