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
Fat whiteboys with glasses and facial hair. Yummy!
I am not sure why so many of you are upset with Brownstoner for intimating that this bar’s contribution to Crown Heights will be even greater in the future if it serves a diverse clientele.
Generally, the more that an establishment is a part of its home neighborhood, the better it is for that establishment and the community. If you have a white bar located in a black hood that generally serves a white clientele, the bar’s may find that its relationship with the community is strained. For example, if it needs to get the community board’s backing for a licence or some type of permit, it is more likely to do so with ease if it is known as an establishment that serves a broad swath of the neighborhood and that has the support of a diverse group of people than one that serves mainly a small homogenous group.
Sputnik and Rustik in Clinton Hill, Moes and Bamboo in Ft. Greene and Beembe in Williamsburg, to name a few, do an excellent job creating meriment and diversity simultaneosly. In the case of Sputnik, for example, the Pratt community, Clinton Hill buppies, and Lafayette Garden dwellers all party together as one. The success of its diversity makes it so that it is difficult for the neighborhood’s residents – blacks and whites, poor and affluent, artsy and buppy — to imagine that part of Clinton Hill without Sputnik.
While diversity of clientele should not be the main goal of a bar, there is certainly nothing wrong with expressing the hope that such a bar becomes a “community bar” that services the immediate neighborhood for which it resides.
umm, anyway. i went to the bar last weekend, it’s pretty nice. as for all the insinuated mugging of hipsters, i’ve never gotten mugged in crown heights, but it’s happened to me a few times in the “nicer” parts of prospect heights. bigoted notions of crime and race aren’t going to keep me away from this joint. it’s a great addition to the neighborhood, and i hope there’s more like this to come. i noticed a wine bar is moving in at classon and st. john’s…
sausage party.
Oh no, that’s me! Thanks for telling me I’m overweight, dick.
less provincial??
don’t kid yourself.
Not all whites, 3:30. Just the secret racists who are so terrified of being called racist that they make sure to bring up race in every discussion about a black neighborhood or black person. Or you have the race baiters who can’t stand the idea that most people don’t give a damn what color you are as long as you behave like a civilized human being.
It’s getting tiresome to say the least. I would have thought New Yorkers were less…provincial…than that.
bushwick is way shittier than crown heights and theres plenty of hipster shit there
this is no difference.
Agree with 3:21. Dave Chappelle noted the exact same thing in his movie “Block Party”, filmed in Bed Stuy. He said that whenever a neighborhood is mainly black or hispanic, whites call it “diverse.”