Flatbush Avenue Bodega in Brooklyn, New York
Ilan Baril, writer, is a contributor to many of Colorado’s premier publications. He has a degree in journalism and a background in writing about travel, dining, charity and the arts. He’s worked as a server, a sommelier, a graphic designer, a copywriter and a landscaper. He’s been traveling his entire life, most recently leaving the country for Peru, but also finding himself in Europe, the Middle East and 35 of the United states. Some of his current work can be found at ilanbaril.com.
I grew up in a big city that’s not New York, but my traveling parents made sure we visited the boroughs several times in my formative years.
I had aunts and uncles who lived “down Avenue H” in Brooklyn, a seemingly mythical address to me, and I can remember wandering the streets with all the brownstones and bodegas, getting ice cream with Uncle Ben and loving the closeness of everything. Nothing was over a few stories high and all of the shops spilled out onto the streets, narrowing the sidewalks and pushing us away while pulling us in with their come-ons.
We most often stayed near their home off Flatbush Avenue, but on one of our visits when I was about ten we went into “the city” on a day trip and I had my first “Manhattan” experience. I was people watching to my heart’s content when my dad grabbed my arm and pointed up, giving me my first view of the Empire State Building.
That almost heroic set shot was my initial image of Manhattan and it’s stayed that way for me, never failing to please with the theatrics it can produce at any moment. But I have always liked Brooklyn more; I love the sun, the openness, the griminess, the visceral nature of the experience.
I love New York even though one of the reasons I don’t live there but write about it from afar is a bit of a heartbreaker. The aunts and uncles in question were a generation older than my folks, so actually my great aunts and uncles. When they passed, my dad, as executor of the will, let their apartments go. I was 19 and I was devastated and I wasn’t even really sure why. My dad looked at me like I was crazy, “I didn’t even know you LIKED New York!” And so a mini obsession was born.
I’ve been several times in the past couple of years, seeing friends who have made Brooklyn a returning engagement in their mildly itinerant living experiences.
Last time I was there, Colin was living in Park Slope, Gowanus really, in a third floor walkup (not too bad!). This gave us close access to the avenues and the park and Commonwealth (best… jukebox… ever…) and Blue Ribbon (sushi and bone marrow!), Union Market, and 40 great little restaurants and bars that I’m sure have names, but that I don’t remember. I wandered the neighborhood, feeling like the mildly misplaced East Coaster that I am, enjoying the streets like I have in so many other cities, Barcelona, Jerusalem, San Francisco.
I live in Denver, on purpose. I like it here, but I’ll never stop visiting Brooklyn. I know if I moved there today, seriously, if I just took a dart, threw it and moved to whichever neighborhood it hit, I could spend the rest of my life in just those 71 square miles.
Here’s hoping I get the chance.
