Photo Wednesday 02/24/10 : Burger & Shaun White-less Edition

To paraphrase Bizarro,"the internet am so funny!" I'm talking about what I assume is a surge in Olympics inspired internet searches, that can be the only reason why this photo I took last spring:

suddenly received a burst of new views last week, after laying around for months unnoticed.

Despite the title, "Park Delicatessen 2009 edition - Shaun White stunt double" the young man featured in the photo is of course, not Shaun White. Although I didn't ask him... and anyway that didn't stop many web searchers from sniffing it out.

Which leads me to my next and more current photo. Whereas this pic shows off Park Delicatessen (featured in this blog last spring) which is run by very cool people with a just as cool mix of Skate gear and home gardening wares. As a new biz in the Prospect becomes Crown Heights neighborhood I thought Park Delicatessen so cool I felt inspired to write about my long history with an earlier incarnation of the store and locale, and I summarized by saying despite my issues with the dreaded beast, gentrification, Park Delicatessen is the kind of gentrification I can believe in. I'm always down for new people with good ideas in under utilized spaces.

Along those lines I was all ready to add this newcomer to that list:


Dutch Boy Burgers, which takes it's name from the fact that it was once housed a Dutch Boy franchise paint store. In fact when the current renovations to the space revealed that the very cool and original Dutch Boy Paint sign was still present under a newer sign, the finding garnered excited blogger responses about the significance and rarity of the sign so much that you'd a thought Noah's ark had been found sitting pristine on Franklin Av near the corner of St. Johns where Dutch Boy is located. And for those in the know it's said to soon be connected to Franklin Park the bar around the corner.

For the record, that Dutch Boy Sign was a beauty,(great pics on I Love Franklin Ave's Blog) and did date back to at least the 1940's but... it was visible in the 'hood for years, at least into the early 80's if not later. A fact many excited newcomers would have known if they weren't...well, so new.

Anyway despite that intro, and the uber original naming scheme (fine why not) I've been waiting for the burger joint to open because I love burgers and frankly, Franklin Ave has a lot of useful spaces and not a enough useful businesses (although there are these good folks) and let me say for the record, Franklin Ave which was rough edged in a bad way when my parents were young, has been blossoming but could still use a little more gentry in my mind.

However lo and behold, before I could continue my bourgeois burger dream (with Root Beer Floats! no less) I couldn't help but notice this notice:

Considering the stop work order extends to, "the ENTIRE site" Dayum! It seems Dutch Boy Burgers is gonna need more time in the pan before we can dig in. Well I'll think happy thoughts or keep hope alive or whatever cliché will get this place open faster, cause Brooklyn, she needs good burgers.