Crown Heights is becoming the Hasidic SoHo.
The neighborhood now has a spanking-new gallery of Jewish art with $175,000 paintings; a female rock band whose members are frum (religiously observant); and a kosher pizzeria that’s a hangout for chic moms with Louis Vuitton handbags.
“There’s been a renaissance in Crown Heights,” said Dovy Andrusier, 44, who chose to locate Betzalel Gallery in his home nabe. “This is my SoHo.”
Andrusier thinks his Empire Blvd. gallery which opened last month, will find a ready audience in Crown Heights: “There are a lot of young professionals with nice houses; they have to decorate their walls.”
Betzalel’s co-owner, Shmuel Pultman, 45, previously ran a gallery in Borough Park.
“I have more people coming here to soak in the art in a single day than I would in a week in Borough Park,” Pultman said.
A young florist, Chani Frankel, uses her Albany Ave. shop to stage after-hours concerts and fashion shows.
“I feel like we’re starting to really embrace creativity and art a lot more,” said Frankel, 28, who lives in Prospect Heights but returned to the neighborhood where she grew up to open her store, Mimulo.
“Religious people buy a lot of flowers — and Crown Heights religious people want artistic flowers,” she said.
At a March concert at Mimulo, the nabe’s all-female Hasidic rock band, Bullet Proof Stockings, drew a crowd of 60.
The group’s drummer, Dalia Shusterman, 38, moved to Crown Heights from Los Angeles after her husband died a year ago. She said Crown Heights has welcomed her as an artist and a widowed mother of four.
At the storefront next to Mimulo, Benzion Raskin, 70, turned his wholesale warehouse into an all-kosher foodie mecca. Benz’s upscale fare includes smoked sable, French goat cheese and $21.99 bottles of white truffle oil.
“To bring in the young couples who would shop in Park Slope, I had to go gourmet,” he said.
Young moms like Ruth Weingarten, 24, and her friend Estee Gottlieb, 22, say there is one thing missing from their nabe that Soho has: Big-name fashion chains like Bloomingdale’s, Zara and H&M. But they’re happy with their neighborhood noshing spot, Basil — the Kingston Ave. kosher pizzeria that’s a mommy magnet.
Basil has done so well that owner Daniel Branover is planning to open a second restaurant — and hired a former SoHo chef to helm it.
“People have tried to get me to open restaurants on the Upper West Side and Williamsburg; I’ve been courted by investors in SoHo,” said Branover, 48. “It’s happening for us in Crown Heights — why would we go anywhere else?”
By Lore Croghan / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
this is sad! do you think this is something the rebbe would have wanted to see a whole bunch of women walking around naked one what is known today as the kingston ave beach????? this is a disgrace and an embarrassing thing for the rebbe!
ReplyDeletewe should send this people out of there with a stick up there a##!!!!
I don't think the Rebbe would approve of the stick up----that is quite crude for a soldier of the Rebbe. Shame on you!
ReplyDeleteto mr.stick up there(sic)a##!!!!.if you comment wasn't so ludicrous it wouldn't match you ignorant grammatics.so you've brought stupidity to an art form in a manner of speaking.
ReplyDeleteWhat is everyone so upset about? What do art and music have to do with the degradation of Crown Heights? Haven't you as chassidim learned that a Yid's gashmius IS his ruchinus? Not only is there nothing wrong with beautifying this world, as chassidim IT'S OUR JOB!!!
ReplyDelete