NYC Ferry Restaurant Tour, Part X: Diner (East River Route to South Williamsburg)
M y two trips to South Williamsburg started on the NYC Ferry, continued on the J train, and ended back on the NYC Ferry. I had an appetizer at the legendary Peter Luger steakhouse and an entree in a railway car converted to a diner. A diner called Diner. I hadn’t planned it that way, but on the first trip, by the time I reached Diner after a long and fascinating walk in the Orthodox Jewish community of South Williamsburg, it had closed to give its small staff a mid-afternoon break. Totally my bad. So I sloped off to Peter Luger for a quick bite and resolved to hit Diner at a more opportune moment. I guess good things come in twos: trips, transport modes, and of course meals.
The first day’s ride from Wall Street Pier 11 was the Spring Mallard, above. It took me beneath the Brooklyn Bridge on what has become a familiar journey past the three East River Bridges.
Next up was the Manhattan Bridge, where my roommate and I had enjoyed a fabulous Mediterranean meal in a DUMBO restaurant — literally “down under” the bridge.
That vast sandpile is on one of the long piers jutting out from the Brooklyn Navy Yard, whose 150-year history will figure in an upcoming episode. I’m guessing the sand has something to do with the rampant high-end residential construction in the area.
Docking and debarking. That means disembarking. It is not a dog reference. I would never deprive a dog of its bark. A photographer friend once told me it’s bad to cut off people’s body parts — in a picture, that is — but I take a lot of shots on the fly, and when you’re in a crowd of moving people, you can’t just stand there and inhibit pedestrian traffic.
Farewell to the Spring Mallard at South Williamsburg’s Shaefer Landing…
…docked next to the Waves of Wonder. If you think I have an ulterior motive for sneaking in an irrelevant boat — because it has a cool name — you know me too well. But I also want to point out that had I gone a little farther on the Spring Mallard, I would have passed beneath the Williamsburg Bridge, looming in the background. The neighborhood gave the bridge its name. The bridge, built in 1903, gives the neighborhood its iconic presence.
And here she is, as we head north along the East River on Schaefer Landing. Both a ferry landing and a small park with great views, it is named for Henry Schaefer, a model ship building enthusiast who passed less than a decade before this was written.
Below you can see the three bridges — from left to right, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williamsburg. Neighborhood borders are tricky to define in Williamsburg because of its two NYC Ferry stops and three overlapping geographic entities. The ferry stops are the two faint grey dots above and below the Williamsburg Bridge (disregard the mess of sponsored search results). South Williamsburg, today’s destination, is outlined in almost invisibly lighter grey at center right: bordered by Kent Avenue to the west, along the waterside, plus Grand, Union, and Flushing avenues to the north, east, and south. Williamsburg proper, overlapping with South Williamsburg, is to the north, while the larger and more industrial East Williamsburg stretches off the right side of the map.
Graffiti is an uncharacteristic sight in South Williamsburg. This one contains hate speech relating to the area’s concentration of Hasidim: “Da Jews Came.” But Jews have been a prominent feature of the area for more than a century as the original Lenape natives gave way, in the usual fashion, to the Dutch, the English, and a once prominent German population (which probably ate at Peter Luger’s).
After the completion of the Williamsburg Bridge, Jews from Manhattan’s Lower East Side slums arrived, seeking a better way of life. (Yes, the trendy Lower East Side was a slum.) South Williamsburg also has a substantial Puerto Rican population and is zoned for several different uses, giving the landscape remarkable variety and rugged scenery.
South Williamsburg’s industrial uses have included shipbuilding, brewing, and sugar refining. Later I’d get a glimpse of a new high-rise named for the Domino Sugar company, whose name is also on an iconic older building. I’ll be taking a look at them in a future episode on another of the Williamsburgs.
The area has its share of classic Brooklyn brownstones, as I found on my walk south on Bedford Avenue, the neighborhood’s major north-south artery.
A gracious old-fashioned mansard roof caught my eye. This brownstone palace wouldn’t be out of place on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
Goods were moving under human power. Replacing delivery trucks with freight wagons — and here, a freight tricycle — is a new and welcome development in the city as a whole. We’ll always have trucks, just fewer of them.
Bedford Avenue took me over the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, which slices South Williamsburg into halves without entirely isolating it (as with Red Hook in Brooklyn) or laying waste to it (as with Tremont in the Bronx). Farther north it separates Williamsburg proper (including NYC Ferry’s North Williamsburg stop) from East Williamsburg.
Large enclosed balconies are a prominent and distinctive architectural feature of South Williamsburg. They look like fire escapes on steroids. We’ll get back to them later.
I reached Flushing Avenue, which divides South Williamsburg from the historically African American brownstone neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant. Walking east toward a small enclave called Broadway Triangle, this was my first walk in Bed-Stuy. I look forward to eating and exploring there on the NYC Subway Restaurant Tour.
