New York Magazine romanticizes the NYC childhood experience.

This week, New York Magazine's cover story is all about being a kid/growing up in New York City, and ermahgerd, how freakin' cute is that picture of Spike Lee?? There's a bunch of awesome Brooklyn stories thrown in there, like this one from Mel Brooks:

"I had the best childhood. I loved life. I thought life was the most wonderful thing ever created. For three cents, you could get a small egg cream—they were called egg creams for some reason, there was never an egg in it. For a nickel, you could get a regular—a Coke glass, a jumbo glass. They put in a spoon of chocolate—Fox’s U-Bet from a jar. Then they would put in a little bit of milk, still from a bottle of milk—it was glass and cold from the icebox. Then they’d hit it from the fountain with a thin, powerful, high stream of seltzer. Shhhhhhhh! It would explode the chocolate syrup in the milk. It was not nonfat milk—it was milk, real milk. And then the soft flow of seltzer to bring it to the top, and a deep, long spoon stirred mightily until there was a beautiful foam top of milk and chocolate bubbles. It was the nectar of the gods. I compare it now to my Château Mouton Rothschild ’82."

Sadly, the best they could do for Park Slope is disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner, who at least shared this funny observation:

You know, you were either a Union temple kid or a Garfield temple kid. It was like a Reform Jewish version of the Sharks and the Jets, and we were a Union temple family.

Did any of you FIPS readers actually grow up in the neighborhood? Share your fave Park-Slope-back-in-the-day stories in the comments.