Open Thread Wednesday

By on November 23, 2022 12:00 am in open thread

What’s on your mind? Comment away!

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  • Andrew Porter

    Here’s the corner of Cranberry and Hicks Street, June 26, 1928. This scene is much different today. Click to enlarge.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c0f22cbf568ce00601fb27c4ec68f763954ec0f219230f2b2da23461325fc404.jpg

  • FatFreddy’sCatheter

    1928… Is anything better than time-travel window shopping? Look: they had beverages.

    I think that is the shop that was the laundromat for some years.

  • Karl Junkersfeld

    Yes, I did my laundry there every week from 1980 to about 1983, give or take.

    Love that picture, thanks Andrew.

    Here is another trip down memory lane from “Sweet November” (recently shown on TCM) made in 1968. Starting at the 3 minute mark you can take a short walk around Montague and later on the promenade when cargo ships dominated the Brooklyn Heights elevated view.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drSLzog1fj0&t=5s

  • RickP

    Wonderful! Thanks for posting.
    I used to shop at the meat market. Cor of Henry and Montague. Had prime meats.

  • RickP

    There’s a sign for Hoffman Beverages. It was incorporated in 1927, so that sign was probably an early marketing push. In the 50’s, growing up in Midwood, my family got 6 quarts of Hoffman soda delivered each week. I recall wondering why we didn’t get name brands. Flavors included Burgundy, which I guess was grape soda, and my father’s favorite, Celery Soda (I was not a fan). Each week they’d pick up the empties. Good thing for them, too, because there’s now a market for the vintage bottles.

  • Downtown Dad

    Happy Thanksgiving everyone, I recently moved to the neighborhood and really appreciate how this site has helped me stay on top of local news & info…I had heard about the new St Francis complex downtown, but does that mean that StF is 100% leaving their Remsen Street buildings? It’s looked pretty dead there last couple times I’ve walked by. That (plus the B&N/Movie Theater structure) would leave 2 dead blocks in our midst. Any early rumblings for what will move in? Or likely teardowns for big apt buildings?

  • Sweeties
  • Karl Junkersfeld

    Downtown Dad, these two films are a good introduction to the neighborhood:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4huQRvHmQPw

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6HyDDj6LVw

  • Andrew Porter

    Later became the NY production office for “This American Life.”

    Hey, you want cargo ships docked on the waterfront? Here’s one of my photos from those days (click to enlarge):
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/100638527831f5e2b7bb2b042fb693440054104b00ffb01e1cc01b468014f4c9.jpg

  • Downtown Dad

    Another newbie Q for you BK Heights veterans: what are your top recommendations for decently priced, good Christmas Trees in the neighborhood?

  • TeddyNYC

    I see a tear down happening for both buildings with “luxury” buildings replacing them. It would be nice if a Whole Foods or some other supermarket took the commercial space at one of them.

  • TeddyNYC

    Thanks for that video.

  • Bornhere

    I think it’s the luck of the draw. We’ve had great good luck AND awful experiences with the Vermont trees in front of Key Food and the seller on Clinton at Montague, in front of Saint Ann’s. Oddly (?), one of the best trees we got was last year’s from Home Depot. Ten or so years ago, we’d rely on the sellers across Atlantic at Clinton. Happy hunting!!

  • Effective Presenter

    Yes Atlantic Ave and Clinton Street we always found a nice tree.

  • lien49

    Does anyone remember the Iron Cat Cafe, which opened in this building in 1962, apparently a little late to the beatnik boom of the late 1950s?

    It went bust after about a year, never reaching full hangout status.