Business signs are in both Hebrew and English.
G&G Clothiers of Class caters to the Hasidic population.
Passing Nostrand Avenue, I realized that Seinfeld co-creator Larry David, who grew up in Brooklyn, must have used the Dutch name for Prof. Van Nostrand, an alias used by Kramer when he was pulling some little scam.
Heading up Lee Street from Flushing Avenue, at the corner of Lorimer and Wallabout streets, I ran across a religious institution that I can’t identify. One one side was a fire engine. On the other was a vehicle associated with Chaveirim, a community group that provides roadside assistance and non-medical emergency help.
The area’s Latino and Hasidic populations shared the street, with a group of construction workers enjoying lunch on the stoop.
Businesses tend to have Jewish names.
I saw an elephant!
Greenfeld’s, an old-fashioned Jewish deli. They’re an endangered species in Manhattan but they persist here. There was seating inside but only for catered events. A pastrami sandwich was $12, according to a sign just inside the door.
You got your pharmacy: Shimon’s. You got your liquor store: Donath.
South Williamsburg has its own vape store. Smoker’s Choice was having a clearance sale.
Crossing back over the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, featuring an ad from a health-related helpline, I followed Lee Avenue and did a short hop down Division Street to Driggs Avenue.
I approached Broadway. Brooklyn’s version runs parallel to the approach to the Williamsburg Bridge and I was pleased to discover what a richly detailed, albeit grungy and hectic, strolling environment it was. There I found the domed miracle of the Williamsburg Savings Bank, designed by George B. Post, the architect responsible for the New York Stock Exchange.
Built in 1875, of marble, limestone, and sandstone, the Beaux-Arts masterpiece has both national and local landmark protection. It is no longer a bank — HSBC was the last of several owners — but is currently used as an event space and for film and TV production. To the left, note the One Domino Square condo jutting up, and beyond it, the Williamsburg Bridge.
Across Driggs Avenue from the former bank is the Forman & Family building, built in 1882–83. Considered the finest cast-iron building in Brooklyn, it was designed by German migrant Herman J. Schwarzmann, architect-in-chief of the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.
As I stood at Broadway and Driggs, I snatched a shot of elevated trains rolling toward the bridge between the Forman and savings bank buildings.
Tourists were taking selfies outside Peter Luger. Established in 1887 by a German emigrant as Carl Luger’s Café, Billiards and Bowling Alley, it has gained and lost a Michelin star, but remains the city’s third-oldest steakhouse.
Murals showed the neighborhood’s artistic/hipster orientation, more prominent in the part of Williamsburg above the bridge.
This one looks pensive, turning her back on the bridge and One Domino Square.
Passing beneath the approach to the bridge.
Imagine my dismay when I found the restaurant was closed in mid-afternoon. My bad. I just assumed a diner would be open in the p.m. hours.
Next door was Marlow & Sons, a pleasant-looking bar and restaurant.
“Can we still fall in love this summer?” asked @7SoulsDeep. More to the point, I thought, can we still have lunch today?
Marlow might have been a good choice. But the impulse to lunch at a world-famous tourist attraction overcame me. Back to Peter Luger. The selfie-snapping was still in progress.
I enjoyed the homey ambience with my fellow tourists. I do consider myself a tourist on these excursions. Which is why, when a friend asked why Peter Luger, I said just because.
My table. Considering I was dining alone and had no reservation, the wait was brief.
The menu. I might have done a $19.95 burger, but when I see crabcakes on a menu, they’re hard to resist.
The basket of warm fluffy bread. I needed the carbs to supplement my modest seafood snack after the long walk.
Here it is, the single crabcake. The restaurant requires debit card or cash, and I carry only credit cards and a little cash, so this is how much crab a little cash will buy you.
The crabcake was ready for its closeup.
My fork investigated. There was definitely plenty of lumb crabmeat in there.
A venerable gravy boat of steak sauce was served with the cake.
I experimented with both the steak sauce and the more crabcake-specific thousand-island dressing. I asked if the steak sauce was right for crabcakes. The answer was that it’s just on every table, but I was free to experiment. The tone was more friendly than gruff, though Luger’s waiters have a reputation for the latter. Have to say, I liked the steak sauce better.
I cleaned the plate, emptied the bread basket…
…and managed to leave a decent tip for my server, who was tolerant, efficient, and full of personality — everything a foreign tourist might expect in a bucket-list pilgrimage.
I struck gold — in the form of chocolate coins. I snapped the pic, enjoyed one, and took the other home to my roommate. Luger’s has its own custom milk chocolate.
The J train from Marcy Avenue got me home.
Although I hadn’t planned to pay cash for the meal — again, lack of due diligence — I had just enough cash left to buy a $10 hat from the vendor at the corner of Broadway and Havemeyer Street. I literally came home with no money, just a Metrocard.
