NYC Ferry Restaurant Tour, Part III: Big John’s (Rockaway Route to Sunset Park)
A t times I have practically lived on chicken souvlaki. Souvlaki is meat grilled on a skewer and it can come in chicken, lamb, or pork. I’ve long considered the version at Manhattan Diner, in the Upper West 90s, to be definitive — until the NYC Ferry floated me to Sunset Park, Brooklyn, where I had the swooningly delicious char-grilled version at Big John’s. We boarded with Purpose, you might say. That was the name of the ferry.
Little did I know that this would be only the first of five (yikes!) research trips to Sunset Park as I not only ate a few meals but explored the Brooklyn Army Terminal, Bush Terminal Park, and Sunset Park, after which the neighborhood was named. I had to break it down into manageable parts, slowed by a July heatwave, not to mention the massive scale of the neighborhood and its attractions. Ever seeking new sensations, and less fervent about the view as I had been in my first few trips on the Rockaway Route, I sat in the middle of the mostly empty boat.
But Sunset Park was worth the time. It is a rich, varied, and fascinating place and every time I came home with more material. Where to begin? Views are always a good place to start! That would put us in Sunset Park — the park.
It’s the little park in the lower left corner. Measuring just three short blocks by two long blocks, it is a fraction the size of nearby Green-Wood Cemetery (center) and Prospect Park (right), the latter designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of Central Park. Their enormity, midsummer heat, and a wealth of other material prevented me from exploring the cemetery and the bigger park this time. They may get their own blogs eventually.
Sunset Park was originally a Norwegian and Finn enclave; Irish and Italians came and mostly went, replaced by Puerto Ricans (who are U.S. citizens) and Latin Americans. They in turn were victimized by the federal government’s racist redlining policy, which designated the neighborhood “in decline.” The park has a large public pool. I wasn’t allowed to shoot a picture of it, though many others have.
But what the park really has going for it are what this gentleman’s head is inclined toward, as he communes with Chinese folk music. The area is now one of the city’s largest Chinatowns, with Asians representing about a quarter of its population as of 2022. You can find out more about Sunset Park’s tumultuous history in this exceptionally thorough Wiki.
There it is, in all its glory: Manhattan, the focal point of New York City, exerting its gravitational pull on the surrounding boroughs and the city’s economy. The Canarsee-Lenape indigenous people who originally lived here presumably saw something quite different and greener.
And there is the Freedom Tower. But as the camera swings to the right…
…we see the FT is not the only attraction. The Empire State Building is also visible from Sunset Park.
Together they make a great team, in a sweeping view that embraces both Lower and Midtown Manhattan.
No meditation on huge objects in Sunset Park would be complete without the Gowanus Expressway, which dominates Third Avenue. This creation of city wrecker Robert Moses is nearing its use-by date. If I understand correctly, part of the Gowanus was constructed on the former trackbed of an elevated “subway” line, displacing 100 stores and 1,300 families. “For more than thirty years, the blight in south Brooklyn had been confined to the waterfront area. Now thanks to Robert Moses and his parkway, it was on the loose, spreading across Sunset Park,” Robert Caro wrote in his Pulitzer-winning book The Power Broker.
The Gowanus looms over no fewer than four X-rated video stores on Third Avenue. Sexual commerce has a long history on the South Brooklyn waterfront. A taste of it is available in Hubert Selby Jr.’s Last Exit to Brooklyn, the 1964 book made into a 1989 movie. Troubled, but honored in his lifetime, Selby started as a merchant seaman and ended up as a creative-writing teacher at UCLA.
“While the elevated subway had brought residents to the neighborhood, the expressway brought people through it, casting a huge shadow over the street, forcing businesses and residents to slowly leave,” writes nyc-urbanism on Tumblr. Mayor Eric Adams seems determined to double down on the original error by expanding the Gowanus rather than replacing it with something more appropriate. I will admit to being morbidly fascinated by this monstrosity, though I am glad it has not desecrated my neighborhood (the Henry Hudson Parkway is my cross to bear).
