When discussing the potential of Flatbush Avenue to become Brooklyn's destination for the arts, I made a offhand comment slagging business clustering but never bothered to explain myself. Which brings me to the point of this post.
By "clustering" I'm referring to the tendency of businesses to open up near the competition, ultimately creating the Diamond District; stretches of 6th Street and Park Ave. as go-to spots for Indian food; 8th Street for shoes; MacDonald Ave. for kitchen and bath supplies; etc. Chain stores do this as well: Home Depot and Lowe's are practically next door in the Gowanus, as they are in other parts of the country.
The problem with clustering is that it makes people have to travel farther they they'd otherwise need to patronize that type of business. To borrow an example from A Pattern Language: imagine a strip of beach that has an ice cream on the north end. If someone else wants to open an ice cream shop on the beach, they could insure do one of two things: open at the opposite end of the beach, which would likely split the customer base in two by drawing in people at the south end. Or open right next door to the other shop. Either option has the potential of splitting the customer base in half, but the first benefits customers at the south end by requiring less travel.
The classic architecture book refers to this as Hotelling's Law and Wikipedia explains it in greater detail—and why businesses usually choose to cluster.
My point is simply that, given the choice of having, say, Indian restaurants spread relatively evenly throughout the city or concentrated in a single block, I'd vote for the former. Sure, with some businesses—like tile stores—it can be handy to have plenty of choice in one locale. When you care enough, you've always got the option to travel. But often you're not looking for destination pizza; you just want to grab something on the way home from work.
Unless you've been living under a rock or simply hate the earth (and, hey, don't we all) you've probably heard something about Bloomberg's PlaNYC. I just looked over the plan for Brooklyn, which plots scheduled improvements in transit, green-space, and other quality of life matters through 2030. What did I find? For our community board district, here is a map of the new green space we can expect:
In other words, none.
Now, how about subway station improvements?
As you can see, the 2-5 stations along Nostrand are scheduled for updates, but, according to the map, the Prospect Park and Parkside stations are in dandy shape. I guess no one from the MTA has even visited when it rains and the roof becomes a sieve, flooding parts of the platform. Or seen the masses of peeling paint falling off of the walls. (Hawthorne Street did a cheap lead test and, fortunately, the results were negative.)
What's especially galling is that Park Slope's 7th Ave station and Bergen stations are scheduled for upgrades; from a rider's point of view, both appear to be in far better shape.
Speed humps (which are less steep than bumps) have been a hot topic on the Prospect Lefferts list lately. I'm looking into traffic calming remedies for PLG and will have more to say about that later. Based on some of the kneejerk NIMBYs around here though, I may have to follow this German guy's lead and take measures in my own hands.
On Monday night, friends of Hawthorne Street gathered for our first annual PLG Jerk-Off, a blind taste test of jerk chicken from six neighborhood joints.
The taste test was not without its shortcomings, but I'll say more about those in a moment. Twelve tasters cast votes for the winners, with two vegetarians, two infants, and one cat serving as spectators. One of the vegetarians, Alexandra, arranged to conceal the sources of the chicken (right) and tabulated the results.
HAMMONDS BAKERY & JERK CENTER (gmap) The chicken with the highest rating by a substantial margin. There is, however, a noteworthy caveat: Hammonds was the last to arrive; we got it 1.5 hours after Peppa's, Blessed Delight, and Exquisite, and nearly an hour after the other two, which may have skewed the results somewhat. Still, a clear crowd pleaser. Comments: Succulent with a hint of cinnamon; starts off mild with a peppery finish; good buttery meat with nice blend of spices; tender; fell off the bone; spicy
CITY JERK (gmap) Sweeter than most, mildly spicy with a bit of a BBQ flavor; juicy. (City Jerk, however, loses community relations points for lancing a street tree on Flatbush to hang its sign.) This came as quite a shock to Hawthorne Street, as the one time we went to City Jerk ourselves, we found the chicken dry and disappointing.
EXQUISITE (gmap) Spicy, savory; two people said it was dry, one said it was moist, and other, "greasy"; this was the standout favorite of the professional foodie in the house.
