Before There Were Hipsters: 1970's Brooklyn Street Chic

Street Chic, originally photographed by Eric Jacobson

No, my friends,  hipsters did not bring fashion to Brooklyn.  Judging by the photos above, there was already plenty of style going around in our fair borough in the 1970's.
I came across these hilarious shots in the first issue of a magazine entitled New Brooklyn that was published quarterly by Barry V. Conforte and Bjorn Robinson Rye sometime in the 70's.
The photos are accompanied by this even funnier paragraph:

"Street Chic...is emeralds and painter's pants on Montague Street...draw-string silk trousers and a Hawaiian shirt along the Promenade...patched Levi's, a tanned chest and a practiced grin in the exotic lights and shade beneath the El..sequined cut-offs on the boardwalk... Street Chic is buing threads at thrift shops that look like a million bucks...strolling through Sheepshead Bay as though it were Mykonos...treating a Williamsburg stoop like a café in Port Said...Street Chic is insouciance, imagination... when little money (sometimes) and lots of style (always) come up with...wow!Street Chic is haute couture du peuple, mes amis...and Brooklyn's got it!"

The magazine is a real time capsule and contains wonderful ads like these:

It also contains  articles about Brooklyn celebrities.  The one below is about Rose Ann Scamardella, who worked as a news reporter for ABC's Eyewitness News and later went on to anchor the news with Ernie Anastos.  Many may remember  that Scamardella was the inspiration for Gilda Radner's character "Roseanne Roseannadanna" on Saturday Night Live in the late 1970s.
I have heard on quite a few occasions that Scarmadella lived in Carroll Gardens for a while.

To read a larger version of the article, click here.

There is no reference to "New Brooklyn" on the internet, so it is impossible to say if there were additional issues.  Does anyone remember it?

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Looking Better Already! Some Housekeeping On Rite Aid Block In Carroll Gardens

Well,well,well!  Earlier this week,  I posted photos of the rather filthy conditions on the block between President and Union Streets on Smith Street.  The block is home to a Rite Aid,  but also has an empty lot that was once used as an indie market.  The market stopped operating in 2010, but the tent and metal booths used by vendors stayed behind.  Around the empty lot, garbage has been accumulating and Rita Aid has been storing empty cans and old shelving in the tent. The trash and the graffiti that has been sprayed on the metal booths have made the block look rather decrepit and ugly.
Many of you concurred that the situation is unacceptable.
After I posted photos and wrote about the history of the block, many of you gathered contact info on the landlord and on Rite Aid management.
Well, dear readers, your calls and/or emails must have helped, because yesterday, a crew emptied the tent and collected all the trash near the booths.   And it looks much better.
Let's hope that they will remove the unsightly tent and booths as well.

What would you like to see on that empty lot?  A nursery? A food vendor?  A place to park bicycles for those who ride to the subway?
Perhaps we can work with the landlord and Rite Aid to come up with something that will work for everyone in the community.

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How One Block On Smith Street In Carroll Gardens Became Such An Eye Sore

Smith Street looking towards President Street

Rite Aid at 320 Smith Street at  President Street

Same block, looking towards Union Street

Just a few days ago, I received the following email from a PMFA reader:
"I want to suggest you do a post on the abandonded lot next to Rite Aid on Smith Street. I am shocked at how much garbage has accumulated there and how nobody seems to be raising a stink about how ugly this whole block looks. Does Rite Aid own this lot? If not who does and could you find out their contact information? They should just tear down that fence or market it to someone who could do something creative with the space (as long as they fix it up)."
Agreed.  The block between President Street and Union Streets on Smith Street is a real disgrace.  I had ment to write something about the situation for a while, but the email finally prompted me to take the photos above and to research the history of that particular block a bit further.

The way this block appeared in 1928

The view from Smith Street from President Street to Union Street in 1928 with the original buildings

The corner of Smith Street and President Street  and the original #320 Smith Street.

Middle of the block 302 to 320 Smith Street, looking towards Union Street in 1928

