I was watching Do the Right Thing and it reminded me of the time Kenny and I went out to Buzz-a-Rama in Brooklyn. Buzz-a-Rama is a slot car track that opened around 1965.
It’s more in the neighborhood of Kensington, I think, not the movie’s Bed-Stuy. We had been making our grand tour of local slot car tracks in New Jersey, Westchester and Long Island sometime in the latter part of the 20th century.
Slot car racing was something I’d done as a kid in the 1960’s. I also participated in the brief New York City revival at Manhattan Raceway, as a member of the Rasta-Pasta-Noodle team. The pop culture status of the revival (I know, some people never stopped) was made apparent when Robin Leach and a film crew came to the track.
After Kenny and I left Buzz-a-Rama, we proceeded to the next course of our pastime, getting something to eat. We went to the local pizzeria. I told Kenny that he should ask why they didn’t have any pictures of African-American celebrities on the wall.
Don,
Hickville sounds familiar, but not the basement. I think Kenny and I went to Port Jefferson Raceway and another place further out but I can’t remember – it might have been Slots-A-Lot Hobbies on Hempstead Turnpike somewhere. Most of Long Island seems the same to me until you get out east; then out east all seems the same to me too. I’m trying to forget Long Island.
Hi Les – I’m enjoying the blog and the smog. Do you recall if you ever visited a slot car facility on Long Island, at the Mid-Island Shopping Plaza, located in a basement. Not kidding about the name of the town…. It was in Hicksville.