NYC Subway Restaurant Tour, Part V: Buntopia (Brooklyn Broadway)
There are streets named Broadway throughout the New York metropolitan area and one of them is in Brooklyn. I got my first glimpse of it when visiting South Williamsburg for the NYC Ferry Restaurant Tour and marveled at its views of the Williamsburg Bridge approach — and, unexpectedly, its bustling street life. I got to see it only as far east as the Marcy Avenue subway station but knew I’d be back. For this episode of the NYC Subway Restaurant Tour, I started there and walked all the way to the eastern end at Broadway Junction. Broadway is the border between Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant, and this was only my second walk in either of those two neighborhoods.
My trip started on the IRT Seventh Avenue Express and continued on the J train, which runs across the Williamsburg Bridge into Brooklyn. Not for the first time, I marveled at these ceramic sailing-ship panels in the labyrinthine Fulton Street subway station in Lower Manhattan. These are the Marine Grill Murals, circa 1913, created by artist Fred Dana Marsh for the McAlpin Hotel restaurant at Broadway and West 34th. When the hotel went coop, the art was repurposed into subway art. The middle panel places its ship against an evocatively clouded blue sky — fitting, since this was one of my rare cloudy-day excursions.
Marcy Avenue is one of several outer-borough subway stations to feature colorful stained glass. This was how two of its four panels looked on a grey day.
When the sun shines through them, they glow, hurling deeply saturated color into your eyes. When the sunlight is muted, the colors are too, but there is more texture and nuance.
On a later visit, the sun shone through the panel above, darkening the interstitial lines, and deepening the color of the glass.
Whenever I see Brooklyn’s red-brick — and often red-painted — architecture juxtaposed with its glass-enclosed high-rises, I often wonder what Edward Hopper would have made of the scene.
I set off on an epic walk along Broadway, beneath the elevated tracks — the el, as they’re sometimes called — picking up where I’d left off the last time I used the J train at Marcy Ave. After lunch a C train from Broadway Junction would carry me back across the Williamsburg Bridge.
The first restaurant I ran across was De Tandoori Knight. Tandoori is an Indian technique of roasting meat in a tandoor, or cylindrical clay oven.
Not on Broadway, but visible a block away, was Yeshiva HeadStart. Built in 1876, it was the first synagogue built in Brooklyn.
Mexico 2000 is versatile: You can enjoy happy hour, watch sports, bring family members for the kids’ menu, or possibly all three.
Subtle colors and dramatic textures enlivened the walk.
Sheli International Restaurant offers both Dominican and Mexican home cooking. You can browse the menu by looking at the storefront and order by pointing.
When visiting South Williamsburg I was stunned by the beauty of the former Williamsburg Savings Bank building, from the drawing board of George B. Post, who also designed the New York Stock Exchange. Broadway must have been Brooklyn’s banking corridor at one time because it is loaded with historic bank buildings, though most have been adapted for other uses. Lincoln Savings Bank has been developed as a 27-story apartment and office building. Possibly like others on the street, it is not landmarked, but has survived anyway.
La Guira Gran Cafe is a night spot, not opening till 8 p.m. It is described as a sports bar and a “good place to have a beer surrounded by beautiful girls.”
The farther down Broadway I went, the more interesting the street art became. Much of it has been commissioned. This one was funded by the NYC Department of Youth & Community Development as part of an “Art Over Violence” project.
This was the most arresting part of it: “Think positive thoughts. Less hate, more peace. Cut out hate talk.”
An online image search did not turn up the name of the artist. If he would like to step forward and be credited, I would be pleased to update the blog.
This mural is by Kevin Rijo, commissioned by the Groundswell street art project. As it progresses from left to right, it develops from cold blue to warm orange tones and floral motifs.
This building at the corner of Marcus Garvey Boulevard started life in 1926 as HQ for the Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company, once a fixture on the New York banking scene. It is now an opthalmology clinic.
Apparently I missed it in its heyday, when it was called the Fat Albert Warehouse: “name brand fashions at great prices.”
The E Style Restaurant was having its grand opening. Here’s the place to get your poke bowl, burrito, or bubble tea.
J.K. & Sons Deli Restaurant is a longstanding denizen of the street with a diner menu that mixes traditional and updated options. It sits cheek by jowl with the Broadway/Fayette Deli & Grill, which Google describes as a bodega.
This Gotham Health clinic was formerly the Globe Exchange Bank, built in 1917. The architecture firm of Louis Mowbray and Justin Uffinger designed more than 400 banks in the New York area but reached as far afield as Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Alabama.
Catchy name, classy retro neon at Asian Yummy House.
La Taqueria is about to get some new competition!
Rebel Rouser is the local record store. Because what would Brooklyn be without hipsters, and what would hipsters be without vinyl?
Mi Bella Cholulita Deli & Restaurants serves Authentic Mexican Food. A Yelper describes it as “legit, family run, no frills, hole in the wall.” It has a second location a few block north in Bushwick.
