Everybody’s heard of Brooklyn, that part of New York that used to have a baseball team called the Dodgers. Well, that’s water under the Brooklyn Bridge so to speak.
New York has been called the City that Never Sleeps. It’s the reputed home of Batman who calls it Gotham City while Superman preferred calling it Metropolis. It’s probably the world’s most famous city, what they call “mytho-poetic” in scope, the melting pot within the melting pot of America, a veritable Tower of Babble with every country on the planet (and probably beyond) represented in its many ethnic enclaves. From posh 5th Avenue to the frazzled Bowery to the frenzy of the docks, the Big Apple is big enough for everyone to take a bite out. And to think it was bought from the natives for about $24 in beads (actually hatchets, cloth, metal pots as well as beads) by our “opportunity seeking” relatives who had an eye for real estate even 350 years ago when the Dutch settlers first named the area New Amsterdam.
By the way, today’s Wall Street got its name from a defensive wall built to protect the colonists from the indigenous peoples who probably figured out they had been fairly well ripped off. Then in 1661 when the area passed into the hands of the King of England’s brother, the Duke of York, New York was “born.” Who were the terrorist of the day?
As for the source of the name Brooklyn, one might think it had something to do with a country lane running alongside a babbling brook. Not so, it seems, rather it comes from the Dutch “Breukelen” which means “broken land” most likely referring to the rough local terrain before it was paved in concrete. Back in 1646 Breukelen was literally the first official municipality in what we now call the state of New York. At that time there were five Dutch settlements including Breukelen and one English settlement cheerfully named Gravesend. A couple centuries down the road, the two towns merged, becoming the City of Brooklyn, and in 1898 it became one of the five boroughs making up New York City.
The northernmost neighborhood in Brooklyn, it’s bordered on the south by Williamsburg at the Bushwick inlet, on the east by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and Bushwick, on the north by Long Island City, Queens at the Pulaski Bridge, and on the west by the East River. It’s got location, location, location, and very accessible from Manhattan but which would eventually create complications for its longtime residents.
It was this July 9, 2006, a Sunday morning, that I entered the Greenpoint time flow, all by chance, truly a stranger in a strange land, but that would quickly change. I had never heard of Greenpoint prior to the moment I stepped foot on the corner of Manhattan Avenue and Meserole. Unfamiliar with New York in general, I was even more confused to find Manhattan Ave. in Brooklyn. There was also a cross street called Nassau. But I didn’t dwell on it as I had flown the red-eye from L.A. and hadn’t slept for a couple days.
Because life as a journalist, in great part a motorcycle journalist, was not exactly a Fortune 500 paycheck occupation, I booked a room at the Greenpoint YMCA, also since I thought it was near the school, my 16-year old son, Grant, would attend during the summer. I flew to NYC to rendezvous with him and his mother who had arrived a week earlier. It looked like a straight shot from the Y to the school, at least on the MapQuest print-out. As I would not meet up with my son for several hours in downtown Manhattan, I thought I’d check into my digs and catch 40 winks.
As I struggled, sleepy-eyed, up the steps of the Y, I noticed a lot of activity, for an early Sunday morning. It seemed a street fare was setting up on Manhattan Ave. I could smell food cooking on grills and followed my nose. That nap I was thinking of… well, for the next several hours I roamed Manhattan Ave. taking in the sights, sounds, smells…Maybe it was the sleep deprivation, but suddenly I had this feeling I had been transported to Warsaw. Had I slipped into the Twilight Zone? I wasn’t hearing English, only what I realized it was Polish…a little like Russian but softer.
Then I focused on the shop signs and noticed they were in Polish. The light bulb went off (about 20 watts) and I realized I was in an “ethnic neighborhood.” It wasn’t Little Italy or Chinatown, which I knew of, and Greenpoint didn’t sound Polish, but here it was. Bottom line, I fell in love with the place and would spend the better part of three days exploring it, meeting its inhabitants, eating the food, snapping photos, and learning its history. By 1900, after an immigration influx, the majority of its residents were Polish and the area remained so for the next century. A second wave of Polish immigration took place post WWII, and a third wave after the fall of the USSR as Poland became a fully autonomous, non-Communist country in the late 1980s.