From the later part of the1800's to the 1930's this stretch of Smith Street between President and Court Street held a few two- and three- brownstones with storefronts on the ground floor, very much like the buildings that still exist across the street.  Behind them, on President Street across Carroll Park was the old St. Marin Church.   All the houses, including the church, were taken down when the subway tunnel was built underneath Smith Street in the '30's.
The resulting empty lot was used by La Scala Motors for decades.  In 1998, the land was sold to a Mr. Robert Ull of  Ulltra Car Park, Inc., who operated a parking lot on that spot for just a bit over a year.
Shortly afterwards, in 1999, the community was informed that Mr. Ull,  together with John Genovese, was planning to build a Genovese drug store on that site.  The architect for the project was Joel Miele.
Excavation work began in May 1999,  before proper permits were in place . Almost immediately, a stop-work order was issued by the Metropolitan Transit Authority to give the MTA time to examine the developer's plans.
From a Community Notice circulated from that time:
"The original proposal was designed to rest over the MTA subway tunnel along Smith Street.  It was to consist of a 10,000 square foot rental store for genovese Drugs and two or three much smaller stores occupying the narrow Union Street end.  One proposal was to include two floors of rental units to be built over the Union Street portion.
The MTA rejected a proposal for cantilevering the structure over the subway tunnel.  The developer Robert Ull, decided that the only cost-effective way of constructing the building was to move the front wall back from the subway easement along Smith Street.  He reconfigured the floor plan to give Genovese the 10,000 square feet.  He could not build the smaller stores on the Union Street end at all, since without the MTA easement he would have only ten feet from the building behind.
Instead, he added a second story to the main building to be used for five rental apartments, accessed from President Street.
Since the single lot at the corner of Union Street and Smith Street will not be built on, Mr.  Ull is planning to find use for it as a garden nursery, or some other such commercial use as would not require the construction of a permanent building."
The Genovese store with 5 apartments was completed in 2001.  Shortly afterwards, Genovese was sold to the Florida-based Eckerd Corporation, which in turn was sold to Rite Aid in 2007.
The narrow strip at Union and Smith Street was left untended.  In the mid-2000, a few metal booths and a tent were placed at that corner.  The Brooklyn Indie Market operated a week-end and holiday market there until 2010.
These days,   Rite Aid seems to be using the ripped tent to store old shelving and empty cans.

The metal booths have slowly rusted away and have been graffitied. Trash has steadily accumulated along the entire strip, including in the tree pits in front of Rite Aid.

It is hard to determine who is to blame, the drug store or the owner(s) of the property.  One thing is for sure: it would not take much to ameliorate the situation.  The community should certainly push for the tent and the booths to be removed if they will no longer be used.
I love the original idea of having a nursery there. What about you?


Below are two proposals for the development from 1999, including the originally planned stores for the strip close to Union Street.

******UPDATE*****:

Please click through to the comment page for contact information provided by readers.  It would help if we all make a few telephone calls. 

And if you receive a response, please forward it to me so that I can let everyone know.

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A Moment Back In Time: Before There Was Union Market On Court Street...

photos courtesy of the New York Municipal Archives Collection

Here is a wonderful blast from Carroll Gardens' past.  Friend and reader Mary P. recently sent me a link to the New York Municipal Archives Collection and to the great old photos of the one story building at 288 Court Street.
The photos were taken by the NYC Department of Finance for taxation purposes in the mid- 1980's, when the building housed a store that sold Italian decorative items such as lamps, shades, ornate chandeliers and Capodimonte Porcelain, which has been continuously manufactured in Naples, Italy since 1743.

I remember the place well, but by 1984, when I first came to the neighborhood, it seemed as though it wasn't doing cut business any more.  I must admit that I never set foot in it, something I regret now.
I don't even remember the name.
Sometime in the early 1990's the  closed and a sporting goods store took it over.  ATLAS SPORTS only lasted a few years at the location, however, and soon, it became a BLOCKBUSTER Video store.
It sat empty for quite some time after the video store closed, and in 2009, work started on the Union MARKET store that occupies the space today.

According to my good friend Joe Alameda, before the building housed the Italian Decor shop, it was a   school for casino croupiers. But even before that,  Joe told me: "In the 1950's and 60's it was AARON'S Department Store in the 1950's and 60's. They sold juvenile furniture and the really big baby carriages which where called 'Cadillacs'.  Aaron's also sold toys, bicycles and models."

Does anyone remember the Capodimonte store and its actual name?  How about Aaron's or the croupier school?  Do you happen to have some photos?   I would love to find out.

*A big thank you to Mary for sending these photos my way.

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Incidental Beauty: The Chinese Empress Trees Of Gowanus

Walking over the Gowanus Canal at the Union Street Bridge, you may have noticed two big trees, which grow on either side of the canal's edge. Some of their heavy, misshapen limbs hang downward, almost touching the water. For most of the year, they look rather ordinary, but once a year, in spring, they display beautiful large purple flowers.
They have been in full bloom for the last few days now.
Known as Chinese Empress trees, (Paulownia tomentosa ), they are native to Central and Western China, where, it is said, they are commonly planted at a birth of a baby girl and cut down upon her marriage, its wood carved into objects for her dowery.
Here in the United States, they are considered an invasive species and no one purposely planted the two specimen next to the Union Street Bridge.  Rather, their existence is the result of long ago shipping activity on the Gowanus Canal.
You see, in the 1800's, their seed pods found their way to this country in shipping crates. Much like today's polystyrene foam nuggets, they were used as packing material in the transport of porcelain from China. The crates were unloaded from barges in the Gowanus, and the much-sought-after porcelain was sold to Brooklyn residents from Brooklyn Heights to Park Slope and beyond.  Some of this natural 'packing material' took root and spread.
The Chinese Empress is not fussy. It grows quickly in any type of soil and is tolerant of pollution.   No wonder it seems to do well on the shores of the Gowanus.

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