The World Of Our Father's: A Handball Story

The picture is Ben Shahn's. I believe the model was a court on Houston Street, between Eldridge and Forsyth.
Back in March I wrote to some of the crew on the unofficial KV listserve:

Abe Capon was one of the best athletes of my father's friends. He was considered one of the top handball players on the LES and later at Brighton Beach. He would play doubles with Hank Matthow (that's the way he spelled it in his business), Walter's brother. Hank owned an army and navy store on Division Street near the Bowery. He looked just like his brother. Both went to Seward.

Later I found an online record of AAU champion handball players. Hank went to the semifinals in 1951.
Paul Levine wrote to me recently about his step-dad Joe Riesel who was a top handball player as well.

My step father grew up on Pitt St, near Sheriff and Cannon (one of the safest streets, as the old lower east side joke went), in a railroad flat with a bathroom on each floor shared by the apartments on that floor and a bathtub sitting in the middle of the kitchen. In his handball days, poor lower east siders would wear out one sneaker: the righties would wear out the right sneaker dragging the right foot while serving and had to search for a lefty to exchange sneakers with. Similiar story about two guys entering movies for a nickel. Guys would go up and down the line with two cents, in search of guys who had three.