PEPPA's (gmap) Smoky flavor; nice char; crusty and a bit dry
As mentioned on the Lefferts email list, State Senator Eric Adams, the Central Brooklyn Independent
Democrats, and the Independent Neighborhood Democrats are holding a Forum and Public Discussion on Congestion Pricing on Thursday, November 29th. 6:30pm at the Old First Church (Corner of 7th Avenue & Carroll Street) Park Slope, Brooklyn.
Eric Adams has already expressed opposition to congestion pricing, so it'll be interesting to see what he has to say for himself. The Tri-State Transportation Campaign and Pratt Center for Community Development have put out a handy factsheet specifically geared to Adams' district.
Only 1.8% of workers in Senator Eric Adams' district would be impacted by Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing proposal because they drive alone to Manhattan... The vast majority, 98.2 percent would not be effected by the charge because they don't work in the congestion pricing zone, or they...commute by carpool, mass transit or some other means.
I have to disagree, though. Those 98.2 would be affected: they would benefit from the money pricing will bring in for mass transit, from faster bus commutes, cleaner air, and less congested streets. Come to think of it, the other 1.8 percent would benefit from these changes too.
Also, in response to the faux-populist charge that pricing is a regressive tax:
Average income of households without a vehicle: $36,205 Average income of households with a vehicle: $67,798
For the complete district 20 factsheet, click here. (Other districts can be found here.)
Some day I'll stop stealing story ideas from the excellent Brooklyn Junction, but until then I can't help but point out that crime has dropped precipitously in our neighborhood, as it has throughout the City. Check our last Friday's New York Times' story and the new 71st Precinct numbers. The stat that jumped out at me is the number of murders in NYC:
So far [this year], with roughly half the killings analyzed, only 35 were found to be committed by strangers...The vast majority died in disputes with friends or acquaintances, with rival drug gang members or — to a far lesser degree — with romantic partners, spouses, parents and others.
All the more reason to listen to Mom and stop playing with the gangbangers, kids.
Charles and I were eating out in Park Slope tonight, as we often do. When the waitress left us the check, I wrote a little note on the spare receipt:
Dear Franny's, You all should open a restaurant in Prospect Lefferts. We have no Italian restaurants and we are HUNGRY!
... which got me thinking: what if everyone in PLG started writing brief notes on their restaurant receipts whenever they ate in their favorite Park Slope (or Carroll Gardens or Cobble Hill, etc.) haunts? Who knows, if enough people did so, maybe we could get a Franny's or a Song in our neck of the woods. This also has the benefit of putting our money where our mouth is.
If you all think this is a good idea and are willing to help spread the word, let me know. I'd be up for sending out a press release just to, y'know, make it official.
Good news for brownstone residents: Brooklyn Housing Court has begun a pilot program for handling small-building disputes. If you are a homeowner who relies on rental income to make your mortgage, or are a tenant living in a crumbling building with no super, it will be a huge relief not to have to wait in line behind the thousands of big-building cases, which usually involve management companies or corporate ownership that can better withstand the lost income during the delay.
PLG isn't covered by this court yet—the current jurisdiction is limited to parts of East Flatbush, Midwood, Canarsie and Sheepshead Bay/Marine Park—but, according to the article, "officials hope to add cases from across the borough in the next six months or so."
The official position of Hawthorne Street is that this is a very good thing.
Like anyone else, I often complain about the dearth of good
restaurants in PLG. What I didn't realize is that there has been a
place I should have been going right under my nose.
When Saul Bolton, chef and proprietor of Smith Street favorite Saul, was asked to name a good restaurant that nobody is talking about by the New York Times, he said “Scoops in Prospect-Lefferts, Brooklyn: Rasta veggie takeout. Simple. Good.” It
turns out that this isn't the first time utterly nondescript Scoops— at
the T of Flatbush and Fenimore—has garnered praise: a vegan, a Chowhounder and the Village Voice have all piped up to say that they are fans.
When discussing the potential of Flatbush Avenue to become Brooklyn's destination for the arts, I made a offhand comment slagging business clustering but never bothered to explain myself. Which brings me to the point of this post.
As mentioned on the 
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