Recently, MyInwood.net reader Frank Yannaco wrote in to tell me about the concession stand his family once owned and operated inside the Isham Street entrance to Inwood Hill Park.

Inwood Hill Park Concession stand on the corner of Isham and Seaman in 1977. Louise & Frank Yannaco pictured with merchandise in the background.

We soon began a dialogue that included a promise of photos and descriptions of his life in Inwood.  True to his word, Frank soon emailed me photos and descriptions from Inwood’s not so distant past.  I would like to thank Frank for his valuable contribution and encourage other readers to reach out and do the same.

Yannaco family poses for photo in front of the concession stand in 1977.

"Joe" and Frank Yannaco, 1960

According to Frank, “Joe’s” Concession Stand was located in Inwood Park on Isham Street across the street from Good Shepherd Church. My Family owned the stand from the mid 1920′s when the Presbyterian Medical Center was built.  It was given to my Grandfather James Pupley and his brother Peter by the NYC parks department when they arrived in this country from Greece in the 1900′s. They went to the Parks Department with the idea to sell snacks in the park. His original stand was on the site of the Presbyterian Medical Center. They asked him what park he wanted to relocate to and he chose Inwood Park.

Joe (his real name was Pete) sold candy, soda, hot dogs and ice cream. Frank and Louise, his niece, took it over in 1971 and remained until 1988. It has since been torn down. All the original owners – James, Pete, and Frank and Louise (my parents) have passed away.”

Along with his description of the concession stand, Frank also included this ode to Inwood in the 1950’s penned by his wife, Mary:

Mary Tolfree (Yannaco) and sister Eileen TolfreeSherman Avenue on Easter Sunday, 1957

Inwood in the 1950′s we did not
have a TV much less the Internet.
You got together at friends homes
to watch a show in black & white.
There was not many “networks” or “choices”.
A phone I don’t think so.
The stoop was the meeting place.
Your relatives were down the block
or a bus ride away to the Bronx.

Our Family went to St Jude’s Chapel
on Sundays and said the Rosary
as a family every night.
Our friends waited on the stoop for us
to come down.
{The Bazaar was held for many years
to make money to build the church.
Before that, mass was held in the movie theater.}
Then you were Proud to be a Catholic,
bless yourself in public when
you passed a Church,
and bowed at the name of JESUS.

All the stores were closed on Sunday.

Regina's Bakery, 1958-Eileen Tolfree

Except for Regina’s Bakery.

The Tolfree kids on Academy Street next to Moe's Candy Store in 1957 (four of seven children in the family)

My mom Eileen worked there back in the 50′s
In Washington Heights there was a bakery
called Home Made Pastry on 188th
and St. Nicholas Ave. She worked there for years.
On Sunday that was servile work unless
you had to feed your family.

Our family The Tolfrees lived at
584 Academy Street.
We 3 boys and 4 girls have 24 children; with
grandchildren we total around 92 decedents of
Herbert and Eileen Tolfree.

We lived across from Moe’s candy store.
Remember the egg creams and cokes in
the paper cone and metal holder cups.
The stools that spun and Moe.
We lived near the corner and there was
a “Meat Market” at 584.
Outside in the nice weather Pop with his umbrella cart would sell hot dogs and orange drinks.

Mary (right) and her sister Rita Tolfree on Academy Street looking east down Sherman Avenue

I moved from 584 in 1959.
Went to Saint Jude’s School till
3rd grade 56-59.
Remember 1st grade Sister Mary Magellan
and Miss Scott from kindergarten.
All of my family went to either St. Jude or Good Shepherd.

First Friday Mass at St Jude’s Chapel.
Remember the luncheonette near St Jude.
We would go there for breakfast after
First Friday Mass before returning to school because we had fasted from the night before.
Those were the days.
Navy Uniforms white shirts and beanie hats.
Back then women and girls would wear hats, then scarves, then doilies and then tissues.

Now we don’t wear hats at all!!!

Louise & Frank Yannaco working the concession stand in May, 1977.

Across from Good Shepherd in Inwood park
there was a octagon stand that sold hot dogs, candy and soda.
The man’s name was Joe, so they called him.
His real name was Pete.
He was my husband Frank Yannaco’s uncle.
Then he retired and Frank & Louise
Yannaco took it over.
It was in the family for 40+ years.
They gave up ownership in 1989.
Louise also worked at Miramar pool in the 50′s.
near the pool was a luncheonette on 210 St
and 10th ave.
Frank’s grandfather owned that in the 50′s.

Tolfree Girls at the Academy Meat Market on Sherman and Academy in 1959

Remember the fish store with the live fish.
The Bazaar and Miss Rinegold.
The stoop we sat on and
the gutter we kept out of.
(They had nothing to do with rain.)
Connecting roofs we climbed over.
Fire escapes we use to hang out on.
Both my husband and I were born in
Jewish Memorial hospital.
Re-named in 1936 in honor of the
Jewish Soldiers who died in WWI.

Inwood for me was a real
neighborhood back then.
In the heart of NYC zip code “34?.
Even though I did not know it then.
My neighborhood was special.
The “Super” would wash the floors
every Saturday and polish the brass
handrails and mailboxes.
On Saturday everyone
would clean their house.
Nobody worked on Sunday because
you went to mass and had a special
dinner to prepare for the family.

