New York Street Games - The Movie

Skelly

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A true street game that is actually played oln the street. Asphalt makes the best skelly board. A chalk drawn square box with numbers using a bottle cap filled with asphalt or wax as your playing piece.

Members: 19
Latest Activity: Mar 5

Skelly is a true street game. It's actually played on the street. Blacktop makes the best Skelly boards. Remember trying to find the perfect Skelly top? Trying metal caps versus plastic tops? Figuring out if you wanted it heavy with tar or light with wax, or maybe one of each. Remember picking up your top before a car ran it over? Created by those who did not have cell phones, laptops, or mp3 players. Thought up by those who had to use their imaginations to keep themselves occupied.

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Skelly... or what I called scalzees 3 Replies

Started by Peter. Last reply by Peter Dec. 27, 2009.

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Comment by Tim Sullivan on July 18, 2009 at 10:30pm: As a graduate of Parkchester Playground East One, I can't remember too many rules, but clearly recall the fine art of making the skully cap. In the days before screw tops a perfectly flat cap was hard to come by, so any cap found in the gutter had to be checked for flat-worthiness. Then figuring out which of your sister's many crayons you could steal without her noticing. The best was when I used my mothers saucepan to melt the crayons so I could pour the swirling goo into the caps. Ever try to get melted crayon off a saucepan? Busted, I think that one earned me a few days in the hole.

Comment by Kevin Lisenby on June 2, 2009 at 3:13pm: I think I can tell when we all stop playing the game. when we learn to drive. I think not being able to drive kept us all in our area's so we became very creative. Once we starting driving and getting into girls. the games kind of went away. and them came the video games.

Comment by Kevin Lisenby on June 2, 2009 at 3:09pm: I remember the rules where different depending on where you played. we call the boxes around the 13th muzzie's and if you landed there clean, you where frozen until someone knocked you out, and whom ever knocked you out got to advance 3 boxes and the player that was knocked out got to continue on from where ever box he lefted off at. And we also had it where when you start the game, everyone threw there top from about 20 feet from the skelzee's board and whom ever came closiest to the #1 box got to shoot first and so on. Whom ever made it to the #1 box first got to call out the rules. for example I would say a popshot 5 boxes, hit 1 box, knock out of mugzie's 3 boxes which ment if you shoot from one box and landed perfect in your next box you advance 5 boxes that was a popshot, if you hit someone you get to advance 1 box if you knock a tpp out of mugie's you advance 3 boxes. Oh yeah I forgot one, if you knock someone in mugzie's you got to advance 3 boxes LOL so that's how we played the game

Comment by Kevin Lisenby on June 2, 2009 at 2:50pm: I use to use the big but flat medicine tops from my parents pills LOL I would fill it with candle wax to give it some nice wait they were nice and flat so when you hit it you top would fly over that way you could knock my top far out of it's spot. but when I hit your top I would knock you way out from the skelzee's board LOL I use to kill them and the best thing was you had to respect others creation you could come to the game with a top like someone else's in my hood LOL

Comment by LindaJean on June 1, 2009 at 2:59pm: Looks like I'm the only one here who called it simply 'checkers'. I lived at The Projects from kindergarten through half of the sixth grade. And I only played that with the girls. Could it be that I was just too young at the time to learn the official name? I just can't figure out why I'm the only one who referred to it as 'checkers'. And I don't recall anyone ever correcting me, either.

Comment by Robert Jordan on June 1, 2009 at 1:24pm: Yeah, I remember braking many a bottle trying to get that ring off.

Comment by Theresa LoGullo on May 29, 2009 at 11:23pm: Growing up in Brooklyn, we would take glass coke bottles and lightly drag it along the sewer cover until the top little piece came off. I remember it would take days for the vibrations to losen the top. The glass would be fast and smooth.

Comment by Dennis Browne on May 14, 2009 at 1:42pm: Honestly can't remember where we got the lead, but that was the "packing of choice". There was quite a bit of construction going on in and around where we lived, probably found it near the "lots". Who knows, when the local pharmacies would sell the compounds to make your own firecrackers, lead wasn't so hard to come by. Lived a few blocks from Flatbush & Utica.

Comment by Robert Jordan on May 14, 2009 at 12:27pm: Wow. Lead huh? Never heard of that one. The multi layered ones with lead must have been hard to hit. Finger tips must have had blisters and calluses.Where did you get the lead?

Comment by Dennis Browne on May 14, 2009 at 2:08am: Use to fill a 2nd bottle cap with lead when flicking the way up to skellzy. Had seen bottle caps piled one atop another, 3-4 high, filled with lead, so as not to get kicked out of skelly. What the hey, each neighborhood had its own rules. I tried to explain the game to my friend's sons (in WA) in the 90's... drew a skellzy on the black top, and they looked at me like I was freakin' nutz!!!