The train rolled in.
But I had unfinished business. If Peter Luger was to be the appetizer, I would still have the rest of a proper meal at Diner — with due diligence to choose a moment when it was open. I retraced my steps on the J train and ran across some extraordinary ceramic panels, all with nautical themes, in the Manhattan Fulton Street station. This is just one of five.
As the train rolled over the Williamsburg Bridge, I caught a quick glimpse of the Chrysler Building. I’ve taken many shots of the Freedom Tower, Empire State Building, and Statue of Liberty lately, but the Chrysler’s Art Deco spire is every bit as much a symbol of New York.
I was pleased to note that Marcy Avenue is an “accessible station,” meaning it has an elevator. The climb from the street to the elevated platform is quite long, like huffing up three flights of stairs. For a long time I’ve misheard the robot voice on the trains as “this is an acceptable station.” Duh.
The caged balconies were present everywhere. They are one of the neighborhood’s most distinctive features. And, I have learned, they are virtually a South Williamsburg exclusive — even other Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods, such as Crown Heights, don’t have them in such abundance.
I theorized — in advance of the data, always a bad idea, Sherlock Holmes would say — that they provide a way to enjoy the street while still having a measure of security and safety. And that this was the response of the Hasidim to the horrific injustices that have been meted out to them down the ages.
I was maybe half right. But the balconies have a deeper and more culturally specific meaning. They are frameworks for sukkahs, the huts built for Sukkot, the weeklong harvest festival that begins five days after Yom Kippur. AI informs me that Israelis and Reform Jews celebrate Sukkot for seven days, while diaspora groups outside Israel celebrate it for eight.
By Jewish law, a sukkah must be open to the sky. The sukkah balconies can be small or large, appearing on buildings old and new. This wrought-iron beauty must have supported sukkahs for many generations of Hasidim.
Some zigzag between floors. Thanks to bkmag.com for informing me of most of this. Fascinating, as Mr. Spock would say.
Back to Diner, at a more bustling time of day.
The interior’s curved ceiling evoked the probable shape of the original rail carriage, though I’d guess that the booth and bar seating were added later.
Brunch menu. I never go to a restaurant without reading the menu online first. I’d expected to have whitefish salad, but menus change, and I had a Plan B: scrambled eggs.
The scrambled eggs came with cherry tomatoes, ricotta, and grilled sourdough.
The ricotta, turned runny by heat, made an excellent dipping sauce for the wonderful thick-cut sourdough, crisp and darkish but not enough to affect the flavor. Going…
…going…
…gone.
Like Peter Luger, Diner provided a souvenir of the meal. I’ve added it to my bookmark collection, which consists mainly of memorabilia from foreign travel. While I was writing this blog, it was marking my place in Past Lying by Val McDermid.
The facilities were ingeniously tucked into a tight space.
Mounted on the back of the door, the toilet rolls would be about a foot in front of your face if you were number-two-ing. Which I did not need to do.
On the walk to the ferry, I saw more of South Williamsburg’s signature sukkah-friendly balconies...
…along with more recent construction along the water, a sign of newer and possibly less religiously observant residents.
Back to Schaefer Landing, the site of my first entrance into, and second exit from, South Williamsburg. The improvised travel arrangements — ferry, train, train, ferry — had a pleasing symmetry. I appreciated that the ferry stop was sheltered from sunlight.
Even before I boarded, the landing and the nearby promenade offered superb views of the Willy-B.
It watched over us as we waited for the Cyclone Shark’s Brooklyn-bound passengers to disembark. Perhaps to enjoy a nice lunch?
The bridge waved goodbye. But this would not be my last trip to Williamsburg. Next stop on the NYC Ferry Restaurant Tour will be North Williamsburg! A later trip on the NYC Subway Restaurant Tour will take me to East Williamsburg.
I can’t walk from Pier 11 to the Wall Street 2 or 3 train without a little taste of Lower Manhattan. It’s like dessert for my phone camera. It was pure coincidence that I shot a picture of the New York Stock Exchange, another George B. Post design, shortly after seeing the Williamsburg Savings Bank. I’ve walked past it many times, but the light was good, and I finally got the perfect shot.
Previously on the NYC Ferry Restaurant Tour:
Part I: The Wharf (Rockaway Route to Rockaway Park)
Part II: Kimo’s Kitchen (Rockaway Route to Rockaway Beach)
Part III: Big John’s (Rockaway Route to Sunset Park)
Part IV: Salty Dog (South Brooklyn Route to Bay Ridge)
Part V: Crown Cafe (Statue City Cruises to Liberty Island)
Part VI: Pizza Yard (Governors Island Ferry)
Part VII: Lobster Pound (South Brooklyn Route to Red Hook)
Part VIII: Boutros (Atlantic Avenue Route)
Part IX: Celestine (East River Route to DUMBO)
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