skelly n Also scully (pit), skully, skelsie(s), skelsy, skellzies [From the skeleton or skull and crossbones sometimes used to mark a central square in the game as a sign of its “fatal” effect on a playing piece that lands there; cf dead box n.] NYC Also called bottle caps n, dead box n, loady n
A street game in which a small object, often a bottle cap weighted with wax or tar, is shot into a numbered series of boxes marked on the pavement; as scully, skelly, skel: the box, or one of the boxes, in the center of the layout; hence skelly cap, skully ~ a bottle cap prepared for playing this game.
1920 NY Times (NY) 29 Aug mag sec 5/4, Year in and year out the game’s the same in the Washington Square region. Little figures crouched on dirty cement pavements, knuckling inevitable beer bottle tops in the carrom-like gambling sport of the east side, called scully. 1936 Daily News (NY NY) 22 July 26/2, [Photo caption:] While their pals look on, these five boys play a game called “Skelly.” Checkers are used as plaques. 1943 Jrl. Health & Phys. Educ. 14.336 NYC, Scully—Walking along a Manhattan street last summer we discovered some small boys absorbed in a game which they had mapped out on the pavement. . . The diagram is made with chalk, and bottle caps or checkers provide the equipment. . . The object is to shoot your cap into each of the squares and finish ahead of the other players. . . Order of play.—Shoot into scully and then proceed to the squares from one to twelve, touch scully again, and go back from twelve to one, finish at scully and touch all four trapezoids in succession. At this point you become a “killer.” The killer who shoots all the other players three times in a row is the winner. . . If you land on any of the four trapezoids around scully (center) when you aren’t playing for them (as at the finish of the game) you are “dead.” You can’t play again ’til someone knocks you clear out or on a line. 1950 Brooklyn Eagle (NY) 19 Sept 11/8, One section of the cement floor is diagrammed with cryptic chalk markings. This is the battleground for a game called “skelsy”, played with snapped bottle caps. 1953 Brewster Amer. Nonsinging Games 115, Skelly [New York]—This game is usually played in the street. Each player is equipped with one “checker,” a small block of wood or a flat stone. He pitches first at square 1. If his “checker” stops inside that square, he is entitled to another shot, and so on. . . The space separating the boxes in the inner group is called “skelly,” and no player whose “checker” lands here may shoot again until some kind-hearted player knocks it out. 1961 Daily News (NY NY) 27 Aug 5/1, One boy flicked a red wooden checker with his forefinger and watched it skid across the pavement onto the borderline of a box marked S. “Skelly!” cried the second, delightedly. He dashed over to his own checker, sighted, and shot. It slid past box 4. Then the first boy positioned himself quickly and shot again. . . “You can’t shoot! You were in skelly!” protested his opponent. 1968 Newsday (Nassau ed.) (Hempstead NY) 9 Jan sec A 20/2, [Letter:] As an old-time Skelly player, I can tell you that the name of Skelly is derived from the word skeleton. It was usual for kids to chalk the various boxes on the sidewalk and scrawl a picture of skull and crossbones to mark off the area where you had a penalty. 1975 Ferretti Gt. Amer. Book Sidewalk Games 230 NYC, Skelly, surely the quintessential New York City street game, uses checkers—bottle caps filled with wax for weight, glass bottle tops worn smooth, brick chips, and the caps from half-gallon wine jugs as shooters. . . Also known as Skelsy, Scully Pit, Tops, and Caps. . . The object of the game is to go from box 1 to box 13 (in . . progression . . ), then return the same way from 13 to 1. Ibid, 232 Getting to the 13 box carries with it much danger. In some versions, the four areas around the 13 box (called “skels”) have number values. If you land in any of them, you are forced to stay there for as long as the other players want you to. 1980 Dargan–Zeitlin City Play 81 NYC, Based on a game played with checkers . . , a new game called “skelly” (or “skelsies,” “skully,” “kilsies,” “loadsies,” “caps,” “bottle caps” or “dead man,” depending on the neighborhood) relied on bottle caps . . as playing pieces. The pieces are flicked in a thumb and forefinger motion, and skim along the concrete into squares, usually numbered one to thirteen with a skull and crossbones drawn in the center (thus, we speculate, the name “skully” or “dead man”). 1986 Staten Is. Advance (NY) 13 Aug sec A 8/2, In a park outside the South Beach Houses, a group of children and teen-agers gather daily to play skelly. Players make a “skelly cap” by filling a bottle cap with hot tar from the street or with melted crayon wax. 1994 NY Times (NY) (Natl. ed.) 18 Aug sec B 8/1 NYC, All it takes to play skellzies (also known as skelly or skully) is chalk, a sidewalk and a bottle cap for each player. The game’s name comes from the skull and crossbones that surround the No. 9 box. 2012 DARE File—Internet Brooklyn NYC, Skully Cap: A bottle cap filled with melted wax, usually from crayons. Used in playing skelsie, or skully.