All the Best Stories Are in Brooklyn

[mallorys_camera]

There’s this building on the corner of Nostrand Avenue and Sterling Place that I fell completely in love with:



It’s a glazed terracotta applied over brick. The terracotta is a decorative façade, completely without function, which is why I love it.

The building was erected in 1929 as a Bowling Alley and Billiards Academy.



Look at those urns! Look at that vaguely Venetian-looking garlandry! Look at that muscular but pot-bellied cherub! I guess this photo isn’t enough of a close-up to allow you to peek at his loincloth, so just take my word for it: It’s a towel, kinda like you’d run across on a middle-aged Russian guy in a cheap banya.

Buildings like this are why Brooklyn is so much cooler than Manhattan.

And also things like this, which BB tells me is an actual, honest-to-God Jimson weed bush:



It would have had to have been planted, right? Who plants Jimson weed in Brooklyn? What’s the story there? There’s got to be a story there.

###

Anyway, I’m back in the quaint and scenic Hudson Valley now, and generally happy to be back – nature, my own cats (though they’re pissed off and ignoring me), my own airy and well-lighted space (which is bigger than R____’s entire $2,200 a month apartment) and L whose placid, cheerful, common sense is a good ballast for my inherent melancholic tendencies. Oh, and the light box! Which I’m quite sure I’ll spend the next five months huddling under. ‘Cause you know. Dark! Ugh.

But I’m very teary.

‘Cause you know. All the best stories are in Brooklyn.

###

On my way home, I passed this subway mural:



And omigawd – that guy in the red tie! That’s my grandfather! I’d just spent a week revisiting what’s left of the haunts I remembered that were near his house, and here he was! A visitation!

Comments

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

That is one seriously awesome building. I'm especially cheered to see it in such good condition. There's a lot of poorly-cared-for terracotta in Chicago and it bums me out.

[faeriefiles.livejournal.com]

The building reminds me of the corner cafes we came across in Paris.I like the mural better, it's wonderfully done.

[therobertpaul.livejournal.com]

Red tie/grandfather: Wow! That's so cool!

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Well. It's not really a portrait of my grandfather.

But it looks a lot like him.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's a really beautiful building and in great shape.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Really? I don't remember a lot of terracotta architecture in Paris! :-)

[faeriefiles.livejournal.com]

Haha, not the building materials, I know very little about those. It's the appearance. .. the feel and style... hmmm I'll post some of my photos we took there to show what I mean.