Fern's Travel Notes

Brooklyn Day 3: September 28, 2025

September 29, 2025

tags: 13th Avenue, Ace Hotel, Bensonhurst, Boro Park, Coney Island, Fort Greene, Ms Ada, New Utrecht HS, PS 164, Tatiana, Vinegar Hill House

Sunday, September 28, 2025. Brooklyn

We began the day by moving from the Even Hotel (which should rightly be called the “Un-Even Hotel”) and moved to the ACE around the corner; that had always been the plan. The rates at the Ace for the first two nights were incredibly high so we decided to stay at the Even and then move to the Ace, where we are now comfortably settled.

Once at the Ace, we began the day-long “tour of Brooklyn” with me as the guide–exposing the geography of my childhood. But first it was brunch in Fort Greene at Ms Ada’s where we shared three wonderful dishes: muhamara with homemade pita; shakshuka; and an Israeli salad… and then some chocolate babka. And then we were off!

After brunch (which took us a little out of our route) we headed to Boro Park (Borough Park, although we always spelled it “boro”) where I spent my childhood until I was about 17 or 18–living first at 1337 40th Street (in a very small one-bedroom apartment–maybe 500 sq ft? with my mother, father, and brother) and then when I was 9 we moved two blocks to 1526 40th Street. My entire 17 years were spent in that two-block strip. My grandfather had a small mens clothing store on 13th Avenue–the commercial hot spot of Boro Park, literally around the corner from th1337 house…and later my aunt and uncle had a small children’s clothing store also on 13th Avenue. At the corner of 40th Street and 13th Avenue there was a very tiny pickle store and the owner of that pickle store owned the 4-plex where our family rented a first floor apartment.

We walked the neighborhood a bit. When I was growing up, Boro Park was pretty much a lower-middle class neighborhood of Jewish and Italian working people–mostly skilled labor or working in retail, and a few white collar workers (including my father). We were a pretty homogeneous group and the only real difference between the Jews and the Italians was that we went to public school and most of the Italians went to Catholic schools. We celebrated their holidays and they celebrated ours. We were secular Jews…culturally very affiliated, but not practicing.

The neighborhood is now 100% Hasidic Jews—complete with fur hats and long coats and women with wigs and young girls in long dresses. The four-plex we lived in is now a duplex because the Hasidic families are very large and need room for all those kids. We walked between the houses and strolled a bit on 13th Avenue to see the commercial area. It was quite busy, but felt very much like many cities I have visited in developing countries—indeed much like Cairo or Tunis. All in all, like a foreign country.

We then took a very meandering route to see my high school–a four-story building with an adjacent game field, looking very much like a prison. We had about 3,500/4,000 students in the 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. From there we headed out to Bensonhurst and Coney Island. We stopped to see the apartment building where Adrienne’s grandmother lived along the way.

Then after whizzing around Coney Island trying to find parking, we finally made our way to the Boardwalk, and had a snack at Tatiana–a Russian restaurant on the boardwalk near the Brighton Beach part of Coney Island, serving mostly Russian and Ukrainian food. We shared an order of “varenki”–a dumpling stuffed with “pot cheese” (a sweet dry cottage cheese) and served with fresh poached cherries. I had the a glass of “kvass” a non-alcoholic fermented drink that is made from rye bread. It’s sweet and sour and a little fizzy. The restaurant was packed with a very very diverse group of diners including several tables of Muslim women.

By then it was close to 6 and we needed to really hustle to get back to the hotel and out for dinner. We ate at Vinegar Hill House, close to DUMBO–a place I have long wanted to try..and now I finally did. We had a great mussels starter (cooked in a very light tomato broth with spices) and then had a tasty rigatoni with lamb ragu, and then halibut with curried squash, poached apricots, sweet peppers and pistachios. Very yummy, and we just had to finish with a chocolate dessert. I’m going to roll out of Brooklyn!

And then it was back to the Ace to finally check in… and that’s a wrap for Day Three Brooklyn. Not as much walking today, but we did manage to put in about 3-1/2 miles (8,200 steps). Tomorrow is another day.