High & Dry was located next to Brooklyn Artcave. Maybe you’d like to have some coffee or tea. And then buy some art. Could happen.
Native Restaurant & Lounge offered West African Fusion, a mix of Nigerian and American food — and the well-illustrated online menu made it a major temptation. I would succumb on a later visit.
I nearly put the kibosh on my Buntopian agenda (see below) when I saw Thai Me’s offer of a $12 lunch special with your choice of entree plus soup, salad, or soda. Another candidate for a return visit.
Right next door, Mi Sabor Cafe offered Dominican fare and was the only restaurant in my informal research to have an active X (formerly Twitter) feed.
Nesting under the el at Melrose Street were the Skytown bar, which offered high-end casual food, and Maya’s Snack Bar, a Mexican dessert specialist.
Krazy Pizza & Wings had more swagger than any of the area’s several pizza joints. In the distance, at the three-way intersection of Broadway and Stuyvesant and Vernon avenues, was the former Prudential Savings Bank, which has acquired some spray-painted decor since its birth in 1909.
I’ve been telling the story in a linear and chronological manner — I walk down Broadway, you see what I see. The walk will continue later. But we have arrived at Buntopia. A Facebook friend commented, “I am happier today knowing that there is a store called Buntopia!”
The day was grey but the restaurant’s interior was cheerful, with delicate hanging decor against white walls presiding over golden wood.
The interior was intimate, but not crowded. Bigger than a hole in the wall.
There was even a little neon.
View of my table.
Tempting as the Bunburgers were, I couldn’t pass up the three-roll meal.
Arrive it did and gorgeous it looked. As the waiter was setting down the plate and identifying the rolls, he noticed that the third one was not what I’d ordered. Error rectified, apology tendered, tragedy averted.
What was described as black rice came out slightly purplish in the Samsung A14’s rendering of the color.
My picks, from left to right, were: Spicy tuna roll.
Spicy crab roll.
And salmon cucumber roll.
Tout ensemble.
In the kind of meal that succeeds or fails largely on freshness, the ingredients were indeed fresh and delicious, and I inhaled the stuff, as I often do with sushi, at an unseemly speed.
Totally satisfied with this light but nourishing meal, eaten in calming surroundings, I set off to see the rest of Broadway with my soul at peace. The farther down the street you go, the more local street art you see. This one evoked the EQ controls on a deluxe boombox…
…with the Peace and Love meters rocking into the red. Japanese artist Shiro (@Shiro_one) painted this one for JMZ Walls. See the artist at work, web, and X.
Tulum Mexican Kitchen treated me to two fine murals.
I’d never have seen them if the place had been open.
They are said to extend to the back patio.
Guisa’o is another Dominican restaurant. Older pictures show it with a sidewalk extension but that was gone by the time I got there.
This is the RL Hotel. As you can see, it’s in Brooklyn. It is described online as both a boutique hotel and permanently closed, though the Red Lion website still seems to be taking reservations.
Nearby, more street art, including pieces commissioned by The Artist Collective. At far right, partly blocked by a school bus, is just a little of a piece by Ezra Igor (see art and artist at work). Next to it is a larger piece by graffiti artist and historian Chino BYI. There’s a third piece on a closed storefront across the street and more modest specimens on the elevated train girder. That takes dedication. Just how would you do that?
“Life is sweet,” another mural down the street assured me. I guess the whole thing might be visible from certain apartment windows. Art by the locals, for the locals?
The Living Gallery is described as “a creative platform for local artists and teachers to share their artwork and knowledge.”
Eurekas included a food truck, an event center, and perhaps a flea market.
Brooklyn Paints may be where some local artists are getting their supplies. Its closed storefront celebrated Shirley Chisholm, first black woman elected to Congress. She also made history in 1972 as the first African American to run for a major party’s presidential nomination.
Three works of graffiti, including two barely visible except as home views. The bottom panel is dated 2021 and signed in the upper right corner by two artists. Justin Suarez, a.k.a. @aerosolkingdom, specializes in bird imagery, especially owls. @avisualbliss does more abstract graphics. Foreground by one artist, background by another, and defacement by local vandals. Is this a legit comment on gentrification or just art attacking art?
A new or fashionably renovated building at Kosciuszko Street (pronounced ko-ZHISH-ko, I recall from my distant NJ childhood) features the high-end breakfast restaurant La Cafeteria and the China Garden next door.
El Monumento Restaurant Bar & Lounge has everything from mofongo to stuffed lobster!
MTA workers were swarming over an elevated platform just north of the Halsey Street subway station, struggling (with as little support from the state government as possible) to keep the system in a “state of good repair.”
Elevated tracks under repair, a work in progress. Although the sky had turned from grey to distinctly gloomy, a little blue sky peeped out for the few seconds it took to grab this pic.
Adjacent to that, a distinctive collection of sights: the work-in-progress el, Mickey D’s, woman in burka, and lending gravitas to the corner of Palmetto Street, the former Bushwick Theatre. Built in 1911, it is now the Brooklyn High School for Law and Technology.
