sunset park

brooklyn, ny

there were purchases of sandals that received more deliberation than that which i dedicated to choosing to live in sunset park. a three-year relationship and one-year co-habitation came to an abrupt end in early october, just before the full throes of graduate school mid-terms. i had been shuttling between friends couches with two bags: one for school, one for clothes. the system worked fine even if it was enervating physically and mentally, but i knew that winter was coming and with them finals. i had to find a place.

and so craigslist entered stage right. $400 per month. sure. it didn't really matter where, didn't really even matter that the room was wood paneled and almost entirely filled by the twin mattress provided. it would have been nice were there a common room to unwind in, but i would be too busy and generally away for that absence to come to my attention. the price was right and the roommates seemed nice enough. i unpacked.

i made it through finals, then entered a semester that included five classes, a thesis, and a part-time job in the bronx. then came graduation and a little trip to west africa and india. by the time i returned, i had lived in the neighborhood for eleven months and done little more than sleep in it. over the past nine months i have finally had the time to grow to know and appreciate the place. it may not get much attention on the pages of frommer's and its restaurants may not have any michelin stars to boast, but there's a certain charm to the place.

sunset park may be the only neighborhood where you get your mexican food cooked by mexicans and your chinese food cooked by chinese. you want to hear the slur of a real brooklyn accent on a barstool in the mid-morning hours? we got it. you can buy produce out of a rusty blue van, take a peek into a borderline chinese sweatshop within view of a mosque, buy dumplings for a dollar, step into a thinly veiled salvadorean brothel, see a legitimate police presence outside of a kfc, watch mexicans play volleyball poorly, witness lebanese wedding receptions at a catering hall, get fresh tamales from a shopping cart, take in a sociological study at off track betting, get your watch fixed or shoes resoled on the street, or just take in an exceptional sunset behind the statue of liberty from the neighborhood's eponymous public space.

though neighborhoods are rarely demarcated like the koreas, it's safe to say that this one runs from fourth avenue to ninth; thirty-sixth street to sixtieth. there is always the argument that each block or house or family is like it's own unique snowflake, but for our purposes we can break the neighborhood down by avenue.

fourth avenue
a wide, six lane road that hosts traffic for vehicles traveling locally or else intimidated by robert moses' expressways nearby. it hosts the r and n lines (the d train goes to 36th street), meaning it is an avenue dedicated exclusively to commuting. i'd liken fourth ave to an urban bus station: you wouldn't go there unless you're going somewhere else and it's considered a victory if your passage through does not involve stepping in urine.

fifth avenue
like a giant pedestrian mall that caters to the upper lower class. 99 cent stores, discount jeans, cell phone distributors, every type of fast food and every chain of shoe store that graces the land of the stars and stripes. the pedestrians are by-and-large mexican, the street food interesting and occasionally delicious, the people watching fantastic. to walk fifth avenue on a weekend is to invite overstimulation. it would make lou dobbs cry.

sixth avenue
looks like a leafy enclave for the upper crust of the lower class. aside from the aforementioned catering hall and a handful of laundromats, there is little in the way of enterprise and therefore little in the way of pedestrian traffic. as the road stops at the entrance to sunset park and is littered with potholes, there is also very little in the way of thru-traffic. it is the best avenue for the late afternoon stroll with your boo.

seventh avenue
i think this avenue is still searching for its identity. the transition from sixth to seventh is where the demographics go from latin american to asian. the two groups coexist peacefully even if there is little in the way of interaction and so the physical gray area between their respective quarters has the feel of a buffer zone that neither side really wants to take over. basically, it's the exact opposite of kosovo. there are bike lanes.

eighth avenue
brooklyn's chinatown, which just this past year surpassed manhattan's in terms of chinese population. bubble tea, noodle shops, seafood distributors, internet cafes, shuttle buses to casinos on native american reservations in neighboring states, bright signs in bad english, and frenetic produce markets. oh, and chinese people. some of them too.

as for the streets? tree-lined, brownstoned, and beautiful. i will admit that when my own financial stimulus package kicks in, i'll probably be bound for the clinton hill/bed stuy/prospect heights mix. but until that day comes, i can attest to this having been a pretty good place to live.