Bob Cousy - Early Years

Early Years

Cousy was the only son of poor French immigrants living in New York City. He grew up in the Yorkville neighborhood of Manhattan's East Side, in the midst of the Great Depression. His father Joseph was a cab driver, who earned extra income by moonlighting. The elder Cousy had served in the German Army during World War I. Shortly after the war, his first wife died of pneumonia, leaving behind a young daughter. He married Julie Corlet, a secretary and French teacher from Dijon. At the time of the 1930 census, the family was renting an apartment in Astoria, Queens, for $50 per month. The younger Cousy spoke French for the first 5 years of his life, and started to speak English only after entering primary school. He spent his early days playing stickball in a multicultural environment, regularly playing with African Americans, Jews and other ethnic minority children. These experiences ingrained him with a strong anti-racist sentiment, an attitude he prominently promoted during his professional career. When he was 12, his family moved to a rented house in St. Albans, Queens. That summer, the elder Cousy put a $500 down payment for a $4,500 house four blocks away. He rented out the bottom two floors of the three-story building to tenants to help make his mortgage payments on time.