Brooklyn Then and Now ....
May. 16th, 2015 06:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatIt's funny how things change when you aren't paying attention. Ten years float by, you look up and think wait - what happened to that book store I used to go to, or that pub? When did a bank pop up in its place or a sushi restaurant?
There's a great scene in the 1990s flick Gross Point Blank, where hitman extraordinaire, Martin Blank, goes home, only to discover his house is now...a mini-mart.
Today, I was going to take photos of various sites in my book. Starting with my favorite, Fiske's digs. Fiske is the down on his luck PI in the novel Doing Time on Planet Earth. His digs are a funky shaped round tower on the edge of the Gowanus Canel, with a sign with the words KENTLE in the distance. I was going to take a photo, photoshop it, and post. So, I lug myself to the train this muggy May morning, camera in hand, and then walk the ten-fifteen blocks from the Carroll Gardens Station to the Carroll Street Bridge spanning the Canal. And...it's no longer there. It's a construction site. They are building luxury apartments, actually the term luxury is a marketing euphemism for brand new apts. The Kentle sign is gone as well.
[I did however find photos online of what once was there...several years ago:
1. Then (2004) :Fiske's Digs...or the place that I based his digs on. Not the best view of it - it's from the water and after Hurricane Sandy, so my memory of it is very different.
Now (2015):
2. The Kentle Sign spelled backwards in the background:
I stood there a couple of minutes and pouted. Well, until, a poor old man with a shopping cart made me move off the rickety wooden walkway. Then, I took photos of the Gowanus Canal, which is coated with a layer of white sludge. (I thought they were cleaning it up? It's actually worse than it was in 2004. Now I think if you fell into it - it would kill you.)
Refusing to give up, I went and hunted other sites in my book. Surely, Angry Wades was still in existence? Nope. Or if it was, someone stole the sign. (Apparently, it is and they did steal the sign.) East Side Alehouse (Actually I think it was Pete's - but I called East Side Ale House in my book. In reality it was the Waterfront or Pete's Waterfront Ale House. Doesn't matter it's gone now anyway. Changed owners after 20 years.)? The old English pub that I used to drink eggnog at in December - it has the best spiked eggnog on the planet, and you could buy whole jugs of it from them. Also, great beers. Not to mention decent fries and burgers. But it is gone. Nothing there. I think maybe a sushi restaurant took its place? Or an upscale hipster bar?
So too, had Long Island College Hospital. My old nemesis. Ten years ago, I remember running out of that hospital in a blind panic. I'd had digestive distress due to a undiagnosed autoimmune condition - known as ceiliac disease. Can't say I miss the hospital, much. It's been replaced by NYU Langon Medical Center.
I didn't bother going into Manhattan, since I already knew Colosieum Book Store and Cafe had long since become a bank.
So much has changed between 2004 and 2015. Ten Years. In the film, Gross Point Blank, Martin's ex-best friend, now a real estate agent - keeps saying "Ten Years! Can't believe it's been ten years!"
The body ages in ten years. The earth moves. Shifts. Trees sprout, and die.
Buildings change owners, or are removed to make way for new buildings, not necessarily better ones. Friends leave. New ones arrive. The only thing we know for certain is that everything going on today...is temporary. And it will change, often deceptively. You won't notice. It creeps up on you. Slowly, gradually, until one day...you are walking down the street and you think, "wait - where did that restaurant or bar or book store I loved disappear to? I swear it was here, only yesterday."
There's a great scene in the 1990s flick Gross Point Blank, where hitman extraordinaire, Martin Blank, goes home, only to discover his house is now...a mini-mart.
Today, I was going to take photos of various sites in my book. Starting with my favorite, Fiske's digs. Fiske is the down on his luck PI in the novel Doing Time on Planet Earth. His digs are a funky shaped round tower on the edge of the Gowanus Canel, with a sign with the words KENTLE in the distance. I was going to take a photo, photoshop it, and post. So, I lug myself to the train this muggy May morning, camera in hand, and then walk the ten-fifteen blocks from the Carroll Gardens Station to the Carroll Street Bridge spanning the Canal. And...it's no longer there. It's a construction site. They are building luxury apartments, actually the term luxury is a marketing euphemism for brand new apts. The Kentle sign is gone as well.
[I did however find photos online of what once was there...several years ago:
1. Then (2004) :Fiske's Digs...or the place that I based his digs on. Not the best view of it - it's from the water and after Hurricane Sandy, so my memory of it is very different.
Now (2015):
2. The Kentle Sign spelled backwards in the background:
I stood there a couple of minutes and pouted. Well, until, a poor old man with a shopping cart made me move off the rickety wooden walkway. Then, I took photos of the Gowanus Canal, which is coated with a layer of white sludge. (I thought they were cleaning it up? It's actually worse than it was in 2004. Now I think if you fell into it - it would kill you.)
Refusing to give up, I went and hunted other sites in my book. Surely, Angry Wades was still in existence? Nope. Or if it was, someone stole the sign. (Apparently, it is and they did steal the sign.) East Side Alehouse (Actually I think it was Pete's - but I called East Side Ale House in my book. In reality it was the Waterfront or Pete's Waterfront Ale House. Doesn't matter it's gone now anyway. Changed owners after 20 years.)? The old English pub that I used to drink eggnog at in December - it has the best spiked eggnog on the planet, and you could buy whole jugs of it from them. Also, great beers. Not to mention decent fries and burgers. But it is gone. Nothing there. I think maybe a sushi restaurant took its place? Or an upscale hipster bar?
So too, had Long Island College Hospital. My old nemesis. Ten years ago, I remember running out of that hospital in a blind panic. I'd had digestive distress due to a undiagnosed autoimmune condition - known as ceiliac disease. Can't say I miss the hospital, much. It's been replaced by NYU Langon Medical Center.
I didn't bother going into Manhattan, since I already knew Colosieum Book Store and Cafe had long since become a bank.
So much has changed between 2004 and 2015. Ten Years. In the film, Gross Point Blank, Martin's ex-best friend, now a real estate agent - keeps saying "Ten Years! Can't believe it's been ten years!"
The body ages in ten years. The earth moves. Shifts. Trees sprout, and die.
Buildings change owners, or are removed to make way for new buildings, not necessarily better ones. Friends leave. New ones arrive. The only thing we know for certain is that everything going on today...is temporary. And it will change, often deceptively. You won't notice. It creeps up on you. Slowly, gradually, until one day...you are walking down the street and you think, "wait - where did that restaurant or bar or book store I loved disappear to? I swear it was here, only yesterday."