Dear Friends Return To Our Town

Nov 11, 2007

Sometimes you have friends during periods of your life and then they're gone, never to be seen again. That's just the way it is. Then there are your life-long friends who remain part of your life forever. They may live far away but contact is maintained and, distant or near, the friendship is always close by. That's how it is with our friends Ellen and Brian. Stacey has known Ellen since they were little girls and neighbors growing up in Brooklyn. Their parents were best of friends and so have they been forever. Then, early on in married life, the four of us lived in an apartment house on Hawthorne Street in Flatbush. We shared great times there and an insoluble bond was formed even though the Egans eventually moved away to West Virginia (and lived in a cabin without running water and electricity), then to Virginia, then to Georgia and then back to Virginia where they reside now. We may only see them a few times a year but those are wonderful visits that we cherish. The friendship lives on.

Ellen and Brian are here this weekend. They are both great lovers of art, Ellen being a fine artist in her own right. So a trip to New York always includes a visit to this museum or that. Coming into town on Friday by train from Washington, they spent the entire day at the Met. Dinner was with Ellen's cousin in Manhattan and then they subwayed it to Brooklyn where they reached our house after midnight, exhausted but very satisfied.

On Saturday, after waking at a respectable hour, we shared breakfast and then set off on a walk through our beloved Prospect Park and a wee bit of a self-guided walking tour of Park Slope, one of Brooklyn's gems of historic brownstone neighborhoods.

But first a stop and look at the Central library, located at the intersection of Flatbush Avenue and Eastern Parkway, sitting tangent to Grand Army Plaza, one of the city's few grand open spaces. The library opened its doors in 1941. This, after many decades of delayed construction due to begin in 1905 but slowed due to economic depression, war, controversy, changed plans and other problems. The Central library is the crown jewel of the Brooklyn Public Library which, in itself, is the fifth largest public library system in the country. The building is an architectural gem -- it's laid out to resemble a giant opened book, the spine being the main entrance and the two open sections of pages spreading out along the two great thoroughfares of Brooklyn.

The grand entrance to the Cental library. The sculptor, C. Paul Jennewein,designed gilded relief carvings of mythical figures such as Athena and Zeus combined with modern personalities like an electrician and a miner. These pylons frame massive doors decorated with gilt carvings of literary characters such as Moby Dick and White Fang, among others. It's quite a striking entrance into a library that sees upwards of three million visitors a year -- more than the entire population of Brooklyn itself!

The grand entrance to the Central library.

We entered the libary to briefly tour its current exhibit - photos depcting the great number of memorials to the civil war that are sprinkled around the borough. The war had such a great impact on Brooklyn (as it did on the entire country) that the city (Brooklyn was its own city until 1898, at which time it was incorporated into New York City)commemorated it in numerous statues throughout its environs.

We left the library and sauntered across Flatbush Avenue to enter the park. Fall is late this year as the trees are only beginning to change color.

Ellen, Stacey and Brian walking on the park's circumferential road. The park is a year-round magnet for the residents of the neighborhoods adjacent to it.

Brian, Stacey and Ellen - enjoying the park.

A giant tree provides a carpet of leaves for runners passing by.

We left the park after a while at 9th Street and walked down that broad thoroughfare until 7th Avenue, the beginning of our book's walking tour of the neighborhood.

On leaving the park at 9th Street, visitors can view the memorial sculture to that great friend of the American revolution, The Marquis de Lafayette. Henry Bacon designed the granited stele. And Daniel Chester French sculpted the bronze figures which depicts both the nobibility and the aristocratic dandyish bearing of Lafayatte. Note the Black servant tending to the heroe's horse, probably a slave. The same team of artists designed the Lincoln Monument, unveiled just five years after the Lafayette piece. There's a lot of history to be had in Brooklyn if one wants it.

Beautiful limestones form a geometric pattern on 9th Street.

A shocking pink, 3-wheeled British car advertises a local restaurant.

Now we began our tour in earnest. The book pointed out that Brooklyn has also been known as the "city of churches," and indeed, within just a few blocks, we passed no less than four churches. With book in hand I examined the unique architecture of some of these buildings which, in my other every-day pursuits, I had passed by hundreds of times without so much as a glance.

Brian walks past the Green Wood Baptist church on the corner of 6th Street and 7th Avenue.

We stop in front of John Jay High School which our tour book says used to be Manual Training High School. It graduated the likes of Henny Youngman, nobel prize-winning physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi, Thelma Ritter and Joe Pepitone.

We turned north on 2nd Street and were looking for a "talking tree" which our book said resided in front of number 646. It turned out to be a whimsical bronze sculpture of a tree whose branches each ended in a hand that was engaged in sign language. Fabulous!

It was getting late and we were getting hungry. We cut short our walking tour (to be continued) and headed to our house and our car. Our destination would be pizza: Brian cannot visit the city without savoring a slice.

Our walk back home took us through the Grand Army Plaza green market where I couldn't resist some photos of the colorful vegetables that were laid out on the vendors' tables.

Turnips anyone?

The broccoli looked good enough to eat. So we bought it and ate it!

You say potahto, I say potato.

We were on a quest for pizza. Not wanting to stray too far from home, we drove to the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge and checked out one of the borough's highly-rated pizzerias, Grimaldi's. We'd been there before and the pie was wonderful indeed. But that fact is undermined by its downside: Grimaldi's is a destination for locals but also for every tourist in town - it's listed in virtually every tour book. The line outside on an autumnal Saturday was way too long for us. Stacey quickly googled "best Brooklyn pizzas" and besides DiFara's on Avenue J (too far away for us) a new listing appeared in third place and it was closer: Fornino's on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg. This was not a disappointment at all. In fact, in our guide book (the one you're reading right now) it rates right up there with the other two and maybe even better. Highly recommended! But please don't tell too many others: we'd like to prevent the development of the Grimaldi syndrome.

Brian finally gets his pie.

Brian at Fornino's in Williamsburg. Hey! That's me taking the photo (in the mirror).

After our late lunch, we walked around the rapidly exploding Williamsburg a bit. Every week sees new shops and restaurants in this previously seedy, rundown neighborhood. The development and changes come on so fast, it can take your breath away. The streets are teeming with crowds of young people; Bedford Avenue has a low-rise, villagey feel to it. But down by the riverside, different types of changes are brewing. As always, the artists and the young move in first, attracted by low rents, lots of living space and proximity to Manhattan. Then come the shops and restaurants. Then come the developers, their greedy little eyes enlarged with dollar signs. Recent rezoning of the Brooklyn waterfront by Bloomberg and company is already evidenced by huge high-rises being erected along the East River. "Luxury condos," cry out the cliched banners affixed to the construction scaffolds. Eventually, if they get their way (and in this city, the center of world-wide capital, money usually does) a wall of steel and glass will replace the low-rise old streets of old Williamsburg. What was once a piece of Brooklyn's industrial/residential history will then be eradicated to be remade in the image of Trump's upper west side wall on the Hudson. Yup. There goes the neighborhood!

Brian in front of an interestingly-decorated door in Williamsburg.