The home in the suburbs where the Kaye family moves from Avalon is Writer, Producer, and Director Barry Levinson's actual childhood home in Forest Park, west of Baltimore's city center.
The film mainly takes place between Thanksgiving Day 1948 and Thanksgiving Day 1950.
The slivovitz (a.k.a. "block and fall") the immigrant brothers recall their father drinking ("he never drank water, only slivovitz") is a real type of high-proof Hungarian plum brandy or schnapps made with the same kind of plums that give Sloe Gin its flavor. Slivovitz is not a brand name, but a generic term for this type of drink, and a definition of it can be found in some dictionaries.
The streetcar wreck scene was staged with a plywood replica of a Baltimore PCC streetcar, with assistance by Baltimore-area streetcar historians. The location of the "wreck" actually was on an original Baltimore streetcar route.
Barry Levinson: [Ralph Tabakin] Ralph (Principal Dunn) has appeared in every Levinson picture from American Diner (1982) to Liberty Heights (1999).