10 more ways to get Hooked

EATING AND DRINKING

O Pioneer
All those locals packing the sprawling outdoor patio at Brooklyn restaurateur Alan Harding’s Pioneer Bar-B-Q might be craving home-smoked brisket or pulled pork on a bun, but the food isn’t the only attraction. It’s a lively spot—complete with a horseshoe pit and a sprawling outdoor patio—for kicking back with friends, and local throngs can be found sipping beers or whiskeys handpicked by the neighborhood’s liquor goddess, LeNell Smothers. If it’s raining, come on a Tuesday when board games offer a reprieve.
318 Van Brunt St at Pioneer St (718-701-2189)

Taco belle
With its bleak peach-colored walls, dangling crepe-paper decorations and 10pm closing time, El Huipil isn’t exactly a Hook hot spot. But this friendly dive does a fine job of churning out the authentic spicy goods. Delicate tacos dorados, rolled flauta style, come stuffed with seasoned chicken or potatoes and Mexican sausage. A chicken leg with meat falling off the bone is bathed in a sesame-seed-flecked, chocolatey mole sauce. Reach for a warm tortilla to sop up the goodness.
116A Sullivan St between Conover and Van Brunt Sts (718-855-4548)

SHOPPING

History channels
Clustered around the corner of Columbia and Union Streets is a knot of retro boutiques. The most fashioncentric of the bunch, Bopkat Vintage (117 Union St between Columbia and Van Brunt Sts, 718-222-1820), specializes in men’s and women’s clothing from the ’50s and ’60s, and also carries a stash of reupholstered sofas, chairs and tabletop goods from that era. Midcentury-focused antique shops General Nitemare (196 Columbia St between DeGraw and Sackett Sts, 718-858-8659) and Stilo (104 Union St between Columbia and Van Brunt Sts, 718-522-7146) are gold mines for those looking for a furniture-makeover project. Nearby shop Union Max (110 Union St at Columbia St, 718-222-1785) peddles beading supplies in addition to vintage bric-a-brac, glassware and garb, while Main Street Ephemera (205 Columbia St at Sackett St, 718-858-6541) is a dusty trove of aged movie posters, pulp novels, magazines and prints.

DOING GOOD IN THE ’HOOD

Farm aid
It’s usually easier to determine the origins of your footwear than to find out where restaurants get their vegetables. But if you order a salad at 360 or Good Fork, you’re probably going to get greens grown just down the street, at the Red Hook Community Farm. Now entering its third year, this chunk of sustainable urban agriculture sits on the Todd Memorial Ballfield, which long ago housed baseball and football fields (in the winter it was flooded to make an ice-skating rink). Started by the organization Added Value in conjunction with the Parks department, the RHCF grows roughly 50 vegetables and herbs. Where does the farm get the rich soil for its greenhouse and plant beds? “Most of it comes from composted manure from the Bronx Zoo and leaves collected and shredded by the Department of Sanitation,” says Ian Marvy, one of Added Value’s cofounders. A farmers’ market will open on July 8, but the nonprofit does more than provide much-needed fresh produce to an underserved neighborhood. The group is also planting the seeds for future community-improvement projects by training local youth how to farm and how to communicate the importance of their work (among other things, they put out a newsletter). “We’re not trying to grow farmers,” Marvy says. “We’re trying to grow teenagers who have transferable skills.”
Red Hook Community Farm, Columbia St between Beard and Sigourney Sts (718-855-5531, added-value.org)

Building bridges
The past two Christmases, a crew of elves delivered cookies to harbor tugboat workers. This cheery operation was launched by PortSide New York, founded by longtime local Carolina Salguero, who hopes to bring together Red Hook’s landbound and maritime communities. The new nonprofit’s website has a neighborhood events calendar, a shopping guide and a cruise-ship schedule, and the group is buying a 170-foot fuel tanker, the Mary Whalen, which will dock at the end of Columbia Street. The ship will house PortSide’s offices within a few months and, by next summer, will feature a museum with exhibits on contemporary maritime practices, art and policy.
portsidenewyork.org