NYC September 27, 2025

September 28, 2025

tags: Boerum Place, Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, Brooklyn Museum, Gertrude's, Park Slope, Rucola Restaurant, Webster Place

Saturday, September 27, 2025

A really long and exhausting… but good..day — 22,000 steps! 9.3 miles.

We started out the morning with brunch at Rucola, a sweet neighborhood restaurant (Boerum Hill) where we wanted to have dinner. We had heard that if you come by in the morning you can get your name on the list for dinner and when you arrive you get put at the top of the list. Weird, but it works. So we decided to have brunch. Then we walked about 2 miles to pick up the rental car at Hertz near Grand Army Plaza. It was primarily an uphill walk …through parts of Park Slope, which was a bit tough and then the wait at Hertz was a bit more than we had planned, but eventually we got our car. Along the walk, we passed two guys (most likely from the Caribbean) who were sitting outside a shop. we chatted for a few minutes when one of the guys said: Wow– you are all the same height, and short! Then he said “one, two , three” pointing to each of us and repeated that he thought it was great that we were all the same size!

We drove just a few blocks to put the car into the parking lot at the Brooklyn Museum. We really didn’t want to get the car that early but the Hertz place closes at 1:00 on Saturdays, so this was the best plan as we would need the car later in the afternoon.

So we started at the Brooklyn Museum.

Strolled through the museum — no particular exhibit although there were some special nods to recent work in conjunction with the 200th anniversary; and ofcourse it’s always worth a revisit to The Dinner Party. I actually like the Brooklyn Museum–it’s a great scale and a very friendly place to view art. From there we strolled through Prospect Heights to have lunch at Gertrude’s–a neighborhood place that serves “Jew-ish” food. Definitely a step above the stuff I was raised with. We shared a latke plate that came with trout roe, creme fraiche, roasted apples, smoked trout and some other goodies; and what they called Hy’s Melt (smoked whitefish salad and melted swiss with tomato, capers, and dill on a sesame bagel). Food was great and we certainly were hungry.

From there we walked back toward the museum but headed to the Botanical Gardens where strolled a bit and took advantage of a few of the benches along the way.

Then we took the car and drove through Park Slope winding in and out of streets and avenues, including making a pit stop in front of the building where Mike lived in an apartment with his mother and brother for about 21 years… and driving through Webster Plad–a very small street which includes a row of very well preserved Queen Anne homes with column porches and wood frames from the 1860s. Then we parked the car (no easy task to find a spot) so that we could walk —yes more walking to get to those 21,000 steps– into Prospect Park to stroll under and through the renovated Endale Arch. But we waited until sunset to see the newly installed LED lights which looks really cool from pictures I’ve seen. We waited and waited and peole-watched as families strolled through the park and as many people packed up their picnic gear to head home at dusk with tons of gear (badminton paddles, tables, chairs, balls, and of course dogs)… but the sun set and no lights. As we started to leave we asked someone about the lights which are supposed to turn on automatically at sunset (6:44 pm tonight)–and his response was very NY: “Probably broken. It is NY!”

Felt really bad not to see the arch with the lighting.. but will either try to catch it on another day… or else next time. We then headed to dinner at Rucola which was now packed and buzzing. We shared a wonderful meal: branzino crudo, with pickled tomatoes, basil, olive oil; a citrus salad with oranges, meyer lemon, fennel, and pistachios; a pasta dish that had corn crema, shrimp, chili sauce; and Arctic char, cooked to perfection with fennel….and ended with a sour cherry pie — a fitting end to add whatever pounds we had lost with all that walking.

Back to the hotel and now I’m headed to bed. Stay tuned for more tomorrow.

Fern

NYC September 26, 2025

September 27, 2025

tags: Ben Shahn, Brooklyn, Frick Museum, Jewish Museum, LOX, NY Subway, Sofreh Restaurant, TWA Hotel

Greetings from NHY …

I usually don’t post domestic travel, but hell.. it’s NY and it’s actually a trip to Brooklyn! Our annual “girls trip” — and we decided to head to Brooklyn. I’m sort of the tour leader! Born and raised and educated in Brooklyn gives me a lot of “cred” on this trip.

