Video producer, writer, and erstwhile BHB contributor Heather Quinlan has shared with us her latest production, “BJs and Bullet Holes” (video after the jump), in which Ron Maldonado takes us on a tour of the Heights as it was as recently as the mid 1980s. His tour hits on some places I knew shortly after my arrival here in 1983. After Capulet’s on Montague, which quickly became my favorite bar when I moved here, closed in 1985, Gerry Bose was hired to tend bar at Clark Street Station, and lots of Capulet’s regulars, including me, followed him there. I remember Ron tending bar there. I had no idea the place was mob controlled.
I have one very good memory involving Clark Street Station. I was watching Game Six of the 1986 World Series at home. When it looked like the Red Sox had it on ice, and were cruising to their first championship since 1918, I decided to go congratulate my friend Bill, a Sox fan, whom I was sure would be at Clark Street Station. When I got to the sidewalk outside the the bar, I looked through its large front window and saw my fellow Mets fans jumping and clapping, and Bill looking ashen. I went in and asked Bill what had happened. He gestured at the TV screen just as there was a replay of Mookie Wilson’s grounder going between Bill Buckner’s legs.
Now for a True Confession. I went to Club Wild Fyre once. I was taken there by someone – I can’t remember who – that I met in my early days in the Heights. We entered through the Clark Street door. I don’t remember the man with the can opener mouth, but I must have paid him, unless my friend took care of that. I remember walking through a long corridor that, after a turn to the left. led us into the bar. We took seats at the southwest end of the bar’s horseshoe and sat there, drinking lousy beer, while a bored looking woman, standing on the bar just to my right, shuffled her feet and jiggled her bare breasts. We didn’t stay long.
BJs and Bullet Holes: The Other Side of Brooklyn Heights from Heather Quinlan on Vimeo.