Web Hook
Shortly after Steve McFarland moved to Red Hook from Madison, Wisconsin, he found himself riding the B61 bus a lot, particularly to Williamsburg, where he was showing his short comedy films, which he describes as “very amateurish stuff.” McFarland knew he wanted to do something with the bus’s name, so he bought the URL B61productions.com. Before long, he’d launched his website, which covers news and events in Red Hook. McFarland, who has a degree in journalism, envisioned a site where he’d cover his new stomping grounds like a beat reporter. “It was a full-time thing for a while—15 hours a day, seven days a week,” he says. “At the end of three months, I had no money and no energy left.” McFarland couldn’t find sponsors because, as he says with a sigh, “Having a publication that focuses on a community with such a low median income isn’t exactly a successful business plan.” He has downsized his online obsession a bit since taking a day job (tech support in the finance industry), but it’s still a great resource. Where else will you find a notice that Fairway is accepting job applications, juxtaposed with an item on organizations coordinating their efforts to save the ship-graving dock—plus links to neighbors’ blogs and local public officials’ offices? Despite his ambitions for the site, McFarland, 30, has a humble perspective: “I’ve lived in Red Hook four years, and other people have lived their whole lives here, raised their kids here—and it’s been pretty rough. So I’ve been painfully aware that I’m a newcomer and that I don’t know what it’s like to have lived in Red Hook through the ’90s. I’ve been reminded of that a few times, by people who are fans. It’s been constructive; there are difficult lessons to learn.”
B61productions.com

ATTRACTIONS AND LOCAL COLOR

Green Hook
Sitting in the shadow of a disused grain elevator, Red Hook Park is one of the city’s largest verdant expanses and the hub of the ’hood’s athletic activity. In addition to cricket fields and a baseball diamond, the park is home to a frequently crowded soccer field popular with competitive international footballers.
Entrance at Bay St between Clinton and Columbia Sts (718-722-3211, nycgovparks.org)

The dish on the dish
You can certainly be forgiven if, while walking down Red Hook’s main drag, you suddenly think you’ve stumbled upon the Arecibo radio telescope. But the huge satellite dish on Van Brunt Street isn’t searching for extraterrestrials; it belongs to Time Warner Cable. According to spokesperson Harriet Novet, the instrument is a “backup hub site for local distribution of services to Brooklyn residents.” If that sounds a bit vague, well, TW was reluctant to get into specifics for security reasons. One might surmise, however, that the company is less worried about acts of terrorism than they are about angry customers avenging their onerous cable bills.

House arresting
Appearing to ignore the bustling new Fairway just across the street, a fiberglass fish head pokes out from the side of Ralph Balzano’s tar-paper-encrusted car shop, and seems to gaze toward the Erie Basin. Located at 26 Reed Street, the old two-story building would look haunted if it weren’t for its heavy nautical vibe. Balzano (whose brother is the local bar owner Sunny) has affixed an anchor, life preservers and other seacraft accessories to the building’s facade. “Boating, fishing—these things bring back memories,” the Red Hook native says. He recently added a plastic-and-plywood sculpture of the Twin Towers to the decor. A peek inside reveals a treasure trove of flashbacks, complete with a James Dean poster and a ’60 Camino.

Coffey grinders
Dance is alive this summer at Red Hook’s Coffey Park: On June 10, ASE Dance Theatre Collective and Tania Isaac Dance perform as part of Dancing in City Parks, followed by the age- and gravity-defying ladies of Double Dutch Divas on August 8. Children frolic in the renovated playground, but more-vigorous pursuits are welcome in the handball and basketball courts and on the paved baseball diamond.
From Dwight St to Richard St between King and Verona Sts. For info on Dancing in City Parks, call 212-625-3505 or go to dancinginthestreets.org.

Reported by Alia Akkam, Dan Avery, Gabriel Cohen, Howard Halle, Michael Miller and Jules Verdone.