The total number of unique, usable responses was 108. Of these, 71 were from males, and 37 females. The percentages shown were calculated as a proportion of the total responses to the question for each specific group (Male, Female, or Combined).

Which of the following games do you remember playing on the streets?
(multiple responses were allowed, so the total percentages will exceed 100)

Among the "Other" games listed were (in no particular order):

• Saluggi
• Freeze Tag
• Statues
• Iron Tag
• Marbles
• Pitching pennies
• Flipping Cards
• Hit the Penny
• "A My Name Is..." and other ball-bouncing, leg-turning games
• Off the Wall
• Johnny May I Cross The Golden River
• Slap Ball
• Running Bases
• Ghost

Briefly describe some aspect of one of the games you played that you feel made it unique to Brooklyn.

Most responses mentioned the local architecture (stoops, curbs, walls, sidewalk cracks, etc.) as having the most influence in making Brooklyn street games so unique. Here is a sampling of some of the responses:

• "Off the Wall - played in the school yards and off the tenement buildings' walls."
• "Playing with bottle caps on the hot asphalt and having it stick to your knees - it wasn't easy to get that tar off, but it was sure fun playing."
• "For one thing, we had 'stoops'. You don't find quite the same 5 or 6 cement steps in front of houses in other cities. Baltimore has its row houses, but the stoops are small and can't give the same effect as throwing a Pensey Pinky on the edge of the 4th step to make the ball soar off the stoop."
• "When we moved to the suburbs, the kids had no idea what stickball was. There were no manhole covers, either. The Brooklyn streets were stickball heaven, but I only realized that once we left."
• "The sidewalks in Brooklyn had perfect 'boxes' that we used for a million different games. All you needed was a Pensey Pinky, which was better than a spaldeen because you could squeeze it to make it 'cut'."
• "Some schoolyard walls had a strike zone painted on for fast-pitch stickball."

Please share one or two game-related phrases you used when playing on the streets (like "Chips on the Ball")

Almost every other person responding to this question mentioned "Hindu", which was the phrase used to describe a ball gone awry because of a crack in the cement or some other foreign object. I should mention that the term originated with the word "hinder" and was translated into kidspeak on the streets of Brooklyn. Here are some others that were offered:

• "Cans Up" (or "asses up"), which indicated that the losers would be punished by having to bend over so that the winners could throw a "spaldeen" at their butts.
• "No baby shots!"
• "Do overs!"
• "Once, twice, three, SHOOT!" (for choosing up sides)
• "Put out your potatoes."
• "Three takes it."
• "Odds or evens?"
• "No penny tax!"
• "Ink a bink a bottle of ink, the cork fell out and you stink!"
• "Chips on the ball!"
• "No nuthins on the ball."
• "Saluggi!"
• "Yer fadder's mustache!".
• "Ring-o-levio, ring-o-levio, ring-o-levio, 1-2-3,1-2-3,1-2-3!"
• "Chinky chose always shows" (when you were suspected of cheating, got away with, but got paid back later)

How do you feel about the following statement:

The games we played in Brooklyn were almost exclusively gender-specific. Boys played their games (Johnny-on-a-pony, stickball) while the girls played theirs (hopscotch, jump rope).

	Male		Female		Combined
Totally Agree	23	32%	4	11%	27	25%
Agree	35	49%	16	43%	51	47%
Not Sure	3	4%	3	8%	6	6%
Disagree	9	13%	9	24%	18	17%
Totally Disagree	1	2%	5	14%	6	6%

What game do you feel could only be properly played on the streets of Brooklyn? Why?

Many of the responses offered Stoop Ball or some variation ("Off the Point", for example) as Brooklyn's own because of the ubiquitous stoops that seemed to be in almost every Brooklyn neighborhood. Here are some other offerings:

• "Skully was a real Brooklyn game, because the size of the concrete sidewalk squares were perfect!"
• "Box baseball. Becasue of our heritage of spending time sitting on front stoops, spending summer evenings talking to passing neighbors, and us kids amusing ourselves without traveling out of sight of Mom."
• "For Iron Tag, you needed the iron gates we had in front of our houses."
• "We always used the stoop in front of my building for stoop-ball, and the curb for Off-the-Curb. Who needed a playground?"
• "Three sewer stickball: where else could you predict the traffic pattern so exactly as to be able to get in an entire inning between cars?"
• "The very neighborhood we lived in was our entire universe during those years. So, as far as we were concerned, any game which involved the use of a pink Spaulding couldn't be played anywhere else on Earth."
• "On my block there was an apartment building that had a wall about 50 feet long, with no windows at street level. It was the official Chinese Handball court for the neighborhood."

Since leaving Brooklyn, have you ever played Brooklyn street games with (or taught them to) anyone?

	Male		Female		Combined
Yes	30	42%	21	57%	51	47%
No	41	58%	16	43%	57	53%

Do you think today's kids are suffering from a loss of imaginative, physical or social games because of the popularity of video and computer games?

	Male		Female		Combined
Yes	60	80%	28	76%	88	81%
No	7	13%	4	11%	11	10%
Not Sure	4	7%	5	13%	9	8%

Amen to that last issue. I truly believe that for all their sophistication and technophilia, kids today have too much of a need to be externally entertained, rather than creating their own forms of amusement. Although I don't frequently get the opportunity to observe inner-city children at play, I believe that this problem is not confined to spoiled suburbs-kids. An ironic fact is that when I taught my daughters to play hit-the-penny, they absolutely loved it. (Certainly cheaper than another Nintendo cartridge!)

One game mentioned a few times (that wasn't mentioned at all in the Bronx Board's responses to the same survey) was Saluggi, wherein one of us would grab something from someone else (a hat, a glove, or anything which that person didn't want to relinquish), shout "Saluggi!", and throw it around to each other, keeping it from the owner. If anyone out there knows the origin of that word, I'd love to hear from you!

Notably absent from your responses were any references to the roughness inherent in so many of the games that the ex-Bronxites spoke about frequently ("knucks", "noogies", etc.). And how come so many guys from Brooklyn played jump rope and hopscotch? (Just kidding.)