Our family Dr. made house calls!

[Eddie Acunzo]

Here is a distant memory for you. Our family doctor's office was in the neighborhood, I believe it was on Wood Avenue. WHen my brother or I got sick as kids (I'm talking like chicken pox or measles sick), he made house calls to our apartment on Taylor with his little black doctor's bag. When was the last time you remember any Internist/GP making a house call? His name was Doctor Katz. Does anyone remember him?

Eddie

[Marion Farrell Cronin]

We didn't go to Dr. Katz although I do remember the name. Our guy was a Dr. Cherico from Morris Park Avenue, also with the little black bag full or miracle cures (most likely a painful shot of something in the backside When the doctor came to the house, he almost seemed like part of the family, perhaps because he was entering your domain, instead of the other way around.

[Linda Hall]

Hello Eddie you always come up with some thing good.I too remember my doctor who delivered me and my brothers always making trips to the house with his little black bag.His name was Dr.Cosgrove.I always new though when he was going to come over help was on the way for sure.Those were the days Eddie things were so different.You wait a month now just to see a doctor.Marion I see you to had the doc over too.I sort of blocked out the needle part was a real baby when it came to needles and still to this day not a big fan of um.

[Marion Farrell Cronin]

Eddie, do you remember how much the fee was for a house call? It was a long time ago but I think we would give him five or ten bucks and sometimes he wouldn't take anything. People say doctors are greedy and certainly there are some bad apples in every profession, but to this day the doctors I have encountered in our area are caring professionals whose first priority is our health.

[marie-elena (ferracano) r]

hey eddie,
those of us that lived on beach ave. had old doc heanan. he lived in that small brick house. it was on the corner of beach, off of mansion st. mom always ran us to doc adler the pharmist. if it was really bad,then a doctor made a house call. i remember a dr defiore, from westcheter sq hospital. he delivered both my nieces. most of the time mom dragged me by buses (# 13 & 12) to jacobi emergency room. my mom didn't believe in paying for a cab. on the way home, we always took the #8 & 40.so she could stop off at the square & shope at woolworths. it didn't matter if i had strep throat or a fever. we had seen the doctor, i could get no worse.so why not shop. know it takes 5 minutes of pushes buttons, just to make an appointment.

[marie-elena (ferracano) r]

hey old & new friends,
please forgive my typing errors. had nail tips put on recently & don't type too well with them. also didn't proof read my postings. its been so long since i have been on the site.just so excited i could get back on. i sent off messages, without proofreading them.

[Eddie Acunzo]

Marion

I wanna say the fee was ten or fifteen bucks. But he was like a member of the family, or at the very least a good friend. I grew up at 1576 Taylor, and when I was a very little kid my best friends were the Pesce brothers, Joe and Gerard, Bobby Annastasio, and Kenny "Silky" SUllivan, all from the same building. One afternoon me and the Pesce brothers were running up those marble staircases they had in all of those buildings, and between the second and third floor I tripped and went face-first into the edge of the staircase, turning my two lips into three lips. When we got to the Pesce apartment, their mother Marie was a nurse so she wanted to take a look at how bad it was. She couldn't catch me, I kept running under the kitchen table and chairs and other furniture throughout the house. They called my mom and dad from down the hallway, and between the three adults they managed to trap me. Mom had called ahead to Dr. Katz on Wood Ave., Dad snatched me up, wrapped me in a towel and took off for the car on a dead run and off to Wood Ave. we go. Dad held me down while Dr. Katz stitched me back into having two lips again. The cost was a regular office visit fee. He did such a good job that you can only find the scar by turning my lip inside out, he did as well as any plastic surgeon could. There was a lot of good in our neighborhood, and plenty, plenty wrong with it, but one thing it always had was a very strong sense of community. Do you agree? Eddie

[Marion Farrell Cronin]

Eddie, you had better believe we had a strong sense of community! This was reinforced today at the Annual Archer Street Picnic. Mike and I had not attended previously but even after all these years, I can honestly tell you I feel like everyone I met is like my extended family. What other neighborhood can boast of this? Perhaps there are others but nothing as good as ours!