Lawn Ornaments

Per Kensington: Brooklyn Contains Multitudes

Kensington is a strange entity, where tree-lined streets abut ragged stretches of laundromats, car washes, and garages—blight and charm intertwined. There’s a heady ethnic mix, too; the neighborhood is a series of distinct districts that have their own culture ecosystems. Is all of this a key to why the neighborhoods of Brooklyn are so evocative?

In the "olde English" section of Kensington, with its quiet, residential streets named in an iconic English way (Westminster, Argyle, Stratford, etc.), the houses are old and charming. It doesn’t even look like Brooklyn. But that would be a contradiction for Brooklyn contains multitudes.

Kensington Daze

Denny’s Steak Pub—A complimentary weekday buffet (where else do you find that?), sausage and peppers, with an alluring snack mix at the bar: Cheetos, pretzels and barbequed Fritos. It’s an accommodating place . . . Lotto, horse racing feed . . . A New York Post on the bar: “MISERY: Coroner Reveals Anna Nicole’s Descent into Hell” . . . lachrymose Dire Straits’ songs, one after another . . . nicest day of the year so far, 78 degrees--perfect. [Church Ave. & McDonald Ave., 3/27/07 (Tuesday) at 2:18 pm] . . . Club 773—Oprah blaring on TV . . . trompe l’oeil pics of Elvis and John Wayne . . . an impressive selection of darts accessories for sale, in glass display cases . . . More lottery action, horse racing video, an Instant Lotto vending machine—the Brooklyn version of a gambling bar . . . Ahh, the languor of weekday drinking . . . the sun through the open door reflects off the video poker machine . . . no one here under 60 or 70 [Coney Island Ave. & Cortelyou Rd. at 4:05 pm.] . . . Coney Island Avenue @ Cortelyou to Avenue I—a crazy ethnic mélange: Russian, Polish, Pakistani, Muslim, Christian, Hasidic . . . my love of Brooklyn sometimes makes me tear (5:09 pm) . . . Nitecaps bar--Some bearded dirtbag laughs at an electrocution death reported on the local news, mocking the other miseries dribbling from bland anchors’ tongues—a coarse but understandable response to media abstraction . . . Spring means DrunkWalks . . . McDonald Ave., beneath the F line: Royal Marble, Family Dollar.