BLOCK-OFF! 5th Ave [btwn 10th & 9th] vs. 7th Ave [btwn 13th & 12th]

Oh fickle love. One day, you’re smiling into each others’ eyes, belly-laughing at each others’ jokes, leaving coy little notes for each other to find. The next, you’re married & your husband turns out to be a complete ass who forces himself on you, so you up & chop off half his penis with a piece of kitchen cutlery & toss it in a field. That’s right folks. Sixteen years ago today, down in Manassas, VA, the early days of cable news got one of its first, majorly transfixing stories, when Lorena Bobbitt grabbed a carving knife & dismembered her husband’s member.

This week, in honor of America’s love of sensational cable news (you didn’t think I was going to honor spousal rape & dismemberment, did you?), we’ll be infusing the Block-Off! with the spirit of TOTALLY AWESOME journalistic sensationalism.

As we visit 5th Ave between 10th & 9th and 7th Ave from 13th to 12th, the two blocks will, in the true spirit of cable news, offer us round-the-clock, breaking coverage of child abductions & celebrity trials & octomoms. As they navigate their way through our fast-moving 2.0 (3.0?) blogosphere of camera phone tweets by citizen journalists, one block will provide coverage of people staging a protest against a comedian & the other will offer up a very special exclusive with the Jonas Brothers. In the end, we’ll declare a winner, but we won’t really mean it. Let the excruciatingly painful, “hologram”-riffic, infotainmentastical judging begin!

5th Ave from 10th St to 9th St:
Our first block begins with a store that’s home to T-Mobile, the company who yesterday, a week after Apple released the iPhone, was all, “Um hey, guys. Excuse me, hi. Yes, over here. It’s us…T-Mobile. We also have something cool to announce. It’s our ‘T-Mobile myTouch 3G.’ Check it out guys. It sort of looks like an iPhone & has puffins on the screen. That’s pretty nifty, huh?”

It’s followed by Warehouse Outlet, which is a great place to go if you’re sitting home on a rainy day feeling depressed & want to buy some cheap random crap for the apartment, but don’t want to kill the mood by going into a store with bright lighting or a cheerful atmosphere.

The next business—a Neergaard Pharmacy—is open for business 24-7, unlike its responsible 7th Ave brother, who closes shop at 8:45pm during the week, 6:45pm on Saturdays & 4:45pm on Sundays. It makes sense. Back in high school, while 7th Ave Neergaard was coming home right after school to help mom around the house, 5th Ave Neergaard started a band & developed a bit of a meth habit. Now all he does is stay up all night long & through bloodshot eyes & a clenched jaw, fills prescriptions for the denizens of Park Slope.

Since a lot of this block never closes down, Daisy's Diner, the only true restaurant on the block, also stays open 24-7, probably so ol’ Neergaard can get a large coffee (black) and a custom-made grilled cheese, tomato & french fry sandwich at any time he damn well pleases, no questions asked.

Looking to call Sweden? Mexico? Guyana? Our next business, 5th Ave Phone Card, has got cards that you can use to call just about anywhere and they deal them out of a bulletproof hole in the wall, so don’t even think of jacking them for their phone cards, no matter how tempting it is. Shit…I bet they even have a card so you can call Comoros. Yep. That’s actually a country. Lesotho? Yep…also a country. You think I’d be aware of these countries, given their shared relative proximity to South Africa, where there is apparently a town that bears my last name, but I wasn’t aware, so deal with it.

After the magical phone card hole, there’s an electrifyingly unelectrifying electronics store—Mamco Electronics. If you’re sick of all the high-volume, low-price atmospheres of those big box electronics stores, you should check this place out. Plus, chances are, it’ll still be trucking along while the big box electronics stores continue to fall by the wayside. Good luck navigating them economic waters, Geek Squad!

As a New Englander, my heart will always lie with the next business…or at least half of it. It’s one of those combination Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins, which even without the Baskin Robbins, is infinitely better than a combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. For realz, somebody needs to write a song about this place instead, possibly in conjunction with a summer time iced coffee promotion.

This side of the block ends with S & P Newsstand. Their entrance is technically on 9th St, but their newsstand faces 5th Ave, so they get some points for that. After all, without it, there wouldn’t be any place for you to loiter in front of whilst waiting for a bus post being kicked out of Dunkin Donuts for sleeping in the front window.

Since DII Discounts is also technically on 9th St, the only business on the right-hand side of the block is Astoria Federal Savings. As I’ve mentioned previously, given the choices for banks in this country, Astoria Federal is the least of our worries. I mean what’s the worst Astoria can do?  Wish it was Brooklyn?

