Found In Brooklyn? I’ll eat to that! Let’s start at 3rd Avenue & 9th St, where the lunch special has gone up to $4.50 & rather than replacing an otherwise good sign, somebody broke out the Krylon. What do ya’ll get for that extra 55 cents? It’s tough to say since, like most other things Spanish, Sonia’s Restaurant has been consistently ignored by the chroniclers of Gowanus & South Brooklyn. Perhaps if they hired an autentico publicist, they’d get more attention? Privately, WWIB food writer Zyczymy Smacznego tells me the “rostissieri” (as its charmingly misspelled on their awning) chicken is unmissable.
Also unmissable, or so you’d think: New Bopper’s Luncheonette in Gravesend. Jazz diner? Warriors tribute? Reached for comment in hell, retired sewer worker & noted Brooklyn bowling enthusiast, Ed Norton said, “How the fuck should I know?!” While near by the ever-popular Culver Line, the internet again tells us nothing more.Brian Berger, Marshall Berman, Philip Dray, Leonard Levitt & Robert Sietsema, all of New York Calling, will discuss New Bopper’s Luncheonette & other urban mysteries at The Lower East Side Tenement Museum
108 Orchard Street this Wednesday at 6:30 pm.
Admission is FREE!
Check the Who Walk in Brooklyn blog for more information.
If you want to know who "The Boppers" are click on this!
Photographs taken by Mr. Berger.
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5 comments:
I have very found memories of Shell Lanes bowling alley in Gravesend. I was born in 1969 on Ocean Avenue and Marlborough Rd. in Flatbush. My family fled with me and my sister in 1974, after a fire and all the neighbors seemed to have moved to Jersey seemingly all at once.
So when I started school that fall at PS 216 on Avenue X (a few blocks off of McDonald Ave.), my kindergarten class had many birthday celebrations at Shell Lanes. I can't imagine how we managed to lift the bowling balls, but I do recall that the basic maneuver involved dropping the heavy plastic orb on the cracked, wooden lanes (cracked because kids who couldn't ball did the same for probably the previous 30 years or so - does anyone know how old this place is?). After what felt like an hour, the bowling ball would eventually reach its destination, perhaps taking two or three pins out once it got down to the end of the lane.
As for the the birthdays, the cakes/cupcakes/cookies would invariably lead to a massive sugar rush. The cakes/cupcakes/cookies would then be used as missiles that we would hurl at each other. I remember leaving one party early because Robert Linder's mother made sauerkraut and i could not take the toxic smelling effluvia that was emitted everytime she opened the giant tub she lugged to the bowling alley in order to top off some poor kid's hot dog with her poison.
The damage has persisted to this day: I gag whenever someone mentions boiled cabbage and I tend to avoid sauerkraut, except at NY Yankees' games, Nathan's and Katz's Deli, which have provided just enough positive frankfurter memories to counteract the toxic kraut experience I endured at Shell Lanes.
Next time: The Telltale Knockwurst (Or... "Yes, as a matter of fact that is a hot dog in my pocket AND I'm happy to see you.")
Thank you for sharing your memories of the good old Shell Lanes Mr. McPoserwitz!
I dislike the smell of boiling cabbage as well, unfortunately stuffed cabbage was one of my grandmothers sunday dinner standards (she alternated it with pot roast) and (sorry grandma) i DESTESTED it! so i fully understand that gag reflex...i have it too....BUT MORE importantly since you grew up near Shell Lanes, do you know WHAT the deal is with the "New Bopper Restaurant?" apparantly you guys did not eat there...lugging sauerkraut to a bowling alley? I can understand how that could scar you for life!
But the Bopper? Influenced by the Warriors or Jazz?
When I'm bowling, my mind tends to wander. For example, the other night I was rolling with my team, the New New Quentin Road Boppers, at Gil Hodges Lanes in Marine Park, a little drunk as we sometimes do, and I was feeling so goddamn gorgeous and stretched out and free that my head floated off to somewhere else. I was all waxed up, the pins were flying, the lights were low, and there I was, back at Shell Lanes in Gravesend, where I had spent many an afternoon as a plucky Brooklyn youth. Next, Images of all the wild games I'd seen on "Bowling For Dollars" (Channel 9 and Bob Murphy represent) flashed by and there I was, back at the Raccoon Lodge with Ralph and Ed and then this man floated past my eyes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU2ZgaQ_H-Y
Ed Norton is no way in hell. He's in a heaven reserved for ticcy, old-timey Brooklynites who wear funny hats. And he never said "fuck." You must be mistaking him for still-living actor Edward Norton, who says "fuck" all the time.
Anyway, Ms. Ho, I wouldn't mind getting all gorgeous and stretched out and free with you some time. How do I sign up?
I agree, Ed Norton IS in heaven, and NEVER used such language! but I didn't write that, my "guest blogger" did..and also anon. i don't know how to contact Ms. Ho either as she didn't leave a fowarding address. Maybeyou should both come foward so i can hook you guys up!
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