But as for my own exploration of Greenpoint, let’s start with the Greenpoint YMCA since it was to be my home base. I learn from the friendly staff that it was built in 1906. I figure there might be a 100th Anniversary Party but I didn’t see balloons. The place was a bustle of activity, people coming and going using the pool, the two gyms, the kid’s programs and the guest rooms. At about $50 a night, it was a bargain in NYC. I was expecting Spartan surroundings and I found them.
The word Gulag came to mind when I opened the green painted door of Room 312. The room was big enough for a twin bed, a metal chair and small desk, a TV and that was it. No bathroom, not even a sink. Not even on my floor. I had to climb up or down one flight of stairs to get to the restroom and showers (with a knee fresh from some surgical probings). But, joy of joys, the little air conditioner in the window was chugging away, which was a good thing since birds were dropping out of the hot and muggy sky outside. (Speaking of muggings, Mayor Rudy Giuliani really cleaned up the city and crime was in a big slump. People were walking around with baby carriages, strolling at night, a very peaceful scene. Maybe it helped that there was a very big police station, the 94th Precinct, right across the street from the Y.)
To get my Greenpoint bearings, I ventured into the offices of the Greenpoint Gazette and the Greenpoint-Williamsburg Gazette, the area’s weekly neighborhood newspapers where I was most cordially greeted by Editors Virginia Haines-Bednarek and Maria Bednarek who stopped what they were doing to reverse roles and be interviewed by me. Virginia’s mother and her partner founded the publications in 1971 and Virginia had literally grown up in the newspaper’s offices.
She witnessed every varied changes that transpired over the last three decades of life in Greenpoint and continues to publish stories chronicling the close-knit life of its people. While the Gazette’s current issue had spots about the Cub Scout Pack 996 Annual Flea Market and a front page celebrating the local schools, there was a column about Iraq and a worrisome note about the discovery of West Nile Virus in NYC. There the food related story on recommended Best Polish Homecooking Money Can Buy…The Happy End located at Manhattan and Kent Street. As a neighborhood, Greenpoint deals with both the large and small issues, and the Greenpoint Gazette helped keep it all in perspective.
Back out on Manhattan Avenue I began my exploration on foot, taking myself wherever instinct directed. I entered shops to engage the owners in conversation included the street’s one and onlyfishing tackle store nicely called “Dream Fishing.” I couldn’t afford to buy anything, I just had to investigate such an anomaly. It was filled to the rafters with all kinds of fishing equipment and as I learned from its proprietor of some 20 years, it was a focal point for “serious fishermen.” The owner, who only wanted to be listed as Robert, decried the lack of fishing in the New York area. “Everything has a fence around it now,” he lamented. “I have to drive to Massachusetts to fish.” Up on the wall, were dozens of photos sent in by his customers showing their prize catches. Robert preferred fresh water fishing and his favorite trophy was a 35 lb. carp.
“Our niche is quality European style tackle, even though the Japanese now dominate the market.” That may be so, but Robert’s shop had a great vibe going, a real fisherman’s haven in the midst of a landlocked area.
Very well informed, particularly about Polish political history, Robert took me through the last 25 years of upheaval, especially of the financial kind, that plagued his mother country, basically explaining how its new non-communist leaders had sold it down the tubes to foreign moneymen who held the country in hock. “Money is the new form of neo-colonialism,” he observed. Various customers walking in on the conversation agreed. They also concurred that Greenpoint was unfortunately becoming “fashionable,” with wealthy people moving in from Manhattan and buying up the houses, pricing the longtime Polish residents out of the neighborhood. But they added, even though they were dispersed, Polish people came from far and wide to walk and shop along Manhattan Ave. in Greenpoint. It was a unique area and still held its Polish heart true. I learned that among the oldest businesses still in operation are the Kisza Meat Market, the Murawski Pharmacy and the Karwoski Travel Agency.
After getting recommendations from Robert and his friends as to their favorite local restaurants, I had my dinner at Johnny’s Bar and Restaurant taking their advice to try the salmon tartar (raw with onions and capers) and seared steak that was presented on a sizzling metal plate that would have set off smoke alarms in L.A. All around me, as I enjoyed the meal, Polish was being spoken; even the TV set up on the wall was turned to a Polish station, a talk show from Warsaw. The ambiance was complete. It really felt like I had finally escaped the plastic superficiality of L.A. for something, well, real, even if it had a soundtrack in Polish.
