In the 1950s and 60s, in Brooklyn, most homes contained a special place that is now pretty much extinct: the stoop, the steps that were the entranceway to the two-family and four-family homes that comprised that neighborhood. But it was so much more. It was where you hung out with your best friends, from the time you were first allowed to "go out and play." It was a place you listened to the radio play the songs you knew all the...