Bike To: Prospect Park for Franklin Beer Garden & Jamaican Patties

Bike and the City! — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 06:57:01 +0000

Spend a summer day at Prospect Park followed by more relaxing at the Franklin Park beer garden, topped off with yummzy affordable Caribbean (Jamaican) food a few blocks northeast of the park. Both are at the intersection of St Johns Pl & Franklin Ave.

Franklin Park Bar
618 Saint Johns Pl (just west of Franklin Ave)
Brooklyn, NY 11238
(718) 975-0196
http://franklinparkbrooklyn.com

Where is this place? For first timers like myself, it was obscure and difficult to find. Don’t feel thrown off because it’s a completely residential street. Follow the noise coming from that driveway with minimal signage! It’s actually a nice venue with easy bike lockup on the sidewalk, large patio seating and a huge interior space where you can dance during a special event, or skee-ball your way towards tickets for a free drink.

The cheapest beer is $5 (not Brooklyn-cheap.. but does Brooklyn-cheap exist anymore? don’t answer that). However, they have a great relaxed attitude for BYO (bring your own..):
-Entertainment (board games)
-Outside food
-Pets
-Smoking

OUTSIDE FOOD? Yum! That brings us to recommendation #2 for this trip, courtesy of Ramen & Friends who invited me to join up with them for this outing and wrote more about the food we tried:

Update: The Spice is Right has closed since this entry was written. However the strip of Franklin Ave near St Johns place has several Jamaican take out places. Still in search of a Curry Veggie Pattie that was as good as what I had there. The prices for a patty in that area should be between $1.50 and $1.80.

You’ve got to try! Patties look like calzones or hot pockets and are the most transportable food to bike back to Prospect Park with.
Also try their fried plaintains, slow cooked and heavily marinaded jerk chicken or goat – $6 for a small box stuffed with meat over rice, $8 for medium, and $6 roti wraps (roti is a puff pastry flatbread popular in southeast asian cuisine as an appetizer with curry. My favorite roti is from Nyonya, a malaysian restaurant in Little Italy, Manhattan),

Tip: They’re usually out of half of their menu so just come with backup options.

The Recommended Route from Lower Manhattan/Manhattan Bridge heading south:

1. Cross bridge and head toward the park via bike route or Flatbush Ave.
Link: [How to: Cross the Manhattan Bridge]

2. 2 blocks after you pass Atlantic Ave, make a L on Dean St and take the bike path down to Franklin Ave.

3. R on Franklin Ave, head south 6 blocks to St Johns Pl to destination.
For bar, make a R on St Johns (bar will be on your L), or Caribbean food is on your L immediately after passing St Johns.

Total Biking Time: 30 minutes
Total Biking Distance: 5.1 miles

The Recommended Route from Prospect Park or South Brooklyn heading north:

1. If you’re coming from the park, take the Bedford Ave bike lane just a few blocks east of the block and head north.]

2. N on Bedford Ave to St Johns Pl (2 short blocks after Eastern Parkway). Option 1: Bike or walk wrong way down one-way residential st to Franklin Ave. Option 2: Bike north one extra block, L onto Sterling Pl, L onto Franklin, head one block south back to St Johns Pl.

Total Biking Time: 5 minutes
Total Biking Distance: .5-1 mile depending where you are in the park

The great adventure: really damn lost in Brooklyn

Bike and the City! — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:22:39 +0000

I decided to journey out this afternoon to enjoy the weather before the rain came. Destination? Bedford waterfront to read. Too bad I couldn’t find the waterfront and ended up going south, eventually wandering my way to Prospect Park. Overjoyed at the pretty nature, and aghast at the angry people thrashing about in it.. I made the best of it and biked around in circles until I was almost on the same track as the marathon bikers.. but then I saw the lake, so beautiful.. so I went exploring in it, witnessed a shortlived glimmer of beautiful sunset light peeking through the trees illuminating a fallen tree in radiant orange amidst shadowed forest. Anyhow, I’d just come from the grocery store in wburg so I sat by the main bike road and ate bread and cheese.

Near dusk, I headed back.. I mean, I looked at the map ahead of time! Instead of going home, I got my biggest tour of all the neighborhoods of that part of brooklyn. I eventually was so discombobulated in time and space I thought I was biking through Chicago once more. I tried to retrace my (ridiculous) footsteps in the map below. 2 hours later I made it back home, after having seen the navy yard one too many times, too many bqe over and under passes, and one too many entrance signs to the manhattan and brooklyn bridge which I couldn’t seem to escape. What a maze:

Bike and the City! » Prospect Park

Bike To: Prospect Park for Franklin Beer Garden & Jamaican Patties

The great adventure: really damn lost in Brooklyn