BLOCK-OFF! 6th Ave [from 9th to 3rd] vs. 6th Ave [from 3rd to President]

Last week, we totally sucked. This week, reinvigorated by the Sunday night experience of 3RD ROW AC/DC (booyah!), we’re going to totally rock. In fact, we’re even going to go as far as to right a past wrong this week. It’ll be touching. Today marks the anniversary of the day the Billboard Hot 100 was created, so we’re going to be paying homage to fifty-one years of SOLID GOLD HITS. In a seriously shocking travesty, AC/DC has never managed to climb higher than #28 on the charts. Where are your priorities, Billboard? Two number one albums from them but no number one hits? Does that even make sense to you? Awful.

Anyway, we’ll be taking the Block-Off! back to 6th this week, as we pit 9th to 3rd against 3rd to Union. One group of blocks will be inhabited by the blasé ghosts of Nelly, Bryan Adams & Plain White T’s, while the other will be shot full of electric Acca Dacca awesomeness, some shit loud enough to make your skin crawl in a good way. They’ll battle for control of the music industry & in the end, we’ll see which one will be ROCKING THE FUCK OUT & having the time of their lives at age sixty. Let the overly amplified, balls-to-the-wall, Aussietacular judging begin!

6th Ave from 9th St to 3rd St:
The left-hand side of our first section of 6th begins with a stretch of APARTMENT BUILDINGS that runs from 9th to 8th. On the other side of 8th is the Park Slope United Methodist Church, but it’s technically on 8th, which means that the first thing we come to on this stretch that counts is a Public Garden. It’s sort of neat for sitting & relaxing & junk like that, I suppose.

Continuing down 6th, there’s a row of APARTMENT BUILDINGS before we hit an EMPTY STOREFRONT [insert sad trumpet sound here]. After more APARTMENT BUILDINGS, on the south corner of 5th, we reach our first business—6th Ave Laundromat—one of the most popular type of business in this week's competition. It’s the only laundromat this week that lets you wash your own clothes, which is pretty cool. They lose points for the weak name though. Hip new name I’m proposing = Wash.

There aren’t very many places to drink on 6th Ave, but this group of blocks has one—Park Slope Ale House. See 6th Ave Laundromat re: name. The bar itself isn’t bad. I can’t say I’ve frequented here (and by that I mean “visited here more than once”), but I can say that they have an outdoor seating area & your basic chill pub atmosphere. Clever new name I’m proposing = Johnny McDrinksalot Secretly Not-So-Secret Speakeasy.

APARTMENT BUILDINGS stretch for the rest of the block until we come to the last business on this side, Puppet Works. It’s apparently under the direction of Nicolas Coppola. Unfortunately, I’ve confirmed that it’s not Nicolas Cage, which is unfortunate, because it’d be sweet if H.I. had a thing for puppets. Still, if you have breedlings, I hear they love things on strings, even non-Muppet type puppets.

The block after Puppet Works brings another boring row of APARTMENT BUILDINGS. I guess peeps gotta live somewhere. I suppose everything can’t be a business I can pick on.

The Park Slope Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library takes up the first block on our right-hand side. You should probably go here while you still can, before the Kindle takes over & replaces books or religious zealots take over & burn them all…also a good place to wash up if you’re dirty, FYI.

Since the children are our future, the 9th to 3rd group of blocks gets a thumbs up for containing a school that educates PK-5th graders. That school, Public School 39, is also known as “The Henry Bristow Landmark School.” Landmark! It’s in a nineteenth-century Victorian building, which is pretty ominous. It turns out that Henry Bristow was a congressman & a member of the board of education for almost a decade, so I guess he can have a school named after him. In fact, I’ll even call off my breedling-infused campaign to get its name changed to “Joe Jonas Elementary.”

After a bunch of APARTMENT BUILDINGS, just before 5th St there’s Randex Cleaners. I choose to spend my money on beer over dry cleaning, so I haven’t checked them out, but you should check this out—they offer “Natural Dry Cleaning with Environmentally Friendly Organic Fluid.” That’s so damn green that it’s almost one of the colors on the color wheel next to green! Is it mauve? I forget.

On the other side of 5th St, before a row of APARTMENT BUILDINGS that ends this expanse of 6th Ave, there are Law Offices for James T Williams and Brendan T Guastella. I’m not sure what type of law they’re practicing, but if it’s the kind like on Law & Order, you’re probably in for a wild ride with lots of zingers & objections along the way.

Left-hand side:
APARTMENT BUILDINGS, 420-432 6th Ave
Public Garden
APARTMENT BUILDINGS, 400-404 6th Ave
EMPTY STOREFRONT, 396 7th Ave
APARTMENT BUILDINGS, 362-394 6th Ave
6th Ave Laundromat, 358 6th Ave, 718-499-0469
Park Slope Ale House, 356 6th Ave, 718-788-1756
APARTMENT BUILDINGS, 340-354 6th Ave
Puppet Works, 338 6th Ave, 718-965-3391
APARTMENT BUILDINGS, 326-336 6th Ave

Right-hand side:
Brooklyn Public Library – Park Slope Branch, 431 6th Ave, 718-832-1853
Public School 39, 417 6th Ave, 718-330-9310
APARTMENT BUILDINGS, 367-413A 6th Ave
Randex Cleaners, 365 6th Ave, 718-768-1034
Law Offices, 363 6th Ave, 718-965-1979/718-499-0809
APARTMENT BUILDINGS, 343-361 6th Ave

