The Zan Charlotte, NY

There were two legendary rope swings in Charlotte....pronounced "Shar-lot", not Charlotte like that city down in North Carolina. Charlotte is a neighborhood in Rochester, NY that hugs the brown mushroomed mouth of the Genesee River where it empties into Lake Ontario.





















The first swing was behind 48 school. I heard the swing was 100' off the ground when you swung out. The river gorge fell off quickly there, almost cliff like. We heard kids were breaking arms, legs and puncturing ribs from falling off that swing and violently entering the tree canopy below.
I never went to that swing.

The other swing was called the Zan....as in Tarzan. It was down past 38 school, north of the Stutson Street Bridge also on the river gorge. It hung from a huge tree in the forested gorge. At the top of the slope the ground vegetation had been reduced to dirt. Plumes of dry dirt would explode around our feet when we walked making our white canvas sneakers all gray. We also created great mushroom clouds by jumping off the swing.

There was a dangerous feeling being at the Zan. We never knew what kids or thugs might show up. Charlotte was a rougher neighborhood than the one we lived in. It was an older neighborhood. The housing stock changed when you went from Greece to Charlotte. It immediately switched from suburban ranch and colonial homes built in the 60's to homes built in the last century. It was the Port of Rochester. Charlotte High School was well know for it's racial problems and violence. And there were gangs. Gangs were big in the early 70's. I had a house on my paper route down the street where all the brothers went to Charlottle High and were in gangs. They wore wind breaker jackets with their gang acronyms proudly displayed on the back of them. S.A.T. (Satan's Attack Team) and B.A.D (Bad Ass Demons). We once got trapped in Charlotte High School by a pair of criminal twin brothers who were firing pellet guns at anyone who tried to leave. We had to call the cops to get out. I remember a broken-armed Claude Lebeau transferring into my Catholic school relating his story of being thrown out of the window at Charlotte High during a recent riot. One of the great social events in Charlotte, the St. Anthony's Day Festival eventually had to be canceled because of the growing violence between biker gangs.

We fancied ourselves little hoodlums too. We'd seen West Side Story. We practiced flipping over fences like they did in that movie. We were more like Peter Pan's Lost Boys than real ruffians however. We formed our own little street gang. We had a call signal. "Heey Willieeee". If someone yelled that signal you had to come running to see what innocent kid was riding his bike down our street.

To get to the Zan we'd ride our bikes, making sure cigarettes stolen from our Mom's were tucked safely into a jacket breast pocket. Perched on our "chopped" bikes with banana seats and sissy bars we cut through the Vietnam-like gully to avoid going over the troll bridge or running into Crazy Craig on Denise Road. Piper, the P.R. Dooner & I rolled on over to Vatter's Market where we'd been sneaking off at lunch from Our Lady of Mercy to buy candy for years. We loaded some candy cigarettes along side our real ones. On the south side of Vatters were the railroad tracks. Over those tracks we entered Charlotte.

The Zan was legendary. It was tied 30-40 feet up in the tree. When you swung out you were way up in the air and dangerously over the railroad tracks. The feeling you got was of flying, wind in your face blowing your hair straight back. Standing around the swing I remember the unfamiliar taste of menthol in my mouth and sulfur up my nose as we tried to puff our way to coolness. Dirt particles mingled in the air with the cigarette smoke.

We put pennies on the railroad tracks to flatten them. We put stones on there too nervous they might derail the train. We hopped the lumbering trains too even though we were already aware of the tales of kids falling under the train and getting their legs cut off.






















One of the coolest sights down in the gorge were the giant turtles who showed up every spring. They varied in size. Some you could hold in the palm of your 12 year old hand and others were a good 15" in diameter. The effort to be cool went right out the window, we were boys again and in awe of nature. We marveled at the turtle shells. They were Painted Turtles and carried beautiful mosaics on their backs and bellies. We piled stones on their backs to see what they could carry. We flipped them over to see if they could get back upright. They couldn't. We even brought one home for a while where we tried to keep it wet and moist. Eventually we had to let it go.

Eventually we let boyhood go too but at that time we were still boys. Still innocents. Not babies but not teenagers. Still wrapped in the womb of Hilltop Rd not really knowing the realities of danger or violence but enjoying each day as a new adventure like the Lost Boys or Tom & Huck or the boys in Stand By Me.