Felicity Loughrey explores Brooklyn’s Fort Greene, just ten minutes from downtown Manhattan and home to Spike Lee and a cult beauty store.
In the final series of Sex and the City, Miranda bought a brownstone in the boho Brooklyn enclave of Fort Greene. On screen she was in the doldrums about her new life on the other side of the East River. In real life, Miranda would be quietly smug about her skyrocketing property value and just how cool Fort Greene, only ten minutes from downtown Manhattan, has become.
The fortunes of Fort Greene have followed the rise and fall and rise (again) of urban America. Take the neighbourhood’s culture headquarters, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). Built in 1906 in its current location at 30 Lafayette Avenue, the centre fell into disrepair in the post-war period and was rescued in 1967 by director Harvey Lichtenstein. Today, BAM Rose Cinemas is one of the most beautiful movie houses in New York City – which must suit the thespians who call Fort Greene home.
Adrian Grenier from HBO’s cult hit Entourage bought a fixer-upper in the neighbourhood. Rosie Perez is a long-time Fort Greene resident. Spike Lee has two offices for his film company, 40 Acres and a Mule, marked out by huge red banners at 124 DeKalb Avenue and 75 South Elliot Place.
Fort Greene’s heart is Fort Greene Park designed by Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux – the duo behind Manhattan’s Central Park. In summer the 30-acre park has free circus performances, poetry readings hosted by local Danny Simmons (brother of Def Jam’s Russell Simmons) and impromptu African drumming circles. Year-round every Saturday, Fort Greene Park hosts a green market where farmers bring fresh produce and bonhomie to the city.
Across the road from Fort Greene Park is Rice (166 DeKalb Avenue), a chic bistro with a menu that is united by rice: Lebanese rice, Thai rice, Bhutanese rice. Rice Fort Greene is the latest addition to Australian Peter Lawrence’s clutch of New York restaurants. On nearby Fulton Street is Habana Outpost (755 Fulton Street), the sister restaurant of SoHo’s Café Habana. The solar-powered Brooklyn Habana Outpost, open only in summer, has a Mexican fountain and an outdoor market where you can spy cool Brooklynite Mos Def swigging cervezas.
Restaurants in Fort Greene reflect the neighbourhood’s diversity and city savvy. You can dine on ostrich carpaccio under a chandelier made from coke bottles at the South African foodhall, I-Shebeen Madiba (195 DeKalb Avenue). Try Nuevo Latino fare in the candle-lit interior of Luz (177 Vanderbilt Avenue). Sample Senegalese-American food under lazy ceiling fans and windows that open to the street at Abistro (154 Carlton Ave). Or taste French country cooking in the rear garden of Lou Lou (222 DeKalb Avenue). There’s also L’Epicerie (270 Vanderbilt Avenue), a French delicatessen that is a godsend, considering how hard it is to buy decent bread and cheese in America.
Around the corner from L’Epicerie is Tillies (248 DeKalb Avenue), a coffee shop popular with students from the nearby Pratt Institute, who sit on benches outside Tillies in skinny jeans and moon boots giving the neighbourhood its art-school fashion vibe. Founded by oil baron and philanthropist Charles Pratt in 1887, the Pratt’s main buildings (200 Willoughby Avenue) are set in a sculpture garden that is open to the public.
If you walk around Fort Greene in the summer months you’ll be struck by the phenomenon of stoop sales. Manhattan can have its flea markets because Brooklyn rocks the stoop sale – basically a garage sale with wares stacked on the steps of a brownstone. At every intersection there are photocopied flyers for stoop sales and chalk directions scrawled on the blue-slate footpaths. It can be a great afternoon activity of strolling from stoop to stoop shopping for used records, clothes and bric-a-brac.
If you want to shop, and I mean seriously shop, go to Wright & Stuart (85 Lafayette Avenue) for APC clothing and Cheap Monday jeans. Be warned you may be in Brooklyn, but those are Manhattan prices. For a Yanuk jeans and clothing by Ella Moss and Plenty by Tracy Reese head to Addy & Ferro (672 Fulton Street). And for little ones with refined tastes, say Armani Junior and Liberty of London, check out Hot Toddie (741 Fulton Street) for designer childrenswear.
The neighbourhood is also home to Carol’s Daughter, an earthy beauty store on 1 South Elliot Place. Carol’s Daughter is Lisa Price who 14 years ago began cooking up products like Jamaican Punch Sea Salt Body Scrub in her mother’s kitchen. Jada Pinkett Smith was a fan of Price’s Mango Body Butter and coerced her husband, Will Smith and friends Jay-Z and Tommy Mottola to invest in the Fort Greene beauty biz. Together they have since opened three more stores. That will surely give Miranda another reason to feel smug; you see Fort Greene had it first.
