Before Smith Street Was Fancy
On Monday, blogger 423 Smith posted this photo showing what Smith Street looked like in its pre-Restaurant Row splendor. Back in 1930, when this photo was taken, there was a grocery/soda fountain spot on the ground floor of Number 423; meanwhile, the blog points out, the elevated subway was in the process of being built….
On Monday, blogger 423 Smith posted this photo showing what Smith Street looked like in its pre-Restaurant Row splendor. Back in 1930, when this photo was taken, there was a grocery/soda fountain spot on the ground floor of Number 423; meanwhile, the blog points out, the elevated subway was in the process of being built. Does anyone know what year it was completed?
423 Smith Circa 1930 [423 Smith]
I’m with you, Anonymous. Food prepared and cooked from scratch, on the premises in even a mediocre restaurant, is better than any of that chain-restaurant garbage.
I’m out west and we have tons of chain joints like The Olive Garden, which is owned by General Mills. Now that’s Italian right??!! Their Cheerios were great but Italian food??? FUGGEDABOUDIT!!!
Look at what General Mills has been up to over the years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Mills
More power to them but puh-leeeeze — stop the flood of chain restaurants.
The Smith St. restaurants aren’t all crap, naysayers. Better than TGIF and that ilk!
If you think that corridor is bad now, you should have seen it when I fled the Warren/Smith area in the early 1970s. It was crawling with junkies — I swear they’d pound on your car windows begging for spare change when you drove through there. It seemed like if you left your house for an hour, you could be guaranteed that somebody would break in. We lived behind bars with the Fox Police Locks and they had control of the streets. I used to carry a big fishing knife and had to pull it on more than one occassion.
Heroin addiction was epidemic at that time — I lost so many friends to that crap. Dozens I could name — I’m serious. I like to go back and visit the old neighborhood, but that particular area of Smith St. brings back depressing memories.
Ugly,sad, little buildings. The sun doesn’t shine on this part of Brooklyn.
Really, the sun isn’t bright in this
little corner of Brooklyn.
I like Court Street or Montague Stret for
brunch, it’s just better than those awful
places on Smith Street. Just awful,over
recommended eateries. Really, I worry about our youth. It’s all hype children.
Still alot of junkies, still many dope stores on the side streets between Smith and Court. Still the dopers on the pay phones on Smith Street, waitng to connect. I would rather live anywhere rather than that narrow depressing corridor.
You must be kidding me, restaurant row.
I’ve tried most places up there, searching, hoping, that I could find a place to take relatives that they would enjoy. No I can’t find one place to have
a spectacular dining experience. Do you know what it is to have such a dining experience. If you put down a ceramic floor and have a tin ceiling, does that make a great restaurant, None of you have tastebuds. You all grew up on fast
food. Your mothers never fed you, your mothers and grandmothers don’t know how to cook.
Irate Chef
The food on Smith Street is’t good.
I do see a great many young people who obviously are not New Yorkers,New Yorkers
don’t wait on line, especially for brunch.
Everything about the neighborhood is very
mediocre, especially the new people.
Smith Street, restaurant row indeed,
fancy, I think not. Raunchy few blocks
of overrated overpriced shops.
What is your frame of reference, KFC.
For a great evocation of Smith St. pre-gentrification, read ‘Motherless Brooklyn.’ Frankly, I like the rather grim Edward Hopperesque look of the streetscape–it keeps alive the memory of a time before latte.