Carol and I came in last night (Thursday) and stayed at the TWA Hotel at the airport, located in Terminal 5 in the actual Saarinen building from where TWA flights flew. I’ve stayed three times before but it was new for Carol so it was fun to explore the building. It’s the actual “flight center” at JFK. Some of you may renmenber flying in and out of the old Idlewild Airport (the name before it was called JFK) and either using or seeing the TWA terminal which was like no other.

Anyway, the actual terminal opened in 1962 (a year after Saarinen died) and was the headquarters for TWA until TWA went bankrupt in 2001. After more than 15 years of dormancy, the building was restored and reopened as the TWA Hotel in 2019—with the flair of the 1960s permeating the space (music from the 60s everywhere, photo booths, replicas of a 1960 beauty salon, a room to play Twister, and more). We had fun exploring the whole place incluing the infinity pool on the roof where you can swim while planes are buzzing overhead. We had planned to eat at a somewhat mafia restaurant in Queens, but we were exhausted and decided to eat at the hotel and have cocktails at “Connie” located at the hotel—a 1958 Lockheed Constellation airplane turned cocktail lounge parked on the old TWA tarmac. Apparently the plane served as an Alaskan bush plane bringing supplies to Prudhoe Bay and larter was a marijuana dropper after it was no longer with TWA! They have cocktails with names like “Vodka is ny Co-Pilot.”

I have to say, the TWA terminal holds a bit of nostalgia. I don’t think I ever flew into or out of the terminal, but it was definitely a “date destination” when I was in college. You’d just sit in the lounge and watch people coming and going and see them headed to far off places (that I could only dream of at that time!)

This morning (Friday) we met up with Adrienne from Chicago and immediately headed to the subway into Manhattan (the trip is mostly Brooklyn, but there were a few things we wanted to see in Manhattan so this was the day to do that). We headed first to see the Ben Shahn show at the Jewish Museum.

But first it was lunch at LOX located inside the museum. We shared a wonderful chopped herring that was vodka infused! and they served complementary vodka shots with it (they were out of vodka so they substituted gin) and they started with a complementary “Matzo Babka!” And we had a bagel with lox (natch!). Then it was on to the exhibit which was very impressive.

The Ben Shahn show called “On Nonconformity” was very very good and extremely appropriate for these times–dealing with social issues of the 30s, 40s, 50s: unemployment, discrimination, authoritarianism–championing labor and human rights–and Shahn’s philosophy of dissent. The works cover the years between the great depression and the Vietnam War. One of the paintings is of the Supreme Court (when it was a real court). It was done in 1963 and commemorates Brown v Board of Education decision, symbolizing the importance of the court as a space for justice. The justices are very tiny at the bottom of the picture and the columns of the court are towering… it is the court that is important and the spirit of social justice, not the individual justices.

From there we walked down Fifth Avenue to see the renovated Frick Museum–straight out of the Gilded Age. Not exactly my taste, and all I could think was how it was possible for one family to live in such a huge place. Don’t even know how they found their way to their bedrooms.

We stopped into the cafe at the Frick (The Westmoreland) to have some tea and dessert… and then headed back to our hotel in Brooklyn (the Even) to make our 8 pm reservations at Sofreh (my very favorite NY restaurant).

We walked to the restaurant down Flatbush Ave which was bustling and then had a wonderful Persian meal… A butternut squash with strained yogurt, chili roasted pepita seeds, and a spiced butter glaze; .. and a Persian flat bread with feta and herbs, walnuts, and radish; … and a sort of Israeli salad.. .all followed by a lamb shank that just melted in your mouth, cooked with butter beans, dill, and lime… alongside a complex basmati rice dish with carrots and rosewater and different spices (dill, fennel, cilantro I think). For dessert we had a pistachio/rosewater/saffron ice cream with a cardamom rose cake. Totally wonderful.