Saturday mornings are the best part of our week, because we get to hand you a pile of reasons to get out in the neighborhood. Thank you for spending part of your Saturday with us.

Now Open / Coming Soon — Nako opens on Smith Street, hot chocolate season starts on Court Street, and Montreal smoked meat has a home on Hoyt Street.

The Big Story — Two filmmakers spent ten years pointing a camera at the canal, and the film returns Tuesday.

Things to Do — Stéphane Wrembel at Barbès, Sean Patton at Union Hall, the Nevins Landing block party, Love Isn’t Blind, and more.

The Local — Bar Great Harry has poured rotating taps on Smith Street since 2007.

Development Watch — Solace opens for leasing at 85 4th Avenue, and foundations go in at the biggest building in Gowanus.

Quick Hits — A free indoor air testing meeting at PS 372 on Tuesday.

Smith Street Gets Its Cardamom Latte
Nako
385 Smith Street
Now Open
Nako opened Wednesday in the former DAE space on the corner of Smith and 3rd Streets, its second shop after the original in Brooklyn Heights. That one pours a rotating lineup of coffees from small roasters, along with a signature latte made with cardamom and a milk blend. It also sells pastries, including a black sesame one, and bags of beans from the roasters it rotates through.

Hot Chocolate Season Has Started on Court Street
The Chocolate Room
269 Court Street
Curated Pick and Coming Soon?
Jon Payson and Naomi Josepher opened the first Chocolate Room in Park Slope in January 2005 and added this Court Street cafe three years later, and a new location is on the way. Their three-layer chocolate cake landed on Oprah’s Favorite Things list in 2007, and it is still on the menu. With the weather turning, the hot chocolate is the one to order, in classic, dark, and spiced versions, and the cafe stays open until 10 every night.

Montreal Has Had a Corner of Hoyt Street Since 2010
Mile End Deli
97A Hoyt Street
Curated Pick
Mile End opened on Hoyt Street in 2010 and takes its name from the Montreal neighborhood where Eastern European Jewish immigrants settled in the early 1900s. Co-founder Joel Tietolman grew up in Montreal and still leads the team. The menu runs from smoked meat sandwiches and homemade hot dogs with kraut to poutine, whitefish salad, and matzo ball soup. It’s open daily until 9, starting at 8 AM on weekdays and 9 on weekends.

In 2013, a red brick building came down at the end of Jamie Courville’s block, and she realized she couldn’t picture what had stood there. Memory can be short, she says. So she and her husband, Chris Reynolds, grabbed their cameras and went out to shoot a little.

A little became ten years and about 450 hours of footage. They kept returning to the same places, mainly the Carroll Street and Union Street bridges, until the skyline in the frame looked nothing like the one they started with.

The finished film, Gowanus Current, runs 86 minutes with no narration and no interviews. Courville says they dropped the interviews early on, and her reason is simple. “I think to capture the nuance and complicated nature of what happened here, the better approach was to show and not tell.” They shared no footage while shooting, and Courville, who edited, didn’t start until the shooting was done, so screening it for the people in it was terrifying. Most importantly, she wanted them to feel it was honest and fair.

Most of what we cover in The Gowanaut is new. This film is the other record, the one that remembers what was standing in our neighborhood before, the question Courville couldn’t answer when that brick building came down. She would like viewers to notice the feeling of the place in the film. Afterward, she suggests stepping back and considering what was gained and lost here.

It screens Tuesday at 7:30 PM at Cobble Hill Cinemas, 265 Court Street, with a Q&A after the film.

The Current’s 15th Birthday Show at Littlefield
635 Sackett Street
Sat Nov 14 · Doors 1:30pm, show 2pm · 21+
The Current marks 15 years of a cappella with an afternoon show, an early hour for a room that mostly keeps night hours. It runs about two hours, so the evening stays yours.

DURATIONS: JJJJJerome Ellis, Fred Moten & Brandon Lopez at Public Records
233 Butler Street
Sat Nov 14 · 7pm · 21+
This is the second-to-last night of the festival’s fifth edition. Fred Moten brings voice and text to Brandon Lopez’s bass, a pairing that has been playing together since 2018, and Ellis, an artist who makes music and writes about stuttering, shares the bill. Two people who have had years to get comfortable with each other make a good reason to show up on time.

UNSCRIPTED SOUNDSCAPES at iBeam
168 7th Street
Sat Nov 14 · 7pm to 10pm
Three trios of improvising musicians play at 7, 8 and 9, and the 9 PM set puts Elliott Sharp on guitar with Ayumi Ishito on sax and electronics and Ken Kobayashi on drums. You can drop in for one set or stay for all three.

LPR Presents Holly Miranda & Melissa Ferrick at Littlefield
635 Sackett Street
Sat Nov 14 · Doors 7pm, show 7:30pm · 21+
The night celebrates Melissa Ferrick, a songwriter with 18 albums across 30 years, with Holly Miranda on the bill. That much catalog leaves room for the deep cuts.

The Lauren & Mary Show at The Bell House
149 7th Street
Sat Nov 14 · 7:30pm
Lauren Lapkus and Mary Holland do an evening of improv as part of the final weekend of the New York Comedy Festival. Improv only exists once, so being in the room is the whole point.

River of Fundament With Matthew Barney and Jonathan Bepler at Public Records
233 Butler Street
Sun Nov 15 · 2pm
New People’s Cinema Club and Unsound New York present the artist and the composer behind the film in conversation with Andy Battaglia.

