When I arrive in Cortelyou, I am directly next to the Cortelyou Road Q station. From the sidewalk, one can see through a chain-link fence overlooking the massive gouge in the earth where the subway track is contained. It looks massive from this height. The chain-link fence is rough to the touch, and I can hear the hubbub of people walking by as they leave the station. Every now and then, a massive wave of people walk down the street when the Q train stops. The tracks are gray concrete lined with metal. Metal everywhere, in the pipes leading to and from the green station entrance to my left and in the tracks themselves dozens of feet below the sidewalk.
Directly next to the station is a store with an orange sign, reading “ASIAN GROCERY INC,” fresh fruit stacked in bins outside for customers to buy. Squished between the grocery store and the station is a tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant called “Cafe Tibet.” Danyelle later enthusiastically recommended I try this restaurant, but I doubt I will ever end up eating there.
Speaking of food, while I was there I visited the Flatbush Food Co-op to pick up groceries. The Food Co-op is essentially a gigantic health food store, packing many different products that would be hard-to-find in your average supermarket. Among them were Barbara-brand cereals and vegan or vegetarian frozen food products under the Amy’s brand. Food co-ops are generally known for having “healthy” products, so the very fact that Cortelyou (and by extension Ditmas Park) has one at all generally indicates that it is a higher-income neighborhood.
Cortelyou Road is located in the 70th Precinct and the 66th Precinct, within the Ditmas Park section of the Flatbush neighborhood and extending into Parkville. According to the NYC Crime Map, the 70th Precinct has a crime rate of 0.6722 crimes per 1,000 residents, and the 66th Precinct has an even lower rate of 0.3867 crimes per 1,000 residents. So it’s a pretty safe part of the city compared to other areas.
As for sound, the neighborhood at the time I visited was filled with hustle and bustle, but also the sounds of peace. Children in a playground, screaming and having fun. Adults talking to each other as they walked by me. Cars wooshing by. I could hear the occasional birdsong as well. I could hear Hispanic music and hip-hop playing from cars rushing by. Oddly enough, I didn’t hear any more music than that.
The smells were about as standard as any other part of the city. Honestly, I mostly smelled nothing at all. I was half-expecting to smell dog poop at every street tree judging by how often it shows up in most of the city (New Yorkers apparently have trouble cleaning up after their dogs), but surprisingly, the trees were completely clean. Speaking of bad smells, there were garbage cans–metal, plastic, paper, and landfill–at almost every street corner, which was a welcome improvement from my own neighborhood of Marine Park, where street garbage cans are surprisingly hard to come by.
Switching to the nightlife of Cortelyou, we head over to Sycamore, a bar and flower shop combo having a Tarot card event on a Monday night. It is clear upon arrival that it is more bar than flowershop, as there are few flowers for sale, or space dedicated to selling them. Dried blooms hang on the walls, but don’t even smell of anything enough to make their presence known. If anything, the place smells of drinks beings swirled in their glasses, that subtle cloying sweet smell alcohol can take on.
The bar is dimly lit, with music playing loud enough to make conversation difficult but not too loud people have to scream at each other. You can still hear laughter above Benny and the Jets.
You head through the bar, out the back door and onto a small patio in the cool spring air. It is cold enough to want a jacket, but warm enough to be bare legged in a skirt. There are plenty of tables to sit at, with people laughing and drinking with their friends. There appears to be a grilling station as well, where people are serving up tacos of some sort.
Here we talk to Courtney Takats, a Brooklyn College Student and employee at Catskill Bagels on Cortelyou, about her observations on the neighborhood.
The clientele of the bar probably range from 24 at the youngest, and 40 at the oldest. The older patrons all seem to be males. Courtney observes that they all look like they are well established in their career, which is an odd comment that seems to fit.
A lot of the clientele know each other. The woman who seems to be running things keeps hugging everyone who walks in the door, and saying personal goodbyes to those leaving. Others pass each other, and despite being with different groups, acknowledge each other, make faces, and keep going. They seem close. No one appears to be striking up conversation with strangers. They are here with friends. It’s the bartender’s birthday and the whole bar sings for him.
Earlier, when asked about a good non-alcoholic drink that wouldn’t be too sweet, he pours me something just to try. I don’t pay a cent for it. A bit of beer, club soda, bitters, and a lemon slice. The drink is a bit tart, but gets better as the ice melts. I wonder briefly what type of beer he used, because there were so many different types available, with craft beers of all kinds advertised on the chalkboards behind the bar. The liquor bottles illuminated are also niche brands, of which I only recognize a few. They are not cheap.
There are two tarot card readers, women in their mid to late twenties. One of them reads my cards, but doesn’t convince me. She says she got into tarot when she went through a bad breakup, and then learned how to read. She’s also a therapist, and thinks that might help her readings. In the candlelight, it is almost hard to even make out which card is what. In the noise of the bar, we have to lean in just to hear each other.
Courtney and I leave at 11pm, and don’t walk a block without being called out to by an incredibly drunk man, in a very expensive suit, who clearly cannot move he is so inebriated. It’s a Monday night.
