It Takes A Village

Two restaurants have recently opened up in my neighborhood, Brooklyn Heights. One, an Indian place called Curry Spot on Remsen, and the Iris Cafe in Willowtown. The Indian place is really good, but other blogs are for food reviews, I'm going to use this as occasion to talk geography.

It was Alistair Cooke who, in explaining New York to his U.K. listeners, said that the city really was not a giant metropolis, but "the biggest collection of villages in the world". That was a very keen observation, and it continues to amaze me how neighborhood-centric life here tends to be, and how each contrada, which might only span 1/2-mile square, is often so distinct from the one adjacent.

Even though it is just a 5-minute walk away from me, Dumbo is very different, and when you cross Atlantic Avenue, five minutes in the other direction, you know you're in Cobble Hill.

Now this is true all over the city, but Brooklyn has it in spades. The neighborhoods are smaller, and I find that contained within them, are usually micro-neighborhoods. Park Slope - in the length of 20 blocks, has the North, South, and Center 'Slopes'; each one with a different feel, different types of stores, and generally, a different group of people living there. (North are hipster parents, center are 'mainstream' parents, south are adventurous, but not-quite-hipster parents - and all of them mildly annoying.)

My favorite such 'micro' though, is within my own neighborhood. Willowtown is a semi-secret corner of BH. I didn't know it existed until I moved here, and didn't know its name until about 5 years after that. Its borders are Atlantic Ave. on the south, Joralemon Street on the north, and Hicks and Furman on the east and west, respectively.

These 4 or so blocks are secluded, with just about zero stores, and comprised almost entirely of brownstones. It's shady and quiet. I like living in an elevator building, but Willowtown is my favorite place in the Heights to walk around, or to sit on a stoop and read the paper. It's the kind of neighborhood that in You've Got Mail, Nora Ephron makes the Upper West Side pretend to be like. (This pony ride was non-Hollywood).

I haven't been to the Iris Cafe yet, which may now be the one bit of retail down there. Funnily enough, the Indian place is in the exact same spot as another excellent Indian restaurant that was there about 8 years ago. That one was called "Curry Leaf", so it seems as if that locale is about as micro-oriented as one can get.