Over the weekend, signs announcing a placed called “Earth’s Basket” went up on the ground floor of the new development at 17th street and Fourth Avenue.

It seems like a good guess that this might be a grocery store. If so, this site has potential to be a step above the current local grocery and deli options nearby — the retail space chosen seems quite large.

A check on the web shows no website, but there seems to be an identically named company near Chicago that specialized in homemade baby food delivery.

Anyone have any info?

Apparently this last storm was one of the most damaging in the history of the park– many 100 year old trees have been lost and there has been extensive damage to other parts of the park. Sounds like they need help in the form of donations to keep the capital budget afloat as they undertake repair and maintance. Please consider this for Brooklyn’s sake!

Reminder that it’s time to make tree requests from the parks dept!

too many we's

When people from the neighborhood boast or complain about Greenwood, they often mention how many coffee and pastry offerings we seem to have per square foot.

This morning’s Times article on coffee in NY places two of our coffee bars, Southside and Roots, on on their citywide interactive map.  Southside even has a full description in the article. 

The article itself is slightly interesting in that it  makes a (somewhat flimsy) rhetorical case that NY coffee should be taken seriously on the national stage.  (We are roating beans in New York! We have coffee machines in our surf shops in our Soho!)

I seem to recall that the times has run a few similar articles over the last two years, and that they’ve presented a similar map each time. Anyone in Greenwood already knows that for years now, we have had the already had opportunity to smell coffee roasting at the industrial plant down near 2nd avenue. Mmmm.

The map’s coffee shop markers stand out for another reason. Together, they comprise the pointilistic “New York” that the Times willing to put forth on this  national stage of serious coffee. More–even more– interesting for this blog– the red dots in Greenwood end up defining one of the outer edges of this March 2010 provincial city view.  Coffee stops being  coffee, and the red dots dance as markers in a changing real estate and restaurant market– a gerrymandering of the the old districts. Greenwood is out of the vest pocket and part of the Brooklyn that people read about, even as Brooklyn is now part of the New York that people read about.

Oh to live in a place where the brown liquid shooting from the machines is deemed to be coffee by the Times! Away, away, from the vast, gray, undotted deserts of Jersey, Queens, Flatbush, (and Midtown?!?).

OK–  carried away… Let’s leave the teleology of the New York Times to another day and turn back to the topic at hand.

Going by memory alone,  it seems we have:

1. Has Beans

2. Roots Cafe

3. Southside Coffee

4. Little Buddy Biscuit Company

5. La Boulangerie De La Lopez (Recent expansion of the lopez bakery)

There are probably some others I’m forgetting- for instance, there is an Italian Style pastry shop on 5th ave in near 21st Street.

Cross to the shadier side of the Prospect Expressway, and there are suddenly even more options on each avenue. 

Seems like a fragile ecosystem when most of the newer storefronts all serve the same category of product. What gives?

It seems each place has a little local following. We confess to frequenting a few of them- Little Buddy for the biscuits, Roots to buy beans, Southside for a quiet seat, Has Beans beacause no one else is ever open early in the AM, etc..

Which is your favorite, and why?

References:

1. New York Times Interactive Coffee Map:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/03/09/dining/20100309-new-york-coffee-map.html

Although the bar closed quickly and without any warning– in fact, the proprietors could be seen a few weekends ago scrambling to pull out all the furniture in pickup trucks and cars– a new wrinkle has emerged that seems to give the story a bit more interest.

Ellis-gy

About a week after the closing, when it was still unclear what was going on, signs appeared pasted to the windows indicating that the buisness closing was a surprise, and that regulars could find out more by facebooking the staff. It would seem from the wording (pictured right) that either the landlord or the bar owner left the staff very surprised with the closing. Anyone have any more info? 

Anyone in the neighborhood have any creative ideas for what could or should move into the now very vacant spaces in the old Aaron’s department store? 

-GG

Welcome! 

The Greenwood Frame is a neighborhood tabloid with a strong focus on wood frame houses, thrown together houses, funny graffiti, graffiti covered vans, beer, old rusted trucks, local characters, and all other delightful or frustrating items that South Brooklyn and beyond has on offer.  

This writer believes that the mellow under-renovated neighborhood of Greenwood is an ideal locale to reflect on the above topics, and the posts will betray a strong allegiance to the slanted, the rickety, the truthful, and the good. This writer will also bore you with discussions on his own ramshackle house, his latest musical discoveries, and his field trips here and there– mostly to Springs and Montauk, NY, but hopefully other more interesting places as well. 

We will focus on original content and photographs from the editor and friends. We also welcome, welcome, welcome ideas and submissions. <greenwoodgeneral@gmail.com>