Brooklyn Blues

I should be on a train headed north at 100 mph. But instead I'm looking for hotel rooms, bummed to see that Manhattan is completely sold out! The only room I can find is at a Howard Johnson's in a dubious part of Brooklyn. I'm confident it's a dodgy area. I call a friend who used to live in Brooklyn. He confirms my worst suspicions. He says not to stay there. He's pretty sure it's a bad area. I knew it. The photos on the website say " bad area". I spend another hour on Orbitz, Hotel.com LastMinuteDeal.com, Travelocity and other sites to no avail. I'm headed to Brooklyn tonight.

This puts me in a depressed mood. I've read all the press about how good Brooklyn is these days but to me Brooklyn is The Warriors, The Lords of Flastbush, the racial riots in Bensenhurst, the Bay Ridge rumbles of Saturday Night Fever or the Russian mafia in Coney Island. It's dangerous and a new frontier. I'm nervous and anxious to be staying in Brooklyn. It's big unknown. But me, being me, drawn to discovery and my undying wanderlust getting the better of me and I closed my laptop and headed for the subway before it got dark. Yeah the subway. I wasn't going to pay cab fare all the way to Brooklyn and I was definitely not going straight to the hotel. The longer I waited to go there the better. If it was in a bad neighborhood the less time I was there the better.

I looked at the map and decided to find dinner in Park Slope. Park Slope is the "new" Brooklyn. It's full of middle and high income types. My plan was to get off at Army Square and do a walkabout. Most of the professional hipster white people got off here so I followed them off the train, and I literally kept following them. I had no idea where I was and they obviously did as they walked at a brisk pace away from me. One block down the herd ducked right down a side street and I found myself in an incredibly handsome brownstone neighborhood. It's dusk and getting dark but I could tell the buildings and neighborhood were well maintained. Single men and women, couples, single mothers with babies in strollers or snugglies strolled the sidewalks. Many Brownstones had beautiful front gardens and patios with groomed plantings facing the street. This is my favorite type of urban neighborhood. Urbane, green, safe and beautiful.

I asked someone where the closet area for restaurants was. He directed me one block down to 7th Ave. Sure enough the whole street was lined with commercial shops at street level. Looking for comfort I stopped at a chicken and barbecue joint and had a Bronco sandwich. It was savory and huge! Grilled chicken breast with melted cheeses, peppers and onions on a big ol' kaiser roll.. As I sat there devouring the nosh and getting all anxious about going to the hotel the local cops and fireman came in and ordered Bronco sandwiches too. I knew I made the right choice!

Now I'm getting tired so I flag down a cab. I'm only 15 big blocks from the hotel so it can't be too bad right. Park Slope Brooklyn with it's mutli-million dollar brownstones isn't too bad (sic) so how bad could Crown Heights be?

I tell the cabbie where I'm going. He laughs. Why's he laughing? Oh boy I think. "You staying there tonight"he says and laughs again. Oh shit. What does he know that I don't. He says he just came from there. The cab garage is near there. He wants to head into Manhattan. OK I think. He must just be laughing at himself; at his folly of trying to get to Manhattan while I'm sending him back to where he started. At least that's what I tell myself. I watch Brooklyn drift by out the window. It looks fine. We go through a hasidic area. I think oh, maybe I'm heading into a Jewish area. I look at the map I printed from Google maps and see the hotel is near a Jewish rehab center. Yeah that's it, the hotel is probably Jewish run and full of Jews coming to visit their infirmed loved ones. Soon, no more Jews were out the window. The architecture started to degrade from stately brownstones to homely apartment buildings to three story walk ups to dilapidated one story brick squat houses with rusty old cars and debris in the yard. I'm not in Kansas anymore. I'm on the border of an area called Crown Heights. I'm at the hotel.

I sign in at the desk wondering what the hell I just got myself into.

I get on the elevator and two huge black women get on. They ask me "Are you staying here"? I say yes. " You meeting somebody"? I say no. " You want a girl in your room? I say no thanks and think, oh shit, where the hell am I? The bigger girl hits the smaller one and says " What if he was a cop." I think oh shit!

I pressed third floor in the elevator but it goes down not up. I think, oh shit! The elevator fills with to the brim. I'm the only white dude in there. I exchange eye contact with people in the elevator trying to be cool. Most people get off at the lobby. I think, maybe it's a church group? They look like a church group. One plump 50-ish gentlemen stays on the elevator. He's very well spoken. I think, maybe he's a minister? Yeah this is probably a Christian hotel. The girls on the elevator proceed to ask him. " Are you staying at this hotel? Are you meeting somebody or are you alone? He looks at the big girl and says "you know you're very beautiful". Oh shit I think. Floor three dings. I squeeze my way through the love fest and take off down the hall looking for my room. I duck in, look in the bathroom, the closet, under the bed. All clear. I bolt the door, pull the security hardware to latch it and push a chair against the door. At this point I don't care if I get burned up trying to get out of my room in a fire, I just want to make sure no-one is getting in!

The room was fine, relatively new and clean. It was furnished with inexpensive materials. Plastic tub/shower, veneer woods, serviceable carpet. There was a big red stain on it, I was sure was blood! No sign of bugs or cockroaches.

After watching the NY nightly news full of murders, missing persons and dismembered bodies I turn down the sound and try to fall asleep in my fortified cocoon.

Believe it or not I slept well. I woke up the next morning with the intention of getting outta there before most of the world woke up. I figured hookers, drug dealers, thieves and thugs would never be up at 6:00 AM!

I get down to the the lobby and I get a warm good morning from a young corn rowed kid. I enter the morning breakfast area. Christian radio fills the airwaves. Maybe it was a church group? An animated breakfast host entertains a nice southern family having breakfast.

I have the desk clerk, who was sleeping at the front desk, call me a cab. An unmarked car comes so I make him guarantee me a price before we drive away. Not that I could do anything about it. The guys was the size of a house, middle linebacker material.

I cab it back to Tribeca which 15 years ago gave me the same anxious feeling I had in Brooklyn when it was a desolate, low income neighborhood. Now, the shined up buildings with their awnings and blooming flowers said welcome back to your comfort zone. I sit down, have a cup-o-joe and begin to relax again....then I start thinking about when I'm going to go back to Brooklyn again.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
Originally posted 5/12/07