What Wetters Was

The stained glass is back, cleaned and repaired. I bet that wasn't cheap. How aweseome that the owners of this business on Prospect Park West are taking the time to honor the beautiful workmanship of the old timers. Now we'll see if they really sell those things advertised in the glass. I don't care if they do, I love misleading signage. More of the metamorphosis here.

Surprise Revelation: That Stained Glass...

Here in Windsor Terrace layers of history are being revealed as a former pet supplies store gets fitted for a new future. I've heard reports that it will be a liquor store. Will they keep that stained glass? Well, now that everyone is so excited about it, and indeed we are, I hope they do.

It was exciting to see that underneath that beloved sign



















was this:
















The stained glass was revealed about a week ago, then boarded with plywood, and today, revealed again. And I happened to have my camera on hand.

I wonder if anyone knows how old either sign is. I believe the stained glass is a remnant of a place called Wetters, some sort of restaurant, a hangout for local kids maybe...around 30 years ago (?). The glass is mostly brown now, but in some patches, there remains a brilliant indigo. I wonder what sort of colors would be revealed with a good cleaning.

This comment, left on another post regarding the storefront on Windsor which was once the Asimov Candy store, gives me a sense of what it must have been like in the days of that sign:

It (the Asimov store at some point in history) was called "Buggy Bill's" and for a dime we could get a 7 cent chocolate soda in a filthy glass and a 3 cent "loosie" cigarette. One of the guys from the neighborhood worked for him and we would steal cases of socda from his basement for parties. We were about 12-14. When we went to high school, we would have our own cigarettes and hang out in Wetters on the avenue.Can't tell you what happened to Bill. Guess the lack of profit from our dimes drove him out of business.

See better pictures of the stained glass here. (Thanks, Vanessa!)

Here's the Container Diaries post about Wetters, with interesting comments like this one:

Maureen Rice(Flanagan)

I met the new owner at Joey Corrar’s wake, he told me he is going to preserve as much of the old signage as he can. He also told me that there will be a movie filming there soon. Nia Vardalos (?) from My Big Fat Greek Wedding is doing another movie, they expect to have the liquor store up and running by mid-july. He also attended the Mass for Joey, senior moment, I forgot his name, but he seemed like a nice guy.

Greetings from....the Luna Park Saloon

On Saturday we dropped my 5th grader off at Mark Twain for her various auditions and then sought out a way to kill a few hours with 2 very tired children on our hands. We spent a little time exploring the Coney Island strip malls on Neptune Avenue. I think the one where this photo was shot was called the Trump Plaza.

This sign caught my eye and my husbands as well, so I took a shot from the passenger's seat. Just as I was trying to frame the picture, and be discreet about, a man came out and said really loud "Hiya, Douche!" Or what sounded like that. I was astonished and asked my husband "Did you hear what he said to me?" "No, I think he was talking on his cel phone." "I didn't see a cel phone. How does he know I'm a douche?"

I guess it's not always a great idea to photograph people coming out of bars, but that wasn't my intention, I just wanted to take a picture of that lettering before it all fell off.

Later that weekend I was taking a picture of Mitchell's on Vanderbilt St when all the sudden people started coming out. I always assume, right or wrong, tht people don't really want a shutterbug right in their faces so I backed off. This woman came out in her Sunday best, wearing a grey silk hat with multiple teirs and vieling. She had on high heel shoes and a coat that came down to her ankles. I haven't seen a hat like that in a long time. I should have begged her to pose for me.

About those auditions, they really stressed my daughter out. Call me soft, but I think 10 years old is too young for that kind of pressure. I guess this is a rather performance oriented place to live.

Coney Island Ave Liquor Store

This seems to have gone out of business. I'd love to know how old this sign is and who made it. In some way it seems perfect, but what way is that?

5th Avenue Honor System

As fragile as a bubble about to pop, it's amazing this place on 5th Avenue still exists. It's a kind of beauty, I think, that's a little scary.

