By ROB FREUNDLICH

The Eton Hall Apartment House, where I grew up, is unique in a number of ways. It has 2 wings, and the only way to get from one wing to the other (aside from through the lobby) is over the roof or through the basement. The building also has two addresses. One is 83-15 118th Street (the main entrance since that's where the buzzer system was) and 118-18 Metropolitan Avenue. Eton Hall was in the P.S. 90 school zone. However, if parents wanted their children to be able to use the school bus, they would have to register using the Metropolitan Avenue address, since it was just far enough away to qualify for the service. The 118th Street address was just close enough so that the children would had to have walked.

There was a dumbwaiter system, which was "boarded up" sometime in the late 50's (I remember a metal panel in our kitchen covering the opening). I don't know what it was used for, and unfortunately my parents are no longer around to ask. Like all buildings of its era, it had an incinerator system for trash, and I can remember going down to the basement and seeing a raging inferno inside the incinerator when the trash was being burned. The system was replaced by a compactor type system probably at least 20 years ago.

Eton Hall used to have alleys and a sort of paved courtyard behind the building. Unfortunately, those alleys became inaccessible after a new apartment building was erected on 118th Street(adjacent to Eton Hall) where several private homes once stood.