East Side Tough Guys

"One warm summer day, when we were teenagers, my best pal Joe and I offered to babysit my two nieces, so that my sister Martha could run a few afternoon errands. Motivation for the offer to babysit was the fact that my sister’s house had a television set, and neither one of our homes had one."

Marco Zaza remembers why East Side boys were called "tough guys"—and how that description was perhaps ironic.