Street Fair in Park Slope and Great Pizza.

Another beautiful day in Brooklyn. On Saturday I met my friend Stu Shapiro and his son Adam at the Seventh Avenue Street Festival in Park Slope. They drove. I biked. I arrived at 2nd Street and the joint was jumping. I was hoping to find the Brooklyn Parents For Peace table but never did. I thought I would hang out there, perhaps volunteer some time and maybe get some volunteers for the Barbaro campaign.

Instead, I ran into my new found friends from the campaign: Liz, Mike and Ray...just by coincidence in the midst of what seemed like a million people strolling through the fair ... there they were. "Did you see the peace table," I inquired. Yes, but it was at 15th Street, a mile down the avenue ... so that ended that. Too many people to make my way through. So I said goodbye to them, they headed south and Stu, Adam and I made our way up to the north end of the festival.

These street fairs have become ubiquitous, boring and bland. Just as each shopping mall seems like evey other one, so have street fairs begun to suffer from an "identical crisis." Same corn on the cob (which I quickly purchased - not that ubiquitous), same sausage and pepper stands, same sock and Gap t-shirt sales, same, same, same. I have to admit that the Park Slope affair was a little less identical, with some decent amount of interesting craftware and such, but only a little less so. But people seem to enjoy strolling through these things anyway and there were certainly a lot of people.

I left Seventh Avenue after about an hour and headed back home again ... just 7 miles away if you're a crow and flying down Coney Island Avenue. But I usually take the much-less trafficked (and parallel) Rugby Road which becomes East 14th Street. This takes you through the fabulous Victorian section of Prospect Park South with its very British street names: Westminister Road, Argyle Road, Rugby Road and Marlborough Road. One of the most beautiful residential sections of Brooklyn, its tree-lined streets are lined with fabulous, old Victorian houses. After a period of flux and downsliding, the neighborhood is now, it seems, on a very strong upswing with a lot of new, young families moving in and renovating these magnificent houses once again. I hope to include some photos of these houses in a future BLOG. Interestingly, Albemarle Road's magnificent mansions, once home to many doctors and other professionals, were regularly pictured on early 20th century postcards as representations of wonderful it is to live in the "suburbs."

I had eaten a bit at the street fair but just a bit. As I've said, my route was straight down Rugby/East 14th Street. Approaching Avenue J, I seem to always have a silent debate with myself:

"Pizza or straight home? Well, you've taken off so many calories today; 7 miles up, 7 miles down; you certainly can afford one little slice of New York's greatest pizza. In fact you biked so hard, you deserve it!"

Some debate!

The argument (with myself) was whether to stop at Di Fara's Pizzeria or to just continue on home. This little joint on the corner of J and East 15th Street has repeatedly garnered great reviews. In last week's Village Voice they scored again. In their review of The Best 100 Italian Restaurants in NYC,it placed 13th!

The owner, Domenico DeMarco, is originally from Naples. His picture was on the front of the Voice and that boosted business significantly, he told me when I stopped there on Saturday. Not like he needed the business. This guy works seven days a week and as many times as I've stopped there is as many times that I've had to wait in line -- a long line. He never stops moving; never stops making pies; never stops serving the slices. The cheese is Buffalo Mozzarella, imported from Italy. The crust is thin. The sauce, homemade. Perfetto!


My bike route from downtown to home takes me right past the best slice in town. Well, almost right past.


Di Fara's -- you'd never guess from the look of it that this is one of New York's greatest slices. (That's my bike leaning against the building).


A slice is nice.


Domenico DeMarco, pizza-maestro at Di Fara's.

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The two new bachelors (Stu and I) decided we would have dinner at Bob's new restaurant. So he called for me in his new Infiniti and we drove to Soho and Gulf Coast Cafe.

It's Monday night and so we didn't expect crowds to be knocking the doors down at 9 o'clock and we were right. It wasn't empty. But it wasn't full either. The food was good once again ... but this is not an easy town to open a restaurant in. It takes time, perserverence, lots of money and it certainly doesn't help to know some important critics.

Cary Hoffman joined us around 10 and then we took a stroll up Prince Street in the lovely summer nighttime air. And then home. Tomorrow, I'm visitng Dani in Connecticut. Buona notte.


Stu -- at the Gulf Coast Cafe, opening night.


Cary at Gulf Coast. Don't ask why he's pointing.