Streetlevel: Franklin Park Already Packed
Franklin Park, by the creators of Park Slope’s Southpaw, is already packed after only being open a week. We stopped by the Crown Heights bar and beer garden on its opening night April 25 (totally packed) and last Friday, when even the patio was full despite the chilly weather. There’re not many places like it…
Franklin Park, by the creators of Park Slope’s Southpaw, is already packed after only being open a week. We stopped by the Crown Heights bar and beer garden on its opening night April 25 (totally packed) and last Friday, when even the patio was full despite the chilly weather. There’re not many places like it in close proximity — featuring a large patio that welcomes (apparently) dogs and carryout, a unique beer list mostly for $5 or $6, good music (primarily hip hop), and a trendy yet comfortable atmosphere. We’re going to go out on a limb here, but we think this is going to be The Summer Place for a lot of people living in Crown Heights, Prospect Heights and Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, and for people visiting the Brooklyn Museum two blocks away. Its success reminds us of when Enduro, a mid-priced bar and Mexican restaurant, opened 12 blocks away in Prospect Lefferts-Gardens. Almost instantly it grew into the neighborhood gathering place for a diverse cross-section of residents and is busy EVERY night of the week, probably beating out a lot of similar restaurants in Park Slope. While the photograph doesn’t show the most diverse clientele, as the word gets out, we think the mix will be more representative of the overall neighborhood. The bar is located at 618 St. Johns Place at Franklin Avenue.
Streetlevel: Crown Heights Bar Goes to Bed Early
I’m a native New Yorker and I actually know the douchehat in the leather jacket and believe me, he is not a hipster, a douchehat maybe, hipster no.
As for “neighborhood gentrificationâ€, we all know that New York has been forever changing, it changed when most you who have commented above moved here so either accept the changes or get out (the latter would be preferable). I remember when you would get mugged daily. Sometimes twice a day. Ahh the good old days, when all you douchehats were scared to live here.
Hope the bar gets the job done…pouring money into our economy (via beer) and out of the pockets of poor douchehat hipsters!
bo-ring.
Is this really what people do all day? Hipsters bitching about other hipsters in a new bar and the state of a neighborhood’s ‘diversity’? Stop obsessing over comments and get a life, and let the people drink their orange canned beer. Must be nice to have so much time on your hands. Best of luck to the bar.
The majority of people in Crown Heights are Panamanian?
I was just in Panama a month ago, and I can tell you with 100% certainty the residents of Crown Heights are not in any way similar to the residents of Panama City.
Orange cans = Porkslap Pale Ale, which I got for $4 at Franklin Park. My friend and I both liked it.
I think this has gotten very silly. I wish the bar success, I wish anyone of any persuasion success in bringing business to any part of Crown Heights, we need it.
The neigborhood right around the bar may be Panamanian, but the owner is mistaken to think the entire (extremely large) neighborhood of Crown Heights is. It is, however diverse, with a large Hasidic, African American, and Caribbean population, of which Panama is considered a part. We also have a growing white population, as well as East Asian and Arabic populations. I am never surprised to hear any number of languages spoken when I’m walking around. I think that’s one of the better parts of living in NYC.
just so all commenting and reading understand… the owner of Frankln Park is a born and raised Brooklynite and welcomes anyone to the bar. As far as I’ve been told by him, the majority of people in Crown Heights are actually Panamanian. Not “black” or anything else. The area is pretty “diverse” when we look at all people that live there. Yes, an overused word but it can be used.
And the reason they opened up in this area rather than some more “gentrified” spots is because no matter what race one may be, everyone gets priced out. The rent for a place like this is williamsburg or the slope would be 4 times the amount. Look at the big picture when commenting. And if anyone goes there on a regular basis now, you’ll notice multiple walks of life. Everyone could use a good beer no matter who they are.
It is, I think, difficult to have a conversation about what a bar geared mostly toward a white clientele means to a neighborhood like Crown Heights without at least some nod toward the larger context, both historic and geographic, that has created the contested status of this site. “Nicer areas” of Brooklyn, in 90% of the cases, had a comparable status to Crown Heights (to varying degrees) in the not too distant past. That a current resident moved into that “nice” neighborhood after the process of neighborhood change–call it what you may: gentrification, reinvestment or colonization–had occurred does not make them less complicit in the processes that they criticize here and that have brought this bar to Crown Heights. This bar is in Crown Heights as much as a result of what people are and have done in Park Slope and Carroll Gardens as because of what is going on in Crown Heights. It is a larger process that is not about Yuppies, or hipsters or even just race, but about the extent to which our city serves as an expression of fundamental inequality. The narrowness of this conversation only takes the processes at work further down the wrong path and it misses the point…If we are dissatisfied with the city we see around us, we should question how it was made to be like that and work to change it rather than pointing fingers and deflecting blame–this just creates more of the same. We perhaps cannot fundamentally change our society with much ease but we certainly can change our city. For what it’s worth, I hope this bar is a place people enjoy and I hope it does attract a diverse crowd–but keep in mind that this is diversity amongst those who buy $6 beers…there’s more to the picture.
Also, the word douche is way overused here.
LOL @ sausage party