In the post "Games we played" I mention my brother and I (and lots of other kids) went around from sewer to sewer "fishing" out balls, cleaning them up and selling them.
Here are some other clever ways we made (or found) our spending money. This one takes a little explaining. Anywhere there was a subway there were "air shafts" that were essentially a concrete pit with an iron grate covering them. These grates were located (and still are) along the sidewalks parallel to the subway line. Often, people would accidentally drop change down the grate. What we did was get a small, heavy object, usually a padlock, tie a length of heavy string around the top. Then we would take a wad of freshly chewed bubble gum and put it on the bottom of the padlock. The floor of the pit was usually about five feet wide and maybe twenty feet long and about ten or fifteen feet below the street level. Laying face down on the grate, we would scan the floor (which had lots of other trash) for change. When we spotted a nickle or a dime, we would carefully lower the padlock through the grate and hover it over the coin. At just the right time and height; we would drop the padlock onto the coin and slowly pull the string back up through the grate. The result; instant allowance. On a good we would find enough money to buy enough candy to get sick for a week. Wow! isn't life great?
Another way we made money was to collect soda pop bottles and bring them to the candy store to turn them in for the deposit. (I believe it was 2 cents) They also used a lot of gallon glass jugs back then for stuff like liquid bleach. The local hardware store would pay a nickle for empty jugs that he uses to sell stuff like kerosene. It payed to live in an apartment house, especially if you father was the superintendent, it gave us access to lots of great trash.
Believe it or not, recycling is not a new concept. Another way we made money in the 50s was to collect stuff like old newspapers, rags, copper wire and lead. (and a lot of other stuff) My brother and I would take our little red wagon around the neighborhood and fill it up with this old junk. When we couldn't get any more in it, we would take it down to the local junk dealer; I think he was on Liberty Avenue. We would separate the items and he would weigh them. Newspaper was so much a pound, rags were so much a pound and so on. Sometimes we would leave there with as much as two or three dollars; a fortune for a couple of kids in 1955.
As you can see, there was a lot of effort involved in making money, but it was worth it. Some of the other kids that were too lazy didn't have the new roller skates and cap guns, not to mention the candy and bubble gum and ice cream and soda pop. Then there were those that came from better-off families and got allowances and had TVs and didn't need to figure out ways of earning money. We didn't have TV and our father didn't own a car but you know what? I bet we had more fun than all of them.........we had each other.
I truly feel sorry for kids today that have everything but are never happy.
It's not too late, learn from history.
Don
