The Scaturro supermarket has been closed for a couple of years now, the blue sealed-up windows in its hulking brick facade taunting those of us who know the potential this prime block of our main drag has. There have been rumors for a while that the building would be converted to condos and the ground floor would become “progressive” retail. Soon, those big arched windows will be glazed and the whole building brought back to life.

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Chillin’ at the park

For the third time, I took my Thursday coffee companion, Mario, around Bushwick. Last year, we had pizza and espresso at Fortunata’s, but on each subsequent Mario visit we have instead had pizza at Roberta’s, his new favorite place, far from Houston Street though it may be. While the coffee at Roberta’s is fine — they use Lavazza from the black can and make it in a “moka” — we were still undercaffeinated after having drunk an entire bottle of wine between us. Yeah it’s only 2pm by this point, so what.

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A friend who lives on Knickerbocker was doing some digging and found this print of men laying a new sewer system underneath Knickerbocker Avenue in 1885, using “an improved method of tunneling.”

“The Knickerbocker Avenue Extension Sewer, Brooklyn, N.Y.,” Scientific American, Volume LIII, No. 24 (12 December 1885)

click to enlarge

The first BushwickBK event, in true Bushwick fashion (or at least in my true fashion), is to be completely unorganized and unstructured! The plan is just to bumrush the old mafiosos at Fortunata’s — there’s always enough pizza there and they have beer. And the zeppoles, if you get them fresh out of the fryer — trans-fucking-cendant.

Saturday, October 6, 2-4PM | 305 Knickerbocker

See you there!

Soon to invade a garden near me.

I need thyme for the cracks in my now-finished backyard patio, and since S & S Farm Market on Knickerbocker is a hell of a lot closer than Home Depot, I figured I’d give them a try. They did have plenty of nice plants, but I didn’t see any thyme. Since I needed mint, too, I grabbed three of their nice-looking specimens and went to the counter.

“Do you have any thyme plants?”

The Chinese woman behind the counter just stared, perplexed.

Then I thought to ask in Spanish: “Tomillo?”

“Oh, no we don’t have right now.”

I thanked her, paid, and walked out thinking “what the hell just happened here?”

Side note: I know even obscure herb names in Spanish because as a kid in Miami we used Badia brand spices, and they all had the name in English and Spanish on the bottle. I still have three Badia bottles left…even though I moved away from Miami almost 5 years ago. Should, uh, probably get rid of these. *cough*

Last weekend my neighbors slipped a note in my mail slot about how they have seen us working hard on our house, welcoming us to the block, and if we need a break, here are two Starbucks cards. I thought that was really cool…even though I don’t know when I’ll be near a Starbucks again. So I invited them to lunch, and this Saturday we went to Northeast Kingdom, since they didn’t even know it existed. As we found out more about this couple of cousins who moved from the Bay Area suburbs, we realized they had never taken a single diversion off the path from their front door to the train.

And so we regaled them with stories of the best pizza in NYC, which happens to be on the coolest street in Bushwick; the piragua man at Knickerbocker and Starr who it has still been too cool outside to patronize, but for whose wares we lust; and the awesome Associated supermarket on Broadway that somehow squeezes a food court with 7 or 8 vendors into maybe 1000 square feet.

They seemed genuinely interested in checking out the rest of the hood…but I think we’ll have to take them by the hand at first. We were complaining about the crackhead on our street stealing everyone’s stuff, and described him — that white guy with the long ponytail? — and D actually said “I don’t notice…I never look at anyone.” She seemed sort of embarrassed by that, but then, Bushwick isn’t exactly here with open arms to newbies, so no judgements here.

One day soon, when it’s hot enough, we’ll take them to hang out with us at the gelato counter in front of Circo’s. Man I can’t wait for that to open for summer.

Guess what, people? Bushwick has the best pizza in New York. I know this because I have had the pizza in my family’s old neighborhood in the Bronx, on Arthur Avenue, and that is the best pizza in the city. My father won’t believe me when I tell him I have found even better.

Fortunata’s II (a new location of Fortunata’s from Ridgewood) at 305 Knickerbocker has real pepperoni (not that spongy Hormel junk that Tony’s down the block serves from a bucket) and the lightest, crispiest crust I have ever had. In my life. The owners and the workers are all Italian. Like, from Italy. And if you are lucky enough to get a zeppole fresh out of the fryer, you are having a very good day.

The prices are ridiculously low. Three slices of pizza, a pepperoni roll, two drinks, and 4 zeppole cost $12. A whole large pie is $12. You can’t go wrong here. Now go!

Hipsters and other weenies avoid “native” destinations in Bushwick like the plague — witness the throngs of them in depressing, desolate places like Wyckoff between Jefferson and Starr-ish, their swarming of Bogart and the East Williamsburg industrial area, and their complete absense (not one!) in places like Knickerbocker Avenue by Bushwick (aka Maria Hernandez) Park.

Knickerbocker is one of my favorite places in Bushwick. It’s a real traditional main street, where everyone in the neighborhood goes to shop, eat, gossip and carry on. In two blocks of Knick this Saturday we got great pizza (Tony’s at 336), grabbed a big bag of plum tomatoes and some garlic (S & S Farm Market at 317), stocked up on assorted amaretti, biscotti, etc. (Circo’s Pastry at 312), and blew more money on stuff to fix up our crumbling money pit (Ace Hardware at 347). I didn’t really even mean for it to be Italian-themed…

I know it’s a matter of time before all the scary warehouse spaces get filled up with left-wing bookstores and coffee houses and vegan raw restaurants and the market starts pressuring the wispy-haired and pale among us to start opening shops on Knickerbocker, but even before that happens I urge my likely audience here to submerge themselves in local culture before they put it out of business. That last thing is not a value judgement, just a statement of fact.