Also of a vastness is the Brooklyn Army Terminal, located amid a 14-mile greenway, right next to the ferry pier.
It is hard to convey its size and industrial grandeur without resorting to the panorama mode, with its attendant distortions. Compare the shots above and below.
If you take the ferry, the BAT couldn’t be a shorter walk. (Industry City, covered below, is a few blocks north, though some of the other attractions also mentioned are longer walks.)
The big BAT complex is, in fact, pretty well integrated and accessible from the ferry, as this interior sign shows
Elevator signage of a cautionary nature.
Designed by Cass Gilbert, the skyscraper pioneer better known for Tribeca’s Woolworth Building and the U.S. Supreme Court building, the BAT was constructed in 1919 to supply the U.S. Army with a 97-acre facility of warehouses, administrative buildings, and accommodations for the boats and trains that moved the goods. It is now zoned for light-industrial and recreational use; read more here.
Though zoned for light industrial use, the place is open to visitors. I hadn’t known this until so informed by a friendly employee in a big black SUV who yelled “hey!” I thought he was security and that I was about to get thrown out. The atrium between Warehouse A and Warehouse B is impressive.
But the friendly employee was just waiting for his shift to begin. I was grateful for the intel. If he hadn’t clued me in, I’d have missed these awesome cantilevered balconies. These were loading platforms served by an overhead crane that lifted materials from the railroad cars below into the warehouses.
The tracks ran right into the complex. Here is an unused train parked between Warehouses A and B. Once the complex could accommodate 2,200 rail cars, though today’s light-industrial tenants use a truck loading dock. The rail network also connected to Bush Terminal, another industrial facility at the northern end of the neighborhood, now converted to a park. More on that later.
There are endless corridors. Much of the space was unused when I visited, aside from a few factory tenants and occasional use as an event space.
A lot of work went into those clean white walls and those potted plants. Before the renovation, the BAT looked more like this.
If you spot an open doorway, sometimes you can find men at work. On the way out the door, I heard “hey!” again. I turned around and it was another friendly employee. We exchanged greetings before I headed back to the ferry.
Brooklyn Army Terminal is ripe with potential. It seems like an OK place to work and attending an event here might be fun. There are some very nice facilities — something you will not find at the nearby ferry stop.
Don’t get the impression that Sunset Park is just about the big stuff. It’s also got quiet streets full of beautiful townhouses, some with rounded facades…
…and others with a more squared-off design.
As you move toward the waterfront, more modest homes feature what is probably vinyl siding. I envy the TV antennas — I can’t get a good signal in my back-of-courtyard apartment in “the city,” and with cable-TV pricing having become extortionate, I rely on apps. Or as I sometimes think of them, crapps. Low-rise living has its privileges.
Sunset Park hasn’t entirely broken with its industrial past. Here and there, you can still see men at work as you pass an open doorway. These guys graciously allowed me to snap a pic.
That day I was on my way to see another waterfront attraction: Brooklyn Army Terminal’s little sister, Bush Terminal, now turned into a park. On the way I enjoyed a mural celebrating the neighborhood’s current mix.
The main entrance with cool sign…
…was closed that day, and a sign directed me to the side entrance. Some of the original buildings seemed in good condition…
…while others were clearly abandoned and forlorn.
The area’s industrial past and present together in one picture: the rusted tracks of yesteryear, the tractor-trailers of today.
Bush Terminal Park (or Bush Terminal Piers Park in Google Maps) has both baseball and soccer fields. The latter were being actively enjoyed on the hot, muggy day when I stopped by to snap a picture. And to use the restroom — always an indispensable part of an urban explorer’s travel planning, especially on a day when staying hydrated is a challenge.
Come for the restroom, stay for the view!
I caught a glimpse of a great lady through the smog.
Freedom Tower presented and accounted for, sir!