Feel the Rush

Rush stands where Bargainland used to; I was so pleased to find a great picture of that place at the Bridge and Tunnel Club. I remember it with affection although I'm not sure why now, and a friend even named her band after it so I guess it had its charm.

I'm usually too overwhelmed by the Rush sign to shop there but I got over there this week when my son's teacher requested dollar store rolls of masking tape. I got two rolls for $1.49. On the way in I noticed that the sign used a particularly full version of Cooper, a font that is always full and cheerful and pleasant enough to appear pretty much everywhere you look. Seldom does it look as full though. I've said in the past that it reminds me of healthy chubby babies with fullness of cheek and limb. Here the letters aren't swollen with baby sweetness but rather with the angularity of the good old stars and stripes, shop 'til you drop America.

It's good to have a place where you can get stuff so cheap but not so good once you discover how it is possible to make stuff so cheaply. That's why I rarely shop there, I'd really rather not buy anything new if I have to. But tape isn't one of those things you can get used. I'm trying to have a better attitude about it though. Because I discovered that the cashier there is a woman I know, a woman whose son went to Pre-K with my daughter, a woman who is extremely kind and friendly. A woman who once gave me a set of Indian clothes for free simply because I had complimented her kurta. And she needs to make a living, right, I imagine, and feed her family. Why do things have to be so complicated?

Storefront Catacombs at 4th Avenue Station

Under the 4th Avenue 9th Street station, a vital organ in this city's infrastructure, I found a storefront cemetery. Unlike those in limbo on 7th Avenue, these seem gone for good, they ate the whole pomegranate and will never leave the underworld. How long since any of these were in business? One shop has a very welcoming wooden door in spite of all the grime it is covered with, painted shell pink, so feminine and delicate for this place of filth and gloom. It gives me the feeling they once sold panties or braziers there.








If you ever find yourself down there, make sure you go into the light.

Greenwood Avenue Storefronts

I know I'm not going to win much sympathy by complaining that I'm going to Mexico tomorrow, specifically to a resort called Shangri-La. Truly, I'd rather stay here and take pictures of the storefronts of Brooklyn. Dry your eyes, I'll be OK. But I do really like this blogging business, probably a little too much.

Here are two old markets on Greenwood, Blondie's, on the Park side of the Expressway and the Greenwood Deli and Grocery on the cemetery side. I used to live around the corner from Blondie's and I fondly remember discovering Lemon Coolers there, those melt in your mouth drop shaped cookies laced with powdered sugar and just enough lemony tang. Ah. Haven't seen those for sale anywhere else, perhaps they're not made anymore.

Even though I know Blondie's isn't run by a Blondie, I still manage to expect I'm going to be rung up by a statuesque woman with a blond beehive everytime I go in there.

I've only been in the Greenwood Deli and Grocery once. When I complimented them on their sign, they asked me if I wanted to buy it. I said I didn't, I just liked it. I wonder how much they would ask for it. A guy in the store made fun of me for my fuss about the sign, saying "yeah, it's groovy." I guess he pegged me for some transplant trying to impose her aesthetic on the neighborhood. Good thing I don't live elsewhere, because I would really be swimming upstream. Here in Brooklyn, I'm always finding things to love, things that aren't contrived or perfect, things that show traces of the individuality of the human hands that made them. Signs of the excitement people once had or now have about their unique enterprises. Sometimes when I squint I can imagine I'm walking down a street painted by Maira Kalman and anything is possible. For instance, you could find a playhouse in a wine store or a group of Buddhists meditating in a bookstore.

We once had a Dominos Pizza franchise around the corner from Greenwood on Prospect Avenue. That was so out of place. It's long gone now.

Confusion About Cooper Black

Honestly, for some reason many sections of 7th Avenue in Park Slope give me a stuffy feeling. I'm not sure why that is, but gazing at the Ace Supermarket I suddenly got a feeling of air and freshness. It must be the sign, but by what alchemy of design did it restore my ability to breathe? Perhaps it's that dusty turquoise, a color that used to be popular for signs but now is all too often being replaced with the "safe" forest green or burgundy vinyl awning signs. That's exactly what happened to the old turquoise sign at the Royal Supermarket on the corner of 15th and 8th. Can you imagine the nightmare of walking around the slope seeing nothing but rivers of forest green awnings?