Go Fact Yourself LIVE at Littlefield
635 Sackett Street
Sun Nov 15 · Doors 1pm, show 2pm · 18+
Kate Micucci and Dean Norris host a live version of the show that quizzes smart celebrities and asks why they love what they love. It’s an afternoon of trivia and fandom, and one of the few shows this weekend open to 18+.

Kara-Lis Coverdale, Molina and Pavel Milyakov at Public Records
233 Butler Street
Sun Nov 15 · 6pm · 21+
This is one of the last events of DURATIONS, in the Sound Room with Kara-Lis Coverdale at the top of the bill.

Stéphane Wrembel at Barbès
376 9th Street
Sun Nov 15 · 8pm
Wrembel’s Sunday residency at Barbès has run for roughly two decades, which makes it older than most of the businesses nearby. Django-style guitar is the perfect show to see if you haven’t yet been to Barbes.

Improv But Good at The Bell House
149 7th Street
Mon Nov 16 · Doors 6pm, show 7pm
Hosts Haley Stiel and Veronika Slowikowska run a show that is part improv, part musical comedy and sometimes both at once, with a rotating group of guests. The format keeps shifting mid-show, which makes it a decent test of whether your Monday has any surprises left.

Sean Patton: Eros at Union Hall
702 Union Street
Mon Nov 16 · Show 7:30pm
Patton, a New Orleans-born comic whose first hour special premiered on Peacock in 2022, brings a one-person show about fighting your own emotions every day for your whole life. It’s one night only, which is a decent argument for a Monday.

ALFA Night With Yonglin at Public Records
233 Butler Street
Wed Nov 18 · Doors 7pm · 21+
A Wednesday night in the Upstairs room with Yonglin, running until about 11. Entry is first come, first served, so arrive early.

Block Party at Nevins Landing
Along the canal between Union Street and Carroll Street
Thu Nov 19 · 4pm to 7pm
The new waterfront park opens with local pop-ups, music, games, and public art, including works by Jen Lewin and Tom Fruin. It’s a three-hour window, enough to wander through and still make dinner.

Love Isn’t Blind at Littlefield
635 Sackett Street
Fri Nov 20 · Doors 7pm, show 8pm
Four men compete for one bachelorette, and none of them is allowed to speak. Host and creator Allison Goldberg calls their moms and goes through their phones onstage instead, until two men are left and the winner goes on a date with the bachelorette. Everyone in the audience wears a wristband showing their relationship status, so singles, couples, and friend groups all fit, and single neighbors can apply to be contestants. Be honest about the wristband.

Bar Great Harry
280 Smith Street
The first thing to know about Bar Great Harry is that the tap list can change several times a night. When a keg kicks, something new and good goes up on the chalkboard, and the bartenders will tell you what it is and why it’s worth your time. We think it has the best craft beer list in the neighborhood. The taps rotate constantly, so the smart move is to tell the bartender what you like and let them pick. There’s Fernet on tap too; the music is good, and the late crowd likes to sing along.

Ben Wiley and his brother Mike opened it in August 2007. Ben, a pastry school graduate who had spent years working in Japan, had been out with Mike one night at the bar that stood on this corner when he spotted the owner, an older man in a suit, and asked if they could buy it. The owner told them he was ready to sell. Three months later, they signed the contract. The name comes from a bar in Yokohama where Ben used to drink after his own bartending shifts ended. With their brother Seth, the Wileys went on to open The Owl Farm in Park Slope, Glorietta Baldy in Bed-Stuy, and Cardiff Giant in Clinton Hill-all great neighborhood bars. Sadly, Mission Dolores is now gone.

The room is small and comfortable, and the prices make it an easy second or even third stop. Past the bar, a secluded back area holds three pinball machines, if that’s your game. There is no kitchen, so bring your own food or have something delivered from nearby restaurants. It opens at 2pm on weekdays and 12:30pm on weekends and pours until 4am, if you need a late, late-night option (be ready to sing).

Solace Is Finished, and It Is Taller Than Planned
The 18-story tower at 85 4th Avenue, also addressed as 74 Saint Marks Place, has opened for leasing, close to its summer 2026 target. At about 185 feet with 247 apartments, it came in well above the 12-story, 193-unit plan first proposed in 2019. We have not seen a tenant announced for the ground-floor retail space.

Foundations Are Going In at the Biggest Building in Gowanus
Foundation work is underway at 175 3rd Street, where a Bjarke Ingels-designed tower will rise 27 stories next to Powerhouse Arts, according to Brownstoner. It will bring 1,071 apartments, about 250 of them affordable, along with a three-story Life Time club and a 28,000-square-foot public esplanade on the canal. Completion is expected in 2028.

State Experts Explain Air Testing Results at Tuesday’s Meeting
PS 372 Children’s School gym
215 1st Street
State environmental and health experts will share results from the 2025 to 2026 soil vapor and indoor air testing in Gowanus on Tuesday, November 17, from 7 to 9pm. They will also explain how property owners and tenants can get their indoor air tested and have any fixes installed at no cost, with more at dec.ny.gov/gowanus.

Go take the long way home. Gowanus looks better when you’re not rushing.

If something's happening out there, we want to know about it. Email, photo, neighborhood gossip — we'll take it.
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Exploring Gowanus · Every Saturday