One Day As I Stood Lonely: Yorkville

Book excerpt: In the forties and fifties, the Manhattan neighborhood known as Yorkville was home, it seemed, to millions of mainly poor kids. For the most part, the boys were good looking, good fighters and good ballplayers. The girls were cute and tough. And each kid had something that made him or her unique. This is the story of some of those kids that grew up in Yorkville, a neighborhood that was considered one of the toughest in the City. James Cagney and Lou Gehrig grew up in this neighborhood that never shut down. It was open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, unpredictable and there was a story on every corner.