A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

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Entry from July 18, 2004
Parkie/Parky
A Parks Department employee. It's either "Parkie" or "Parky." It was used more in the past than it is today.

American Speech, vol. 16, no. 3, October 1941, pg. 188:
PARK AND PLAYGROUND EMPLOYEES

Buttercup. The artificially sweet, gushing woman-librarian at the community center.
Park Commissioner, Pennywhistle. A park department employee or watchman who blows his whistle and chases the boys.
Parky, Johnny Greenleaf. A park attendant.

11 September 1964, New York Times, pg. 18:
"That stretch between Fifth and Sixth Avenues is softball grounds," he later told a reporter, "and when we go in there, the parkies {park attendants] throw us out."

18 August 1979, New York Times, pg. 18:
One project, known as "Operation Pied Piper," is deploying young recreation and maintenance aides, inevitably called "parkies," in 85 percent of the city's playgrounds.

9 November 1984, New York Times, pg. B3:
Maintenance workers will stay behind in 73 of the parks that do not have assigned attendants and become permanent employees there--moden-day equivalents of old-time "parkies," workers who were such notable characters in the lives of millions of children who grew up in the city.
Posted by {name}
Workers/People • Sunday, July 18, 2004 • Permalink


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