He and his five siblings grew up in a series of railroad flats near the church, when the neighborhood was solidly Irish.
The railroad flat was big enough for two.
The apartments, typically narrow railroad flats, were very small, he said, "making it hard for firefighters to get at the flames."
Children, forced out of dark railroad flats, played games that would have made any child educator tear his hair out.
There was a stench to the old railroad flats above the shops where some of his friends, the most unfortunate, lived.
The rooms opened one on the other, telescope fashion, as in the good old American railroad flats.
Of course, in today's market even tiny railroad flats are being snapped up.
There are two railroad flats on each floor, five rooms apiece, and an intercom system in the small entry hall.
Now he visits the neighborhood's Slovaks in their railroad flats because they can no longer walk to church.
"They were paying market value for totally decrepit railroad flats."