Left-hand side:
T-Mobile, 458 5th Ave, 718-788-4031
Warehouse Outlet, 456 5th Ave
Neergaard Pharmacy, 454 5th Ave, 718-768-0600
Daisy's Diner, 452 5th Ave, 718-788-1438
5th Ave Phone Card, 452 5th Ave
Mamco Electronics, 450 5th Ave, 718-788-4500
Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins, 448 5th Ave, 718-832-9460
S & P Newsstand, 446 5th Ave, 718-369-1115

Right-hand side:
Astoria Federal Savings, 459 5th Ave, 718-965-7500

Scoring
Bonuses – No Empty Storefronts, Three 24/7 Businesses
Shames – Warehouse Outlet, Mamco Electronics

7th Ave from 13th St to 12th St:
After an APARTMENT BUILDING on the corner, our second block begins with Union Market, the “neighborhood specialty food market.” If you’re like me & get off on odd produce & four-dollar bottles of blood orange juice, then Union Market’s perfect for you. Now all you need is to get your ass a jobby job so you can afford your newfound Mahi Mahi habit.

So I don’t ride bikes. Never have. As such, I’ve never had the need to interact with the folks at the next business—On The Move—so I did what I occasionally do when I don’t know much about a place. I checked out Yelp to see what the Yelpsters had to say. I’m sorry to report that it doesn’t look good for On the Move. Get this shit. Apparently they do bike rentals, but don’t offer you a bike lock with your bike, so unless you’re someone who just happens to have a bike lock lying round, you have two options—you can go out & buy a bike lock or you can hope & pray that it’s opposite day & nobody steals your unlocked bike the moment that you let it out of your sight. I’m no biker, but it doesn’t seem like the most customer-friendly business plan.

Next door is Bagel Hole, who has some of the best bagels in Park Slope. Personally, I’m a die-hard patron of The Bagel Factory (just outside the borders of Park Slope, at 5th & 17th), but occasionally, when I’m all “I want a bagel from within the Block-Off! defined borders of Park Slope,” I go the extra quarter-mile & have myself a bagel from the Bagel Hole.

As we continue down the block, after an APARTMENT BUILDING, there’s the only clothing store in this week’s Block-Off!—Goldy + Mac. It’s one of their two Park Slope boutiques, with another location over on 5th Ave. Goldy and Mac are two ladies from the neighborhood who just want you to look good for Christ’s sake. AND!!! I shit you not, Tom Waits’ “In the Neighborhood” came up in the iTunes shuffle as I was writing this paragraph, so since Goldy and Mac are from the neighborhood, my brain’s probably going to dispense that song every time I pass Goldy + Mac from now on.  That's fine with me.

After another APARTMENT BUILDING, this side of the block ends with 396 Deli and Grocery, a non-descript corner bodega. If you were out at the 7th Ave Fair on Sunday and a hoodrat between the ages of twelve & twenty-eight, this was the place to be.

The Ansonia Clock Factory takes up the entire right-hand side of the block. It was once deemed the “largest clock factory in the world” and went through some rough times, burning down entirely in 1880 only to be rebuilt & remain open for another fifty years, when they stopped production. Now the factory has become home to places like this sweet-looking loft condominium, which is apparently clock-free. It must be nice to have so much money that you can afford a loft condo and not have to know what time it is ever. I knew I should’ve learned me some computer skills.

Left-hand side:
APARTMENT BUILDING, 406 7th Ave
Union Market, 402-404 7th Ave, 718-499-4231
On The Move, 400 7th Ave, 718-768-4998
Bagel Hole, 400 7th Ave, 718-788-4014
APARTMENT BUILDING, 398 7th Ave
Goldy + Mac, 396 7th Ave, 718-832-4868
APARTMENT BUILDING, 396 7th Ave
396 Deli and Grocery, 396 7th Ave, 718-369-6126

Right-hand side:
Ansonia Clock Factory, 420 7th Ave

Scoring
Bonuses – No Empty Storefronts, A Supermarket With All Sorts of Good Shit, A Good Bagel Joint, One Now Tom Waits-Linked Boutique, A Place for Your Little Hoodrat Friend, An Old-Timey Building
Shames – A Pretty Awful Sounding Bike Shop

BEST DAMN SLOPE BLOCK ON THE BLOCK WINNER:
7TH AVE FROM 13TH ST TO 12TH ST

Read way more from Shawn at eatdrinksnack.com.