Scoring
Bonuses – A Place to Drink, Education, Puppets!, One Environmentally-Friendly Dry Cleaning Spot
Shames – One Empty Storefront

6th Ave from 3rd St to Union St:
After an apartment building that faces 3rd, the left-hand side of the street begins with Brooklyn Free Space, which is housed in the base of a large church. It’s non-denominational, so apparently the church thing doesn’t matter. Your preschool breedling doesn’t need religion yet anyhow. Their four classrooms are pretty much the happiest places on earth—the “Rainbow Classroom,” the “Sunshine Classroom,” the “Dragonfly Classroom” and the “Jitterbug Classroom.” I think it’s pretty obvious which classroom is the best. In the immortal words of George Michael— “Jitterbug. Jitterbug. Jitterbug. Jitterbug.”

The church has signage out front for both the NYC Church of Christ and the Music for Today Holy Tabernacle. I couldn’t investigate further since I’m not able to enter a church for fear of spontaneous combustion, but it’s good to see that there’s room for all that religion under one roof, even if there isn’t room in the budget for a bright, shiny, non-dusty sign out front.

After the church, there’s the Park Slope Communication Center, which is housed on the ground floor of a row of APARTMENT BUILDINGS that runs all the way to Union. They focus on literacy & language skills and based on the name, if you’ve ever received a secret transmission from the Park Slope mothership, I’m pretty sure it came from here.

Back at 3rd, the right-hand side begins with Rompal Salon. If you’re a liberal crazy who needs your hair done & likes to throw your money away by backing a fringe candidate, this place has a name that’s probably good enough for you.

It’s followed by more APARTMENT BUILDINGS and then on the south corner of 1st, there’s Four Seasons Cleaners. Check out this misleadingly awesome conversation you can have with a babe/dude regarding said cleaners:

You: So yeah, I went to the Four Seasons yesterday.
Babe/Dude: Wow, you must be pretty important.
You: I am. I have my shit pressed.

Across 1st, there are more layperson APARTMENT BUILDINGS, but just before you get to Carroll St there’s some sort of Church Residence. You know how I could tell? Nope. It’s not the religious statue out front…it’s the “Please Curb Your Dogma” sign out front. I lie. There’s no sign…guess that mean’s I’m going to hell now for my dirty dirty lie.

I bet you a barrel full of salted cod that that residence on the corner of Carroll belongs to somebody from the St Francis Xavier Parish RC Church [PICTURED ABOVE], which is on the other side of Carroll. Whereas I’m not a churchgoer, there are a few churches in Park Slope that are housed in cool ass buildings. This is one of them. I did little to no research on St Francis Xavier, but I did learn that he co-founded the Jesuits, so since I’m a graduate of Boston University, that makes him like my mortal enemy or something.

There’s a Garden/Courtyard Area next door to the church. I’m not sure if you have to believe in Jesus or not to go in it, but it looks nice. A cool looking HOUSE on the corner follows it and after that, there’s an APARTMENT BUILDING, an EMPTY STOREFRONT and more APARTMENT BUILDINGS all the way past President St.

The first time I saw our next-to-last business, I was all, “Sweet non-Fugee Killing Me Softly, Batman!” Then I had that song in my head for pretty much forever. Turns out it’s actually called Roberto Falck Photography. That’s completely the wrong gender & last name letter order. I bet, if you'd prefer, based on the few photos hanging inside, that he can probably kill you softly with a portrait or something.

…& now to correct a mistake…a few weeks back, I featured the block of Union between 6th Ave & 7th. Even though Union Market is technically on Union St, I’m used to entering on 6th Ave, so I mistakenly left it out of that week’s Block-Off! Union St kicked ass that week anyhow, so it didn’t really matter as far as that competition is concerned. Luckily for this section of 6th Ave, they gain a business that even the non-denominational can get excited about…not too excited though. It’s only a slightly high-priced, slightly fancy market and even that & a bunch of Jesus power can’t win it for this group of blocks.

Left-hand side:
Brooklyn Free Space, 298 6th Ave, 718-965-3135
NYC Church of Christ, 298 6th Ave
Park Slope Communication Center, 256 6th Ave, 718-768-3526
APARTMENT BUILDINGS, 210-296 6th Ave

Right-hand side:
Rompal Salon, 319 6th Ave, 718-965-9149
APARTMENT BUILDINGS, 287-317 6th Ave
Four Seasons Cleaners, 287 6th Ave, 718-369-3328
APARTMENT BUILDINGS, 245-283 6th Ave
Church Residence, 243 6th Ave
St Francis Xavier Parish RC Church, 225 6th Ave, 718-638-1880
Garden/Courtyard
HOUSE, 225 6th Ave
APARTMENT BUILDING, 223 6th Ave
EMPTY STOREFRONT, 219A 6th Ave
APARTMENT BUILDINGS, 217-219 6th Ave
Roberto Falck Photography, 217 6th Ave, 718-230-0718
Union Market, 207 6th Ave, 718-230-5152

Scoring
Bonuses – A Way to Kill Someone Softly, A Pretty Good Market
Shames – One Empty Storefront

BEST DAMN SLOPE BLOCK ON THE BLOCK WINNER:
6TH AVE FROM 9TH ST TO 3RD ST

Read way more from Shawn at eatdrinksnack.com.