A “hat tip” for ForgottenFan Paul Lukas of Uniwatch fame for finding this painted sign at a bar in Gravesend between West 9th and 10th Streets on Kings Highway at about where it interrupts Quentin Road. From the meticulously painted script to the harness racer reliefs under the awning, it’s a formidable bit of design in an age when cheap vinyl signs are taking over.
A block to the east, there’s a group of apartment houses that looks exactly as it did around 1900, when it was first built.
2/23/16
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Without a contemporary comparison street view to the one taken around 1900, my curiosity got the better of me to check the Google Maps street view for 222 Kings Hwy, Brooklyn. Looking eastbound on Kings Hwy, I stood in amazement seeing those early 20th century apartment buildings appearing virtually unchanged, except for the neighborhood setting; the rural locale of yesteryear against the urban environment of today, is an amazing contrast of urban geography.
The Homestrectch Bar & Grill looks positively craptacular. Film noir lives.
Your not kidding….
Back in the 70’s this bar was right out of “Mean Streets”(the crappy deniro movie) or “The Pope of Greenwich Village”
An aged decrepit awning commemorating an aged decrepit sport………kind of sad since only I
and 4 other people in NYC still enjoy it.
Number 5 here!!
I was in there once, about 10 years ago. There were about 6 customers, all of whom were smoking, this was already several years after the smoking ban. Not a friendly vibe at all to outsiders, and I’m not a hipster or anything, just a normal white guy in his 50’s at the time.
Have you since found a decent bar for and average normal White guy to have a beer?
As a kid in 1978 we moved to 250 Kings Hwy (which is right in the center of that old 1900 photo…).
It’s a typical Brooklyn block with a store on the street level with 2 three bedroom railroad room apartments above. In the late 1970’s Disco era… that section Kings Hwy was a popular strip to drive back and forth blasting Disco music in your “Coup De Ville” or Camaro…..
The Homestretch looks very much like it did in the 70’s….Back then Graves End was mostly a nice Italian working class neighborhood. The Homestretch Bar was frequented my mobsters, bookies, gamblers and low level drug pushers back in the 70’s. Many clientele packing guns…And was also purported to be great “pick up joint” back in the decadent 70’s….”Sammy the Bull” Gravano was in there occasionally back then…(which gives you the idea of the type of place it was…)…I remember a wiseguy getting his face blown off about 1974 outside (Pat and Alby’s father…His 18 YO sons were later murdered nearby in the early 80’s after going into Dad’s line of work)….
I used to go to a barbershop on this Homestretch block (2 doors over)…The nice immigrant Italian barber “Joe” shot himself in the head sitting in his barber chair (early 1980’s) distraught over gambling debts….
There is another one of these type of old 1970’s bars named “The Wrong Number” (original 1970’s sign as well) a few blocks away on Ave T and west 7th St…..
The wrong number bar? Wasn’t that Tommy Pitera’s place? And is it still open?
Yeah…. Pat and Alby. I remember those two. Allegedly used to dump their victims in the “4 diamonds”, with A1 Steak Sauce smeared on them so the rats would eat them. I know they were somehow related to the guys that got whacked by those two crooked cops (fat guy, Eppolito). I think their names were Carmine and Pasquale Variale.
I had the pleasure of their cousin living on my block, 1543 West 1st Street. They used to come by on dirt bikes when they were 12 years old. Their Aunt Sandy would hold the both of them by the scruff of their necks and say “I’m giving you (kids playing in courtyard of building) 5 seconds to run and I’m letting them loose on you”. What a fucking childhood, they would always grab John Falccichio first, I always got away, and thank God my older brother Stefano had some pull in the neighborhood.
Yeah, I heard they would cover them in steak sauce so the rats would have a few days of eating, what a complete fuck show back then. One day, their cousin and family just disappeared, moved away, I was friends with the son, he was a good kid, we had some good times. I tell my own kids these stories and they cannot believe what us “children of the 70s” dealt with.
Tommy karate piteras bar was called Just Us. but it was in the same neighborhood
Good Place.
Im from the neighborhood.
Much better in those days
Grew up on west 12th street right off of Quentin rd.. back in the 60’s this bar was a hangout for the guys with pinky rings and .38’s… outsiders were definitely not welcomed, especially if your hair was not cut the “right” way, lol..