All the better.I was going to try this bakery Robert had recommended for their cheesecake,but my legs, obviously calorie conscious, set out in the opposite direction further down Manhattan where the avenue met Dwiggs St. at which point I noticed a neon sign illustrated with Monroe Shock Absorbers and the name “Matchless.“
Drawn by the motorcycle-related sign I turned the corner and lo and behold…motorcycles! A fairly ratified Triumph twin complete with dice on its side-cover and what looked like scorched paint sat in front of shop front, looking like it had been collecting dust since the 1950s. The shop was called Works Engineering and I discovered mechanics Sayre and Irving hard at work.
Sayre made his way to Greenpoint via Oregon and Washington State where he worked on older bikes. As for Irving he explained that oneday he stopped by for a battery and never left. The shop specializes in the repair and/or restoration of vintage British and European bikes and also older metric bikes (nothing newer than 1976). The shop was owned by Eric Green who was a member of the well-known vintage racing group Team Obsolete, which competes in events across the country fielding a spectrum of extremely rare machines. The outstanding racer Dave Roper is often at the controls.
In the shop’s back service area one could see older Ducati’s and a Rickman-Honda undergoing restoration, overhead the rafters hung with all kinds of vintage parts. The Triumph parked out front was a ’73, 750 owned by a guy named Bob who had stopped in for a brew at the corner watering hole, the Matchless. The bike’s gnarly looks had been enhanced by a fuel leak fire and was now under Sayre’s care as he nursed it back to health.
I learned the Eric Green and his partner had also bought the corner bar changing its name to The Matchless echoing their passion for vintage British iron. On Monday nights bikers on all kinds of machines rallied to the place to view the latest race footage, so all in all a cool gathering place what with the shop (with many vintage bikes for sale) and the watering hole that was well known for a great menu of micro-brewery offerings.
Sayre, Irving (an apprentice of sorts who was also taking automotive college classes) and I sat on the curb trying to figure out a bank of old carburetorswhile customers and the curious ambled by. Amongst the former was Buell rider Max Strum. Max is a school teacher and also a rider for 20 years who happens to get around New York on his 2005 Firebolt. “The traffic’s no problem,” he says. “Especially after I added the Jardine performance package, exhaust, ELM chip and airbox. I got 15 more horsepower. It’s the Buell’s torque and handling that does it for me and the combination of hi-tech and low-tech. Plus you don’t see too many around here. It stands out.”
Speaking of low-tech, up rides Ben Sargent on his ancient Piaggio 200cc scooter with more than 60,000 miles. “It won Best Rat Bike at the 2005Scooter Rally,” he said, laughing at the same time. “Since then someone stole my Harley saddlebags and one of the horns fell off. (The other horn is inscribed with “Juarez, Mexico” as in moo moo and not honk honk horn.) He explains that he got the scooter after two Italians left town and the apartment manager was tossing it into a dumpster.
Ben used to ride the scooter to his little restaurant located in Queens called “The Hurricane Hopeful” where he cooked his specialties, Bahamian chowders. “It’s called Hurricane Hopeful because I’m a New York surfer always hoping for waves,” says Ben. Through some misfortune his now ex-girlfriend took over the shop, but his chowder fame landed Ben a TV spot when the Food Network’s Bobby Flay challenged him to a chowder cook-off. “I cooked a chowder from eel and Monk Fish. And one from giant clams, each about a foot across. Very tasty.” The show just aired on July 13th. More info at www.hurricanehopeful@yahoo.com.
For more information about the shop log onto www.worksengineering.com. They also sell a classc shop T-shirt, one of which I bought to remind me of my fortuitous meeting with both Sayre and Irving.
As I continued my last bit of stumbling amble down Manhattan Ave., I noticed a Polish book store and in the window various DVD’s, one catching my eye was “Marz Pingwinow” or in English “March of the Penguins.” There were also souvenir license plates that stated “I Love New York” and “I Love Poland” sitting side by side, a metaphor as it were for Greenpoint. In a few more weeks I would be returning to NYC to bring my son back to L.A. from summer school. I was looking forward to introducing him to Greenpoint. There was that restaurant on Hunt and Manhattan I wanted to try…. what was its name…yeah, the Happy End.
