Tagged: Ditmas Park
Flatbush Movie History
This neo-Tudor house on the corner of Ditmas Ave and Rugby Street was once owned by the world’s first movie star Mary Pickford and her husband Douglas Fairbanks, with whom she started United Artists (along with Charlie Chaplain). Flatbush was the first “Hollywood” in the US, so I assume they wanted to be central to the biz. Vitagraph Studios was on Avenue M near E. 14th/15th Streets. Founded in 1897, it’s a condo now, known as “The Vitagraph”.
Stuck in a J-Hole, The Kosher Bagel Hole
The Kosher Bagel Hole of Midwood seems undervalued/undervisited by non-ultra Orthodox Jews, even though (or maybe just because) it is across the street from da deified Di Fara’s Pizza on Avenue J. The lines at the Kosher B. Hole can be long too but they generally move faster, since Dom across the street has been making every pie by hand for fifty years. The bagels are as good as the best in the city.
Wait in line with exotic Semitic characters in the wilds of Midwood. If you get there at the right time of the morning, you may get the most perfect hot bagel in history, even if the whole bag is rarely like that. You just need a few. Crispy on the outside and piping hot on the inside. You know what I’m talking about. The rest of them will be good too.
Whatever you do not eat that morning, SLICE AND FREEZE IMMEDIATELY.
Lines out the door before Passover and an 8 day closure. Check the Jewish calendar for holidays.
Pretty sure these places are not related to the “Bagel Hole” in Park Slope.
Kosher Bagel Hole
1423 Avenue J
Brooklyn
Kosher Bagel Hole
1431 Coney Island Avenue
Brooklyn
Trains: Q to Avenue J
Le Crepe Et La Vie (Pancake Life)
There are a growing number of businesses in Ditmas Park that sell multiple dissimilar things . There’s a bar/flowershop and now a new combination bar/guitar shop. Against all odds, the flowershop bar works great but the idea of drinking in a music store is a horrifying thought. Most of my memories of guitar shops include assholes playing Alex LIfeson riffs and the like — but I guess I could see myself stopping in to buy strings or picks. The latest dual-offering in Flatbush is Le Crepe Et La Vie, a combination creperie and thrift store. Nothing precious or conceptual here, just an older guy who appears to be Greek with his wife running a small thrift store in the back.
I went there with my daughters a few days after they opened and the owner, Konstantino, let them try their hand at making crepes. Although I promised him I wouldn’t tell anyone about it, the pictures are below. Now he’s too damn busy to offer up such things. We were just lucky — and because of his warmth and delicious fucking crepes I’ve been back several times since.
Konstantino is hilarious and always complains about how busy he is, with a proud smirk on his face. I asked him, “You didn’t want to succeed?” I get the feeling he thought he was opening a business as a hobby as he nears retirement age — but now he’s completely overwhelmed because this hood really needed a place like this.
Shayna’s Punim
Joyce, owner and cook at Shayna’s Restaurant reminded me a little of my favorite grandma in appearance (but not white, Jewish, or Canadian). Real deal home-cooked Trinidadian food going on in her confines. Her freshly made Roti is one of the best gluten-based objects I’ve found in the borough. I was confused when she asked me if I wanted the chicken wrapped up in the Roti versus on-the-side, so I said yes. Golf-ball-sized pieces on the bone but I don’t think that sweet lady was trying to choke or kill me. It wouldn’t have been possible to pick it up like a burrito. She asked me if I wanted it hot and she didn’t believe me when I said yes. She seemed proud of her chilies so gave me the hot sauce on the side. It was good but not as hot as she claimed and it wasn’t enough. I used it all too quickly, since it was a giant, 1500 calorie Roti, probably. Delicious.
I need to go back and try the Doubles, tamarind-sweetened fried bread filled with curried garbanzos. Apparently they run out quickly in the morning, even though they seem more like a lunch-type sandwich.
She’s soon to be featured in a book about the immigrant experience and hangs with a top chef. Some good pictures of her work here, thanks for the story and the tip Ditmas Park Corner!
Shayna’s Restaurant
907 Church Ave
Brooklyn
Train: Q to Church or F to Ft. Hamilton
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Cut-Off Signs, Revolving Doors
Lately I keep noticing vintage but cut-off signs. This one is around the corner from my apartment on Foster Avenue, the street that cuts up Ditmas Park and Fisk Terrace/Midwood. Somewhere around this building lives a girl I kissed once at Sycamore then took out to dinner one time. She moderated comments online for a large new organization. The net-net is there was no there there. Really, I think it was just kind of rude for the Chinese restaurant to cover up the sign like this.
Undiscovered Brooklyn 