MotherSister Brooklyn

As a member of a Fort Greene Association subcommittee on commercial development in the area, I suggested the inclusion of a food co-op as an option on the residents’ survey that’s currently circulating. So I was thrilled to read that DK Holland and Kathryn Zarczynski are already on top of the idea and working to bring it to fruition. If you’re also keen to have an affordable, healthy, community-minded grocery co-op closer than Park Slope, check out the Fort Greene Food Co-op blog here.

Update: The first organizing meeting for the Fort Greene/Clinton Hill Food Co-op will be on Wednesday, January 23 at the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church at 85 South Oxford (btw Lafayette and Greene aves.) from 7 to 8:30pm. On the agenda for discussion: Why do we need/want a co-op? What it will take to start it? What support do we have now? What will the structure of the co-op be? What’s on our wish list? How can other co-ops help us?

Back in Brooklyn, and I’d hoped to return from Orlando with a special gift for my sweet landlords, who live across the street and are unflaggingly helpful. Something beyond a standard tacky souvenir — citrus fruit, maybe? And then it occurred to me that I could simply order that online and have it shipped, sparing me from lugging it on the plane.

Which inspired another thought: In the age of the internets, can traveling still provide a special shopping opportunity?

Oh sure, not everything is available online — but a lot is, to a degree I never would’ve imagined growing up in the Old Country. As a little girl, I used to read books with characters who ordered clothing and rare luxuries from the Sears Roebuck catalog; I wasn’t doing anything far removed when I admired the copy in a J. Peterman catalog (I mentioned I was young, right?) or breathlessly awaited the arrival of Scholastic books ordered from those onion-skin-thin paper flyers or imagined a shopping trip to New York or Los Angeles to buy the cool products I saw in Sassy. When I was old enough to venture forth alone, I looked forward to buying John Fleuvog shoes in New York, Muji notebooks in Covent Garden, Nuxe dry oil in a Parisian pharmacy; the men in my life might gift me with carved turtles from Mexico or flower tea from Shanghai. Now there isn’t a single one of those things that you can’t purchase online; there’s even a great shop in SoHo devoted to the idea.

I know people still take shopping trips to major cities; where would Suzy Gershman be if they didn’t? And when I think about it, the thrill isn’t gone for me — it has simply changed. It remains my custom to buy a book in every place I visit, some famous (Shakespeare & Co. in Paris, where I purchased Edmund White’s The Flaneur; City Lights Books in San Francisco, where I purchased a copy of Allen Ginsburg’s Howl), some not (such as a nameless shop in Norfolk where I scored some vintage Françoise Sagan novels for 50p a piece). When I last returned from Paris, it was with a stem of a gorgeously scented (but totally poisonous) flowering plant from the balcony of my hotel room; from Rhode Island, a passel of freshly picked sweet corn. An acquaintance comes bearing mint leaves plucked from an Armenian field for tea; an old friend presents me with a particular type of English dime-store fountain pen that I like.

The best souvenirs are always the most personal, anyway; that’s a piece of the travel experience that the Internet will never deliver, wherever else it may transport you.

In Florida again for the holidays. I’m over my need for face-breaking cold weather in order to enhance the Christmas spirit. A tannenbaum looks just as festive in the sunlight, Santa looks even jollier with nut-brown skin and sunburn-red cheeks.

It’s added balm for my sin-sick soul to ride around in a car with my brother blasting music, like we used to do when he was 19 and I was 12. We’re less bored now, with weightier subjects to talk about; it’s a convertible Pony instead of various ’70s and ’80s-era Chevys; more crunk and less P.E. or N.W.A.; and a Scamp in the backseat approving of the beat and clutching his curls to stop the breeze from tendril-whipping his face.

“OK. Where are we, again?”

“We’re going north, and we’re about to turn west on State Road 50, which becomes Colonial Drive in the east –”

“Oh, gotcha. Gotcha. Something about Orlando just ruins any sense of direction I have.”

“Well as long as it doesn’t fail you in New York, I’m glad.”

But New York looks like somewhere, I think, as we pull into a mall like every other mall I’ve been to in Florida, with the same architecture, anchor stores — hey, this Dillard’s even smells like the Dillard’s in Little Rock, with the same peculiarly fusty but practical clothing –

“–but it’s in Orlando,” laughs my big brother.

“Yeah.”

Back in the car and on our way to the tattoo studio to check in with the artist who’s going to ink my brother’s arm, I only begin to regain any sense of place near downtown, close to the crumbling ghetto of Bahamians and Jamaicans living in plantation-ish shotgun shacks that remind my brother of New Orleans and me of the Caribbean. There are also bungalows that, given some care, would be lovely places to live.

“But the money’s coming and these will all be –”

“–swept up and the area gentrified soon?”

“Right.”

Living in New York, I am convinced that the paradigm shift that made people of means realize that inner cities and their bungalows and rowhouses and commercial/residential density and centralized transportation were more desirable and interesting than 1-hour car commutes to disconnected suburbs is complete. But then I visit the rest of America and remember how narrow my view has become. I wonder, now that the Little Rock I remember looks more like Orlando looks more like Dallas looks more like nowhere and everywhere, will there be a movement to restore character to the sprawling landscapes littered with the same big box stores and gas stations and parking lots and strip malls? Someone’s trying.

They say if you don’t ask, you won’t receive. Or the squeakiest wheel gets the grease. Or something like that.

Anyway, we bloggy types like pontificating on commercial closings and openings, and — from the file of Full Disclosure — I’ve gotten myself mixed up with a gang throwing retail signs. Help us out, yo:

The Fort Greene Association wants your opinion on the stores and services you want to see in the neighborhood.

Take the Fort Greene retail survey here.

As utterly disenchanted as I’ve become with national politics, I am more engaged with my local representatives, and I’ve been particularly impressed with Tish James, who has been on the front lines of community issues large (such as the Atlantic Yards development) and relatively small (saving the Broken Angel’s owners from eviction). Re-elected two years ago by nearly 90% of the voters, Councilwoman James’ dedicated advocacy is clearly appreciated by her Fort Greene/Clinton Hill constituency. Vibrant and funny, the Howard-educated lawyer and activist was excitedly anticipating the press conference announcing the preservation of 227 Duffield on the morning she indulged me for a MotherSister Minute.

LIVING HERE SINCE:  For 8 years. I’m a transplant from Park Slope.

WHY FORT GREENE/CLINTON HILL:  I came over because my mother was in Park Slope, and I wanted to get away from her. [laughing] It was post-college.

FAVORITE PLACE IN THE AREA:  Choice [Market].

COFFEE SHOP:  Connecticut Muffin and Pillow Cafe — love Pillow.

TIPS OR SUGGESTIONS ABOUT THE NEIGHBORHOOD:  Spend your money here. Come to precinct meetings, community council meetings. Know your elected officials. And shop locally for the holidays!

Letitia James’ office is at 67 Hanson Place (tel. 718/260-9191).