Or maybe the sign just has a feeling of spaciousness based on it's proportions. The typeface used to print "Ace Supermarket" is Cooper Black, I believe, and I for one like it. I'm not sure if it's because it's chubby like a healthy baby, or if it's paradoxically joyfully buoyant and weighted at the same time, like a particularly well-stocked store. Perhaps it's the vintage appeal, I know I've seen this succulent font in abundance since childhood, and that was a long time ago.

I imagined the typeface was named after a man, but then by coincidence some of my daughter's homework was lying on the floor and it discussed the ancient trade of building containers that held various provisions. A tradesman called a "tight cooper" made finely crafted vessels to hold liquids, a "slack cooper" made vessels for things less leaky like flour and tobacco, and a "white cooper" made containers from cedar or pine. Some of the types of containers these coopers made were firkin, kilderkin, hogshead, butt, rundlet, tierce, puncheon and pipe. I hope my daughter had fun with that vocabulary. I'm waiting to hear her use those words in casual conversation around the house.

Well, in spite of the astonishing coincidence, it turns out the typeface is not named after the trade but is named after its creator Oswald Bruce Cooper (via wikipedia.) But of course, his family name most likely derives from the trade. Either way, it's a typeface very befitting grocery stores. It has a pleasantly full look, which is nice because in this age of opulence and anorexia, it's hard to remember the depths of joy a full and well-made barrel of flour can inspire.

Here's a Behind the Type episode about Cooper Black. From it, I learned how the history of the typeface bears certain resemblances to the bio of Britney Spears.

Goodbye Washboard Launder Center?

I'm not sure what's going on but I peaked in the door as a workman entered and saw there were no longer any washing machines inside. I never washed any clothes there but I'm a big fan of that voluptuous L in Launder and that tiny washboard so easily overlooked on the the shingled "roof." Inside I saw white stucco walls crossed with dark beams like you'd find at The Swiss Chalet back when you could drop in for fondue.

New Liquor Store on Quiet Strip in Windsor Terrace

I had intended to blog about the Park Circle goose, but when I sought it out it was not there. I had seen it the day before so I was a little surprised it wasn't there still. I don't know why I was surprised though, the thing can fly, can't it? Why does it hang out there so often, all alone? Perhaps because that circle, also named P. O. Machate Circle after a fallen police officer, somehow manages to be a distinctly refreshing place, perfumed with mulched pine and dotted with plants in a way that feels mysteriously random and spacious. It helps that it also hosts the splendor of the horses that pass through on their way from the Kensington Stable (SAVE THE STABLE!) to the horse paths in Prospect Park.














I found something more surprising than a single goose in a traffic circle, which was this playhouse set up in the back of the new liquor store in Windsor Terrace, Juice Box, which is on Prospect Avenue between Greenwood and Reeve.

They know their clientele, I suppose. Next door to Juice Box is Little Stars, a daycare run by some fabulously kind people, Ilana and Ira (my son went there) and across the street is Sunflower, one of a string of daycares that started in Carrol Gardens (my daughter went there.)

The block is very child friendly, and the street, which is wide but not traffic heavy, boasts Cynthia King's Dance Studio and Cafe Crossroads, started by a local mom, where music groups met until they determined that the space couldn't keep up with the size of the crowds they were drawing. Still, they offer a pile of books and toys in the corner and welcome the youngsters.

The name Juice Box for a liquor store intrigues me, as does the playhouse. Guffawing at it, I couldn't help reflect on the drama at Union Hall, where I hear breast milk is back on tap. I hope it works out for everyone, the mom's have their off-peak hours, and later the bar can belong to those who'd like to curse like sailors without inhibition, or those who simply need a break from their own kids. It's a difficult dance this balance of finding maximum freedom and respect for everyone. We have to watch out for each other's toes, or at least try not to bash each other with bocce balls.

Rainbows and Clouds and Security Gates

What was this place, I wonder?