NYpress.com
Fort Greene A Real Melting Pot

January 18, 2006
Nicole Davis
Brooklyn
There is a house that grows in Brooklyn. Called Broken Angel, the geometry-defying urban castle, decorated with found flourishes like shards of glass and cement blocks, rises from a cul-de-sac on the edge of Clinton Hill.
“Everyone who sees Broken Angel thinks they’re the firstperson to come across it,” says the owner, architect and builder, Arthur Wood. The same could be said for the tiny triangle of Brooklyn comprising Clinton Hill and Fort Greene. Maybe because its leafy avenues aren’t swarming with space pirates, or because strollers haven’t taken over the streets, or because not one is chock-a-block with boutiques, bars and restaurants—whatever the reason, walking through feels likbeing let in on the Borough of Kings’ best-kept secret
Exhibit B: the 150-year-old-pharmacy turned Italian “inn” (throoms above are still to come), Locanda Vini & Olii, just a fewblocks from Arthur Wood’s opus on 4 Downing St. At thminiature bar where the hostess greets you with a “buonsera” (it’s only open for dinner), a glass case houseephemera like a 1937 Ramses condom from the pharmacdays and packs of Brooklyn gum—a brand sold in Italy. Othe menu are Tuscan classics like tuna and octopucharcuterie, homemade pasta, and a special breed of beeraised in the Piedmont section of Italy, served only in this one place in all of New York City.
A few blocks north, the Pratt Campus holds another one-of-akinfind—a never-ending show of constantly replaced rustemetal pillows, plastic phalluses, and bronze body parts, with few favorites on permanent display, like Donald Lipski’fanned-out circle of 100 shovels, and the gravity-teasing TSquarby Takashi Soga, in which a black bar slides ever sslightly up and down a concrete wall. Is there a magnet inside? A pulley? To find out for sure would ruin the fun.
And oh, the architecture. On Clinton Ave.’s mansion row are the city’s finest Italianate, French Second Empire and Neo- Grecian homes. Translation: When you walk past 284 Clinton and see the shingled farmhouse with the porch, you can see how the neighborhood developed in fits and starts, beginning in the 1850s, when this was still rolling farmland and monied men built country villas here, and then at the turn of the 20th century, when titans of industry moved in, like Standard Oil VP Charles Pratt (the school’s founder), Rheingold Brewery magnate Julius Liebman, typewriter innovator John T.Underwood, pharma-king Charles Pfizer, and some guy who had the bright idea to sell coffee in bags. A few of the original homes are still intact, like two of the three mansions Pratt bought his sons as wedding gifts, at 241 and 245 Clinton.
Much of this eye candy disappears at DeKalb Ave., which has become Ft. Greene’s main commercial drag. Instead of oneblock, non-stop shopping, the most interesting places here are spread out over a multiple-block radius—which is probably half the reason why, after a ten-minute walk just to get to a decent restaurant or bar, you feel you’ve stumbled onto something special. At Cellar’s, for instance, once you get buzzed in and order a drink, the owner’s father will often tantalize you with some rib-sticking dish: hamburgers, chicken cutlets, creamy noodles. (So what if it’s not good—it’s free!) On Fulton, Frank’s is another Fort Greene institution, a bar better known for its sweaty dance parties upstairs and the stamp-sized dance floor downstairs. The scene gets a lot more straightlaced at newcomers like Stonehome Wine bar and iCi, a Brooklyn bistro with a French name. It’s a mecca for the hood’s tiny enclave of Frenchies, a phenomenon even owner Laurent Saillard, the Maitre d’ on Rocco DiSpirito’s “The Restaurant,” can’t put his finger on.
“Maybe because Fort Greene is a real melting pot, and has been for years,” he speculates. The diversity comes at a price though, and always has. In the 1850s, shantytowns, largely inhabited by poor, Irish immigrants, sprung up on unsold land along Myrtle Ave. Walt Whitman, then editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, took pity on them and clamored for a free open space for the cholera-ridden squatters. It’s now Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn’s first. Built upon the old Fort Putnam, commandeered by General Nathaniel Greene, it claims the world’s tallest Doric column—that 145-foot tall memorial sticking up on the hill that commemorates the 11,000 men who died aboard British prison ships in Wallabout Bay during the Revolutionary war.
-The funny thing is, by the time they opened the park, rich people had moved in and forced the poor people out. This most recent wave of gentrification, though, has lifted all boats, especially those of many blacks who’ve lived in the neighborhood for years, when high crime rates (generated in no small part by the famously tough projects on the other side of the park) kept property values down. Sounds familiar, but the similarities between gentrification then and now are not so black and white, because in today’s real estate boom, many minority residents are benefiting from the bonanza, too. There are frightening signs of change, of course, like the atrocious Greene House condos and the “children’s clothier” on Fulton selling designer threads for tykes—a sure sign of strollers to come. But some things are changing for the better. Whereas once there were days you couldn’t find a lemon in the local Associated, there is now fennel, Odwalla and Annie’s Organic macaroni and cheese. There is still no decent sushi, Thai, or Chinese takeout, but Latinos have taken the Francophiles head on, and you can now get a killer mojito and garlicky roast pork at four new restaurants: Luz, Habana Outpost, Mojito’s, and Bodega’s. Boutiques (for adults) are also multiplying like rabbits—in addition to Vù, a pioneering shop specializing in high-design wares, there is now Sodafine and Cloth.
Fort Greene/Clinton Hill is also shaping up to be an artistic center for the borough—along with renegades like Arthur Wood, creative laboratories like Pratt, BAM and Mark Morris are bringing together a cultural district. On Hanson Pl., the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporian Arts (MoCada) opens in March, and the sleek, glass Visual & Performing Arts Library will come to Flatbush in 2008. If only I had bought here before brownstones passed the million-dollar mark.
Volume 19, Issue 3
2006 All rights reserved.
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