Lower Prospect Avenue

Prospect Avenue between Reeve St. and Greenwood Ave. almost feels like a pedestrian zone. Car traffic is somewhat light on the wide road, the buildings are low so the area fills with light, and for some reason the houses seem like sets. It is the perfect location for street fairs.

It probably wasn't such a strange oasis before the Prospect Expressway was built, I'm sure there was more commerce there then. As Icky wrote, the Elk's Lodge was then the Venus theatre, and as Jane, the owner of Juice Box tells me, the strip housed many bars. The Cafe Crossroads is a welcome addition to the strip even though there's some irony in its name, considering more roads used to cross there before the Expressway made a dead end of Vanderbilt Street and Greenwood Avenue, among others. The funny thing about the Expressway is that it is fairly short, I suppose it's essentially a continuation of Ocean Parkway. Drag racers race it in the middle of the night.

Instead of bars we now have an abundance of daycares, Little Stars, Sunflowers and in September a new branch of Chai Tots will be opening in what was recently a pediatricians office. There are no bar/daycare hybrids there, although, as I've mentioned before, there is a new wine and spirits store, Juice Box, which contains a playhouse.

I'd like to know what will become of the Elk's Lodge, which is now surrounded by fairly impenetrable scaffolding painted slick blue. I'd like to know but I can't see into the future, or the scaffold, or the storefront that was Park Realty on account of the sagging mylar lining the door. I don't know about you, but sagging mylar does a lot for me. Tight mylar is really not my thing at all.

An office of Zone Books adjoins the lodge, I'm sure they'll have stories to tell about whatever is taking place behind that blue chrysalis.