Two hundred fifty years since the battle that saved the Revolution, more about it and the events celebrating it in this issue. One heads up before we get going- another deluge came Thursday night and yet again flooded parts of our neighborhood. 3rd Avenue takes it harder than almost anywhere else in the city when the rain comes. Our neighborhood small businesses work hard enough as it is! If you have a favorite spot that looks a little rough this week, this is a good weekend to go spend a few dollars there anyway.

Now Open / Coming Soon — Frenzie opens on Atlantic Avenue; Curated Picks go to Aromi and Cafe Volkan

The Big Story — Battle of Brooklyn 250th commemoration weekend, full schedule for both days

Things to Do — Michael Che, a comedy dating show, and free animal art at Powerhouse Arts…

The Local — Littlefield's founders wanted one giant venue. Zoning said no and something else entirely developed.

Development Watch — the Smith Street Rite Aid tower, 579 Sackett Street, and Tankhouse's Boerum Hill church purchase

Quick Hits — year-round outdoor dining is now law, and a 500th whale has been logged in New York Harbor

Confidant's Late-Night Sequel Is Finally Open
Frenzie
129 Atlantic Avenue
Brendan Kelley and Daniel Grossman, the chefs behind Confidant next door, had planned to use this adjoining storefront for a daytime café. Then they noticed how many Confidant customers were still ordering past 9pm and built Frenzie around that instead. Expect 14-inch sourdough pizzas made with a custom Brooklyn Granary flour blend, served until midnight on weekdays and 2am on weekends, alongside natural wine and a short cocktail list. They make 16 tiramisus a night, first come first served.

Bergen Street's Best-Kept Secret Isn't So Secret Anymore
Cafe Volkan
85 Bergen Street
Some mornings a line spills out onto Bergen Street from Cafe Volkan. The Turkish coffee comes thick and unhurried, from someone who clearly cares more about what's in the cup than the seating situation. Devocion beans, a chalkboard menu that barely changes, regulars who order without looking up. Open early, closed by 5pm, the kind of place that rewards showing up before the neighborhood's fully awake.

Wood-Fired Pizza With a Backyard Worth Lingering In
Aromi
552 Court Street
The dough gets its char from a proper wood oven, the pasta's clearly made in-house, and the backyard, string lights, mismatched chairs, and plants along the fence feel more like a friend's yard than a restaurant patio. Named for the owners' grandparents' gardens back in Italy, dinner i served nightly, lunch also on weekends.

For more suggestions on where to eat, drink, and play, check out our Gowanus Guide.

This is the fifth and final installment of our summer series on the Battle of Brooklyn's 250th anniversary. Part One covered how this area went from Dutch farmland to battlefield. Part Two told the story of the battle itself. Part Three covered Washington's escape across the East River under cover of fog. Part Four covered the seven-year occupation that followed. This is what the neighborhood does with all of that, 250 years later.

Two hundred fifty years ago this week, the largest battle of the Revolutionary War was fought across ground now covered by Prospect Park, Green-Wood Cemetery, Gowanus, and the blocks around Third Avenue. Most of the roughly 2,000 American casualties came from a single desperate maneuver: the Maryland 400, a regiment that held off British forces long enough for George Washington's army to escape across the marshland that would eventually become the Gowanus Canal. Most of them died doing it.

If you just moved here, maybe into one of the new buildings going up along the canal or off Third Avenue, here's something worth knowing-you're not just living in a beautiful new building. You're living on a battlefield. The ground under your building is the same ground where a few hundred soldiers held their line long enough for Washington's army to get away, most of them not making it out themselves. That was true before any of us got here, and it'll stay true after whatever's under construction on your block gets finished. If you want to walk the actual ground, we mapped the whole battle, stop by stop.

This weekend:
Battle Reenactment at Prospect Park Long Meadow
Enter near 9th St & Prospect Park West
Saturday, August 22 · 10am
Roughly where some of the heaviest fighting actually happened.

Maryland 400 Remembrance Ceremony at Old Stone House
336 3rd Street
Saturday, August 22 · 12–2pm
Living history program alongside the ceremony, the closest thing Brooklyn has to a memorial service for the men who bought Washington his escape.

The Meaning of Freedom at Green-Wood Cemetery
500 25th Street
Sunday, August 23 · 10am–1pm
Organizers are calling it their biggest commemoration yet.

Ben Palmer at Bell House
149 7th Street
Saturday, August 22 · 7:30pm
Palmer built an audience on short clips and had to prove it translates to a full room. It does. Bring the friend who keeps sending you his videos.

Michael Che at Bell House
149 7th Street
Saturday, August 22 · 10pm
The SNL Weekend Update co-anchor, doing a late set in a room a fraction the size of his usual crowd. These pop ups tend to sell out fast once word gets around.

