Comments

  • The article is really more about the practice of Fair Trade than how one coffee shop transformed Ditmas Park, but I get your point. But I’d be careful about how much you read into stories like this. Could be the writer just bought a 2br co op around the corner a few months ago. To say ‘everyone wants to be in Ditmas Park’ is a bit of a reach.

    I did some table napkin math a few months ago on this very idea - opening up a coffee house where Ralph’s Italian Ices went out of business (there’s a kind of cool clothing store ‘Body and Soul’ there now). I couldn’t get the numbers to work. You’d have to sell hundreds of cups of coffee per day. I don’t know how Vox Pop or anyone else does it.

    But there’s definitely a market for it. Went to Natural again last night at 9:30pm and again there was a long line of Vox Pop-like clientele buying their organic canola mayonaise.

    Posted by Forest Hills 72
    on April 25th, 2007 at 6:02 am

  • Yeah, perhaps I shouldn’t have used the word “about,” but I don’t really care about Fair Trade coffee, so I naturally zoomed in on the Ditmas Park element.

    I don’t know if this article came about because of a writer’s agenda. It’s not the first I’ve heard of Ditmas Park heating up, just the first time I’ve seen the coffeehouse angle.

    The way anyone else does it is they lose tons and tons of money right off the bat in the hope that they’ll be able to grow their business and make it back later, which they rarely do. I feel like I read something about this a couple of years ago, though I’d be hard-pressed to find it now. Too bad you didn’t feel like risking your life savings on this — Ralph’s would’ve been a great location. And speaking of which: Now that the weather has improved, I miss Ralph’s more than ever. So much better than Uncle Louie G’s.

    Posted by Steve
    on April 25th, 2007 at 6:25 am

  • I think you should go out to Ditmas Park and take a look for yourself. It is nothing to cheer about. There are a lot of hokey Victorian houses but they are surrounded by used car lots and pretty bad bodegas. Its like taking FHG and putting it between Hillside Avenue and Jamaica Avenue. Not good. The fact that a hip cafe opened doesn’t do anyone any good. Ditmas Park has nothing over Forest Hills. The commute from Ditmas Park is 30-40 minutes if you’re working on Wall Street. Otherwise, if you’re going into midtown, you’re clocking an hour. Rest assured friends, FH is really a gem.

    Posted by Dudley
    on April 25th, 2007 at 8:27 am

  • Well, that’s why I live here, I guess. But I still think we could use a cafe. And oh, rest assured I will eventually investigate Ditmas Park’s lameness myself.

    Posted by Steve
    on April 25th, 2007 at 8:50 am

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Lessons of Ditmas Park

Posted by Steve on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007

Fascinating article in The New York Times yesterday about how just one small business is transforming Ditmas Park, Brooklyn.

I’ve never been to Ditmas Park, but what little I’ve heard about it in the past amounts to this: It’s a cheaper alternative to Park Slope, and there ain’t nothing there. In some ways, it seems not dissimilar to Forest Hills or Kew Gardens — nice, safe, good schools, grand old houses. According to a laughably outdated 2001 article in New York magazine ($675,000 for a nine-bedroom house? Hilarous!), Midtown is “[30] to 40 minutes” away on the Q train, so Ditmas residents certainly can’t lob accusations of being far from the city at us here in Central Queens. And it sounds like we’ve got them whipped in terms of retail and services.

So what’s so great about Ditmas Park? You guessed it: They’ve got a hipster coffee shop. One that’s hipper than most, no less — Vox Pop hawks only “fair trade” coffee, sells books, and hosts bands and, yes, knitting classes. For God’s sake, Jonathan Coulton is a regular customer. Its founder is 36, a New School grad and a former union organizer. This place is very, very serious about its hipster cred.

In Forest Hills, a real-estate agent might tell you an apartment is two blocks from the subway or one block from Austin Street. In Ditmas Park, you hear, “One block from Vox Pop!”

And now, suddenly, everybody wants to be in Ditmas Park. One cool establishment is all it takes. There is absolutely no reason why this couldn’t happen to any Central Queens neighborhood, as long as somebody dedicated came along and poured his or her love of the area and dedication into building a business and a community. With cheaper rents and a reputation as, well, Ditmas Park to Forest Hills’ Park Slope, Rego Park is a great candidate for a movement like this. It doesn’t even have to be hip, per se. Nobody expects Forest Hills to be Williamsburg. That’s why I love places like db Wine Bar, run by a guy who just wanted to bring a quality dining scene to his hometown. But a hangout can do a lot more than a moderate-to-expensive restaurant. Fair-trade coffee is probably pretty expensive, but it’s not a $12 cheese plate, either. Munch down on Yellowstone has the right idea, too, but they’re not centrally located enough — during my real-estate search, I rejected a great apartment in the same building due to distance from the subway.

This is why I get so excited with every new vacancy and every coming business. Really, we’re only one Vox Pop away from having this kind of NYT coverage. It’s so close, yet so far.