It was still visible at far left when I got to Industry City, a more aggressively repurposed factory complex, with a sign proudly showing off its waterfront parking lot. It’s a long walk from the ferry but a short walk from the 36th Street BMT train, if you’re not into driving or walking.
While the Brooklyn Army Terminal has a dual industrial and recreational orientation, Industry City has gone more in the latter direction, loaded with eating and retail, including the store where I will probably buy my next carpet. Industry City really deserves a separate blog in itself. Maybe I’ll write one someday. Here, it’s just one attraction among many.
It’s hard to cram all the buildings of the colossal Industry City complex into one shot.
With things split among various buildings, in a place whose vastness would frustrate the flâneur, it is wise to know what you’re looking for, lest you wander lonely as a cloud in the numerous buildings.
It was so hot that day, this sculpture melted!
The interior was a combination of post-industrial cool…
…and occasionally a nice place to sit.
There were signs here and there for the browser, or lost tourist, but it could still be quite confusing.
Helpful signs notwithstanding…
…online mapping is what got me to my destination: a restaurant called Frying Pan.
What lured me here was the fish tacos. I had them with a side order of hot pretzel with mustard and ranch, scraping 80 percent of the salt off the pretzel to prevent it from forming those little asteroids that occasionally rocket through my urinary tract. The tacos were emblems of New York’s Latino present, while the pretzel evoked its German American past. They were unexpectedly united by a common flavor: the tacos featured sweet peppers, while the pretzel was unexpectedly sugary. They harmonized well.
But that was just a quick lunch after Bush Terminal Park. The real culinary find in Sunset Park was a restaurant I probably will return to as regularly as I can manage: the amazing Big John’s, home of my new reference chicken souvlaki.
It is located next to a car wash. You’ll have to settle for a word picture for this: On the first day I visited, a half-dozen young men in colorful tank tops and shorts were busily polishing up SUVs and sweating buckets. I stood on the left side, also drenched from my walk, briefly marveling at them. Getting six people to OK a photo shoot didn’t seem like a good idea — they were busy — so I didn’t. I’ve been kicking myself ever since.
I had to go for the chicken souvlaki, though there was also a pork souvlaki, some tempting salads, and something I’ve never heard of, a Greek-Indi chicken tandoori. I’ll have to try that sometime.
Note that the Authentic Greek Food rates its own little menu. There is also a multi-page menu, shown below at top, but the little menu keeps the specialty items from getting lost in the big menu’s diner encyclopedia.
I can’t overstate how tasty and succulent the chicken was, grilled on a spit over charcoal, served with yellow rice and iceberg lettuce salad with generous dollops of feta cheese.
The tzatziki also got my attention. It made the return visit for the sampler platter — everything made fresh daily — inevitable.
The spreads on my second visit included (more) yogurt-based tzatziki, eggplant-based melitzanosalata, feta-based tyrokafteri, and — because the hummus had run out — a couple of grape leaves.
You really haven’t had grape leaves (stuffed with olive-oil-impregnated rice) until you’ve had ’em fresh. These were the best I’ve ever had and I was glad that a happy accident brought them to my attention.
Aside from the emoji, eggplant is not my favorite vegetable. But with a little Mediterranean magic — say, a nice Italian rolatini, or the spiced Greek melitzanosalata below — it was magic.
There was a lot going on in the tyrokafteri feta cheese spread too. I suspect the red and green flecks were jalapeños, judging from the kick. And the base was rich and creamy.
The counter guy knows all his customers (and their fathers). Just sitting at my table listening to conversations between among them was like being in a dramedy about working-class Brooklyn scripted by someone with both a heart and a brain. Young guys from the car wash next door were admonished to sharpen up their work ethic and get back to the job, though I suspect everyone concerned was happy to break up their day with social contact. Smiles all around. Excellent food isn’t the only form of nourishment you get at Big John’s.
Previously on the NYC Ferry Restaurant Tour:
Part I: The Wharf (Rockaway Route)
Part II: Kimo’s Kitchen (Rockaway Route)
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