Do You Still Like Me? at Littlefield
635 Sackett Street
Saturday, August 22 · 7:30pm · $20
A comedy dating show where the premise does most of the work: real daters, a live audience, and a format simple enough that you'll know by the first round who you're rooting for.

Ron Like Hell at Public Records
233 Butler Street
Sunday, August 23
Sound Room programming, the low-key Sunday version, for people who want a good set without staying out past midnight on a school night.

Deluge at Powerhouse Arts
322 3rd Avenue
Saturday, August 22 · Free
A free, day-long gathering, part festival, part symposium, tied to the Ark exhibition: artists, scientists, farmers, and neighbors all talking about what animals might teach us about surviving a lot of change at once.

The Moth StorySLAM at Bell House
149 7th Street
Wednesday, August 26 · 7:30pm
Ten-minute true stories, no notes allowed, told by whoever's brave enough to put their name in the hat. New theme each time, and you never know who's going to get called up.

PUNDERDOME at Littlefield
635 Sackett Street
Wednesday, August 26 · 8pm
A live pun competition that's exactly as chaotic as it sounds, contestants battling it out in front of a crowd that groans on command. Somehow this has been running for over a decade.

Common Honors Harry Belafonte at BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn
Lena Horne Bandshell, Prospect Park
Friday, August 28 · 6pm · Free
Common headlines a night built around Harry Belafonte's social justice legacy. Free, first come first served, the kind of show that fills the Long Meadow entrance well before doors.

The Ark at Powerhouse Arts
322 3rd Avenue
Through August 30
Powerhouse Arts just launched its first major public exhibition. The Ark brings together 90 animal sculptures and installations by Kiki Smith, Maurizio Cattelan, Wangechi Mutu, and dozens of others, curated by Eric Fischl. The canal context makes it land differently here. A serious show in a neighborhood that's earned it.

Parklife
636 Degraw Street

When Littlefield's owners wanted to expand, the original plan was one giant venue. Zoning laws said no, so they split it in two instead: the concert hall around the corner on Sackett Street, and on Degraw, a 4,000-square-foot yard they turned into a bar. They named it Parklife, after the Blur song, a nod to Littlefield's own Depeche Mode reference next door.

What started in 2017 as a taco stand out of a modified shipping container, run by Prospect Heights import El Atoradero, has since become its own thing. Chef Scott Koshnoodi runs the kitchen now, building a menu that pulls from Mexico, Texas, and Iran in equal measure, tacos built on his own family's history: his grandfather's military rank forced them out of Iran during the revolution, and that heritage shows up on the plate next to a taco that wouldn't look out of place in Oaxaca.

The yard itself, heated solariums, an open kitchen, games scattered across the grass, still reads as the neighborhood's unofficial backyard, the place people end up after a Littlefield show even when they never planned to.

Rite Aid-Replacing Tower Coming to Smith and President
A developer has purchased the entire block front on the west side of Smith Street between Union and President Streets in Carroll Gardens for $21.5 million. The site is currently anchored by a Rite Aid, directly across from Carroll Park and steps from the F/G stop. No architect or unit count announced yet, but a block-length purchase at that price signals a tower, not a renovation.

579 Sackett Street Moves Into Retail Buildout
The BlueSky Developers project on the corner of Sackett Street and 3rd Avenue topped out in March and the exterior is now essentially complete. Crews are working on roughly 3,300 square feet of ground-floor retail, with delivery targeted for year-end.

Tankhouse Buying the Boerum Hill Church
Brooklyn developer Tankhouse has entered a contract to purchase a Romanesque Revival church at Schermerhorn Street and 3rd Avenue for $28.25 million. The fire-damaged structure has stood since the late 1800s and is slated for demolition. Tankhouse is also behind Anagram Gowanus, the residential building a few blocks away at 450 Union Street.

NYC restaurants can now keep outdoor dining up year-round. The City Council passed legislation this month letting sidewalk cafés install winter coverings and letting roadway dining operate all twelve months instead of shutting down every December. Applications for the year-round roadway license open in September: $3,500 for four years, plus a footage fee. Worth watching which Third Avenue and Court Street spots take advantage first.

There's a 500th whale in New York Harbor. Gotham Whale logged its 500th documented humpback in local waters this month, this one near the Brooklyn Bridge. Before 2018, watchers counted 10 to 30 sightings a year; lately it's closer to 100, as warming water up north pushes the whales further south. Whatever you think of the Gowanus Canal, the harbor it empties into has whales in it now.

Two hundred fifty years ago, Washington's army escaped across this marsh in the dead of night. This week, the biggest emergency around here is a flood watch and a sold-out Michael Che show. We'll take it.

If something's happening out there, we want to know about it. Email, photo, neighborhood gossip — we'll take it.
[email protected].

Exploring Gowanus · Every Saturday