Open Thread Wednesday 7/16/08

Actually, AP, I was referring to the heart-valve kind of customers, as in the “triple bypass” folks for whom the extra steps they have to take to Key Food may prove their last. Kidding aside, it is a major pain, especially in this heat to have to go from my end of the nabe on Middagh all the way to Montague for my victuals. I never thought I’d say this, but I miss Gristede’s.

The heat must be getting to people—touchy! Anyhow—the Shell station is notorious, we had a similar situation and now use a place on 4th avenue, live and learn.

Weird how the Heights has so few supermarkets right now; I grew up in the Heights in the 60’s and ’70’s, and there were literally at least a dozen, plus bakeries, greengrocers (including an Italian man who had a cart drawn by an ancient horse wearing a straw hat, there were mounds of apples, bananas, etc. and housewives in curlers and sleeveless housedresses would come out and haggle over vegetables. It was a “bohemian” neighborhood, then, mind you. Seems like another lifetime.) We are such a foodie culture in NY now, that you would think the good food markets would be proliferating, instead Lassen and Henning’s hasn’t changed their selection much since 1972 and the larger markets keep closing. Fairway is wonderful but inconvenient, and there Key Food is OK but not exciting. Trader Joe’s? Whole Foods? Union Market? Where art thou? Garden of Eden, I have to say, opened magnificently and is still decent, and of course Sahadi is mecca. Still, it seems the Heights could and should support so much more diverse shopping—not just for food, the shops in general are kind of a yawn. I am definitely one of those tiresome people who will yarn on and on about how great it was way back when; it was! Though of course I will concede we had no greenmarkets or unlimited-ride Metrocards.

Yeah, I miss the great breads they had a Norman’s — now, after so many incarnations, home of the double dipper (and we’re not talking about ice cream scooping, are we?). I understand that where Blue Pig etc were (Su Su’s a million years ago now) there was an Associated Supermarket in the early 1960s. You used to be able to get victuals at the store that’s now [Jabba the] Hutt middle eastern eatery on Hicks Street.

Or maybe I’m getting old, and don’t want to walk to Montague from the north Heights for the simple things in life.