Throwback Thursday: Toy Bar

Images via The Real Deal

It seems like every day brings the death of another long-time Park Slope institution. With this new Throwback Thursday column, the old-timer FIPS writers are going to get all fucking nostalgic about some of their favorite places that used to exist here. We'll welcome guest submissions, too, so if you are seriously missing Snooky's or Mooney's and need to write about it, send us an email at effedparkslope at gmail dot com. 

Now that Park Slope’s favorite picturesque dangerously-crumbling eye sore has been sold, and will be converted to “luxury condos” (i.e., gutted from stem to stern), let’s take a few moments to remember part of its storied past.  Well, its storied past that intersects with my less-storied past.

Waaaaay back in the early 90s (still with me, children?), the first floor was home to a bar, of sorts, known affectionately as the Toy Bar. It had some official name, but who knew what it was, or cared. The Toy Bar had the very genuine feel of someone’s dank rec room, filled with, yes, old toys and board games, and a large collection of hats, which the patrons were invited urged to wear, and us patrons did. Why? Because we were wacky! And in our 20s! (and we’d didn’t have kids so knew nothing of lice beyond that one time they checked our hair in 2nd grade, and one girl had it.) This toy- and hat-filled “bar” wasn’t one of those faux-wacky establishments that seem to be outfitted from a kit: Perhaps beat-up tin vintage license plates adorn the walls. Maybe a sprinkling of retro fisher-price toys in mint condition on a bookshelf. An antique cash register in use. No. The Toy Bar really was a true musty dump of a place, run by a true Crazy Lady, and it was un-ironically kitschy, if there’s even such a thing as that.  She had two daughters, and they were part of the landscape. The older daughter, maybe 15, served drinks. The younger, maybe 8, hung around chatting with the patrons, until she eventually put herself to bed in a booth near the back.

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WHASSUP: Independence Edition

Oh say can you see...the monumental shit I have for you this time around? As this is perhaps the most important week of national pride, I want you to get out there with your fellow Americans. Be social and save a spot for their blankets at that epic fireworks show we call life. 

No matter your taste, I have the event for you this week. There's music, there's comedy, there's cinema, there's story telling. I can sense your pulses rising just reading this. Get out there, Slopers! I challenge you to pick just one event and report back to me. Is that too much to ask? Game of Thrones is on hiatus and you've already blown through Orange is the New Black—there's just no more excuses.

Interests peaked? Here's WHASSUP:

Thursday, 7/3, Cashank Hootenanny, Freddy’s Bar and Backroom: Hootenanny? Don’t mind if I do! This shit-kicking catastrophe conjures images of pickup trucks on cinder blocks, wife beater tan lines, and an old man playing a jug. I’m in! FREE, 9pm

Friday, 7/4, July 4^th!!: Although America lost and we all fucking hate soccer again, I suggest you keep up our national pride and take part in commemorating the day we told the king he could stick his monarchy where the British empire don’t shine. The fireworks will be launched off the Brooklyn Bridge—bad idea—and from barges below. Grab a rooftop, pop a shandy, and let’s light the sky on fire.

Saturday, 7/5, The Notorious Mr. Bout, The Old American Can Factory: Viktor Bout did not subscribe to the confines of the law. An unlikely documentarian, this dude had his hand in all sorts of evil doing including arms trading, war profiting, genocide supporting, jaywalking—you get the picture. Be among the few to see his life through his lens. $13, 8pm

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Park Slope Craigslist Blotter

We're bringing the blotter to you a day early this week in honor of the holiday weekend. Enjoy!

COMMUNITY: Classical Guitar Lessons

This person has been posting every goddamn day trying to get the word out about their guitar lessons. I mean classical guitar lessons. That's the stuff Bernie Williams plays. There are more than six strings right? No. There aren't. I don't know what I was thinking. Ukuleles have four strings and while they are probably past the tipping point of coolness now but I still really dig their sound. Can't you teach uke lessons, bro? I'd take them.

EVENT: Summer Art Class

True story. I took an art class in college, intro to drawing or something. I got halfway through the semester and the professor asked me to drop out because I was so bad at it and wasn't improving. I mean who is that really a reflection on though, right? Take some pride in your work Professor X.  If a man is called to be a street sweeper, you know?

EVENT: Basketball Tournament

This reminds me of one of my favorite movies, White Men Can't Jump. "I'll tell you what. Why don't we take all these bricks and build a shelter for the homeless, so maybe your mother will have a place to stay." They have to trash talk while playing. My pickup basketball days are over but good GOD was my trash talk game tight. Sometimes I still want to get out there, hang around the 3 point lines and lob insults. This tournament is in Williamsburg, too. You know there is going to be a team full of dudes with undercuts begging to be made fun of.

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Get Into Summer with Joey Summa's "In The Summa"

I know, I know, summer officially started a week and a half ago, but since my kids were in school until last Thursday, and I spent the last two weeks binge-watching all four seasons of The Walking Dead, it only really hit me that it was summer when I woke up yesterday and realized it was fucking July. Yay! Summer! After the shitty shitty bang bang winter we had, I'm ready for all the heat and humidity a New York summer has to offer. Thanks to FIPS writer Parowpyro, I stumbled upon this video, and now I can't get the tune out of my head. Obviously, I had to post it so it's your earworm of the week, too. Sorry not sorry! 

Will the real made-in-Brooklyns please stand up?

It can get tough out there, separating the chaff from the wheat. Or in this case, the products actually made in Brooklyn from the tchotchke just trying to cash in on our borough’s good name. People apparently love the cachet that “Made in Brooklyn” gives a product (I guess it does have better connotations than “Made in China”), and so the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce wants to make sure that no one is making money off our rising popularity unless they actually have some tie to Brooklyn.

I guess it makes sense. If you tell me that something’s made in Brooklyn, that I’m buying locally, that should be true… right? If you’re making a claim about your product, it shouldn’t be a lie, should it be? Aren’t there already laws against false advertising? I guess I’m naïve, expecting products to be advertised truthfully without the Chamber of Commerce needing to give them a bronze, silver, or gold stamp of approval, but it seems like this is a problem that shouldn’t exist.

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