The top ten coolest places in Carroll Gardens

Eye On Real Estate

September 10, 2014 By Lore Croghan Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Green thumbs welcome …. in Carroll Gardens. Eagle photos by Lore Croghan

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Welcome to Carroll Gardens, where $3 million brownstones and $5 fried-bologna sandwiches are served up with equal aplomb.

Plans for the neighborhood’s development were launched before the Civil War, though it didn’t get its present-day name until the mid-1960s. Just a small slice of Carroll Gardens is a city landmarked district, but the neighborhood is a veritable treasure trove of historic houses.

And the gardens — what an eyeful. The thanks of generations of Brooklynites go to Richard Butts, a surveyor who plotted out the blocks on 1st through 4th Place in an 1846 map with lots of unusual depth, so the front yards are all 33.5 feet deep.

On Union, President, Carroll and Second streets, the front gardens are anywhere from 25 to 39 feet deep.

Throughout the neighborhood, there are lingering reminders of the 10,000-plus Italian immigrants who arrived from the 1950s to the 1970s in South Brooklyn/Red Hook, as Carroll Gardens and nearby areas were known.

Many of their descendants have moved away. Yet enough Italian speakers remain in Carroll Gardens to prompt fliers posted in shop windows by Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary-St. Stephen Roman Catholic Church about a Sept. 14 religious procession to be written in Italian.

There are oodles of cool places in this leafy brownstone haven. Here is a Top Ten list, which might make you want to slip on your walking shoes for a visit.

No. 1- Carroll Gardens’ coolest club isn’t a night club. It’s an Italian club with its very own statue of the Madonna, garbed in a black gown with a sword piercing her heart, out in the garden.

The Van Westerhout Cittadini Molesi Cultural & Social Club at 447 Court St., on the corner of 4th Place, has about 100 members, one of them told us.

The Madonna is Our Lady of Sorrows, the patron saint of Mola di Bari, which is the home town of the club members. A similar statue from Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary-St. Stephen Roman Catholic Church on Summit Street will be carried by marchers through neighborhood streets on the Madonna’s feast day on the second Sunday in September.

The statue is also carried through Carroll Gardens for a solemn Good Friday procession.

No. 2- The house at 97 2nd Place has Carroll Garden’s coolest tree. This ain’t Georgia, but that’s a peach tree in its front garden.

No. 3- Brooklyn’s coolest subway station is the Carroll Street F and G stop.

Don’t argue. Seriously. Does your subway stop have a Momofuku Milk Bar at the entrance, so you can fortify yourself before traveling with a yummy pork bun and a bottle of ginger beer (non-alcoholic, of course)? The Carroll Street train station does.

No. 4 While we’re on the subject of food, the coolest restaurant in Carroll Gardens just might be Wilma Jean at 345 Smith St., because it’s bold enough to serve fried-bologna sandwiches. Bologna lovers step forward — you know who you are.

The fried-chicken sandwich is awesome as well at Wilma Jean, which opened in July. See related story on Carroll Gardens retail real estate.

By the way, chef-owner Robert Newton also has a Vietnamese restaurant, Nightingale 9, at nearby 329 Smith St. And as The New York Times recently reported, Newton is partnering with the Patina Group to open Yellow Magnolia Café at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in October.

Other strong contenders for Carroll Gardens’ coolest restaurant include Lucali at 575 Henry St. — where Beyonce and Jay-Z have been spotted on pizza dates in past years — and foodie fave Buttermilk Channel at 524 Court St.
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No. 5 Carroll Garden’s coolest literary location is Luquer Street by the train tracks.

It’s the boyhood home of Ed Leary, a main character in Matthew Thomas’ “We Are Not Ourselves,” one of the summer’s hot novels.

He lives in a “railroad flat” on Luquer Street near the elevated tracks of the F train, in an apartment building with an empty lot next door, Thomas wrote. It sounds like the author could be describing 205 Luquer St., a red-brick rental apartment building. See related story.

By the way, the fictional Ed Leary was an altar boy at St. Mary Star of the Sea, a real-life Catholic Church at 467 Court St., at the other end of the Luquer Street block from his railroad flat.

No. 6 Carroll Gardens’ coolest mini-street is Dennett Place. The block-long road running between Luquer and Nelson streets has diminutive row houses whose sideways-facing stoops have tiny doors on the front of them.

If this is hard to visualize, look at our photos.

By the way, we know the street sign says Dennet with one “T,” but that’s not how the name is spelled in city Departments of Finance and Buildings records.

No. 7 Garden statuary is a big deal in a neighborhood with so much green space. So this is a two-part designation.

The brownstones at 115 and nearby 119 2nd Place have Carroll Gardens’ coolest bird baths.

The homes with the coolest religious statues are 30 2nd Place, which has a statue of Jesus on a pedestal, and 217 Carroll St., which has Holy Family statues out front.

No. 8 Carroll Gardens’ block with the coolest front gardens is the north side of Carroll Street between Smith and Hoyt streets.

We know sooo many places in this neighborhood could win this accolade.

But how could we resist a block with that wonderful flowering tree blooming by the front stoop at 257 Carroll St.? And a pink flamingo (Sigh. Such nostalgia for Florida.) among the lawn statues at 261 Carroll St.?

Even a home that’s not the neighborhood’s prettiest, 299 Carroll St., has a great garden. And 305 Carroll St. is a greenhouse — no, actually it’s a green-hued house, but the façade color goes perfectly with the verdant landscaping.

No. 9 Brooklyn’s coolest small bridge — duh, we don’t mean it’s in the same league as the mighty Brooklyn Bridge — is the span that crosses the Gowanus Canal at Carroll Street. It’s made of wood. A very old sign on the bridge threatens drivers who proceed faster than walking speed with a comically small $5 fine — the price of a plate of house-cut fries with whiskey ketchup at nearby restaurant Lavender Lake at 383 Carroll St.

No. 10 The 1870s-vintage twin Gothic townhouses at 37 and 39 3rd Place, which look like one huge house, are Carroll Gardens’ coolest Edward Hopper-style manse. (Oh, Edward. We could look at your paintings all day. Even the depressing ones.)

By the way, Jameson Mones and Patricia Debiaggi-Mones bought 37 3rd Place last year for $2.31 million, city Finance Department records indicate.