Brooklyn Pirates

                                                        By:FrankCornacchiulo and Joe Del Broccolo

Joe Del Broccolo and I are just a couple of old Pirates who grew up in Brooklyn. Our stories are a "Pot of Gold" in http://aplacecalledbrooklyn.com for everyone to see. Join Pepino (a 9-year-old kid) telling his stories about Brooklyn. Around ten years ago I made a concerted effort to research and write a story about my growing up in Brooklyn during six months period in 1948.

I consulted with local authors, Scott Munson (St. Elmo’s Fire) and Tony Giordano (Brooklyn Odyssey) and they encouraged me on my quest. Over the years I completed my manuscript with 80 Chapters and 250 photos. I applied for a copyright and started looking for a publisher with a passion for the same subject. That was when Michele DePalo suggested that I talk to Joe Del Broccolo who has publishing experience and a passion for Brooklyn. Well, I did, and the rest is history. Joe and I labored for years to edit my manuscript about our adventures, all the games we played and design the cover of our book.

Now that Joe is gone, I continued to edit the Italian language of our book and document the photos we published. I completed our power point presentation and web page with videos about Brooklyn. It was happenstance that brought Joe and I together to create a beautiful masterpiece about our childhood memories of growing up in Red Hook Brooklyn. Even though I was just a kid, I knew that I had to do my best to make it out of that seedy, dangerous,"Hell Hole" alive. So now you can Enjoy the ride. In Joe's own words he posted this on the internet about our first meeting......

Joesph Del Broccolo

November12 at 6:01 PM

COMING TO A BOOK STORE NEAR YOU

I had the good fortune to meet someone too late in life. He was looking for me for four

years and finally. we met. We met through a mutual friend named Michelle. an old friend

of mine from high school. The gentleman is named Frank and I won't give his ran name

because frankly (pun?) I can't spell it.

It was last year in a Starbucks that we sat over a coffee, and he explained why he was

looking for me. lt seems he had an idea about a book and needed some help to rewrite

and produce the book. He had my attention because his subject matter was something

near and dear to my heart. The subject matter of Frank' s book was all about growing up

in Brooklyn, or, a place called Brooklyn.

As I read his idea it struck me how wonderful it was in his own words and that I would

just edit a little and bring childhood experiences to a new life that would tell not only his

story but mine too.

Soon I found myself adding to the book in terms of the information he was relating and

the history behind so much of what we took for granted as children on the streets of

Brooklyn. Suddenly I was weaving his personal life and mine into the book. it was more

than just a Brooklyn book. it was a childhood book for adults telling historical facts from

many years ago, about the games we played on the streets the struggles of survival living

in the 1940's and 50's Family crises and family love tears and joy and suffering when as

children we hardly knew it the love was so strong within the family

There is a weaving of an Italian flavor with Italian feelings growing in the American

Culture that slowly accepted Italian immigrants into the mainstream. But don't kid

yourself it could be a Polish or Irish or German flavoring it was a diversified Brooklyn

we are talking about.

It took me back to the days of playing in the streets and on rainy days the halls of the

tenements we lived in. The knick-names we had, the speech patterns we used and the

loyalty to the neighborhood we all revered the games were endless and the people

beautiful we just didn't have the. ti1ne in those days to notice.

The book is called 'A PLACE CALLED BROOKLYN'. I hope you will seek it out and

read it. To me. it is like a song by Art Garfunkle's song. Just Over the Brooklyn Bridge.

I can't begin to tell you how much I miss working with my partner and collaborator Joe Del Broccolo, but Meanwhile, I decided to start a new inspirational book about my 50 years in the cosmetic and personal care called happenstance-n-luck.com My goal is to write about my adventures in the glass and plastic manufacturing industry ( involving) that took me throughout the USA, Canada and Europe. I decided not to write a book because I'm trying to protect the innocent. Therefore my plan is to write story stories of one or two pages with a photo or two. I invite everyone and anyone to join me on this new adventure, because I know all of us have stories of interest to tell. If we manage to post 50-70 short stories, I will explore the possibilities of publishing a new book about our stories..