When my parents moved to the neighborhood when my brother was very young, it was an Italian and Jewish. When I was growing up it was mostly Puerto Rican, a little bit Cuban, and a little bit black.

West Side Story is basically where I grew up, south east Bronx. One of my seventh grade teachers was knifed either coming from or going to school, I forget which.

I was very, very shy. I kept indoors and didn’t play. My husband has wonderful memories of his teenage years, but I don’t.

It was very good that I went to a catholic high school because I devoted myself to studies. I achieved good grades but what I lacked were social contacts.

During junior high school, with all the girls, my best friend Francine lived across the hall from me. She and I used to take the subway down to central park on Saturdays and go ice skating. At that time it was OK but a couple of years can make a big difference.

I can remember a big snowfall one year and my brothers and sisters and I had a big snowball fight right where the subway goes down, which was a block away from our apartment building. The weather really wasn’t all that bad; that was the only big snowfall that I can remember.

My parents put me in a catholic high school rather than moving, which I thought would have been a good idea. My father was slow to move. For the last three months of high school and my senior year, we lived in the upper Bronx. That was good but it was too late.