Rita Tolfree on confirmation day, Academy and Sherman, Moe's Candy Store, 1952

Neighbors you could turn to by just
yelling out the window or down the alley.
The place many of us yearn for now.
I think Inwood is still that place,
my building is still standing and
I’m sure 50 years later people are still yelling out
the windows to their neighbors….

In October of 1870 a young Catholic priest named Henry Brann was named Rector to a massive, though sparsely populated, parish that included the whole upper northwest portion of Manhattan and part of Westchester County.

In a 1911 memoir, the then Monsignor Brann wrote that his parish included the “Spuyten Duyvil, Kingsbridge, Mosholu, and Riverdale, all of which formed an “out-mission” served from Fort Washington, which had annexed to it a part of Carmansville, the whole of “Toebbe Hook”-now called Inwood-and “Cold Spring,” adjoining settlements on the old Island of Manhattan.”

Even in 1870 a bustling downtown made Inwood and the surrounding parts of northern Manhattan an uptown oasis.

“It was a beautiful region, with winding roads, scattered orchards, and magnificent trees. In winter when the snow clothed the boughs and lay deep on the ground, or when the sleet froze and gleamed in the sunlight on the pine, maple, elm, and tulip trees; in the autumn when the brown, red, and yellow colors tinged the decaying leaves; or in the early spring and summer, when the dogwood, the cherry, the apple, and the pear trees burst into bloom, and the birds-the robins, the catbirds, the orioles, and the thrushes sang their sweetest songs-it would be impossible to find a pleasanter place in which to enjoy the beauties of Nature, to study metaphysics, to write poetry, or to become a contemplative and a mystic.”

But despite its natural beauty, Northern Manhattan in the 1870′s could be a terribly lonely place. The young Father Brann would sometimes go days at a time without setting eyes on another soul. Some of the few characters Father Brann ran into on his travels were likely highway bandits and criminals making their way in or out of the City. Brann however suffered no fools. “I had besides two guns and a revolver, always loaded and in excellent condition.”

An eclectic reader and avid supporter of Irish freedom, Brann had a wry sense of humor when describing even the most mundane aspects of running what he called a “Barren Parish” consisting of an impoverished and sparse Catholic population.

Despite his many hardships, Father Dunn saw humor all around him. What follows is one of Father Brann’s favorite tales from his days in the neighborhood.

Pat Dunn’s Goat

By The Right Rev. Mgr. Henry A. Brann, D.D., LL.D., 1911

“Dunn (now dead, God rest his soul!) had an old billy-goat that was the terror of all the amateur horticulturists in the neighborhood, and I was one of them. Nothing could keep him out of my garden. If you complained to the owner, Dunn, he told you
to shoot the goat. But I did not like to do this, until provoked beyond endurance one Easter Saturday by the fact that “Billy” had destroyed the whole of my flower garden, freshly planted, and had nibbled off every bud on my rosebushes.

I had driven him out of the garden by throwing an old boot at him, but he came back. The housekeeper, already named, attacked “Billy” with a broom, but he turned on her and drove her into the house. “Bad luck to him,” I heard her cry out, “I believe the divil is in him!”

John the sexton was called out of the rear garden-a small vegetable one that a blanket might cover-and drove “Billy” away with a spade. There were only two characters that “Billy” feared; one was John, my sexton, the other was any policeman. He knew John by sight, and could scent a policeman a mile off. Whenever I saw “Billy” running along the Kingsbridge Road I knew either John or a policeman was not far distant.

When I saw “Billy” return for the third time to grub up my gladiolas and tuberose bulbs that were just beginning to show their green heads above the sod, I reached for my gun, took deliberate aim, through a window, and knocked “Billy” sprawling. I thought I had killed him; so I sent for John, and told him to take the carcass away, throw it among the bushes in the valley behind the church, and report the murder to Dunn.

The old housekeeper, hearing the shot, rushed up to me, and said in great alarm: “Oh, Docthor! you have spoiled the Aisther collection.” She was afraid that the murder of the goat would create a bad spirit in the parish, as many of my parishioners owned goats. I then reloaded the gun with bird-shot, the only kind adapted to it, and returned to see what John was doing.

I looked out of the window and saw him laughing heartily, while old “Billy,” far away, was standing on a rock in Bennett’s field, looking back at the rectory and the church with an expression of sarcasm and profound contempt on his diabolical face. The shot had knocked him down but had not seriously injured him, and within half an hour he was back again in the garden.

I went out on the road and stopped a mounted policeman, who soon got a brother officer to help him. They tied a rope around “Billy’s” horns and proceeded to drag him to the pound at Carmansville, a mile and a half away.

The whole of Fort Washington’s population, particularly the boys, joined in the procession, yelling, laughing, and jibing the poor policemen as they tugged and pulled “Billy” along the road. The goat now bucked like a mustang, then plunged forward and attacked the rear of the horses alternately, then tried to bite through the rope, and did everything he could to break loose.

A more comical procession I never saw; and fortunately my attempt at goat- murder did not spoil the Easter collection, but rather increased it, for every one was grateful to me for freeing the neighborhood of Pat Dunn’s goat.”

Read more Inwood history here.