Here it is back in the day. The movies on the marquee were released between 1952–66, so the picture is probably from the mid-sixties, when the el was a lot less rusty.
At just that moment, the school discharged its students into the street. This is one of the city’s elite high schools. Only about 20 percent of those who apply are accepted.
Le Fatima Bar & Grill is a place for “Spanish soul food,” according to the owner, but not opposed to pizza.
Los Pinches Tacos was offering three for ten bucks in a convivial outdoor-dining atmosphere. Pinche means kitchen assistant though it also has sexual and other slang meanings.
The el, clothed in fresh corrugated metal, loomed over a brownstone with what may be an ad or some other consciousness-promoting move by Anker, a company that makes portable phone chargers. I found that out by googling Anker. Hours later an Anker ad appeared on my Facebook feed. I have been plagued with Anker ads ever since.
Marthitas Kitchen #2 offers Dominican and American food. The original Marthitas is on New Lots Avenue (an end-of-the-line station name familiar riders on the 3 train) in East New York.
Dramatic elevated-train perspective next to Daniel Temple Church of God, which had recently hosted the ordination of several women, offered a Men’s Celebration Day, and organized a Back to School event that provided 125 book bags and supplies to local kids.
The Cherokee Deli Restaurant loaded the drab street with every color in the rainbow. Lots of breakfast favorites but also Philly cheesesteak and grilled cheese sammiches. Excuse me, for a moment there I became a toddler. Practicing for my old (well, older) age.
While I didn’t go far from Broadway, and therefore missed both Bed-Stuy’s and Bushwick’s slices of brownstone Brooklyn, at least for now, this row of two-story townhouses on Decatur Street was pleasing in both its uniformity of shape and variety of facade colors.
These Z-shaped facades along Rockaway Avenue were also interesting, as they sloped down the hill into Bed-Stuy.
This elegant tumble of bright red featured what may be a blue sun rising.
At the corner of Eastern Parkway, more Brooklyn facades, in their endless variety, along with venerable trees. These cylindrical-faced three-story townhouses look wider than average for the area. Lovely how the cornices follow the shape of the facades.
We are nearing Broadway Junction, the end of the line for several trains, and one of the few stations in the subway system to feature escalators up to the elevated platforms.
The three escalators were being reconstructed — and joined by seven new elevators and a pedestrian bridge.
This is what Broadway Junction looks like. It hosts four subway stations — serving the A, C, L, J, and Z lines — and a Long Island Railroad stop. At a glance you can see how important it is for this transit hub to be safe and accessible for its many riders.
This is what leadership looks like. And if you don’t like politics, even the bipartisan kind, let me remind you that this is the NYC Subway Restaurant Tour. No subway, no tour — and the future of the chronically underfunded subway system is very much a political matter.
The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well at Broadway Junction, in case you need a snack for the long trip home.
The subway entrance has some Art Deco pizzazz.
The final destination of my walk along Brooklyn’s Broadway. It had been a great day of first-taste exploration. The light shining through the swirling stained glass was a good omen for the long local ride home to Upper Manhattan.
Escalators, countdown clocks, New York in motion — I wish all major subway stations were so well equipped.
If all goes well for the MTA and New York City Transit — and as things stand now, things are not going well at all, because the Gridlock Governor is not as good at governing as Amtrak Joe — perhaps someday we’ll have more sweet navy-blue and mustard-yellow seats and fewer breakdowns on 40-year-old rolling stock. I enjoyed the ride home in a classy 21st-century subway car.
Follow-ups:
I returned to Broadway to take advantage of Thai Me’s lunch special. From the outside, it looked like another hole in the wall, but inside, it was deep, spacious, and beautifully appointed.
The service was friendly and the mock duck with ginger, carrot, celery, baby corn, scallion, and brown rice lunch special was just what I needed, nutritionally and emotionally.
On another follow-up I stopped at the Lorimer Street station, with the sun shining through some especially choice stained glass…
…and an unidentifiable mural with feline and fish motifs…
…for my return to Sheli. A smiling employee named the options and I ordered by saying yes or pointing.
I pointed to the red stewed chicken and the rice. And beans? Yes. How about plantains? Sure. How about salad? Perfect. I thought I would never demolish the heaping lunch special but left only a little of the rice.
As satisfying as that was, I still hankered for the more elaborate and distinctive African cuisine of the Native Restaurant, which is more an evening place than a lunch spot — and a beautiful one, as you can see.
It is, however, open for late lunches. Returning at the suggested 2 p.m., I considered how I’d prefer my suya — over rice, or in tacos? With beef or chicken? It was a taste sensation, a beautiful mix of the seasonings in the chicken and the sweetness of the two sauces. I left with that beautiful taste in my mouth.
Previously on the NYC Subway Restaurant Tour:
Part I: Lake House Cafe (Van Cortlandt Park)
Part II: Toshkent (Bath Beach)
Part III: Kashkar (Brighton Beach)
Part IV: One Dine (One World Observatory)
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